TRICK MY BURPCLOTH - MARCI FROM STONE COTTAGE ADVENTURES

Marci is here today from Stone Cottage Adventures... 


How exciting to become part of the Inspiration Cafe team!  I've been racking my brain trying to think of some grand life experience that makes me worthy of such an honor!  OK.  It's not much, but here goes!

Handsome Husband and I were nursery workers at church for several years and loved it.  Rocking babies...  What a wonderful way to spend the morning!  There were some Sundays that got a little hectic though.  We truly appreciated the parents who customized their children's items in some way.  We never wanted to send an infant home with someone else's burp cloth!  Eeeww!

I'd love to share some DIY Trick My Burp Cloth ideas that have worked for me!  (Notice the links where you can click and see the complete tutorial!)

First of all, it's super easy to dye them.  It's amazing what changing the color does!  Nursery workers could definitely identify a baby's burp cloth when it matches the onesie!

Keep in mind onesies and cloth diapers are made of cotton which dyes quite nicely!  You could turn that white cloth diaper into just about any color you like!  Click here for a custom dye job tutorial. 

I've also embellished them with just a little sewing.  It only takes a couple of minutes to sew a few scraps of rick rack or lace onto the cloth diaper.  Here's a tip.  If you take fusible webbing strips and iron on the rick rack first, it stays in place while you're sewing.



Perhaps you will like this idea using Eyelet Lace .  See how it matches the onesie? 



Calico and denim make a cute pairing!  This little bird could just as easily be a truck or puppy dog!  An applique doesn't take as long as you might think and it's a great way to use scraps.

Have you thanked your church's nursery workers lately?  They certainly deserve it!  If you use some of these ideas to Trick Your Baby's Burp Cloth, they just might be thanking you!

What is your favorite way to customize your children's things?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

;-)  -Marci

Spring Watches

Hi everyone,

Mel from Mellywoods Mansion and today I thought with Spring in full bloom, I would share my spring time watch. So super easy no tools required. I made these with my 11 year old.

Here are our Full Bloom Watches.

Supplies:
Artificial Flowers
Watch face
E6000 Glue
Hot Glue
Glitter Elastic
Felt

First we measured our wrists and hot glued the elastic.

Then we pulled the green plastic stem off and removed the rhinestone middle.

We glued the flower back together, and using the E6000, glued the watch face to the center of the flower, the watch faces were just over a dollar each from ebay.In fact the whole watch cost around $2.50 to make, and if you want to change the batteries it peels off.

Then we glued the felt to the bottom of the flower and took a second piece of felt and sandwiched the elastic with hot glue between the two felt circles. The we just trimmed the felt so it was a little neater.

Here are our Spring Flower watches in Full Bloom.

Aren't they pretty and just so simple, it's like a corsage but with a watch.

Elizabeth, my 11 year old, loves crafting and jewelry. Something as easy as this makes for a fun craft session.

Thanks for reading,

Mel xo

"IT'S A STEAL" SERIES - DANNI BREAKS INTO MELLYWOOD'S MANSION!

Danni here from Silo Hill Farm and it's my turn to steal an idea   and do a knock-off.  Lucky me because I'm stealing from Mel at Mellywoods Mansion.  I've knocked off Mel before, because she's awesome and has so many great ideas!  Truth is, I knew right away which project I wanted to do because I had planned it a long time ago, but just never got around to it!  
Mel made this Pretty Money Box Makeover last year....

Don't you love them?  And who doesn't want a pretty way to save a little cash?  I wanted to make one of these to replace the jar that we have on our bedroom dresser that Sam and I keep throwing change in.  Of course, I wanted to incorporate some of the things that Mel loves, such as.......

SPARKLE

BLACK AND WHITE

RUFFLEY AND FLUFFY

BOTTLE CAPS

AND A LITTLE BLING!

Hmmmmmm.....Mel likes a lot of things! 
(All of the above awesome projects can be found on Mel's gallery and you can get there by clicking HERE)

Can I make this project using a little bit of all of these things and still have it be tasteful, useful and fun?  I gave it my best shot....

Now I have my own bank for change...minus the slot!  I will say this, it is really hard to get a good picture of something that's black and white striped, blingy and tall!  However, I loved the triangular shape of the container I had.  Can you guess what it used to be?

Yep...a box that contained a bottle of Glenfiddich 15 year Scotch.  Life is short people...drink the good stuff!!  Here are the rest of the supplies I used for this knock-off:

Tall container, bottle caps, double stick tape, black tulle, polka dot ribbon, black felt, black and white scrapbook paper, stick-on gems.  Not pictured...hot glue gun.
I used hot glue to attach the paper to the container.  No-brainer there.

To make the tulle flower in the middle, I followed a tutorial from a good friend of Mel's,  Amy at While Wearing Heals.  You can find that tutorial HERE.  I attached it with a little hot glue.

Again using hot glue, I attached one of the bottle caps to the top of the can.  (Hey Mel!  I did NOT choose the cap with the chevron stripe on it!)

Then I just blinged the whole thing out with some stick on gems, which may be a little over the top, but it's a little bit of everything Mel likes and I like it because it reminds me of her!

Mel, thank you for the inspiration and thank you for being such a good friend!  I wouldn't want to go through the blog world without ya girl!  

Go check out Mels pretty money boxes HERE and browse around her blog for awhile and get some inspiration of your own.

Next week....Mel's going to be stealing one of Heather's project ideas and putting her own spin on it.  You won't want to miss it!

If you've got a knock-off project, be sure to come back to the Cafe and link it up on June 10th at our "It's A Steal" link party.  If you don't....get busy and get one going....you've still got 2 weeks!  (Please don't forget to get permission and use proper link backs!)

Saturday Weekly Wrap Up 19

Happy Saturday everyone,

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the tornado in Oklahoma this week. And to the family and witnesses of the murdered soldier in London. Our hearts go out to them all.

Lets have a quick look at our projects this week...

Danni at Silo Hill Farm

Laundry Room Makeover - Mission Accomplished

Heather at The Beating Hearth

The Awkward Teenage Years!!!

Nightingale...Done!

Natalie at NorthShore Days 

Three Ingredient Cookies

Fabric Candle Votives (guest post for Inspiration Cafe)

  Mel at Mellywood's Mansion

Tape..but it's not Washi!

Craft Room - More Views from The House Of Horrors

Sew Delicious Sew Along - Quilted Placemat

Glitter Washer Bracelet

Mel has a hilarious weekly feature too - Wet your Pants Wednesday.

Mel is taking part in a group giveaway on her blog - you have 4 more days to enter - so hurry over now...

GIVEAWAY - Win a Silhouette or $200 Gift Card to either Target or Amazon

Mary at Sweet Little Bluebird

 Tried & True Tuesday ~ Kickin' Chicken Marinade

National Strawberry Month (guest post for Inspiration Cafe)

This week we are happy to introduce Marci of Stone Cottage Adventures as our newest monthly contributor.

 

Introducing Our Newest Regular Contributor

It was Heather's turn at the Inspiration Cafe this week for our "It's A Steal" knock-off series and she did two knock-offs of Natalie's projects.

Please join us at the Inspiration Cafe for our "It's A Steal" link party on June 10th!  You've got plenty of time to post a knock-off project of any blogger out there in the great big bloggy world or maybe you already have done a knock-off you'd like to share.  Just be sure to get permission from the blogger and use proper link backs!  Should be fun!!

 

Have a great weekend

xxx

 Nat, Mary, Heather, Danni and Mel

 

Inspiration Cafe is looking for guest posters and contributors. If you would like to guest please let us know, we would love to have you. If you would prefer a feature instead, feel free to drop us a line. New or old posts welcome.
 

INTRODUCING OUR NEWEST REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR

Hello everyone!  We are excited to introduce our newest regular contributor here at the Inspiration Cafe!  She has done several guest posts for us and we love her and hope you will too!

Meet Marci from Stone Cottage Adventures!  

Marci will be posting on the last Friday of every month and you just never know what she'll be writing about, but you can bet it will be interesting.  She knows a lot about herbs and has a couple of greenhouses.  She sews, she cooks and shares some fabulous recipes on her blog.  Her back yard is a certified National Wildlife Federation Back Yard Habitat. (How cool is that?)
We think Marci will be a great contributor here at the Cafe and we hope you'll enjoy her as much as we do!  I had the good fortune to actually meet Marci in person and I can tell you that she is one awesome lady!  
Please be sure to give her a warm Inspiration Cafe welcome when she shares her first post as a regular contributor one week from today.  In the meantime, head over to her blog Stone Cottage Adventures and check out some of Marci's posts.  Time at Marci's blog is always time well-spent!  

Thank you for joining us Marci, we're so glad your here!

Plastic Bags into Shopping Bag - Mammy Made

Adele is here from Mammy Made, today...

Hi everyone. I'm Adele and I live in England with my two gorgeous babies, Leyla who is 4 and Naomie who is 2. I am so excited to be contributing to Inspiration Cafe again today!

I usually blog over at Mammy Made. I like to write about crafting, cooking and homeschooling, although I am only homeschooling part time at the minute. I have tons of tutorials on there so come by and say hi, I’d love to see you! I am also currently blogging about growing vegetables in my small back yard so come and check that out :)

This month I am going to show you how I made this reusable shopping bag out of plastic carrier bags.

It didn't take anywhere near as long as I thought it would and used up a lot of bags that would've otherwise probably ended up as waste! And it's pretty cute aswell. Bonus.

You will need: 

8mm (or bigger if you have it) metal crochet hook, tons and tons of plastic bags, cut into 1/2" strips and looped together to make ''plarn''. There is a good tutorial for how to do that here.

Bag:
1. ch3, join with slst in 1st ch to make a circle (it will be very tight but that's good)
2. ch3, work 9dcs in circle, join with sl st to top of ch3 (10)
3. ch3, turn, dc in same st, work 2dcs in each st around, join with slst in top of ch3 (20)
4. ch3, turn, dc in same st, *work 1dc in next st, work 2dcs in next st* rep around, join with slst in top of ch3 (30)
5. ch3, turn, dc in same st, *work 2dcs in next st, work 2dcs in next st* rep around, join with slst in top of ch3 (40)
6. ch3, turn, dc in same st, *work 3dcs in next st, work 2dcs in next st* rep around, join with slst in top of ch3 (50)
7-14. ch3, turn, sk st at base of ch3, dc around, join with sl st in top of ch3 (I worked the last 2 rounds in a different coloured plarn but this is optional)

15. bind off and weave in ends

Handle:

16. rejoin plarn a few stitches right of the seam (with back of stitches facing), ch3, sk st at base of ch3 then dc in next 3sts (4)

17-29. ch1, turn, sk st at base of ch3, dc across (4)

30. attach handle to opposite side of bag, making sure it's not twisted, bind off and weave in ends

Flower:
31. ch3, join with slst in 1st ch to make a circle (it will be very tight but that's good)
32. ch1, *sc in loop, ch4* rep x 6, join with sl st in 1st sc (6 loops)
33. ch1, turn, work (sc, hdc, dc, dc, hdc, sc) in each loop around, join with sl st in 1st sc, bind off and weave in ends

I tied my flower onto the join of my handle since it looked quite obvious. I joined mine with single crochet stitch, so this step can be skipped if you just stitch it on as normal. I was getting tired though, so I went for the easy (and cute!) way out :P

Done!

I guess mine turned out a little strange looking since I wanted the handle to be short enough to hang it off my pushchair hook, without having the bottom scrape off the floor like most of my other bags do! If you wanted to use it as a proper shoulder bag, you'd just make the strap longer, or attach two straps - one on each side of the bag :)

I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial. Thank you so much to everyone behind Inspiration Cafe for letting me contribute again. It's been fun!

National Strawberry Month

Hi Everyone,

It's Mary again, from Sweet Little Bluebird!

Just stopping by the Cafe to share a quick and easy summer recipe!

Since May is National Strawberry Month in the States, 

I wanted to share a great wrap that is loaded 
with strawberries and is out of this world yummy!  
It's a party in your mouth good!

................................

Tortilla 

+

Peanut Butter

+

Strawberries

+

Banana

+

Bacon

+

Toasted Pecans

+

Honey

______________________

= DELICIOUS

Add as much of each ingredient as you like, 
wrap 'er up and enjoy!  Your mouth will thank you!

Thanks so much for visiting the Cafe!
Cheers!

Fabric Candle Votives - NorthShore Days

 Hi Everyone,

It's Nat from NorthShore Days here, and today I'm going to share an oldie but a real goodie...

The days are growing shorter and there is a definite chill in the air - yup Winter is on its way and I'm not a happy Winter person.

The other day it was dark and dreary and I needed to cheer myself up a bit so I made these cute little candle votives. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures while I was creating them but they are so simple to make.

I used some baby food jars that I found in the back of my cupboard, double sided craft tape and fabric... I also added a button threaded onto memory wire to add an extra fun element.....

 Doesn't this fabric make you happy?  

I love it - and will be making a table runner out of it soonish...

So literally all I did.... cut out a piece of fabric, add tape to the back and stick onto the jar. Thread a button onto wire and wrap around..... How simple was that??? 

And look how fab they are.....

Pop in a tea light candle and they are gorgeous, lit up at night......

 They make me smile, sitting up on the kitchen window sill....

And they definitely did a great job of cheering me up on that dreary Autumn day. 

 

Take Care

 xxx