GT Hair Tutorial: SOCK BUN!

Posted by Ethne~

Hey everyone - one last Girls Trip post!  While we were away, we played 'beauty parlor' and shared all our latest beauty tips and tricks.  One of the styles I often do on myself is the sock bun.  Done many ways (on Pinterest, a zillion pins), I've found this to be the easiest way.  I tried it out on Grizz, using my homemade sock bun insert (I cut the toe off a sock and rolled it up). (And PS, in the girls' accessories stand at Target, they have these sock bun inserts, ready-made, albeit in fluorescent colors.)
 

Put the ponytail wherever you want it.  Many of the sock bun styles have it in a high pony, though I prefer mine slightly lower.

Secure using a regular elastic ponytail holder.  Whatever you normally use will work fine.

Grab the ponytail through the center of the sock bun insert.

Push the insert to the very base of the ponytail (this is different from other instructions I've seen pinned, but it works for me and is super easy).

Tip your head forward and kind of evenly distribute the hair over the sock bun insert.  Now press your hand down on the center of the bun and start to twist the ends around and under the insert until it looks like...

THIS!  Keep wrapping and tucking in one direction only until it's all smooth, then secure with bobby pins.  I only had to use a few and Grizz has really thick hair.  The better you get at this technique, the fewer pins you'll need.

So much prettier than my usual sloppy ponytail!

Hand-made Princess Hair Bows!

 

Posted by Ethne~

There’s nothing I love more than getting my girls all fancy-schmancy, and Shaun has decreed that I can't put make-up on them daily, sooooo sad.  Usually this means pink and frills, sans make-up (on weekends, I allow them to invade my make-up and put that on too.  SHAUN. COULD. DIE.)  Quite often, hair bows fit the bill.  I have found, however, that not just any old hair bows satisfy me anymore.  So I will, on occasion, make my own.

Ariel (L), Snow White (M), Sleeping Beauty (R) -- I made these.  No lie.

Remember here when I made Angry Bird hair bows for the girls for Mur-Man’s 2^nd birthday party?  Super easy.

I also made this.  Honest.

Well, I found this pattern for making Princess hair bows.  If you follow her directions, you’ll get the general idea, but don’t just feel like you’re limited to the princesses she does!  I made Ariel for Easy Mac – I didn’t want to go with a tail version because I figured she’d want her princess to have a skirt like the others.  I made Snow White for KD, her long-time fave princess.  And I made Sleeping Beauty for Ava, the girls’ soon-to-be cousin.

It’s easy enough to tweak the pattern.  I looked at the DVD covers for the movies to see what my chosen princesses looked like, then I added ribbon detail, made long or short hair, gave Snow White her fancy collar, and for good measure, gave all three of them a teeny flower.

I chose these clips instead of the ones from the website - they stay on way better - available at JoAnn

Isn't my nail polish a pretty color?  Uh, I mean, see how nice the clip looks covered with that there ribbon?

One tweak: Sleeping Beauty has long hair and wears it down, unlike Cinderella

Sleeping Beauty from the back

Snow White getting her collar

The girls love them.  The project was really easy.  If you have a glue gun and basic materials, you’re golden.  Best gift for a little girl ever!  Perfect for Valentine's Day - you've got time!

BLOG LINK-UP: Heart Garland ~ Crochet Pattern!

Posted by Ethne~

I made this lovely crocheted Valentine’s heart garland in perfect timing for the our fifth house love blog link-up today.  I love to decorate for all the holidays, and of course a red and pink holiday is about the best there is.

I’d been crocheting quite a few things over the fall and winter, mainly scarves; but having given many away at the holidays, I was totally over that.  I have an extremely short attention span for crafts, which is why Lori’s dream of a quilt/craft shop or etsy store isn’t gonna work for me.  I wouldn’t wanna make enough crafts to sell before I got TOTALLY sick of making them. It's a beautiful dream tho, Lor.

I found the instructions for this pattern on a website called Skip to My Lou, and she’s got a lot of great stuff, but I COULD NOT make her directions for this heart pattern work.  So, I had to tweak the pattern myself.  Here it is, and my tweaks work!

(If you wonder about the lingo, ‘sc’ means single crochet; ‘dc’ means double crochet’; ‘trc’ means triple crochet; ‘hdc’ means half double crochet.  A great place to check if you’re unsure is the website allfreecrochet.com where they show the stitches, and a lady named Teresa on youtube who calls herself Crochet Geek.)

Use size J crochet hook and worsted weight yarn - the cheap Red Heart kind is great.

Heart

Round 1

Chain 4.  Make all of the next stitches in the first chain. 3 trc, 3 dc, chain 1, 1 trc, chain 1, 3 dc, 3 trc, chain 2, slip stitch

3 triple crochet

3 double crochet

Slip stitch and the first round is complete

Round 2

Chain 3, in first trc make sc and hdc, in next stitch 3 hdc, in next stitch 2 hdc, sc in next four stitches, chain 1 dc in trc, chain 1, sc until only three stitches remain (not including the chain three), 2 hdc in next stitch, 3 hdc in next stitch, hdc and sc in next stitch, chain 3 and slip stitch in center

I have completed the stitched pattern for the first three stitches (following the chain 3)

If you count to the right of my hook, there are 3 stitches - start the finishing stitch pattern here - because the bigger stitches at the curve are the unattached chain 3 from the previous round 1 (for reference, the heart is upside down in this picture)

Round 2 finished

Round 3

Chain 3, sc in top of chain 3 from previous row, sc in each stitch all the way around (until chain 3 from previous row).  I chained one at the tip of the heart to get around the point easier.  At beginning of chain 3 from previous row chain three and slip stitch in center of heart.  Pull the loop to the back and fasten off.  Weave the yarn end in.

1 single crochet in each stitch

Stop the single crochets when you get to the loose chain stitches from round 2; chain 3 and slip stitch and fasten off.

All done, and matching my nail polish quite nicely.

To make my garland over the sliding glass doors, I made 12 hearts.

Garland

Chain 45, in top of heart sc, chain 6, sc in top of other side of the heart, chain 12, sc in top of heart, chain 6, sc in top of other side of the heart, chain 12. Repeat until all hearts are joined, chain 45; fasten off.

Lots o' chains - my arm isn't long enough for all 45

Single crochet in top center, now 6 more chains to other side

Adorable, I know.  Shaun loooooooves it.  He loves all Valentine’s Day decorations, in fact.  If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know that’s a flat-out lie.  If you’re new (welcome), well, that’s a flat-out lie – he thinks my craft stuff is loveable and totally obnoxious.  [In fact, when we still lived at our condo, we decided to put a kitchen island in, so he told me the trade-off was that I was to be put on a one-year craft ban (to save money) and only could do crafts that I already had the materials for in my stash.  Wanna know how I got around this?  I cooked a year’s worth of new recipes.  Totally genius.]

To be fair, I whined about the flash until Shaun took this picture, so he may have died a little inside, but he supported the decoration and the blog in a roundabout way.

I also made a super cute pink one of these.  And other decorations are new this year – the dangling hearts in the window are old Valentine’s cards the girls received from family members that we re-purposed; and I got the pink twirly garland on after-Christmas sales for $1.  I had the girls make the button hearts out of a bunch of old buttons Thrifty Nana (my mom) gave me.

How cute is the heart garland in the background?

 

I love nothing better than homemade crafts from the girls like on the left coat closet.

This ivory and red crochet hearts are from the Crochet Geek's tutorial on youtube (search crochet heart).  The pink heart is the pattern here.

The Valentine's fairy has been visiting the girls already with little treats in their envelopes.  I made those here.

Multi-colored buttons would be pretty, but FREE buttons are even prettier!

Happy early Valentine’s Day everyone!  Lori and I will come back with a few more love updates – we have our Love Note Jar going, and so far the girls have been thankful for things like their blankies and Theodore, just to give you a sneak preview.

I got the little white dish to hold the love note paper at Target for $3 - and re-usable for cooking the rest of the year!

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.

We were messing around with my Rebel

I love my baby

And he loves his momma

The girls were in heaven with their new doll furniture from Uncle Rich and Aunt Lissa

More playing with my new camera - fun!