Year of the Pig…Pom

Happy Lunar New Year!

2019 is the Year of the Pig in the Chinese zodiac, so to celebrate I made myself a cute pig pompom! Or as I like to call it….a Pig Pom.

I’m happy to report that I made this project using only items in my stash, so it doesn’t require too many supplies:

• Pink Yarn
• Preferred Pompom making tool (I used Loome)
• Pink felt (2 tones if possible)
• Black felt (I used grey)
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun or craft glue
• Tapestry needle (optional)

Step 1: Make your pompom!

There are quite a few ways you can make a pompom, all of which involve winding your yarn around a tool, tying all of it together with string, cutting the loops open, and then trimming down to resemble a sphere.

Step 2: Create the face.

You really only need a tiny bit of felt, so if you have scraps this is the perfect project! To make the ears you start with the light pink felt and make a general triangle shape, curving the sides to resemble a pig ear. You will make the same shape, but smaller, with the darker pink felt for the inner ear.

For the snout use the darker pink felt to make an elongated circle, or you can start with a rectangle and round out the corners. Then you take the light pink felt and make two small ovals. The eyes will be two small circles in either black or charcoal felt.

This only shows the first layer and not the inner layer of the ears or the nostrils on the snout. I also used fine tip scissors to facilitate cutting out the smaller shapes.

Step 3: Layer the dark and light pink pieces.

Take the small pink ovals and glue them to the dark pink snout and let dry. For the ears you’ll want to take the inner/dark pink part and glue them to the larger/lighter pink pieces. After they dry, place a dab of glue on the bottom border and pinch closed to create the 3D ear shape.

Step 4: Glue them onto your Pig Pom!

NOTE: if you want to be able to hang your pompom on something, do this BEFORE gluing the face on! This is where the optional tapestry needle comes in handy. Take some yarn or string, and with the needle you will slowly take it through the body of the pompom and back out. Make sure you do this slowly so that you don’t pull out any strings from the pompom.

You can use your Pig Pom as a charm to hang on your door, as a keychain, on a headband or pin, or just to sit on your desk as you enjoy this Year of the Pig!

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DIY Spiderweb Earrings

Truth time: I’m not much of a Halloween person. [gasp]

I know, I’m weird. I don’t like horror movies and I don’t care for Halloween parties (sweaty costumes, creepy masks….no thanks) so I’ve never felt a big motivation to spend money on Halloween decor or outfits.

This means that whenever I do dress up, its gonna be DIY, and its going to be cheap! Of course, this project fits that criteria perfectly!

This project is super simple as far as materials go, but a little challenging if you’re new to using a glue gun (or just awkward in general, like me). That being said, the materials are super cheap so its hard to get mad if one comes out wonky!

You will need the following:

• Glue gun (I found it easier when I used a low temp one)
• Glue gun sticks (make sure to have a few for practice. You’ll need about 2 for the actual project)
• Parchment paper
• Black paint/paint brush
• Earring findings (I used Hildie & Jo hooks for sensitive ears and matching jump rings)
• Jewelry tools to open and close the jump rings

Step 1:

Lay out a piece of parchment paper and with the hot glue create a spiderweb. You can either freehand (which is what I prefer), or you can draw the shape you want on the parchment paper and follow it. I found that the “best” looking spiderwebs have 4 intersecting lines.

This is the hardest part of the project. Practice getting an even flow out of the gun, but if you get clumps here and there it just adds to the charm! I find that moving slowly is easier for me, but it may depend on how your gun warms up the glue. Don’t worry about the strings, you can either pull them off later, or leave a few in for a more “webby” look.

Step 2:

Once the glue dries up (should only take a few minutes) take a paint brush and go over your spider web. Do the back part first, let it dry. Flip to the front, and paint.

Step 3: Attach your hardware and its ready to wear!

Told you it was easy!

I can’t wait to use this technique to make other glue gun crafts!

 

Stranger Things Ugly Christmas Sweater

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ll know that Stranger Things is life! While we could debate whether Season 2 was as good as Season 1 (it wasn’t, sorry), pretty much anyone will agree its a great show. Back in October Target released a line of Stranger Things themed apparel to herald in the new season of the show, including this winning Men’s sweater.

Ugly? Really?

I’ll be honest, I’ve gotten pretty tired of seeing cool sweaters being called “ugly” just because they look like they were knitted. Now, a tacky, truly ugly sweater? That is a thing to behold…and that is what I would make!

The image came to me right away….red sweatshirt (as big and awkward as I can get), felt Christmas light bulbs, and painted letters.

Supply List:

• Men’s Red Fleece Sweatshirt (not the exact one we used, but similar)
• Felt squares in 5 colors (dark grey, dark pink, blue, green, and yellow)
• Felt Glue
• Green Fabric Paint (Hunter Green)
• Black Fabric Paint
• Scissors

This project was suprisingly quick and easy. The hardest part was probably fitting all the bulbs onto the shirt.

Step 1: Cut out 26 bulbs out of the felt squares, alternating between pink, blue, green, and yellow. Cut out 26 small rectangles from the grey felt. (I don’t have a template to share for the bulbs, but you can freehand it.)

Step 2: Arrange the bulbs on the sweatshirt in rows. They don’t have to be super straight, or even point in the same direction. Be sure to leave space underneath for the letters, and little bit more for the “string” if you want to make it loopy.

Step 3: Once you have your layout glue the bulbs and the grey caps to the sweatshirt using felt glue. If you really wanted to take it to the next level stitch them on! I think it would add a great touch.

Step 4: Write out that alphabet using the black paint. (Make sure to not get distracted and skip letters. Not that I speak from experience or anything….). Your goal is to have each bulb have a letter underneath. Crazy kindergartner looking letters are encouraged!

Step 5: Connect your lights using the green paint. You can use a direct line or you can make it loop. Go crazy! Follow your heart!

Step 6: Step back and admire your work. For 4 hours. Because that’s how long it takes for the paint to dry.

Its rare for my projects to turn out exactly how I envision them, but this one did! Best of all it was easy enough to do in a group, and we were done in a couple hours!

Of course, once our ugly sweaters were dry, we couldn’t resist an 80’s inspired group photo….

A big thanks to Nabila Verushka for bringing our cheesy 80’s family portrait dreams to life, and for taking all the photos included in this post!

Side note: This sweatshirt is SO comfy and cozy, don’t be surprised if you catch me wearing it during our next cold front!

 

 

 

Candy Heart Garland

Sometimes you get something into your head, and there’s no way to get it out except to force it out. This was one of those times.

I got it in my head I wanted to make a candy heart garland for Valentine’s Day, so one random night I got home, pulled out some yellow felt, and started working. I stayed up much too late, and in the end I made….well, a creepy looking heart that was completely the wrong shape, with some lame looking letters. Not what I was going for. Frustrated, I put the project aside and gave it up as a failure.

But it wouldn’t leave me alone. I decided to try again….this time with fleece. And instead of embroidery for the letters  I’d cut them out of felt.

The moment I picked out my fabric colors at JoAnn’s I knew I was headed in the right direction….I mean, how cute are these colors?!

For the shape, I wanted similar proportions to traditional candy hearts without making them flat on both sides. It took me a few rounds of trial and error to finally get a shape I was happy with.

Once I had my template ready to go I cut out two hearts from each of the fabrics.

The process of actually making the hearts after this was pretty quick and easy….I sewed all the way around with roughly 1/4″ seam allowance, leaving 1-2″ open, then I flipped and stuffed. The last step was to hand sew that 1-2″ opening to seal in the filling.

My favorite part of the whole process was making the letters. I’ve always enjoyed cutting letters out of construction paper. I find it oddly therapeutic.I purchased a couple of sheets of fuchsia felt from JoAnn’s which I cut into 1″ strips (for a consistent height).

Why are M’s so hard to make?!!

In my research, I was amused to find that candy hearts nowadays often say “Txt me” or “Email me”. There was none of that around when I was a kid! I went with the traditional “Be Mine” and “Kiss me”….and decided to throw in a “Bae” reference since, you know, I’m cool and stuff… (“cool” is still a thing, right?)

Because I wanted the flexibility to take these on and off a garland (not ’cause I’m lazy or anything…) I used safety pins to attach a ribbon to the very top of each heart.

Last step: string a ribbon through those babies! I did tie a loose knot at each to maintain the separation between them once they got hung up.

In the end I’m very pleased with how they turned out! They’re far from perfect, but they make me happy!