Folded stars

January is over ... and I have not even posted ONE 

repurposing project! 

Bad!!!

So here it comes ...

I actually made these already a while ago. But somehow finding the time to type up posts becomes harder and harder.

Well, just shortly before Christmas ... and during Christmas actually ... I learned how to make these folded stars. 

They are made out of square papers and are just folded - and stuck together. 

You have to fold 30 pieces of paper. 

In Germany they are called Bascetta-stars. 

Anyone can tell me whether that is the same in the rest of the world?

This one is a star made out of special paper that has different prints/ colors on both sides. 

It looks really pretty, don't you think?

After I had made this one I was out of the pretty paper ... and I figured I could ge a bit inventive ...

So I ended up using this:

This is a rather old book with musical notes.

I love musical sheets. 

So I had to try whether it would look good. And this is how it turned out:

I totally adore it!

And as you have to cut the pages to squares there is always a paper strip left over. So what did I do?

I cut squares out of the left over bits ... and made a tiny star:

Here you can see both together:

This was so much fun!

I am actually working on another recycled star. 

No musical sheets though ... curious? ;-)

But it might take a bit until it is done ...

The folding and the putting together is really relaxing ... but the cutting of the squares is simply booooooring! :-)

 

     

  


 

Christmas gifts for my kids - part 1: The Apron Skirt

Some time before Christmas I was lucky enough to be allowed to test a new pattern from Little Lizard King.

 The Apron Skirt

So I thought this would be an awesome gift for my daughter. Look what I made her!

And I even finished it in time for Christmas! *yay*

I love love love how it turned out! Seriously. I can not believe I made this! :-)

As I was testing the pattern I tried to do it all like you are supposed to do it.

 

I even ironed all the seams and stuff before sewing. 

I know that you should always do that! But I usually have no time ... and I really hate ironing ...

And it was SO worth it!

My daughter LOVED it! 

Boy, that made me happy. 

With little girls that are completely into pink and princesses ... you just can never be sure ...

(Well, unless you are using only pink fabric with princesses of course ...)

I wanted to do a photo shoot out in the snow. But it was really freezing here. 

And as little bear was sick at Christmas I did not want to let her outside in just a skirt. So instead we had a fun photoshoot on her brand new big-girl bed that she got for Christmas!

 

So now you know what that weird quilted-looking stuff on the floor is. :-)

 

 I love her face in this photo!

Well, I guess jumping on the bed is always fun - no matter what you are wearing. 

But see how nice the skirt flies ... :-)

Oh, I think I have not said very much about the actual pattern yet ...  

well, I love it! :-)

How could I not? I mean look what I made with it. 

I made this.

Yeah, I know ... you would think I would be over this by now ... ;-)

Anyway ... the pattern has great photos for each step and is very well explained ... it talks you trough the whole process so easily. It was really great! And Little Lizard King has other cute patterns as well. And some sweet free tutorials on her blog, too. 

So go check out her site and say hello!

May your days be merry and bright ....

I am wishing you guys all a 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope you have some good days in whichever way you spend them ...

I am looking forward to church today and to my kids unwrapping their gifts!

And then I am hoping for some quiet moments doing nothing ...

just me some tea and my family!

Okay, who am I kidding. I am not going to survive doing nothing more than a day ... 

But a girl can dream, right? ;-)

Love you guys!!!!

Photos of the gifts I made and some tutorials and the big tutorial-link list coming up sometime next week!

Until then - take care!!!!

P.S. What do you think about my tiny mange in a nutshell? Comments welcome! :-)

Homemade Snowglobes

Yes, you guys were right! 

A penguin snowglobe!!! 

I love it! 

This is the one I made. It is teeny tiny. I will show you again when it is finished. Have to harden it ... and put it all together ...

But wanna see what my daughter made?

Remember, she is only 5 years old!

 I think it is completely amazing!!!

And I swear - I did not touch her stuff once!!!

She did ask me how to do things and I would say stuff like "Try to make a ball first and then make an oval" ... or stuff like that. But other than that - she did it ALL BY HERSELF!

I love the bird she made!

And the sweetest thing ever:

She told me that she wants to give it to her little brother as a Christmas present!

She is such a darling!

Well, back to frantic sewing. Finished a skirt! Hooded scarf almost done. Stickhorse still to be made. Think am going to skip the owl mobile ...

Now I KNOW why it always sais "Santa and HIS LITTLE HELPERS ..." 

How on earth did I think I could pull off making presents withouth them????

Also still baking and cleaning to do. 

Note to self: Stop thinking!!!! You are just gonna freak! SEW!!!!!

Cute Christmastree Pillow for Little Ones (Tutorial)

When I was thinking of presents to make for the kids for Christmas I found it hard to come up with something for my little boy. He is just one year old. He will play with anything, really. 

But what would be kinda special to him?

So I tried to come up with something that would go well with things he likes ...

He loves to cuddle! :-)

He will carry around stuffed pets and cuddle them. Steal little bear's - my daughter - tiny pillow. Try to haul away the big bear that is almost his own size ... 

Also he loves to play with small things. Take things apart. He especially likes when taking things apart is accompanied by some noise.

And he is totally fascinated by the Advent calendar I made for little bear some years ago.

SO ....

This is what I came up with:

A soft cuddly pillow in a Christmastree-shape with Christmas baubles that attach with velcro  

and therefore make that odd ripping sound when you pull them off. 

He is going to love that! ;-)

And I figured maybe you also have some little guy - or girl - at home that would like one. So here is a tutorial on how to make it.

Sorry, I should have included more photos. But I was kinda hurrying to get it all done ... 

It is easy though! So I am sure you can do it even if there is not a photo for each single step!

Here is what you need:

- fabric for the Christmas baubles - I made 6 baubles and used 6 different cotton prints

- green fleece

- matching thread

- paper for pattern

- scissors for cutting your pattern

- fabric scissors or rotary cutter

- velcro

- stuffing

1. Make your pattern

This is really easy. All you gotta do is figure out how big you want your pillow to be and draw a simplyfied treeshape (triangle with a stem) on a big piece of paper. I used some wrapping paper and newspaper. 

When you have your treeshape figure out how big your baubles should be (all the same size or different sizes) and how many you want on your tree. Make a pattern (or several patterns if you want different sizes) for the baubles, too.

2. Cut your fabric

Cut two pieces for the tree out of green fleece. Remember to add your seam allowance!

Cut two pieces for each bauble you want to make out of your cottons - or whatever you use for the baubles*. Here also add your seam allowance.

3. Make the baubles

Take two fabric circles and sew the hooks of the velcro to one fabric circle.

Then sew the circles together with the right sides facing each other - leave a hole for turning!!!

Turn the bauble and put some stuffing in there if you like. Close the hole by top stitching around the whole bauble!

Now I  have to say I was VERY surprised how hard I found it to sew small fabric circles like that! My seams turned out quite crooked. (As you can easily see in the photos.) 

I was not too worried this time as I figured little man simply will not care at all about the seams. ;-)

But I figured if I wanted the baubles to LOOK more pretty I would have used fleece for them as well instead of cottons. 

* With fleece you could just cut two circle shapes, sew on the velcro and sew both shapes together left side on left side! So NO TURNING. Just cut the fleece close to the seam - and that would be it!

Repeat this step until you have all baubles finished.

4. Make the tree

Take your tree-shaped fleece and play around with your baubles to figure out where you want them to go.

Pin the soft side of the velcro in place. (I used the soft side of the velcro on the pillow rather than on the baubles as I figured it would be less scratchy if the kids happen to cuddle up with it withouth the baubles attached.) 

Sew the velcro in place!

Then put the two fleece pieces together right side facing each other. Close all seams - but again leave a (generous!) hole for turning and stuffing!

 Then turn inside out and it should look like in the photo above.

Stuff the tree and close the hole. I did this by hand. At first I wanted to topstitch the whole tree but decided against it in the end.

Now you can admire your Christmastree pillow and play around with the baubles. ;-)

Have fun!

And I would love to know if you make one! :-)

P.S. This pattern is for personal use only. Thank you.

Strawstar Tutorial

As promised - FINALLY - here comes a tutorial on how to make these strawstars.

These stars are a traditional decoration here in Germany and they always remind me of my childhood as I was making them as a kid with my mother.
I love decorating with them!

By now you can buy them for little money over here in many stores. But the bought ones look slightly different ... and also ... well, they just are not homemade.
It is different to have real homemade ones!
I am still dreaming of one day having enough time to make so many that I can decorate my whole Christmas tree just with homemade straw stars and lights.
Well, maybe some gingerbread, too.
But that's it! :-)

So if you want to try to make some, too, here is how to do it:

What do you need?

Not much.
 

- straw for crafting

- thread
(I like red or silver one, but really any color is fine)

- scissors

If you have bought (or only can buy) straw that is still "round" - not as in the picture above - then you need to prepare your straw before you start with crafting.
If you have flat strips of straw you can just skip ahead to the actual making of the stars.


Okay, so if you still have the "real" straw what you do is
-slit the straw open with a sharp knife
-let soak in water for about 15 minutes
(I however had to soak mine alot longer. Do not know why.)
- then iron the straw open

You should end up with strips of flat straw that probably have varying width.
You can make the strips narrower if you want to just by cutting it with the scissors.
I do not find this step too much fun, so I would recommend buying the flat strips if you can.

Now making the stars.

Of the flat straw strips cut 4 pieces to the same length.
If you have never made strawstars before try to choose straw pieces that have roughly the same width. That will make it easier.

Then you make an "x" out of two straw pieces and hold it between your thumb and index finger.

With the other two straw pieces you make a "cross" and put the "cross" above the "x" as in the photo above.
Do not let go!

Now it will get a bit complicated. But once you have mastered this part you are almost done!
 With (a long piece of thread) you weave around the middle of the star as shown above. You have to be careful to weave in a way so the star will not fall apart.

This is hard to explain in words - but you will know what I mean when you try it. For example the thread should not be UNDER the top straw piece but ABOVE it - like seen in the photo - otherwise the star will fall apart once you let go.
You can click on the photo above to make it larger and see more closely where the thread should go.

Do not let go before you have knot the thread! ;-)

I always weave one round and knot. After that I weave a couple more rounds but that is ALOT easier cause the star can not fall apart anymore.

This is what your star should look like from the front if you have weaved around the middle once.

This is a photo from the back of the star after weaving around the middle a few times.

Now comes the really fun part.
You gotta cut the ends of the straw to make a star.
You can do this any way you like ... round, pointed, ...
And then you are done!
Yeah!

Wasn't that hard, was it?

Of course you can vary the look of the stars if you want to. You can user longer pieces of straw or shorter ones. Or both together ... You can make really big or very small stars. You can put two stars on top of each other to make one fancy one.
Here just a few photos for inspiration:

A smaller and a larger star put on top of each other.

A very basic star.

Star made off narrow and wide straw strips.

A very small star. My favourite! I would love to make a whole bunch of these! :-)

Just a photo so you can see how small it is.
(Of course you could make even smaller ones.)

And just so you see that it is not THAT hard - this is a star that little bear - my 5 year old daughter - made with a little help with the weaving.

Well, and while making some stars I wanted to try something new ... and tied a button to the middle of a star.
So this is the first button-strawstar I have ever seen. :-)

I do kinda like it.
I think it would look really awesome to have a bunch with red buttons. Unfortunately I was out of red buttons ...
Maybe when I have more time on my hands I will try this.

Now what do you do with your stars?
Well, you can put them ANYwhere.
On a tree.
On a wreath.

This is my wreath in our living room.
You could also use them for gift wrapping - very cute!

I hope you will have fun trying this!
Let me know if you have any questions!!!!