Giant Birthday Candles

In case you didn't know, I am now a birthday party host for Jo-Ann's Fabrics and Crafts.  Well, over the weekend we had an open house to promote the classes and birthday party services offered at Jo-Ann's.  I wanted to make sure my part of the table stood out, so I made 3 giant birthday candles to sit on my end. 

I came across the idea on pinterest (which originated from here). I didn't create mine the same way she did but the end result was about the same.  Here's how I did mine...

Giant cardboard tubes
        (I got mine from Jo-Ann's for free - these are the long sturdy tubes that
         come from the home decor fabrics once the fabric has all been bought)
White acrylic paint
Duct tape (in the color you want)
Yellow and Orange Foam Sheet
Foam sheet matching the color of your duct tape
White Felt
White Pipe Cleaner
.5 yards of Tulle (matching the color of the duct tape)
Foam brush
CD
glue gun
hacksaw

Begin with figuring out how tall you want your candle or candles.  Use the hacksaw to cut the desired length to your candle.  Now paint the entire tube with white acrylic paint. If you want, you can seal the paint with an acrylic sealer once it is dry. I didn't seal mine.

Now that it is dry, apply the colored duct taped at an angle starting at the very top and wrapping it all the way down to the bottom.  Make sure to let the duct tape have a wide enough angle to leave parts of the white showing through when it wraps around the tube.

Get the CD and place your duct tape wrapped tube on top in the middle part of the CD.  Take small, long strips of duct tape and tape the ends of the tube to the CD.  Do it all around the bottom part.  In this case, less is not more as you want that tube not to be able to tilt over and separate easily from the CD.

The picture above doesn't look like I put a lot of duct tape at the bottom, but trust me I did.  The picture was taken in the early stages of my attaching the 2 together.

From here I decided to make the flame.  I used yellow and orange foam and just freehandedly cut out a flame shape. I cut 2 of each color.  Make sure the yellow part matches up as you will be sandwiching the pipe cleaner in between the yellow part.  Once everything is cut, first hot glue the pipe cleaner to the inside of the yellow foams then hot glue the yellow foam together.  Now hot glue the orange foam flame shape to both sides of the yellow foam flame.

Take the white felt and trace the top of the tube onto the felt.  Cut out that circle and make a small slit in the center of that felt circle.  Insert the pipe cleaner into the slit and then bend the pipe cleaner into an "L" shape right at the base of the underneath side of the felt. From there just wrap the pipe cleaner into a circle shape and hot glue it to the felt. This makes the felt sturdier and stronger.

Hot glue the circle felt onto the top of the tube.

It is now time to cover up the ugliness of the CD and all that duct tape mess at the bottom.  NOTE: It's probably best to do this part BEFORE you make and attach the flame but if you didn't, no worries ... it still works.  You're going to take your same color as the duct tape foam and trace the CD onto the foam and cut out.

 

 Now cut a bunch of slits in the middle (star like slits).  Make sure it's big enough because you are going to feed the tube through this slit.  It has to fit the flame first then the tube.

Hot glue the circle parts of the foam to the CD and the slit peaks onto the tube.

Take your matching color tulle and cut it into squares about 5x5 or 6x6.  I didn't do exact measurements, just kind of eyeballed the cut.  That's just how I fly.  :-)

Take a square tulle and place your finger in the middle of the square.  Pull up the sides to cover up your finger and then holding the tip of the tulle where the tip of your finger is, remove your finger.

 

Pinch that tip and add hot glue all around it.  You will now apply it quickly to the base of the tube to hide all that hot mess at the bottom of the tube. 

 Repeat the process of the tulle until you have covered up the whole bottom.

 Once it is all covered, then you are DONE!  Enjoy the cute creation!!!

Here's my end of the table.  You can also get an idea of how big these candles are with this picture.  I'm only 5'2".

Hope you enjoyed!  I know I did.  :-)

~Peechee

 

Fleece Loopy Scarf for St. Patty's Day

I made a St. Patrick's Day Loopy Scarf as per the direction on Jo-Ann's site - see here.  

Let me tell you that was hard on my sewing machine in that there were 6 layers of fleece it had to stitch through.  Ouch! I felt so bad for my machine.  Anyway, after cutting up the loops, even at 1/2", the loops were still too big for me (see picture above), so I went back and cut each loop in half again.

I love the skinnier loops.  Now they are more frilly and fun.  The fatter loops just was too "blah" for me.  What do you think?

Can you see the difference?

Have fun trying this out.  Personally, although it is cute, I don't think I will make this again.  It was just too hard on my machine.

~Peechee

Juice Carton Coin Pouches

My lil' man had a school event requiring him to bring lots of coins to play the games.  I didn't want to use a ziploc to hold his coins... so tacky!  So I made him a milk/juice carton coin pouch. 

Well, his coin pouch was a big hit with his classmates that they started asking if they can have one.  My lil' man, being the lil' entrepreneur, told them he'll sell it for $1.00 each.  When I picked him up from school, he told me he had 6 orders for the coin pouch and that the kids already paid him.  I had no clue what he was talking about and then he explained it to me. So now I'm drinking cartons of juice so I can fulfill his product supply.  LOL!  Thankfully, I have grown teen boys that gladly chug those juices.

I found the tutorial a long time ago on Family Fun Magazine and I saved it because I thought it was too cute ... and it still is! I didn't make a tutorial on this because I thought Family Fun would still have their instructions and template on their site but things have changed for them.  So I found someone who made one using their instructions. I hope that helps.  Here's their picture tutorial on how to make the coin pouches.

There are different versions and I never tried the others as I was content on this version.  But give the others a try and share it with me.  I'd love to see what you did and which you prefer.

~ Peechee

Dr Seuss Truffula Trees No-Sew Blanket

Back to fleece again.  LOL!

In honor of Dr. Seuss Week at my lil' man's school, I made a quick lap throw for his teacher which she could use while sitting at her desk correcting papers.  I totally love the fleece print on this as they look like truffula trees to me.  I'm also so happy that I picked the bright blue/turquoise solid print as it just gives it the right "pop" for this blanket.  What do you think?

~ Peechee

Easy St. Patrick's Day Wreath Tutorial

Yes, I took a small detour from fleece today because I wanted to make a St Patty's Day wreath.  I probably could have used fleece to make this but I saw glitter and a cute ribbon and had to go that way.

Isn't it cute?  I just love it! I did have a little problem with not having enough ribbon but you'll see how I fixed that later.

Here's what you need:

Felt in greens
wreath form
foam clovers
green glitter ribbon
glue gun
scissors

Wrap the ribbon around the wreath form. I glued the down the beginning part so it won't unravel as I wrap.

Keep wrapping all the way around.  And as you can see, this is where my problem started.  I didn't have enough ribbon.  Well, I wasn't about to run out and drive 20 minutes out to get the same ribbon when all I needed was a small amount.  So I improvised.

I took one of my dark green felts and cut a strip the same size as the ribbon.

Glued it to the end of the ribbon.

Started wrapping again but it still wasn't long enough, so cut another strip.

Much better.  It wrapped all the way around.  Doesn't look too fancy but it will do. 

So I just covered it up with the foam clovers.

Here's the back.

Time to make the flowers.  Cut another strip of green felt.

Fold in half at one end and glue together.

Fold the glued end again, making a triangle shape (matching the top end to the bottom) and glue.

Now you are going to start rolling that glued end piece into the felt.

The beginning is a little tricky as it wants to unroll, so hold on to it tight.  Now start twisting the loose edge and roll it around the part you are holding.

Keep twisting and rolling.  Apply glue as between the rolls to hold it in place.  The tighter the twist the tighter the flower.  Loosen up a little on the twist and see how it has a fuller look to the flower. 

 

 

Finish off the edge by gluing the end to the back and now glue the flower onto the middle of one of the clovers.

Repeat the flowers using other green felt colors and glue onto the other 2 clovers.

 Ta-dah! What do you think?

But the back was still kind of ugly with that felt so I took some left over glitter foam and glued that over the exposed felt in the back. And hooray!  Prettier!

Better, right?

 Although it was already cute, I wanted to give it a little more "oomph" so I added some feathers randomly.  I totally love it even more!

 Hope you enjoyed it!  If you make one, please share it with me!  I'd gladly post it up here with a link back to you!

Peechee