My new nail fetish

So, I recently stopped paying strangers to do my nails and started buying the supplies needed to do my own. Surprisingly, I have gotten all the things I need for about the price of one or two trips to the nail salon.

The Basics: Although I am linking to Amazon, most of my stuff was purchased at Walgreens!

• Nail clipper – I like the kind with the fold out file thingy to get stuff out from under my nail.
• Nail Files
• Nail Buffer
• Cuticle pusher – Lots of options, but I like the one with one flatter pushing edge and one smaller hooked digging edge
• Cuticle clipper – Again, lots of kinds, but I like the kind that look like little scissors.

The décor

• Nail Polish – Any kind you want, but I like the cheap stuff in TONS of colors.
• Brushes – These are my favorites!
• Extra stuff?? You can get all sorts of stickers, jewels, stencils… but I usually mess those up.

My process:

1. I always start by clipping and filing my nails to the length and shape I want. Recently I started going square shape to just past the tip of my finger pad. The most important part of this step is to make sure after you file that you dig out anything from under your nail. I always get filed off nail under there, and it messes things up later.
2. After that, I wash my hands and then soak my cuticles for a minute in warm water. I do one hand at a time of pushing the cuticle back and then trimming it. Careful to get close but not cutting back too far!
3. Next I prep my nails by buffing them out and then washing my hands again.
4. Time to paint! This is the creative part that really gets me. Here are a few of my favorites:

Princess French

One coat of a sparkly pink base, then the top third gets chunky glitter, and finally a tip using one of my small brushes of silver glitter. I used the Kiss kit to get the glitter in this one, but any silver glitter with your small brushes should work.

Winter Wonderland

Simple red polish with some silver snowflakes. Painting your big toe is harder than it looks. You can’t get a good angle on it, but with a little work, you can do it!

Pink and blue patterns

One of my earlier works, I tried to do some décor with only a dotting tool. I highly suggest brushes, but the dotting tool can work.

101 Dalmations

Clear base coat, and white and black dots. Simple, but cute!

80s Pink Geometry

Pink base, white skinny lines over it. Love!

Rainbows!

The hardest part is finding colors that look good together- and then narrowing down to only 5.

And finally, ADVENTURE TIME! Nails

These took quite some time and a little help. I painted the base colors on each finger and then my WONDERFUL husband helped me to paint the faces and other fine details.

Now it’s your turn! What will you think up?

Numbered Baby Onesies

My friend, Alyssa, originally did this for our friend, Debbie's shower a while back and I stole her idea.

I loved the way they were personalized, how they turned out, and the idea behind them. They were by far the hit of the shower both times.

You will need: 

1. Blank onesies in a variety of sizes: three size 0-3 mos, six size 3-9 mos, three size 12 mos. Walmart is where you can find the cheapest ones (about $8 a pack, and they actually come with 4 per package). 

2. Fabric. I had 5 fat quarters, which I bought in a pack, also at Walmart, for $7. It was MORE than enough fabric, but having 5 designs gave people options and they all went together really well. You could probably do them all in 1 fat quarter if you use your fabric well and wanted them to all look alike. 

3. Iron on adhesive web. It comes by the yard on a bolt from Pellon, also in the fabric section. This stuff can get expensive, but it was about $2 a yard at Walmart. You only need a half yard. 

4. Number outlines. I made mine on MS Word using the Word Art section and printed on regular paper. I made them 4" tall, which I think is a perfect size. (If you want the exact same ones, the font is Aardvark size 300 pt.)

5. Pins- because you will want to pin the number, fabric, and adhesive together before you cut. 

6. Scissors

7. Iron and board

8. Puff paint

9. Patterns for other shapes (optional)

Set Up: 

Pin each number to a proper sized onesie. If you want people to be able to decorate any extras, set those out, too. I suggest hanging them with clothespins! 

Crafting:

1. Pin the following items in this order:
number pattern piece
fabric (right side up)
Pellon with web side up (keep on the paper for now)

2. Cut out the number from all 3 layers at once.

3. Unpin the layers, removing the paper number and peeling the paper off of the web adhesive.

4. Make sure the web is lined up with the number as perfectly as possible, place on onesie, and iron it on!

5. Decorate with puff paint.

Nine was decorated by a high school boy. I was nervous at first, but he really had a great time and it turned out great!

Eleven is my favorite, and was done by baby's 17 year old uncle. So adorable! 

 

I had some other shapes for another craft that we hijacked and used to make more onesies! 

6. Let them dry overnight. I left them hanging, but you can also set them out on a flat surface to dry. 

The great thing about these is that even if you make a mistake, they are homemade and so it is just part of the charm! 

Baby Shower!

My sister-in-law is pregnant. I am crafting. Here are some of the things I did for her shower:

• Decor

Hanging paper lanterns. I didn't make them, I got them at JadeTime.com. They were a good price, look cute, and got here in a week. Bonus. I bought them in sizes 8" (little blue) to 18" (big purple). 

We also decided to get some paper cupcake wrappers, colorful straws, and rubber bands to help decorate and label peoples drinks.

Not my craft, but one of the other ladies made kisses with personalized stickers. SO. CUTE.

• Activities 

Baby onesies with month numbers on them:

These turned out so great, I will post a second blog on how to do them!

Words for Baby: I made this in Word. I am going to hole punch and make a little booklet out of them to keep in the nursery.

Baby Mobile: 

So this was a great idea, but in execution, I learned a few things:

1. Shrink film is not as easy to use as it sounds. (This was my BEST trial piece- yikes!)

2. Even if you go for regular paper, you should cut things out for people first. I only got 5 total pieces (out of 60+ attendees)! Not such a great turn out, but I will make some and have the family fill them out later.

• Present

I decided to make a blanket. I know, she will have a million, but I am hoping since this is in her nursery colors, she will actually use it!

Nursing Tanks

Several of my friends are pregnant or just had babies. Actually, I think it might be all of them. But, in light of this, I have been seeing a bunch of FB posts and the like asking about nursing tanks. It turns out, there aren't very many good ones out there in a reasonable price range. I decided to fix this.

Step One: Gather supplies

• Tank top (I like the ones at target that are about $9.)
• Scissors
• Extra wide bias tape
• ResQ Tape (because pinning bias tape is a pain in the butt)
• Snaps
• Snap pliers (not pictured)
• Marking chalk
• Sewing machine and thread

 Step 2: Deconstruct
I measured about 5 inches from the shoulder seam on each side, made a mark with the chalk, and made a clean cut where I wanted the snaps to go.

 Step 3: Reconstruct
Cut your bias tape to the length of the cut sides.

 Open up the bias tape and line it with the ResQ tape.

  Making sure the wider side of bias tape faces the outer side of the tank top, adhere the bias tape to one side of the tank. 

 Flip it over to adhere the other side of bias tape.

 Set your sewing machine to a stretch stitch and sew all 4 sides of the bias tape.

 Step 4: Snaps!

 I bought my pliers on Amazon for less than half the cost of our local Joann. You can also get the easy attacher if you don't want to be able to do eyelets later.

 Using the rubber ring, place one of the rings with pointy sides facing the center on the metal side.

 Then place one of the nubs into the plastic side so the nub is in the tool.

 Line it up so the nub is on the inside (wrong side) of the top shoulder piece, and squeeze! Repeat for both shoulders.

 Do the same thing for the bottom of the snaps, but make sure the RING is on the inside of the shirt this time!! Note: I made the mistake twice on the nub-less sides of putting it going the wrong direction. If you need to take out a misplaced snap, use a small flat screwdriver head and just push it in to the ring side, parallel to your fabric. They pry out fairly easily. The ring will be mangled and you will need a new ring, though!

 Step 5: Admire your work!
This project took me an hour to do 3 shirts, and that included the time it took to drag out my sewing machine, re-thread it, and put everything away.

Baby Shower Mobile

My dear friend and co-worker, Michelle, is having a baby in a few months. I asked her if there was anything I could make for her, and she gave me one really cute idea. Check it out!

I stared with a quick trip to Michael's and a browse on Amazon. I knew she wanted clouds and a Cow Jumped Over the Moon theme to it. 

Using the feather boa, I made some clouds that also hid where I tied the jewelry wire to the hoop and helped it all stay in place. 

The Swarovski crystals were glued to make some floating stars...

And little start and moon elements hung from the end of each strand. 

A cow in the middle, and I was done! 

Pintrest Inspired Sewing Projects

I went on a sewing project binge a little while ago, all inspired by Pins I had seen. Here are a few of them...

Coffee sleeves (reversible!) by crafty Staci

I got carried away and made 2 Bapron's by Craftiness is not Optional

Baby blankets inspired by ecBloom

And then I bought some yellow and grey fabric I had to have, so I found a few others:  

 A bowtie by Martha. 

And one for a little boy (it is a pin) inspired by Kiki Creates

 Finally, a very useful garbage bag for my car, inspired by Make It - Love It. 

(I squared my corners to help it keep some more shape, but otherwise the same thing.)