Women on a Mission: Mom Edition: Pinterest Projects: Mel's Christmas Gifts!

Posted by Ethne~

I can finally reveal my sis and brother-in law Rich & Mel’s Christmas gifts since I’ve now given them to them!

I have my Valentine's decorations up...

...but we left the baby tree up too! Isn't Mel's wrapping beautiful?

Shaun's was Justin Bieber wrapping. When the girls saw it, they squealed and said "Justin Bieber Experience!"

Though I love to give gifts to all of our family members, I probably have the most fun with the gifts we give to Rich and Mel. Last year we decided to do a Pinterest challenge – we had to make gifts for each other that we had seen on Pinterest, and we couldn’t spend more than $10 per person (not including items we’ll re-use in our stash like glue, Mod Podge, paint brushes, thread, etc.). This meant thrifting, JoAnn coupons, and craft projects – all up my alley as you well know if you’ve read this blog!!

Look at my bottle cap tray from them!! Liquid acrylic holds them in place. It's crazy! And I need some lipstick up in here - I look so pale, like my teeth blend in with my lips yo.

Unlike the CA-RAZY AWESOME bottle cap tray Mel and Rich gave me, couldn't think of one gift for each of them; more like smaller projects. So…

I crocheted Mel an infiniti scarf. If you’d like that pattern, you can find it here. The yarn cost me about $2.50, with coupon from Michael’s, but I didn’t use the whole skein.

I crocheted Mel a Valentine’s Day heart banner. This was after-the-fact because we didn’t celebrate Christmas together until January and I had started making love stuff and I know how Mel likes to decorate. So what the heck! I made up my own pattern for this, so I’ll give it to you closer to the holiday.

I glass etched a 4” x 6” Pyrex baking dish that Mel can use for hot dips such as spinach-artichoke or buffalo-chicken. She’s so good at that stuff. The dish cost me less than $2 and I already had the glass etching compound. If you’d like to make a glass-etching craft, you can follow Lori’s and my tutorial from our love note jar project here.

The last gift for Mel was a cut-out bow shirt, and the tutorial I’ll give you here. I found the project originally on Pinterest, but I didn’t like her directions and how she cut up the shirt, so I made up my own directions. And seriously, this project took me 20 minutes tops.

Mel is really into Zumba, bless her for getting exercise unlike moi, so I figured the least I could do is contribute by giving her a workout shirt with some aeration. Now I did see one where you fabric paint onto it a quote that says “I don’t sweat, I sparkle”. I even have glitter fabric paint, in PINK, but I don’t know how much she’d appreciate this (being an anti-Twi-hard). Totally me though. Anyway, the cut-out bow shirt is super cute.

I ran across a Danskin brand short-sleeve cotton t-shirt at Walmart for $5. Perfect. It is even the more feminine fitted kind, not the baggy men’s type.

Here are the tools you need: sharp fabric scissors, fabric chalk (if you have it, but makes it way easier), measuring tape/ruler, hard & flat surface, ribbon, thread to match ribbon, sewing machine, lighter, and t-shirt.

Lay your t-shirt face down on the hard surface, making sure it is perfectly straight. Decide where you want the bows to start in the back. I measured 2” above the bottom of the arm opening and 2” in from the edge of the shirt to begin my top line and made my first straight line across with my chalk pencil.

I measured 4” down and made another straight line across. I did this until I had a grid of four straight lines across and 2 vertical lines 2” in from the edge on either side of the shirt.

This is the BACK of the shirt

Now using my fabric scissors, I cut the lines across (not the vertical lines!) making sure not to cut through to the front of the fabric. You have to make a little snip of the line as you would with paper, then you can get the scissor in.

The kiddos were SO VERY HELPFUL

Next I cut 3 pieces of purple grosgrain ribbon that I had in my stash. It was the 1” wide ribbon, and each piece was 2” long. Down to my sewing machine I went, taking with me a lighter to sear the ribbon ends from fraying once you sew them around the shirt strips.

Gather the shirt strips in the center and wrap the ribbon around. Sew the ribbon ends together, backstitching at each end. Now take your lighter and hold it just up to the edges of the ribbon until you see the edges start to melt. It doesn’t take much or very long; just a second or two. I’ve done this loads of times and trust me, you are not going to light the ribbon on fire, THOUGH I DISCLAIM ANY LIABILITY ANYWAY, so please be careful, you are using fire.

This would continue to fray if not melted

See the dark line? That's the melted ribbon. No more fraying!

Now turn the ribbon around on itself so the seam is on the inside and done! Repeat for the other two strips of fabric and you have a bow-backed shirt. Isn’t it cute??

So those were Mel’s presents. You can see how I had fun making them. She totally rolled her eyes at one of Rich’s gifts, a silhouette of their cat Willis, which made it a winner right there. More on that soon. Meantime, enjoy a few more pics from our holiday.