String bags

We're going on a Girl Scout weekend retreat in Wisconsin and need an easy craft to do if we have some downtime. A couple of years ago we marched in the town's Labor Day parade (really marched, as in cadences and flag corp!) and we tie-dyed the flags. As a send-off for the girls, we thought it would be cool to turn them into something. Here's a guide on how to make them into string bags.


A sewing machine is necessary, but I think you can get away without using an iron. If you have one, all the better, but I didn't bother when I made my trial bag(s). These are meant to be done quickly and probably not perfectly.

Items needed for one bag

Piece of fabric at least 17”x30”

4 yards of nylon cord (cut into 2 equal 2-yard pieces)

Sewing machine, thread

Pins

Scissors

Measuring tape 

Instructions

Our flags are around 31”x21”. Using the tape measure, (thank you, Ikea!) measure 17 inches up from one long end of fabric and pin.  Do this 3 more times, evenly spaced across the fabric.  (Figure A)

Cut as best as you can across the line you made with the pins. (Figure A)

Remove the pins.  Your fabric should be about 31” long by 17” high.

Fold fabric in half. Flatten wrinkles as best you can with your fingers.  (Figure B)
Insert scissors into fold and cut the folded edge.  Your fabric will now be about 15” long by 17” high. [If your fabric had a longer edge, that’s okay! There is no exact size for these bags.

From the top edge (15”), fold down 1.5 inches.

Pin about three times, measuring each time to make sure you have 1.5”. The key is to have a straight top. This corrects any messy cutting you might have done before!

Do this to both pieces of fabric.
Bring to leader to sew.
Remove pins & trim any threads from the sewing machine.
Line up the tops, keeping right (pretty) sides together.
Cut two pieces of cord, each 2 yards long (72”).
Starting with the top piece of fabric, from the left, slide one cord all the way through the top to the right side.

Insert the end into the other piece of fabric, right side. Slide all the way over to the other side. The cord will meet where you started.  Make the cord lengths even.

With the other cord, start at right side of top piece of fabric. Slide all the way to the left side. 

      Insert the end into the back piece of fabric (left side) & slide it all the way back to the right. The cord will meet where you started. Make the cord lengths even.

Tie knots in ends of both cords. 

     Put the ropes inside the two pieces of fabric. 

Line up the sides and give to leader to sew on sewing machine.
NOTE TO LEADER DOING THE SEWING: Keep rope inside. Stitch along side (pin if you need) using ½” seam allowance. Reinforce stitching at beginning. When close to end, pull the knot out of the side corner and sew over. Reinforce stitching.  

      Do the same on the other side. Sew bottom shut.
Turn inside out.

Safety pin friendship bracelets

These safety pin bracelets are easy to make and a fun group activity.  We did this with our Brownie troop on the last meeting of the year.  In the spirit of Girl Scout sisterhood, each girl tosses her pins into a bag and everyone picks randomly to make their bracelets.

I opted to use bead spacers in between the pins because it takes a lot of pins to make one bracelet without them. The bracelets look beautiful, but we had too many other things to do at the meeting.

Materials & Tools

Safety pins (#2 work well)

Beads –small seed-beads for the pins

Beads – larger ones for spacing (optional if you’re not going to use spacers)

Elastic cord (thick cord works better)

Clothes pin

Scissors

Needle nose pliers

Step 1:  Make A LOT of beaded pins.  Each girl will need at least 20 if using spacer beads.

Open a safety pin and thread as many beads on it as you can.  Leave enough room to close the pin.  Fasten the pin & use the pliers to close the top so it doesn’t open accidentally later on. (ouch!)

Step 2:  Make your bracelet.

For a Brownie-sized bracelet, cut two 10-12” pieces of elastic cord.  Line them up evenly and loosely tie one end together, or use a clothespin to secure.  (This is just temporary so the pins don’t fall off as you string them together.)

Step 3:  String the pins onto the bracelet.

Each girl should pick at least 20 pins out of the bag.  String one cord through the head of the pin, and the other cord through the tail.  String a spacer bead onto each cord.  String another pin onto the cords, but this time, reverse the pin so that the pins alternate head to tail.  Make sure the bead sides are all facing up!

Step 4: Finish the bracelet.

Once the bracelet is long enough (one brownie-sized bracelet with bead spacers takes at least 20 pins), bring the bracelet together to form a circle.  This can be tricky, because you don’t want the pins to fall off the cords.  Untie the knot from step 2 (if applicable) and tie the top cords together & the bottom cords together.

Tulle & trouble

Another Halloween costume, inspired by the red hat from Target's dollar spot (for $2.50). "I want to be a red witch!" And so here we are. Lots of tuile and netting, layered and gathered. Matching bag, again with gathered tuile.

Ring around the rosie

My second attempt at craft blogging. I can already tell that this is going to be a time-suck, so we'll see how long I sustain it. I commend those who can!

Anyway, I saw this on Pinterest at the beginning of fall and have been obsessed with folding leaves ever since. My second obsession has been Halloween wreaths, and I made more than I had doors. A natural (pun intended) next step was to make a wreath out of the leaf flowers.

Since I'm new to this, I have no photos other than the finished product. The flower tutorial is here, and has plenty of lovely photos. They are very easy to make and are so pretty.

So I made a ton of these roses, and pinned them to a Target Dollar Spot styrofoam wreath. (Snatch some up if you can, as $1 is a bargain. Only problem is that they only come in orange, yellow, and purple, but that was perfect for this project.) I pinned a circle of larger-sized ones first, tucking the stems underneath as I went. (I did not cut the stems till the end.) Then I pinned a row of smaller ones around the center, but facing the opposite direction. And finally did the same around the outer edge, also in the opposite direction. Only then did I cut any stem stragglers, just to clean up the back. I pinned a ribbon to the back for hanging.

It took about an hour to make, probably 2 hours total if you count my initial attempts to tape the flowers to the wreath (floral tape doesn't stick well to $1 Target Styrofoam wreaths) and having to collect more leaves. You need a lot more than you'd think. I think I should spray it with something to preserve the leaves, but i'm not sure what to use. Ideas?

Whooo's that girl?

I love Halloween.  And one of my daughters always challenges me with her costume ideas. One year it was a rolly-polly bug (a pill bug). Last year it was a "cat bat". This year it's an owl. And I can't give any of the credit to Pinterest (shocking!). The wings were from a pattern found on etsy.com (ChickenHill), and the mask from Woman's Day Halloween magazine (DIY Halloween Masks). Yes, I did pin both so I wouldn't forget where I found them, but I found them from good old fashioned looking through magazines and searching the internet.

We also added a bag, using the same feathers, wrapping them all around the bag. It'll be easier to carry than a plastic pumpkin!

Still trying to get the whole family to go as ABBA.  Maybe next year.
(And this is my first post about crafting, so apologies if I'm doing this 'wrong'!)

Pinned

Okay, so one of my co-workers mentioned this “Pinterest” thing to me a few months ago and I was like “Okay- whatever- I’ll check it out when I can.”  (Sorry, Katie.)  And then my neighbor and co-Daisy troop leader Stacy mentioned how she was losing sleep over it.  I still didn’t bite. Then Stacy started sending me links to cool stuff that she’d found. Braided Spaghetti bread?  Mmmm. This does sound good.  Okay, maybe I’ll just take a *quick* look. 

Thanks, Stacy.

Thanks, Katie.

I hate you both.

Wow, do I have some creative friends!  Really, you could get away with just browsing the cool stuff others have found without even waiting for your invitation. (You can’t just join- you have to be invited.  Very exclusive.) Someone needs to pin P90X ‘cos you’ll need it if you actually try everything tasty that’s up here.

I can equate the feeling to the first time I discovered Facebook.  The range of emotions went from 1) There’s no way I’m doing it. 2) Disdain for others doing it. 3) What, you’re on it, too? 4) Can’t figure out the damn thing. 5) Neglecting sleep.

I haven’t quite reached stage 5 but I'm close.

Again, Stacy, I hate you.

Shoot—did I forget to pick the kids up?

Game of Thrones

If you love Lord of the Rings (and you’re over 18) check out Game of Thrones on HBO.  It’s Lion in Winter meets Lord of the Rings meets True Blood. Medieval warfare and fantasy creatures and lots-- and lots-- of sex. HBO went all-out on this series, spending something like $50M. But you can see that in the details.  These are real castles. No green screens and peeks of palm trees in the background. They spent $50M and got their money's worth on location in Ireland. I thank them for that attention to detail, and thank them for renewing it for another season. There are a bunch of books in this series A Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Martin, so hope I see a lot more of this on HBO.


Now, don’t get discouraged at the beginning because there are a lot of characters. Here’s a little cheat sheet for the main ones, grouped by the cities we’ve encountered so far. There are seven kingdoms, and we’ve only been exposed (literally) to three.

Kings Landing

• King Robert: chubby guy from The Full Monty
• Queen Cersei: beautiful and vindictive.  Must have read Flowers in the Attic one too many times as a youngster, ‘cos she’s ‘involved’ with her twin brother. I wonder which of her 3 kids aren’t Robert’s.
• Jaime Lannister:  hot twin brother
• Tyrion: from The Station Agent and Elf (angry elf!). Their dwarf brother. Very smart and very horny. Manipulates every situation to his benefit, but sees The Big Picture, and uses his manipulative skills to help where he sees fit. I see an Emmy in his future.

Winterfell:  stronghold of the north, closest city to The Wall

• Ned:  Boromir from Lord of the Rings. Honest & good. Asked by Robert to be his Chief of Staff in Kings Landing
• Catelyn:  Ned’s wife. Looks like Joan Allen’s sister.

Pentos:  city across the sea. The Targaryen family lost the rebellion, and are trying to get the crown back. Hair bleach must be one of their primary exports.

• Viserys:  albino-looking brother. Sells his sister to Drogo (warrior tribe leader) in exchange for using Drogo's warriors to take back the throne.
• Daenerys:  the sister. She didn’t think she was going to like Drogo too much but after a few *helpful tips* from her slave girl, she’s liking their under-the-sheets action (a lot) and realizes she has some power. (I think she was just happy to get him to turn her around. Doggie style must be popular in the kingdom.)

The Wall:  Apparently, this kingdom has some messed up seasons, because it’s been summer for about 8 years and all of the elders are predicting a winter like they’ve never seen. And when winter comes, all sorts of hell breaks loose.


HBO's website is really good, so check it out for maps & more detailed family trees. Get caught up on the episodes so you can watch on Sunday nights.  You'll wish it was two hours instead of one. And you'll have a fine replacement for The Sopranos. This is a lot better.
http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html