Summer Rag Flip Flop Tutorial

So it's finally summer around here and I was asked by the folks at Joann Fabric and Craft stores to come up with a summer craft project inspired by their new summer catalog, Cape Discovery. If you like crafting with your children, this is a great place to gather up some new ideas. The girls and I flipped through this catalog to find our inspiration project:

After looking at all the different project ideas in the Cape Discovery Catalog, we chose to create some 'Summer Rag Flip Flops' for the girls. My girls definitely love a good craft!

These were such an easy, inexpensive craft project that is perfect to work on together with your little one. This project takes a small amount of fabric and a few other supplies found at Joann's and you've got a pair (or two) of festive shoes for the summer!

Summer Rag Flip Flop Tutorial

from The Cottage Mama

Supplies:

1 pair flip flops

1 - 2 fabrics (fat quarters or 1/8 yard each)

1 set Clip-Eez sparkle clips (found at Joann's)

Scissors or rotary cutter

Instructions:

Gather your supplies. 

I selected three 'Lisette' fabrics from Joann's. Since I was trying to be good (I'm currently on a fabric diet), I only purchased a 1/4 yard each (since that's the smallest amount you can have cut). I kind of wish I had more since I really love these colors.

The girls loved these sparkle clips when we were shopping at Joann's. And they were 40% off that day, so they were a real deal. They had tons of other different styles of clips that were really cute.

Cut your fabric on the fold into 1" strips. I used 8 strips per pair of flip flops, but I'm sure that will vary depending on the size sandal you are using.

Cut your 1" strips of fabric into 7" pieces.

Pile up your fabric strips and get ready to embellish your flip flops!

Start tying knots on the straps of the flip flops with your different fabrics. You can use one print or many......it's entirely up to you. Leave a little room at the very front for your sparkle clip. This is a great step to work on together with your little one. If they can tie a knot, they can do this project!

Once you've finished both sides of the flip flops, you will need to add the sparkle clip to the center. Open up the clip to apply.

Here is what the front of your flip-flop will look like after you have applied your pretty sparkle clip.

And here are both of your completed 'Summer Rag Flip Flops' with sparkle clip and all!

And if you have two girls, you might need to make two pairs........we don't want anyone feeling left out now, do we?

Here is a little side-by-side shot of the inspiration sandals from the Joann's catalog.

Then let your girly pick her favorite pair to wear this summer!

We had a great time making these flip flops and there are plenty of other Summer Fun projects that I would like to do with my kids this summer break. Don't you just love summer? I'm so glad it's here!

You can check out plenty more summer DIY projects to do with your little ones in the Cape Discovery Catalog from Joann's. And if you want to stay up to date with Joann's, sign up for their Discover Connect and you will receive a 20% off coupon. Pretty nice, I'd say. You can sign up HERE.

Happy Summer!

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Creative Books for Girls

Do your kids love books? Mine really do. They love reading stories every day and going to the library to pick out their new books. My husband typically does bedtime with the girls and I am in charge of bedtime for our little man, Caspian Finn. Usually about once or twice a week my husband has to work late at night and that means I'm on duty for the girls bedtime routine as well. And that means Mama is in charge of stories for the night.

The girls each get to pick out a story to be read before bed, so they usually get two stories per night. Since I don't do bedtime with them on a regular basis, I love to read them a special story that means something to me and to them. While I don't know if my girls will grow up and have an interest in the things I love.....sewing, cooking, crafting, decorating, ect. I do hope to share my love of these things with them, help to foster their creativity and encourage them to be independent thinkers. And I want them to know that's it's ok to be different.

Today I wanted to take a little time to share some books that I think are really great to read to the little ladies in your life. If you are reading this blog, I am going to guess that you and I have a lot in common, so these books spoke to me and my children, so I hope they speak to you and yours.

 Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

  

A Remnant Surprise by Vanessa Roam

Crafty Chloe by Kelly DiPucchio

I Had a Favorite Dress by Boni Ashburn

Different Like Coco by Elizabeth Matthews

Birdie's Big-Girl Dress by Sujean Rim

I've linked all of the titles underneath each book over to Amazon.com or the authors website so you can read the book description to find out more!

So tell me, what are your favorite Creative Books for Girls?

If you have any others, I'd love for you to share them with everyone in the comments section.

Have a great day!

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Creating With Kids: Painted Fabric

My kids are little. Savannah and Matilda are still in preschool and Caspian is 16 months. But despite their young ages, I like to try to involve them in creativity as much as possible. Would I love to plunk them down in front of a sewing machine and get them sewing? Yes. But I just don't feel like they are old enough yet. You betcha, that when the time is right, Miss Savannah will be getting her first sewing machine, but until then, I've been trying to come up with other ways to involve the kids in creative projects.

For Christmas the girls wanted to make some handmade gifts. I thought about some different things they could make or that we could make together. So I decided that I would have the girls paint some different designs onto a large piece of fabric and I would use that fabric and create some sewn gifts for our family and friends. A little creative collaboration, if you will.

The project was a big success! The girls had a great time painting on the fabric and I had a lot of fun turning their fabric into sewn gifts.

Do you want to do some fabric painting with your kids? Here are some tips that worked for us........

Gather up a bunch of acrylic paints in different fun colors. I had quite a few Martha Stewart craft paints on hand, so we used those. My favorite was probably the glitter paint because it gave the fabric some pretty sparkle. Use whatever paint you would like and make sure to get out your paint brushes as well.

To make it easier for the girls to paint, I taped the fabric onto a large piece of cardboard. This way the fabric didn't slip and slide around their table.

I just cut up a plate we had, poured the paints on and let them go to town. There were no rules, except that they could not paint on the walls. And I made sure they were wearing clothes that it didn't matter if they ended up with paint on them (because they did......they definitely ended up with paint on them).

Guess who this is in the picture above? Notice the orange paint, the orange shirt........remember her orange birthday party? Yes, that's Miss Savannah. She still loves orange.

And Miss Matilda still loves blue.

I had the girls paint on Osnaburg fabric. It's one of my very favorite natural fabrics. It's really inexpensive and I just love the look and feel of it.

After the girls were done painting, we let the fabric dry for 24 hours on the board. Then I peeled the tape off of the fabric and cut it into some sewn gifts.

Here is what we made.........

I used the Rick Rack Tissue Paper Holder Tutorial to make these gifts. I added in a cotton fabric for the lining and used pink rick rack as an accent.

We also made some rustic heart shaped ornaments. For these I just cut two hearts and sewed around them with a 1/4" seam allowance. I stopped before I reached the beginning of the first part of the stitching, stuffed them with fiberfill, inserted the twine and finished sewing around the heart.

The girls were really excited to see their hand painted fabric turned into sewn creations. I love giving handmade gifts during the holidays and it's especially fun when we can create together!

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Gingerbread Houses ~ Decorating Fun!

We had so much fun with my mom and Pepo visiting this past weekend. One of the holiday projects we did during their visit was decorating gingerbread houses. The girls had a ball with this holiday activity and I thought I would share some photos of their experience.

First we had to gather up all the candy.......lots and lots of candy.

These red ruby dishes are very special to me. My Grandma Ethel collected a large set of this dishes in all shapes and sizes for me. They are so beautiful and I always pull them out around the holidays. I really should use them more often because they really make me smile when we use them. The little dishes were prefect for all the different types of candy.

I did not make the actual gingerbread for the houses. Maybe someday, but for now, I felt lucky enough to find the time to gather up all the supplies and complete this project. I bought a kit for our houses that had this handy tray to help the house stand up. The houses are held together with a delicious white icing. I mean, what's the fun of a gingerbread house if you can't eat it, right? I know you can purchase these kits at many different big box stores.

Of course, you and I both know that the most fun part of decorating a gingerbread house is sampling all the candy. Miss Matilda certainly was in charge of quality control, but she did manage to get some candy onto her house.

Savannah was very focused on her house decorating and she had some help from Pepo and Grandma Jane.

Here is Matilda's completed gingerbread house.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how this little miss was going to do decorating her house. She has been giving us a run for our money lately, but to my pleasant surprise she was really into the task at hand.

Here is another 'quality control' photo. There were lots of those.

Savannah had to put her final finishing touches on her gingerbread house to make it look just right. And it did. Both of their houses were absolutely beautiful! We really had so much fun with this activity that I definitely think we will do this again next year!

So, do you decorate gingerbread houses with your children or grandchildren?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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