Embroidered Clock

I saw this embroidered clock while rummaging through Pinterest and decided to make one for my sister for Christmas. I have been embroidering for years and figured it was time (get it?) to step up my game and try something besides t-shirts, napkins, and tote bags. It was actually very fun to make and when I put in the battery and the second hand started ticking, I was so proud.

Materials:

• 11 x 14 canvas
• 1/4 yard fabric
• masking tape
• pencil
• paper
• small plate
• scissors
• embroidery thread
• embroidery needle
• embroidery hoop
• spray adhesive
• staple gun and staples
• clock movement mechanism
• piece of scrap cardboard
• hammer (optional)
• beads (optional)
• ribbon (optional)

1. Place your canvas on the fabric and outline in masking tape. This will set you boundaries for when you are embroidering your design and clock face.

2. Trace a small plate (the size you want your clock face to be) onto a piece of paper. Cut out the circle and fold it into 12ths (fold in half, in half again, and in then in thirds.

3. Unfold your circle and place it on the fabric where you would like your clock face to be. Mark the 12 places that you'll want your numbers, as well as the center of the clock. I just used pencil because I am at my parents' house and I don't have my dressmaker's pencil or chalk. (I recommend chalk or disappearing ink).

4. Now you can start embroidering your design and clock face. I found a quote about time that seemed appropriate for my sister and drew my deign in pencil onto my fabric (again, I recommend chalk or disappearing ink). And away I embroidered in my free time. It took several days to complete.

TADA!

(I used a paper clip to guide me when making my numbers so that they were all the same size. I kinda wish I used masking tape to make lines on my fabric for my quote, but I sacrificed perfection for the sake of the holiday season.)

5. I then ironed my fabric and added some beads to continue to decorate. It is important to iron.
6. Next I used spray adhesive to attach my fabric to the canvas. The way this particular adhesive is, if you spray a light coat on one surface, it's sticky but isn't permanent. If you do a thick coat on both surfaces it's permanent. So I used a light coat on my canvas so that I could reposition my fabric on the canvas and make sure it was straight.

7. To make the fabric taunt on my canvas, I used a staple gun to secure the fabric to the back of the canvas. I had to be very gentle because of the beading and use a hammer to make sure that the staples were flush. I trimmed the fabric.

8. My corners turned out okay, but I wanted to make sure that they didn't ravel or get weird, so I added a gold ribbon around the perimeter of the canvas and just stapled it at the bottom (who will be looking at the bottom anyway?)

Almost there!

9. In order to add the clock mechanism, use your scissors to poke a hole in the center of the clock face. I used a pencil to help round out the hole.

10. Line up your scarp piece of cardboard on the back of your canvas  poke a hole in that too. It will help stabilize the heavy clock mechanism on your canvas.

11. Assemble your clock movement mechanism according to the directions that come with it. But, if you are like me and your kit doesn't come with directions (!), this is a good site for directions on how to put together the clock movement.

12. Admire. Good job!

Christmas Cookie Decorating

My mom is famous for her Christmas sugar cookies. This year I assisted with the decorating. We used royal icing for Christmas trees and candy canes.

 Royal Icing Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c confectioners' sugar
• 2 or 3 tbsp water (depending on what consistency you want)
• 1 tbsp meringue

1. Beat all ingredients together until light and fluffy.

2. Divide frosting into different bowls to that you can make all the colors you need.

3. Put frosting into a piping decorating bag with the tip you choose to use.

4. The cookies, already made, were ready to frost. We began with the Christmas trees. Our trees look like they are covered in snow, so we started by piping the snow with thicker frosting (you can add more confectioners' sugar if your frosting seems too runny).



5. Do the white piping on all the cookies and allow them to harden. It's important that it hardens.

6. Mix up the green frosting. Add some more water because you want to green to be looser, the consistency of paint.

7. Using a food paint brush, flood the inside sections with the green frosting.

8. Before the icing hardens, add sprinkles. They will stick to the green icing, but not the white. And you're done!

9. The candy canes are done similarly. Pipe around the edges of the candy cane, fluid with the thinner frosting. We then piped red zigzags across the canes.

Merry Christmas, friends!!

Wedding Shakers

Hello Internet world!

I am new to blogging so this will be a learning process for both of us. I have designed this blog to show off and tutorial the crafts and recipes that I have churned out.

My first attempt at craft blogging is: Wedding Shakers!!

My big sister is getting MARRIED (!!) and we are so excited. As maid-of-honor I try to do what I can from 8 hours away by helping our mom assemble invitations and the like while I am home for the holidays. Today's project was deemed blog worthy.

In lieu of birdseed, rice or bubbles, as my sister and her new hubby exit the church after the nuptuals, their guests will be greeting them with a flurry of ribbons in their colors and a tinkling of bells... awwww...

The wedding shakers have evolved through many prototypes until the final product was devised.

Materials:

• Shower curtain rings
• Ribbons in wedding colors
• Jingle bells
• Zip-ties
• Scissors

We got the shower curtain rings and jingle bells from the dollar store and ordered the ribbons so we could get 100 yards of each color. We made 99 total shakers.

1. Snap shower curtain ring together tightly. You don't want ribbons flying everywhere when wedding guests get over excited.

2. Cut ribbons into 1 yard each.
3. Loop the ribbons in half over the shower curtain ring.

4. String a jingle bell onto the zip-tie and wrap the zip-tie around the ribbons. Secure it tightly and very close to the ring and cut off the end of the zip-tip.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 100 times (or for however many guests you expect).

And you're done!

This is a super easy way to celebrate the newlyweds. Cheap and easy. Fabulous.

Ok, so this was a rather simple project. Spoiler alert: my next will be far more complicated. Looking forward to that. Let me know how I did on my first blog post. Happy holiday new friends!