Skinny Fabric Wreath Tutorial

When we bought our first house, in 2011, my bff Darci gave us a wreath to hang on our door. She had made it, and I was in love with it. I made one like it for Christmas, so now we have a Christmas themed wreath too (so festive, right?). When we moved into our townhouse, I hung up Darci's wreath once again. And then I finally realized I needed to redo it, since the sun had literally bleached all the colors out. It was a very sad day, because she had used such great fabrics and it was so perfect. I made a new one and posted it on instagram, and got a tutorial request. So, disclaimer, I didn't make up this wreath technique/style. Darci made my first one, and either she is a genius (which is true anyways), or she saw some sort of original tutorial.

Last week I decided to increase my holiday-festivity-ness and make a Halloween wreath. I didn't want it to be too in your face Halloween, so I just went with Halloween-themed colors. Here is how I made it:

Supplies needed:
Wire wreath
3+ Fabric choices (at least a fat quarters worth)
Scissors

I purchased my wire wreath at Michaels, where they are relatively cheap and come in different sizes. This one is a 12" wreath, and probably cost about $3 (I can't remember exactly, sorry).

Start with your fabric. I purchased three different fabrics from Joann's--two were fat quarters and the other I had cut a 1/4 yard off the bolt. Either way you purchase the fabric will be a good width (fat quarter, or a quarter yard). Fat quarters are the perfect size though, and they were on sale for $1.29.

You will need to make strips of fabric, which I made ~2" wide. I used the cut and tear method, for a shabby chic type of finish. So cut a small tear in your fabric, and rip it off into a strip.  I made 5 strips of each fabric.

Start anywhere on your wreath, and you are going to wrap the strip of fabric around the wreath. Place the strip of fabric so there will be enough left out to tie it in a knot (as seen above).

Wrap the strip around itself 2-3 times on the wreath.

On the back side of the wreath, tie the ends of the fabric strip into a secure knot.

Start with your second strip of fabric, and repeat the above steps. When you start wrapping, have the strip overlapping the other fabric a little, so there aren't any gaps.

As above, tie the ends together on the back of the wreath.

Continue this same method with all your strips of fabric. Your very last fabric strip will be placed in the last gap of your wreath, so it will overlap the fabric on either side.

And voila!! Easy peasy, and it looks so cute! If you make a larger wreath, you will of course need more fabric strips. And you can use as many different fabrics as you like! If you end up making your own, I would love to see a picture of it :)

Happy crafting!

latest and greatest

...manicure, that is. as you all know, i love doing my nails. one of these days i'm just going to open up my own salon where you can only get manicures, and your feet need to be out of sight! i can see it now: "Jess's salon rules: No shoes, No service!" now if only i could find a nail school where you don't have to deal with disgusting feet, then i could get all certified and stuff. anyways, sorry about the tangent.

usually every weekend i will do a new manicure. how interesting/detailed it is depends on how much time i have, and how lazy i'm feeling. i keep telling josh i need some sort of nail dryer/UV light so my nails will dry faster. that way the whole process would be so much faster! (note to self--add this to my christmas wishlist!)

this weekend i used my new ulta polish 'freshwater pearl' as the base, and then used tape to add ulta's polish 'little black dress'.  if you aren't familiar with using tape to get awesome manicures, you can look at this tutorial i did a couple years ago. after adding the diagonal half of black, i wanted to make one nail a little different. so after the polish dried, i put tape down going diagonally in the opposite direction, which left the little triangle of pink on top.

sorry for the slightly blurry ipod pic...

i think it turned out really cute, and i [vainly] love looking down and seeing this new manicure. what do you have on your nails right now? if you'd like, just come on over to Jess's Salon and i'll hook you up :)

tutorial: how to make maternity pants

ok, so i am kind of tall. like 5'11" kind of tall. so i require a pants inseam of at least 35". the longer, the better. so i knew i wouldn't be able to find maternity pants that were not only long enough, but also didn't look frump-a-licious. soooo...i scoured the internet and looked at a lot of tutorials, and sort of combined a bunch of them. i think this is the best way to take an existing pair of normal pants, and convert them to maternity pants. these are a pair of my work pants, which i bought last summer for 10 bucks. here is my version on how to make your own maternity pants:

materials needed:
-pair of pants you can still at least sort of zip up (my pre-pregnancy pants worked just great, and i'm 22 weeks along right now. and i'm pretty sure they will fit for my whole pregnancy, unless my butt gets about 15x bigger)
-t-shirt (the smaller the better, even one that was pretty tight before your pregnancy)
-seam ripper
-scissors
-sewing machine
-fabric marker/pencil (a regular marker would be fine if you mark it where you won't be able to see it after you sew up the zipper flap)

instructions:
(click pictures to enlarge)

start with the pair of pants you want

do this for all the belt loops, and it will make cutting it up much easier

try them on and zip them up. mark where it feels comfortable. i marked this with a fabric marker. then later when i cut the front, i left a little extra fabric to allow for seam allowance.

most of the tutorials i found didn't have this step. but who needs a zipper for pants that will be zipper-less!? and who wants to sew over that? i cut that baby out asap!

remember, like i said before, leave some extra fabric above where you marked-- for seam allowance

then take your t-shirt you want to use:

i cut some extra off the bottom part of the tshirt, so it would fit smaller. i'm sure it would have been fine if i left it though.

i hope this makes sense. after i pinned the seams on the sides, then i stretched the shirt and pinned the front middle, and the back middle. then i stretched between pins and pinned the center of that area, and so on. [if you still don't get what i'm saying in this step, email me.]


i did the zig-zag stitch all the way around on the edges. i just forgot to take a picture afterwards.

you made it! try it on! the t-shirt i used won't fray when you cut it, so i left the edges raw. the t-shirt was tight enough that it stays up. you can always make a hem, or sew in some elastic on the top.

this is a weird picture, but i wanted to show how it looks with just the pants and the added t-shirt portion. you can fold the shirt down if you want to wear it under your belly.

long pants! with my shirt pulled up...awkward...

yay! they look normal! and fit well!

i wore these pants to work today, and was amazed with how comfortable they were!! and they didn't fall apart, so thats always good ;) no one even knew they were maternity pants (yes!). so thankfully this was a success, and now i have some more pants and t-shirts to rip up!