Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Stretching my Craft Skills


Welcome back to another edition of Pintastic Tuesday where I pick a thing or two from Pinterest and try it, then tell you if it was a success (pinTastic) or failure (pinDrastic).

Today's Pinspiration (Pin + Inspiration)

Sewing Baby Shoes
Source: Pinterest | Original Source: Pamela Susan Fine Jewelry & Gifts

Crafting One-of-a-Kind Button Art
Source: Pinterest | Original Source: Busted Button
Source: Pinterest | Original Source: Busted Button

Adventures in Sewing

One of the things I need to conquer is my sewing machine! We seriously fight. The last time I used it, I took a picture of the settings. The next time she gets in one of her moods, I have this picture to remind me what she looked like when she was pleasant:




Add to that my Fear of Pairs and it's a mess...lol. Shoes and booties never seem to come out matching. Knowing that this is something where I lack and need to learn more, I set a goal of making 5 pairs before the end of 2012. When I saw those adorable little shoes, I knew that I had to make them.

I have never followed a sewing pattern before. I always just wing it and it comes out mostly right. I consulted with my mother-in-law and my husband's aunt (the sewing experts). They told me I could do it and I believed them. I chose a few different fabrics that seemed sophisticated for a little man (read newborn). I chose a blue plaid, a gray material that reminds me of denim or a suit material, and plain red for contrast.

PinTastic - These shoes are precious!

Whoo hoo! Only 3 pairs of shoes left to make before 12/31/2012!


God bless the tutorial creator! She really worked hard to put together an excellent quality tutorial with pictures for guidance every step of the way. I actually followed the tutorial while sitting at my machine with my Tablet PC next to me (and of course, the PDF Tutorial was saved in Dropbox). I had to print out the pattern pieces, but it would have been wasteful to print the whole tutorial.

Note: The pin above was my inspiration. The actual tutorial (including pattern) is located here.


Adventures in General Crafting:

The shoes above were just part of a gift for my co-worker who is having an elephant-themed nursery for her baby boy. I crocheted an elephant pacifier clip using the Elephant Applique pattern available from EverLaughter. The gray/black hat was made using the Bumpy Road Beanie pattern from Crochet My Love Designs.

PinTastic Button Art Elephant

Do an image search for silhouettes to find an outline for creating your own button art.


The baby elephant button art was inspired by Busted Button who made the gorgeous button art pieces in the pins above. The pin includes a tutorial! I made mine just a little different. I cut out an elephant out of felt and hot-glued the buttons onto my felt elephant. Then attached the elephant to my shadow box with Velcro. I think hers look much better with the painted canvas background, but I struggled just to find a shadow box that didn't completely crush my piggy bank. I used commercial buttons, but found lots of listings on Etsy for buttons that would have been fun to work with. I only used two packages, but a third package of buttons would have made him more complete. These are the exact buttons I used.


Today's crafts were definitely a huge success and the soon-to-be-mommy of this little boy loved her gift. Not only that, my husband actually approved of the button art and thought it was cool! Thank you, Pinterest! My 8 year old even asked me to make him some button art. 


See you next week for another edition of:



Inquiring minds want to know...did you try anything from Pinterest this week? How did it go? Blog your successes and failures and join the party by linking below. 



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