Etsy Shop- Now Open!

Woah, has it been forever and a half since I blogged or what?
Thanks for everyone that continued to view my tutorials!
I'm back, now with a full craft room and budding hopes to be a full-time crafter!
Stay tuned...(for just a little longer!)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/customcreationsewing

Somebunny hopes you had a great Holiday!

Hope everyone had a happy holiday season, I know I did!

I have had some really fun crafts planned, but I have put them on hold for a bit due to...

THIS SWEET GUY! :)

From now until January 15th, you can adopt an animal for 75% off the adoption fee.

So spread the word, and go save somebunnies (or kitty, or doggy) life!

So here's the lowdown

1 sweet precious baby boy bunny - 11.70

Priceless if you ask me! 

Under 1 Day, Under 30 Dollars!

Washable Pet Kennel Liners

Hello! Glad to see that so many of you viewed my last tutorial, so now I'm back!

I recently made a washable liner for my bunny girl's cage

Isn't she precious? :)

Well, this was by far one of the most simple, yet most CONVENIENT thing of my life.
If you didn't know, rabbits eat hay, and hay sticks terribly to towels (what I used before to line her cage) so it would take me at least 20 minutes to pick all the hay off the towel before I could put it in my washer.

This can also be made for dog kennels, it's so easy and would be great to soak up accidents, and easy to wash too!

Here's the price layout for this tutorial:

2 pillowcases (thrift store) 2.50 each= 5.00 (you could also just used fabric, but pillow cases make it super easy)
Towels 2.49  each at Walmart ( I actually used my old towels)

Total cost for me- 5.00
Total cost if you need to buy towels- 9.98

Alright, here comes the simplest tutorial ever.

Lay the towel flat on the ground
Lay your pillow case flat on the ground over the towel

Cut the towel around the pillow case. So now you have a pillow case size towel.

Put towel flat inside pillow case, make sure the edges of the towel are touching all edges of the pillow case.

Sew around the edges of the pillow case.

done.
for reals.

Here's pictures of mine finished, I had to make some adjustments because Tallie's cage is not the same size of a pillow case, and since i forgot to take pictures of it when i made it, it's different colors than the picture above :)

I measured her cage beforehand to make sure it was a good fit!

If you're feeling really adventurous you can try different colors on each side!

I loved making these, they're absorbant, and can be thrown right in the wash. And SO SO easy!

Under 1 day, Under 30 dollars :)

DIY Ruffled Duvet Cover

I saw this duvet cover:

from urban outfitters. I fell in love!! I can't resist anything with ruffles (soon to come, pictures of my ruffle Christmas tree skirt!) The downside of this amazing duvet...it's 200 dollars.

So I got inspired.

 I can sew, I can do a basting stitch, I convinced myself, I can do ruffles!

So a quick run to Goodwill:

Cotton Jersey Fabric (I didn't end up using, but still apart of my 30$) 2.99

Full Size White Flat Sheet 2.99

Full Size White Flat Sheet (this one is a little thicker, I used it for the "bottom" side 3.99

Total Spent on fabric 9.97

I happen to have another white flat sheet at home (I have a whole collection of flat sheets, I can't sleep with them, they end up on the floor or the bottom of the bed)

And I bought a new SHARP pair of fabric scissors

Run to Walmart:

Fabric Scissors 4.99

Overall total: 14.96

Okay, I just need to put a small disclaimer. If this is your first time using a sewing machine/taking on a big craft, just stop now. I have the patience of a saint when it comes to crafts, but this one is intense. 

But oh so worth it :)!

Alright, here we go.

I started at about 3pm in case you need a time line.

Start by laying your "Ruffle" sheet out on the ground (keep in mind, if you want to ruffle the entire duvet cover, you will need a larger sheet than your "shell")

For example: I knew I wanted to ruffle only part of mine, so I had a Full flat sheet for my duvet, and another Full flat sheet to cut in strips for my ruffles.

If you wanted a fully ruffled duvet, you would need at least 2 King size flat sheets for a Full size duvet.

Decide what width you would like your ruffles to be. I decided on 7inches. I started with the fabric tape measure, but quickly found it was extremely obnoxious to move and flatten and so I came up with a different technique

Say hello to my perfectly 7 inch wide book of cards! After about 2 minutes, I scrapped the tape measure and used this baby to measure the strips. I was marking with a yellow permanant marker, which, if I were to do this again, I would go for the watermark fabric pen...I was just too lazy to find mine. Snipping off visible yellow splotches from the marker made me regret being lazy in the first place!

Marking...stilll marking. I made rows with the 7 inch width dot every couple inches so I had something to cut along when I cut the strips

Okay, now onto actually cutting the fabric. This is my super attractive cutting stance. If you could pull the fabric taught enough, your super sharp fabric scissors would glide and make strip cutting much easier!! PS. I have never wished for wood floors so much in my life, for this part, a rolling fabric cutter would work wonders, but they don't work on carpet!!!

Tallie, my bunny, stopped by every once and a while to make sure I was staying on task ;)!

At this point,  I had my piles of strips and I ran them through my sewing machine at 7/8ths, with a basting stitch. My machine is an ancient metal Kenmore, I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it doesn't have a basting stitch setting. Easy fix! Since basting is an imperfect science, you can pull your fabric through your machine faster than the feed teeth are pulling it...wahlah! Basting stitch for machines from the Mesozoic era:)

I took a few strips. ruffled them, and pinned them to my top sheet.

I don't have any advice to make this any less tedious, but what I did was basted all my strips, pinned them all, and then sewed them all.

If i did it again, I would sew between pinning I think...the pins tend to be a little finnicky with ruffles

More pinning...

sideways Tallie came to check out my handywork

I took a break for dinner, then started the tedious sewing! This was the last picture of the "assembly" that I took My unmakeup-ed self is somewhere in there amist the pile of ruffles ;)

the worst picture of me ever!

At this time, it was about 7pm.

Sewing the ruffles onto the top sheet was by far the hardest step. My pins kept falling out and there were a few ruffles I had to seam rip to re-do. I almost scrapped the whole project during this step!

After all the ruffles were sewn onto the top sheet. I sewed another sheet on top of it, stay with me here...Place a sheet over your top side (with the ruffles) and sew around 3 edges (only 3!!!) then, add your blanket/comforter, I used my white down comforter and either sew shut or add buttons. I think I will just sew mine shut.

So perseverance has its rewards!

Tallie Checking our the new bedding!

I did a ruffle rectangle in the middle of the duvet, I like the amount of ruffles, and definitely would not want to sew another single ruffle!

My total was actually 14.96, but I made this before it was all added up! We'll count the extra money as gas money ;)

Finish time: 8:56

Less than 30 dollars, done in less than a day! Enjoy!

Getting this started.

Alright, recently, I've been doing a lot of projects for my house. I would like to have a place to display them, and hopefully offer a tutorial on how I did them! I definitely believe that any person can accomplish the same crafts I take on, in (usually less than) 1 day  and spending (usually less than) 30 dollars. Tutorials to come!