Braided Headband Tutorial

By request, I am doing a braided headband tutorial. For this headband I used stretchy t shirt material. You can use cotton just at easily!! The stretch material just gives it extra "give" for better fit somtimes.

For this project you need:

Three strips of your chosen material about 14 inches long. It doesn't need to end up that long, but it gives a little room for mistakes and for finishing the ends.

Needle and thread

A few inches of matching ribbon

A hair elastic. The no-slip ones work great

Any embellishment you choose. Plain can be nice too!

I start out by sewing together the ends of my three strips. I pull them first so that they roll up..

To hold in place while I braid, I safety pin the end to a pillow or something nearby.

I start out braiding, and I stretch the strips as I go. That way when you're done, and it retains it's shape, it's a nice tight braid. Keep going, keeping your fingers right below what you just braided.

I braid until it's long enough to go from behind one ear lobe to the other on my head. Holding you braid firmly so it doest lose it's tightness, sew the end just like at the beginning. Now, I firmly tack with needle and thread, the hair elastic to both ends. Make sure its firm so it wont snap!!

 To hide that area, I use a little bit of ribbon. I hot glued the end so it covers both elastic and the end of the braid, and wrap it around. tuck the edge of the ribbon under and hot glue that down. Do both ends and it's done!

Hope that makes sense???  For this one in the pic I did two braids and twisted them before sewing on my elastic. I added a navy blue ribbon bow with a little anchor charm. Nautical is HOT this summer!!

 With it:

Without it:

There you have it, folks!! Anything you don't understand, let me know.

Also, while im here, what do you think of my new necklace??? I'm eventually going to add a chain intead of the ribbon I think...

Bedside Tray From Broken Picture Frames

I desperately needed a little tray on my nightstand so that my jewelry, phone etc, could be kept out of reach of baby hands! My son has a bad habit of stealing things off of it, and putting them in inappropriate places such as the toilet, his mouth, under the bed, and so on.

In our last move, some frames of mine were broken, and here's what I did with two of them.

The frame I used was a double 4 by 6 frame on a hinge. I just folded it up and wrapped it with ribbon. I chose black satin ribbon ( and ran out of it hence the last bit finished with grosgrain you will see in my pics), and about every 6 wraps I put a dab of hot glue to secure it.  I did wrap it VERY tight, and hot glued the last big of ribbon in place securely on the side I chose to be the bottom.

Next I chose a nicely patterned fabric, and cut it to the size of my glass.

The glass and backing I used was from a 5 by 7 sized frame. I tacky glued the edges of the glass and smoothed my material onto it. I put tacky glue on the edges of cardboard backing and put that on the fabric side, sandwiching it in between, so the printed side of the fabic showed through the glass. I put a couple heavy books on it for one hour to dry... This is your tray bottom. To attach my two pieces together to form the tray, I used Gorilla glue. Make sure you read the instructions if your going to use it, though, because it foams alot, but is permanent! I put a thin line around the bottom my my frame piece and put it squarely onto the bottom piece. I put heavy books onto it for two hours to dry.

Now, for the "legs" of the tray I used little floral marbles that you see in fake flower arrangements or little indoor fountains. You can find them at any dollar store craft section. I glued two marbles together with hot glue on the flat sides, and then glued a "leg" to each corner like so:

As the finishing touch I added trim to hide the seam where we glued our two parts together.

 And now you have an anything tray!! Even a little bathroom tray or a candle dish!!

 Have fun using up some old or damaged frames! :) You could probably be alot more professional than I was too!!

Vintage Look Clock Makeover

Oh, yeah... didn't I tell you it was Mod Podge week on Hello Marzipan?? Actually, wasn't planned, I just went a little crazy with it. Today I'll show you how I took a 2 dollar Wal Mart clock, and made it my own...

For this project you will need:

Mod Podge

An old book to rip up

A paintbrush of some kind

Vintage (or new) trim

The old trusty glue gun

I started by ripping up my book pages into all different sizes. I tried not to leave any straight edges.

I blew the dust off my clock and wiped it down ( i'm NOT the best at dusting) and started applying my paper.

I painted on my Mod Podge with my brush about a medium  thickness in about 4 inch increments. I put on my page pieces one at a time, going over it and smoothing it down as flat at possible to the clock with more Mod Podge.

If you have a book with thicker pages, you might have to use your fingers to form it and smooth it a little more. My clock had little rigdges in it so I had to use my nail to tuck it into each little crevice.

Use the brush to smooth it completely and move on until the whole clock is covered with no visible areas. Also, you might want to have a wet rag on hand to wipe any Mod Podge smears from the face of the clock. Go as far as you can to the face of the clock. Don't worry if you cant cover every bit in the front, because that is where our trim will come in later. let dry for fifteem minutes, and then go back adding a second coat of Mod Podge. Let dry.

Now, to finish, take your pick of trim and glue it around the face of the clock, covering those little areas you couldn't get with your page papers and giving it a finished appearance.... then you're done!!!

Enjoy your vintage look clock!!

Jersey Knit Rose Hairpin Tutorial

I love doing these because they are so easy! I've used them alot... on T's and on this clutch:

Here's how to do them.

I cut my fabric in a 1 inch wide and 12 inch long strip. Pull the strip so that it rolls up into itself... I used jersey for this rose, but you could use regular T shirt material as long as it stretches!!

Now, hold one end, and stretching it as you go, wrap  it fairly tight around your pointer and index fingers.

Tuck the end into the middle and place thumb on it to hold.

Take your needle with matching thread and start anchoring by doing invisible stictches wherever needed to hold it.

Keep going, secure the center, and for the last stitch, add your embellishment. I used a little pearl, but you could use any beads or buttons, etc...sorry I forgot a pic of that! Tie off the bottom securely. If you are gonna mount them on a hair clip like I did for this tutorial, then I recommend cutting a little cirle of felt and hot gluing it the bottom of your rose.

I put a thin bead of hot glue to the top of my big bobby pin and pressed my rose onto it.. I added two to each one of mine... and that's it!! Pretty:)

How To Draft A Basic A-Line Skirt Pattern

For this maternity skirt, I actually drafted a very simple pattern using an old well-fitting skirt. I bought the material from Jo Ann's remnant bin for like three bucks and used the bottom half of an old stretch tank top for the waist band.

For this pattern, I cut along the fold so that both front and back panels would be cut at the same time. I laid my skirt on my fabric to cut out the general shap I wanted. I kept in mind that the skirt I was tracing was stretchy, so I did measure my fabric at the top to make sure it would fit me, as this fabric had NO stretch. I just took my measurment at the hips, and added three inches for ease.

I cut both panels, sewed seams up both sides and tried it on to make sure it was right...

Now for the waistband, I cut my waistband from an old shirt so that it already had seams :) I am a Cheater!! I cut it 9 inches long, so that halfed it would be about a 4 inch band.

 Fold down the band so that the seams are on the inside.

Give the band a stretch to make sure that it will stretch to the length of the skirt body. I'm assuming you know this, but you want the waistband to be quite fitted so it doesn' slip down!! So naturally it willl be several inches smaller than the skirt body. Sew on your waistband, stretching as you go, until you make it around. To be sure that you stretch it the right amount to perfecty fit over the skirt body,  you could match the side seams up from waistband to skirt body and stretch and pin all the way around. I am too impatient for that. Once the band is attached, push the seam down towards the bottom of the skirt and sew the seam down.

It will give a nice fnished look on the inside and the outside.

Then I hemmed it and tried it on, perfect fit!!!

There are so many great tute's on skirt making... i'm not very professional at it, so this is just a little "how I did it" post.