Mini Charm Pack Project

 

Mini charm packs... so dang cute but what to do with them? Is that really enough fabric for a project?

 

I've bought a few of them simply to stack on my shelf, but I decided I needed to come up with a plan, especially if I wanted to buy more. My first thought was a small table topper, but I have a lot of those. While looking at it I realized there was enough there to make a little Trick or Treat bag, even something cute to hold a few candies on the counter (because now a days my kids go out with huge pillow cases and don't return until they're full).

To make the bag...

 

Sew all the tiny squares together, 4 rows with 11 squares each, and then add some batting on the back to make it stiff. I quilted a few lines to hold the pieces together.

After that cut a lining piece the same size from a fat quarter...

 



 

You'll need a 7 inch circle for the base. Cut 2, one for the outside and one for the inside of the bag.

 

 

Join the 2 short ends and sew your squares into a tube shape with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

 

Attach batting to the circle that is going on the outside with a little spray glue. Then as you can see below, pin the circle to the bottom of your tube. 

 

Sew your circle in place and turn the whole thing right side out.

 

At this point you'll basically make the same thing again, only out of the lining pieces you cut earlier...

Leave a little hole in your seam to turn your bag right side out.

 

Leave your lining piece WRONG side out for now, and slip it over your outside piece.

 



 

Sew the two pieces together all the way around the top...

 

Pull the outside piece through the hole that you left in the seam of the inside piece...

And tuck the lining into the bag...

 



 

You can top stitch around the top to hold the lining in place and give it a finished look.

 

I thought it looked cute with the top folded down while it's sitting on the counter.

 

Almost as an after thought I added handles. These are just top stitched to the side of the bag.

 

Opened up it can actually hold quite a bit of candy.

 

Now I have a use for those adorable and affordable mini charm packs. Wouldn't this make a cute gift basket out of Christmas fabrics, or an Easter basket out of spring fabrics!

 



 

A Wickedly Easy Little Pillow

 

I'm going to eat my words a little bit here. I've tried printing on fabric before and the freezer paper that I used jammed my printer and made me angry, so I suggested using heat n bond. But I decided to give it another try and it worked! Not sure what, if anything, I did different but this time it worked wonderfully.

 

So in order to create this wicked little pillow all I did was pick out a font on the computer and chose a Halloween word. Some other words I played around with were "spooky" "fright" and even "October 31". I liked "Wicked" the best.

 

Cut a piece of fabric 8.5 X 11 inches and a piece of freezer paper 8.5 X 11 inches. Adhear the fabric to the freezer paper by ironing it to the waxy side of the freezer paper. The freezer paper will stick to the fabric well enough to go through the printer but peel off cleanly after it's been printed.

 

 

Peel the freezer paper off the fabric. I trimmed up my fabric a little bit to the size I wanted my pillow to be. Cut a piece of fabric for the back the same size as your front.

 

Now sew the two pieces together and leave a little hole in the bottom to stuff your pillow. Stitch up your hole when you are finished.

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

FREE Halloween printables for your home

 

These fun printables make a huge Halloween statement in our home for very little money. The frames I gathered from around the house and the prints only cost a few dollars to have printed out. I love the way they look grouped together in our entry way!

 

 

I made one in blue as well. Not a very traditional Halloween color but it matches our living room perfectly.

 

 

You can download your own set of Haunted Home Printables on box.com...

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN WITCH

 

CHEVRON BATS

 

WHEN WITCHES GO RIDING

 

HAUNTED HOME PURPLE

 

HAUNTED HOME BLUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spider Web Table Topper TUTORIAL

 

Believe it our not this is a super easy table topper that makes a big impact. It's just strips cut at an angle to make that spider web look!

 

 

I made 2 sizes, one fits nicely on my table as a table topper and the other would make a prefect candle mat. It's easy to adjust the size of the spider web by adding more or less strips. I think my little googly eyed spiders are happy to have such a cool web to hang at :)

 

 

To start you'll need six 2 1/2 inch X width of fabric (about 44in) strips. Sew your strips of fabric together like you see I've done below. Press all your seems to one side.

 

 

Most quilting rulers have a 60 degree angle line on the ruler. Your going to use this line to cut out 6 triangles. Like you see I've done below, lay your long strips of fabric out on a cutting mat and line the top edge with the 60 degree mark on your ruler.

 

 

A little clearer picture of that 60 degree angle...

 

 

Now using you rotary cutter, cut one side of your triangle at a 60 degree angle.

 

Now turn your ruler and line up the 60 degree line with the side you just cut. (see picture below) As you cut your second triangle you'll notice now that the triangle is flipped so that the longer bottom of the triangle (black with bats in my case) is now the point and the green circles will be the longer bottom on the triangle. See the next picture after this one if that seems confusing...

 

 

Cut out 6 of these triangles. If you are using 2 inch X WOF strips then you should be able to easily get 6 triangles. If you increase the size of each strip you'll need to increase the length of each strip. For instance, I wanted a larger table topper for my dining room table so I increase each of my 6 strips from 2 inches to 4 inches, but then I needed twice as much length so I ended up sewing two strips of fabric together end to end to make them long enough to get 6 triangles.

 

 

Lay your triangles out like you see I've done in these pictures. Start by sewing together the 3 top and then the 3 bottom.

 

 

Now sew the top 3 and the bottom 3 together in the middle.

 

 

Open it up and press and you'll have something that looks like this...

 

 

You can now quilt and bind your table topper using your favorite method. This is a perfect project to practice quilting yourself on your own machine. See THIS POST for tips on how to do that.

 

 

As you can see I made 2 different sizes. For the smaller size I only used 4 strips instead of 6. Make sure that you use an even amount of strips (4,6,8...). If you use an odd number you will end up with a middle strip that doesn't alternate when you rotate each triangle.

 

 

 

The creepiest room in the house

 

Every year my kids tell me that my Halloween decorations are too cute and that I need to make the house look scarier. To make them happy I decided I would take one room and make it extra spooky. I love the way it turned out!

 

I picked the guest bath downstairs, because lets face it, we all feel a little extra vulnerable in the bathroom. In total I spent about 10$ at the dollar store and 3$ for some prints at Costco.

  

 

I tried to go with an Edgar Allen Poe theme with the book and the ravens, but I also created these silhouettes to hang in some cheap frames that are actually set on top of pages from Tell-Tale Heart.

 

 

Just right click on each picture and save to your computer. I printed off my silhouettes at Costco and they turned out great!

 

 

 

 

My favorite part is the raven's quote...

 

 

 

My kids were pretty pleased with how it turned out. When the lights are off and the little mini strobe light behind the skull flashes they use the bathrooms upstairs :)

Welcome To Our Haunted Home...

 

I think Halloween may be our favorite holiday around here (yeah, it beats out Christmas). I really can't think of anything my kids love more than dressing up, running around the neighborhood unrestrained and eating buckets of candy. Pure awesome.

 

This week I have something new to show you everyday! I've saved up my Halloween posts for this week and I'm excited to get it started. Check back everyday for printables, tutorials, and recipes!

 

To kick it off I wanted to show you this little pillow I worked on while the kids were home over the summer. I changed up the colors from the original pattern to match our living room a little better.

 

I think it turned out pretty cute! You can find the pattern HERE.

 

 

 



My Halloween Quilt

Last year I finished a Halloween quilt just in time to have it up for a few days before Halloween. I've been looking forward to pulling it out again. I made it for the kids mostly, I like my Halloween decor a bit more spooky.
Thank you little P for modeling for us during the 2 minutes we had before we rushed out of the door for school.
The fabric is last years Halloween fabric called Boo to You by Riley Blake Fabrics. I love the great big polka dots the most. And, as you can see I opted to use mostly the green, rather than orange, just to change it up a bit. I'm not sure if this fabric is still around, but this years Halloween fabric is very cute too.

In case you are wondering, I didn't have a pattern for this quilt. I was inspired by THIS QUILT, but wanted to use bigger pieces so the kids could see the fun characters on the fabric. For the most part I just took a large rectangle of fabric, cut it at a slight angle, mixed them up, and sewed them back together again.

Tomato Cage Ghost

I've search and searched for the original idea for this tomato cage ghost and I just can't find where I first saw it. I wish I could say it's an original idea of mine, but it's not. If I discover where I first saw it I'll make sure to give credit where credit is due.

Anyway, I LOVED this idea at first sight. Here is my version, along with a quick tutorial to make your own.
I'm not much of a gardener. About 6 years ago we grew some pumpkins and they turned out great. Ever since then I haven't been able to grow a thing. Even my flowers this year died. So I had to borrow this tomato cage from my mom. If you are a gardener you probably have a couple tomato cages that lay around all winter. Here a great way to get a little more use out of them.

I dug out a string of Christmas lights and wrapped the tomato cage a few times.

Then I threw an old white sheet over the whole thing.

I wanted to make a cute ghost with a smiley face and a pair of shoes sticking out of the bottom of the sheet (like a trick or treater), but the kids wouldn't have it. They are tired of my "cute" Halloween decorations and wanted something scary. I cut some felt shapes for his face and glued them to the sheet.

Well it's not that scary but it does look pretty cool all lit up.

Our "spooky" front porch.