Christmas Crafting

Miraculously, I finished the Christmas gifts I needed for today.

First, I made some ultra-conservative ties for my ultra-conservative dad. I only have a picture of one but it should give you a good idea:

This was my first venture into DIY screen printing, and there is a great tutorial over on Threadbanger. I'm not entirely thrilled with the precision of the printing, but it's decent. I need to play around with it some more. The screen was pretty simple to make using the tutorial's instructions, and all three ties that I used cost me a whopping $9 at Goodwill (yes, they do have some decent ties if you're planning to do something with them!) With all the hype about bedbugs, plus my own germ-o-phobia, I made sure to steam them before doing anything with them. (Note: steamer=worthy investment!)

The above gift was put together with the help of this lunch bag tutorial and this monogram canvas bag tutorial. If I had to make it again, I'd enlarge it. It came out smaller than I anticipated (and as a result, I have a TON of leftover fabric. Expect to see it used on future gifts). I made the inside spill-proof; this required a lot of thought but in the end, not much effort. I would have preferred to use oilcloth, but the only place you can find real oilcloth nowadays is online and I just didn't have the time to order it. Vinyl tablecloth fabric was another option, but I don't like any of it. You can make your own oilcloth by dipping fabric in linseed oil; however, I wasn't sure if the stuff I could get at the hardware store would be food grade, and apparently it has a tendency to spontaneously combust. So...I found some iron-on vinyl (made by Heat n' Bond Lite).

You can see that the bag contains a drawstring cover that tucks down inside of the bag, or makes it somewhat expandable:

Last but not least, I made a hoodie for a gamer friend:

I believe there was once upon a time a tutorial for this, but it's gone now. I just used the idea and ran with it. If you've never worked with freezer paper, I need to tell you that it is officially my new favorite crafting supply for good reason. First, it's cheap and can be found at the grocery store. Second, you can iron it so that one side sticks to your fabric and then use it as a stencil, or for paper piecing of quilts.

The above image is the stencil ironed on to the hoodie, so you are seeing a negative image. The final product is white paint on black fabric and looks pretty awesome! To make the stencil, I printed out the picture and lettering on three separate sheets of paper, arranged them and stuck them to the freezer paper with spray adhesive, and then cut out the negative areas with an exacto knife. The paper stuck on with the spray adhesive comes off pretty easily just by peeling-but it will fall right off when you iron anyway.

If you're wondering how I found all of these great tutorials, the answer is the Sew Mama Sew Blog. I check regularly, but especially in November when they publish their Handmade Holidays ideas. You can find this year's master list here. Previous years are definitely worth checking out as well!

Merry Christmas!