Repurposed Picture Frame Tray Tutorial

About a week ago, several of my girlfriends and I headed to the flea market for a Mom's day out. When I attend the flea market, I am always on the hunt for sewing related antiques, furniture for the house, or unique antique decorative items. We happened upon this one booth that was filled with more garage sale like stuff rather than antiques, but this gold frame caught my eye. It was only $1.00 and the second I saw it I thought that it would make a cute little tray. So I scooped it up and told my friends what I had planned for this little beauty.

I think I saw a tray with this frame because the frame itself is a little angled, but you can give this project a try with any style or size frame you would like. This picture frame tray will take you minutes to complete and there is no-sewing involved (I know, kind of rare around here lately). Let's get started......

Repurposed Picture Frame Tray

by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama

Supplies:

1 picture frame

1 scrap piece of fabric

Instructions:

Grab a picture frame. Use one you already have on hand or hunt for some inexpensive frames at your local flea market, garage sales or thrift shops. Like I said above, I liked that this frame was angled, so it seem to make a nice tray, but choose any frame you would like.

Flip the frame over and remove any hardware on the back. This frame was really easy to take apart, I simply popped the stand and hardware off with my hands. If you have a more stubborn frame, you may need to pull out your pliers.

Above is what the back of the frame looked like after the hardware was removed. If the holes bother you or you plan to give this as a gift, cover the holes with a piece of decorative paper or fabric. You could even write a nice note to the gift recipient. Adhere the paper to the back of the frame with heavy duty glue or mod podge.
 

I simply flipped the back of the frame over and used the other side because the holes didn't show nearly as much. This little tray is for me, so the bottom didn't need to be perfect.

Measure the inside of the frame to figure out how large to cut your fabric. My frame had a paper insert inside the frame, so this was the perfect template for cutting the fabric. You could also use decorative paper instead of fabric, if you prefer. Cut the fabric or paper to size.

Insert the fabric into the frame and slide the back of the frame back into place.

And then step back and admire your sweet little tray.

I'm planning on using this as a jewelry tray, but the options are endless!

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Fall Fabric Pumpkin Tutorial

Since I am taking some time off to enjoy our new baby boy, I thought I would re-post one of my favorite fall tutorials from last year.  I know a bunch of you are new to the blog (thanks so much for joining us), so you might have missed this one.  This is a really easy and inexpensive fall project, but I just love the end result!

It's really starting to feel like fall here in the Midwest.  We still have our occasional warm day, but for the most part fall is upon us.  Fall is my favorite time of year with all the fun festivals, pumpkin patches, apple orchards.......I truly value the beautiful seasons each year.

Since it finally feels like fall, I think it's time to get out some decorations for around the house.  I wanted to make something for our home that tied in with the season as well as our decor.  Though I tend to use bright colors in my clothing design, my home is decorated in more rich tones....think deep red, green, mahogany and cherry wood.  I came up with these chubby fabric pumpkins and can't wait to put them around the house.  I thought you might like to make some too.........so here's the "how to":

Fabric Pumpkin Tutorial

Supplies:

Fabric pieces - variety of sizes

2 pieces of brown felt

1 piece tan felt

Fiberfill or other stuffing material

Brown embroidery floss

Thick twine

Hand-sewing needle

Sewing Machine

Decorative wire berries (optional)

Directions:

Gather your fabric.  I found these upholstery fabric samples at Joann's for $2.00 a piece.  They were discontinued special order fabrics.  I decided to use decorator fabric because I love the variation in textures and designs, but you could definitely used quilting cotton for this project if you would prefer.

Cut your fabric.  I wanted my pumpkins to be all different sizes since no two pumpkins are ever the same.  Here are some of the measurements I used:

17.5" x 10"

17.5" x 12"

12" x 6"

12.5" x 7.5"

17" x 13"

Basically you are looking to cut out a rectangle shape.

Fold your rectangle, right-sides together.  Stitch down the long-side (side to the right) with a regular straight-stitch.  Then run a gathering stitch around the top and the bottom (leaving the top and bottom OPEN).  Turn right-side out.

Pull the bobbin thread to start gathering one of the ends.  Work the gather until you have pulled it as closed as possible.  If you are using regular cotton this will be much easier.  If you are using decorator fabrics, this can take some time.  You may also consider hand-sewing a large straight stitch with embroidery floss and using that to gather instead of your machine (my thread broke on one of my pumpkins).  Either way will work. 

This is as tight as I could pull my bobbin thread with the upholstery fabric.  Tie your thread ends together and turn it in-side out again.

Place the gathered end in your sewing machine and stitch to close.  You will have to kind of jam the fabric under the foot as it is very thick, but don't worry, your machine can handle it.  You may also choose to hand-sew the opening closed with embroidery floss.

Next fill your pumpkin with fiberfill or whatever type of stuffing you have on hand.

Once you have stuffed your pumpkin, pull the bobbin thread from your other gathering stitch to begin to close the opening.

Close the opening entirely by hand-sewing.

Take your twine and wrap it around the pumpkin (very tightly).  Do this as if you were wrapping a present.  Loop it around, then cross-over, around and cross-over.  You will cross-over at the top and bottom of the pumpkin.  Go back and forth until you have 6-8 sections on each pumpkin.  Finish by simply tying in a knot.

You may need to slide the twine around until you have even look sections - just work it until you like the look.

Next you will need to make your stems and leaves.  I made each stem a different size, so just cut out whatever shape you like from your brown felt.  I also machine stitched on top of the felt to add some texture.  Place both stem pieces together (right-sides together) and stitch around the curve (leave the straight-side open).  Turn right-side out.

Suff your stem with fiberfill.

Cut out two to three leaves per pumpkin.  I did mostly brown leaves and a couple tan ones.  Again, I machine stitched veins onto the brown felt with brown thread.  This is your opportunity to be creative......cut your leaves out in any shape or size that you like.  Mine were all different.

Next hand-sew your stem and leaves to the top of each pumpkin.  There is no special technique here.  Just place the leaves where you like and stitch away.

You can certainly skip the stitching on the stem and the leaves, but I think it adds a more realistic feel to the pumpkins.

For a final finishing touch, I took a bunch of deep red and green berries and added them to the top of each pumpkin.  This was just one bunch that I purchased at Joann's.  I cut the bunch apart and wrapped two wire pieces around each stem.  To make the curls, wrap the wire around a pen or pencil.

On a couple of the tan leaves, I hand embroidered some detail.  I like the contrast between the tan leaves and the brown ones.  You could hand-embroider all of the leaves or machine-stitch all of them......again, it's up to you.

And there you have it - a family of festive fall fabric pumpkins!

They are just so cute, don't you think?  I could just squeeze them!  Well, I won't, but my daughter Savannah already did......she gave each one a hug and said, "I love you pumpkins!".

Happy Fall!

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Altered Couture Magazine Fall 2011

It happened again - The Cottage Mama was published in the Fall 2011 Issue of Altered Couture Magazine!  I'm so thrilled to be part of this wonderful publication for the second time and I have to admit, I don't think I will ever get tired of seeing my work in print.  This issue of the magazine is full of all sorts of tutorials and inspiration for altering your fall wardrobe. Oh, how I love fall!

In the fall issue I have three pieces that are featured........

The first two pieces are combined into one article and they are my Shawl Collar Sweater and T-Shirt Shrug.  Both of these are easy fall pieces that can be made for next to nothing and both in under an hour.

The third featured piece is a felted wool coat I made last year for my oldest daughter, Savannah Rose.  The coat is made from several different felted wool sweaters as well as some felted wool yardage.  My favorite things about this piece are the leaves and the little mushroom button.  The coat will be too small for Savannah this year, but should be just right for Miss Matilda.

The fall issue of Altered Couture is on newsstands now, so if you love upcycled, recycled and repurposed fashions, I highly recommend you pick up the latest copy.  This is a quarterly publication so it should be available for the next three months.  Again, I'm so happy to be part of the Altered Couture family and I'm looking forward to sharing my winter piece with you in the next issue.

To view step-by-step tutorials for some of these pieces, visit my TUTORIALS tab for more information.

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The Little Man Gown Tutorial

I was recently invited by Laura from ON{the laundry}LINE to guest post during her "Summertime and the Living is Thrifty" series.  So here I am sharing my most recent thrifty creation for my soon to arrive little man, The Little Man Gown.

I've been meaning to make a little something for this new bundle of joy that is due to arrive in a month in half, but just haven't had the time to sit down and actually get it done.  I'm sure you can imagine that with two girls, we have a lot of pink in this house.  I love baby gowns, but we really didn't have any that would be appropriate for this little guy.

My husband recently left a stack of old t-shirts in my studio that he was done wearing.  He said before he put them in the "donate" pile, he thought I might want to make something out of them (he knows me pretty well).  The shirt above is kind of a joke.  We used to have a really awesome six-toed, boy cat named George.  Brett would always call him a mushroom and one day I asked him, "why?".  He said it was because he was such a "Fun Guy"........get it? Funghi?

Well, anyway, George passed away at the young age of 3, but when I saw this shirt I knew I had to buy it in honor of our late "Fun Guy".  Brett wore it as an undershirt a few times to humor me, but it isn't quite his style.  I thought this would be really cute for the new little man coming into our lives.

I decided to turn this t-shirt into a baby gown.  You could certainly use this tutorial to make a recycled baby girl gown too, but since I have boys on the brain, I'm calling it "The Little Man Gown".  Oh, and the best part about this gown is that if you use a shirt/supplies you already have - it's almost free!!  That's being pretty thrifty, right?

Supplies:
1 large t-shirt (the larger the better)
1/4 yard contrasting knit (I used rib-knit)
18" thin elastic
Scissors
Sewing Machine (make sure you use a needle designed for knits)
Old baby gown to use as pattern
Spray starch (optional)

Directions:

 Grab a large shirt.  It needs to be pretty big because you need the length for the gown.

For this tutorial I used one of my girls old baby gowns as the pattern.  I know there are tons of commercial patterns by McCalls and Simplicity if you would prefer to use a gown pattern.  But if you have a baby gown lying around, just go ahead and use that.

Cut around the baby gown leaving at least a 1/2" seam allowance all the way around.  Cut the neck out of the t-shirt, but make sure to leave some length towards the top (see picture below) because we will be overlapping this part of the gown.

Here is what the top of your gown should look like after you have cut it out using your pattern.  Again, notice how I left some length towards the top of the gown, near the neck-line.

Now you need to cut out both of your arm pieces.  Lay the arm flat along an extra piece of t-shirt material (I used the sides of the t-shirt).  For this piece you will need to cut it TWICE as large as the arm pattern piece (see picture below).  Cut a curve towards the top.  You don't have to be super exact with this part.  Trust me, don't be scared.

Here are your two arm pieces after they have been cut out.  See what I mean?  They are double the size of the arm piece that we used for our pattern.

It's time to cut our contrasting binding.  I used rib-knit because I like the way it stretches, but you could certainly use pieces from another recycled t-shirt.  I cut 2 strips, both 2" x 36" and that was just the right amount for the gown and hat.  You can do shorter pieces if you are working with less yardage, you'll just have to cut more than 2.

Here is your contrasting binding once it has been cut into strips.

You are going to fold the binding like you would bias tape.  Fold in each side in 1/2" and press.  This is when your spray starch will come in very handy.  The starch really helps give the knit more body and structure, so use it liberally during this step.

Once you have folded the sides in by 1/2", you now want to press your binding in half length-wise.  Again, use your spray starch.

Now that your binding is complete, it's time to add it to our main gown pattern pieces.  Pin binding around both neck-lines.  Sandwich the main gown piece in between your folded binding.  Stitch the binding to the front and back of the gown as well as on the ends of both sleeve pieces.

Once you have the binding sewn on, overlap the front and back of the gown to form the neck-hole.  Baste stitch around the armholes to hold in place.  Basting means to use a slightly longer stitch (I use 3.0).  You want to overlap the neck enough so that your armholes are the same length as the curve on your arm pieces.

Pin your arm pieces along the armhole opening.  Place the main gown piece and the armhole piece right-sides together.  The pinning may seem a little strange for this part because of the curve of the armhole, but just keep working it around.  Stitch in place using a 1/2" seam allowance.  Do this for both arm pieces on each side of the gown.

Stitch down both sides of the gown.  Place gown front and back, right-sides together.  Start sewing at the wrist and go all the way down the arm and down the side of the gown.  Do this on both sides.  Turn right-side out and press.

Stitch binding around the bottom of the gown.  Leave a 2" - 3" opening for threading your elastic.

Cut an 18" piece of thin elastic and thread through the bottom binding.  Use a safety pin or a bodkin (shown here) for threading.  Stitch the ends of the elastic together, overlapping about 1".  If you are using really skinny elastic you can simply knot it several times.  Sew the opening closed.

If you have some extra t-shirt fabric leftover you may want to make a matching little hat.  Again, I used a 0-3 month baby hat as my pattern piece and cut the hat out of the sleeve.  Cut around the hat leaving a 1/2" seam allowance.   Place right-sides together to sew the hat.  Turn and press.   Then sew the coordinating binding around the bottom.

And there you have it, a super-cool gown for your super-cool dude!

If you're looking for some other thrifty tutorials, check out some of these previously seen on The Cottage Home...........

 Summer Rag Wreath

Tiered Party Trays

Place Mat Throw Pillow

Dress Shirt Sleep Sack

T-Shirt Shrug

Tile Coasters

And for even more fun and thrifty ideas, head over to Laura's blog and check out some of the other awesome ideas from some other very talented bloggers!  Thanks for the invite, Laura - it's been fun!!

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