Erica is making headbands!! (pt.2)

Continued from last week...

Yeah, I totally craft in my jammies. Ain't no dress code for bloggin'!

    Oh and I totally swapped Emma's headband for mine. The more I looked at hers, the more I kept thinking it wasn't her style. I really think the braided one suits her better. And now... Rachel, Elizabeth and I all have matching flower ones. The HCR department can be totes stylin' together! Hahaha.

Tutorial #3.

This one goes to a friend I've known for over 15 years. (they have song dedications...can I make craft dedications?) That's literally half my lifetime and a record in friendship for me. I'm not saying I don't keep in touch with people--because I try!-- but its SO HARD when friends move away for work or family or get overly consumed with said work and said family. But Lacey and I still manage to see each other about twice a month. And for that, I love her dearly.

Pearls headband tutorial:

Materials needed- elastic, cloth (I used two fabrics only because I wanted to incorporate some of the peacock cloth), string of pearls--mine is fake plastic costume jewelry, hot glue, scissors, and a  ruler

a. Cut a strip of cloth 15 inches long and 1 inch wide. I mainly chose those measurements because that's how wide my elastic is. Fold the cloth in half length wise and hot glue together. Now, glue each end to an end of your elastic. Headband made. Prettiness to come...

If I knew that all a headband was is a piece of cloth glued to some elastic, I would have 1. saved so much money my teenage years and 2. made so much money in my young adulthood making and selling these things!

b. Wind the string of pearls into small circles on your fabric. Glue down the pearls once you have the size of circle you want. I made a few of these.
c. Cut the pearl circles out of your cloth. I cut on the edge of the circle for the ones on my white cloth but left a border on my peacock ones since I wanted the pattern to show.

d. Glue the pearl circles into any arrangement on your headband from step A. And there you have it!

You can skip step A and just glue these to an existing headband. Which brings me to...

Tutorial #4.

I love letters! I think getting a letter in the mail is one of the best things EVER. I have one friend from college who still writes. Dominique and I don't write much nowadays, but I'll send out a letter every few months and she'll send me a card every now and then. Instead of just a card for her birthday, I decided to also include this headband (and some other gifties...none that I made, though, so who cares what they are? LOL).

Re-purposed headband tutorial:

      Materials needed - old headband, a flower adornment, cloth, felt, scissors and hot glue. I wanted to use the rest of my peacock patterned cloth. I thought it would be a good idea to use some in each headband to tie them all together as one themed project.

a. Get an old headband you no longer use...or one that you do still use but want to spruce up before the next time you wear it. Measure the felt the exact length of the headband (minus the elastic part) and hot glue it onto the headband.
b. Draw leaves onto the cloth and cut out. I did 10 leaves. I freehanded mine but if I had to do it over again, I would have found a pattern or drawn them out first. I wasted a lot of cloth on the ones I messed up and I couldn't quite get them all the same size.

c. Arrange the leaves into the pattern that you want, then remove and hot glue them on (hoping that you had memorized the pattern. Haha!) Then glue the flower to the center of your leaf cluster. Voila!

Erica is making headbands!! (pt.1)

Headbands are cute, trendy and surprisingly easy to make. I had most of the materials already at home so that makes them a very cost effective craft, too. I'm doing a few so no back story tonight. Just crafts!!

Tutorial #1. Cloth flower headband

I'm making these for Elizabeth and Rachel (for our department Valentine's Day)
      my former craft night pal (she has a birthday coming up)
           and for my friend, Emma (for a one year wedding anniversary care package). Wes and I went to Sydney last year for my cousin Kent and his wife, Emma's, wedding. They were the absolute best hosts--showed us all that Sydney had to offer-- so we decided to send them an Oklahoma care package for their one year anniversary in May.

Materials needed:

Cloth- mine is an old romper-, elastic (not necessary to arrange into an 'E.' Haha!), ruler, scissors, hot glue gun, tacks and a sewing machine- unless you want to sew by hand, which is totally okay.

1) Cut the elastic into a 7 inch piece. Cut the cloth into a strip 15 inches long and 2 inches wide. Bigger or smaller depending on the size of the head you're making this for.

2) Fold the cloth in half length wise and sew together.
          Tip: I hate ironing with every fiber of my being so I would not tell you to do this unless its absolutely necessary... my cloth was really wrinkly so I ironed it before I started sewing. It made everything much neater and easier to measure & sew straight lines.
3) Sew the ends of the cloth to the ends of the elastic. Now you have a headband!

4) That's super cute and you could leave it as is... but I think I'll add cloth flowers to mine.
     a. cut 4 small squares of cloth;
     b. pinch the cloth from the center and scrunch up each piece into what you imagine would look like a petal;
     c. one at a time, hot glue the petal shaped pieces together.  Glue the pieces together at the base (where my finger is pinching). I used the glue to help arrange my petals into a flower formation after all four of the base pieces were glued together;
     d. take your push pin and pin in the center; I put a dab of hot glue on the pointy end of the pin after I pushed it through the flower (so no one gets poked in the head!).

5) Hot glue your flower(s) to the headband.

Tutorial #2. Braids and ribbon/lace headband

 

I'm keeping this one for myself. I love the look of braids and I want to learn how to braid my hair a thousand different ways. This cloth is from a romper I got in Hong Kong. I bought it before they became popular, I swear! LOL Sadly, it never really fit me right so I cut off the top half to use for crafting (for this one and the headbands above). I still wear the bottom half as pants.

Materials needed - cloth, lace or ribbon, elastic, scissors, hot glue gun and ruler

1) Cut your elastic to about 9 inches (more or less, of course, depending on your size of head).
2) Cut your ribbon to about 12 inches. I get headaches easily so I don't like my headbands too tight. Also, the ribbon doesn't stretch so you have to make it longer than your elastic so it'll stretch along with it. I'm using two pieces of ribbon for this. You can use as much or little as you'd like.
3) Now for the fun part... braiding! I'm going to try to teach you how to braid, if you don't already know how. I was never really taught to braid (I think I just played with my hair long enough until I figured it out. LOL) so I'm not sure how well this will go...
     a. cut your cloth into 3 slender and even 14 inch strips. It seems like a lot but things shrink when they're braided. I didn't measure mine perfectly but they were mostly the same length and width.

     b. firmly place the ends of cloth on the edge of a surface. I would have loved to have another human holding it for me but my craft night buddy now resides in Texas : ( I had to settle for tape and a paperweight.
     c. cross piece A over piece B
         now piece A should be next to piece C
         cross piece C over piece A
         now B should be your first piece, C should be your second and A should be your third piece.
     d. continue to cross your first piece over the second piece and then the third piece also over the second piece. Try to keep your pieces of cloth from twisting and braid them as tightly as you can. I made a total of three braids.

4) When I finished each braid, I didn't tie or tape any of the ends. I just untaped them from my surface and left them loose until I was done with all three of them.  They shouldn't fall apart. I then braided the three single braids together into a large thick braid. I hot glued the ends of the large thick braid together.

5) Hot glue your large thick braid to the elastic. Then hot glue a piece of ribbon on each side of it.

I have a couple of more ideas for headbands (and more material lying around) but I think I'll save those for next week. Its getting too close to my dinner time and I'm hungry! 

Erica is getting ready for Valentine's day!

Wes is really proud of how well the  shoes he got me match the engagement ring.  I'm really proud of my amateur artistic photography.

You probably already know, but Wes and I got engaged last December (on my birthday no less!). We plan to have a sort-of-destination-wedding... just us two... we'll do a road trip and get married wherever we end up! Growing up, my family never took actual road trips...we drove straight to our destination with no stops. That was fun and all but I want to drive out West, stop in a bed-and-breakfast, see a tourist spot, eat in a restaurant featured in Man vs. Food and see if I can do the challenge. I want lots of stops in various cities and postcards from the Flying J. I'm still planning so ideas are welcome. :)

My co-worker, Rachel, is all about that Instagram. She turned me on to StoneFoxBride. Its a hippiesque wedding boutique in New York. Their Instagram is filled with pictures of future brides' engagement rings and the story behind them. I commented on one of the pictures and asked how I could submit my ring story.  No reply. : ( Maybe, I'll try again... @stonefoxbride How do I submit a ring story? And if you're reading my blog, here is my story... pick it! Pick it! Please!

Wes, Kensington, Sadie and I had my birthday dinner at my mom's with her fiance, Mike. I had gone to my mom's earlier that day to do laundry and got roped into being her sous chef for dinner. Kensington was super sick at the time so I was pretty worn out by the time we returned home (and I think it was like 11pm...way past my bedtime!). As Wes and I were lying in bed talking and reviewing the day, he asked,
"What are we going to do for your next forty birthdays?"
"This, I guess..."
"Well, lets just get married then!"
I gleefully agreed and he handed me my ring. It was perfect!!

While we're on the topic of mushy love stories, I'll just do a mush barf craft tonight. It'll be perfect for Valentine's Day. LOL This is what I made Wes for Valentine's Day last year.

Sadie is a vain one...just look at her checking herself out in the mirror! LOL

Materials needed - Mirror, paint, painter's tape, anything else you want to put on the mirror-- I used duct tape (the decorative kind),glitter, photograph, beads and glue

1. Using the painter's tape, tape a pattern that you want to use as the mirror. The sections that are not taped will be painted. I chose a small square in the middle and some artistic lines for a border.

2. Paint the entire mirror (tape and all) a solid color.

3. After the paint is fully dry, pull off the painter's tape to reveal your mirror pattern.

4. After that, you are either done or ready to decorate. I chose a picture of us and some other simple additions. 

And that's it. My goal and inspiration for my crafts is simple and cheap projects that look like they took way more time and effort once they're completed. None of my projects are ever over 10 steps or over $25. I think there's something great in turning simple into grandiose. What do you think? Do you believe in "less is more"?

If you host a game night, pretty please invite Erica.

That title probably sounds a tad bit desperate but its been a long time since I've been to a game night. I have friends who would host a Cards Against Humanity night or some sort of trivia or other party game night but we haven't been having many get-togethers lately.

Here's my game collection. Let me know if you want to come over : )

Several years ago, I had a group of friends who played complex role playing games (most of them involved too much strategy for me to enjoy but others were actually pretty fun) but I've sadly lost touch with them, too. There was one game they played that I really liked. Its called Red Dragon Inn. Its hard to explain so I won't try...but I swear its fun. I played once with a group that included my friend, Vietfil (who is also Catholic...which is an important detail to this story). In the game, you draw cards that resemble drinks; most of them are alcoholic which take away your life. But some drinks revive you. One of those such drinks is Holy Water. Twice in the night that we played, Vietfil was about to die in the game and drew a Holy Water card. It was a miracle!!! After the first time, we started chanting the Hail Mary and she drew the card again! Mary was our homegirl that night!! I'm not making fun of Catholics or anything like that, but it was pretty hilarious. Since I've already outed myself as a nerd, I'll tell you one more story before crafting.

Last Autumn, Wes and I went to visit my cousin and her family in Arizona. Her youngest son had the Dungeons and Dragons beginner set. He was so excited to finally have willing participants (his brother refused to play). Wes and I managed to get through a game with Andrew. We didn't finish our quest. And I would not play a second round...no offense but that game goes sooooo slowly and I just don't have the patience! I think we played for almost three days... just to fail at our quest. >.> I think Andrew almost wanted us to fail because he thought it would be funny. Here's a picture of him being a smug Dungeon Master.

My craft tonight incorporates games and is something you can use for your next game night.

COASTERS!

Not just any coasters, though... Coasters made from Scrabble tiles!! I had a set of Scrabble tiles growing up. I must have gotten it from a garage sale because I only had the tiles and no board. I rearranged the tiles into cute little phrases and glued them together to make a coaster.

The pictures are pretty self-explanatory but here are some tips:
* Set our your letters and prepare the phrases before you start gluing. As you can see, I was missing a "C" in Erica and attempted to use a Sharpie to fill the void. Its not the same : ( I did switch W's and M's and that isn't too noticeable.
* I used regular Elmer's glue and it worked just fine. No hot glue or craft glue needed.
* Glue 2 x 2 squares first and then glue those squares together. For example, on the top right one, I glued W-O and D-blank togehter. Then U-L and U-blank. Then I glued W-O-U-D-blank and U-L-U-blank together. I always find it easier to work with smaller chunks and then piece them together into the final product.
* Wait until the glue is completely dry before lifting off whatever surface you're working on.
* The pink blank squares are painted with nail polish. I also painted a coat of top coat nail polish over the top. This makes the coasters look glossy and prevents condensation from your drink from washing away the glue.
The sky's the limit on what you can phrase together on these. If you do make some, please comment and show me what you came up with!