Home made raffle tickets

I tend to think people who sew can turn their hand to pretty much anything - and turn their sewing machine to pretty much anything too.... like creating perforations in raffle tickets.

I used the online TicketMaker programme to create the tickets. One word of advice - it's much easier to remove fields from the template than to add them, so try to make your data fit in the existing template rather than muck around with it too much.

Once printed (8 per A4 size), I ran the pages of tickets through the sewing machine (about 6 pages at a time - how many you can perforate depends on the strength of your sewing machine), before cutting and collating.

A book of 5 tickets was sent home with each family at the school, with the request that they buy or sell the tickets at $1 each ($5 for the book of tickets), or return the tickets. Naturally most families just sent back the cash and the ticket stubs, and waited for their number to be drawn.

Usually we would only sell tickets on the night of our markets, and maybe make $100. We made over $500 on this raffle.

There are always local laws pertaining to the running of raffles - licenses are usually required unless the raffle is limited in scope (eg just run within a community group), limited in time (just sold at one venue on one night) or limited in prize value. We kept our prize value below the local gaming law $200 ceiling that enabled us to run the raffle over a week and beyond our local community.

Shoes for a Hunger Games fan

Thomas had seen an art show on TV in which they personalised plain canvas sneakers. Then we were in Target and saw this (Cue "Mu-umm?!?"):

Next, images were printed from the internet and stencils were cut from Contact adhesive plastic (good for stencils as it sticks to fabric and helps prevent bleeding a little).

 Stick on the stencil, mask the rest of the shoe.










Spray paint. Or sponge on fabric paint. Whatever you have.

Embellish with "puffy paint" (and touch up with a black marker).

Wear with pride.

Word String Art

Inspired by Poppy Haus (left) and Honey and Fitz (right), I decided on a string art project for my son's year 3/4 (7,8,9 year olds) school Art Exhibition project. The school was pursuing a theme of "growing" in its curriculum so that seemed like the obvious word to string out. A string art project is also great for getting many little hands involved.

I had some foam board left over from some IKEA packaging, so the principal costs for the project were calico fabric to wrap the board, a couple of packets of steel pins, and crochet thread - in a solid and a varigated colour.

I chose to push pins into foam rather than hammer nails into board because, well, life is short! Even so, the set-up (wrapping, printing word, pinning) took about 3 hours.

If you chose to do a similar project, I would recommend cutting the letter out before pinning it (above) - ripping the pieces of paper away after pinning is pretty tedious (below)!

The zipper foot is really getting a work out!

Having conquered my trepidation over inserting a zip in a garment, I've gone zip crazy!

Thomas needed a new pencil case for school (as, ironically, the zip broke on his old one). He desperately wanted a Smiggle zipper one, but they were all out of the large size at the local Smiggle stores. So, as is the lot of children with crafty Mums, he got a home made one. Initially reluctant, when I pointed out that this meant he could have any colour he wanted, he soon decided it was a good idea and we set to work.

The zips were purchased at The Needlecraft Emporium and Fabric Cave for .50c each, They had a great range of colours. However, if you want a cheaper option, The Remnant Warehouse has them for 3 for $1! Perhaps not as wide a range, but it depends what you are after. The Remnant Warehouse also has other great trims, like the tape measure tape we used.

We laid out the zips in the order we wanted the colours:

These are all different lengths as I was going for particular colours, not necessarily sizes. If doing it again I would make sure all the zips were at least 5cm (2 inches) longer than the finished size, so there would be plenty of length to play with, without the danger of sewing over the metal end point sof the zips.

Then I sewed them together (suing a zipper foot). Put right sides of the zips together and sew along the edge using a small straight stitch. Sew them all together so you have a tube of zips. Then get ready to sew down the sides.

Open the zip at the top that will be your main opening zip during this process so you can turn it the right way out when you have sewn down the sides.

I also sewed a heavy binding over the raw ends of the side seams inside the case. 

Another lesson - make sure you use an odd number of zips, so you don't get all the zip tops meeting at the same place on the sides:

Finished!

 The happy recipient.

Cakes fit for a princess

Do you have a little princess in your life?  Here's a simple cake decoration, made with coloured white chocolate, that will (literally) crown your next lot of cupcakes!

Here's the how to:

1. Put jam tart pan (like the one in the picture - the sort with round depressions in it that you would make jam tarts in) in freezer.

2. Melt and colour white chocolate. (For Australian residents, it seems Spotlight now have colours for white chocolate, amongst their party / cake supplies [at least at Birkenhead Point, Sydney]. This colour was achieved using the red.)

3. Put white chocolate in snap lock bag, squeeze out air and seal.

4. Snip corner off bag for piping. If you are concerned about using snap lock bags for piping, the Mega Crafty blog shows you how to reinforce your zip lock bag for piping.

5. Retrieve tart tray from freezer. Pipe a line of chocolate across the deepest part of the pan, side to side.

6. Choose a mid point, and pipe loops above it, starting and finishing on the first line. Continue to pipe loops starting and finishing at roughly the same point. Five or six loops should do it.

7. Pop tray into freezer.

8. In 5 minutes chocolate tiaras should be set, and can be slid from the tray.

 

9. Make cupcakes, slather on the butter icing, and crown with a tiara. Ta-da!

Thank you to my friend Sarah, who not only (cleverly) had a daughter with a party this weekend, but made the cupcakes and took photos of them.



A pettiskirt - or What I did on my summer holidays! (With pattern diagram!)

So I joined the craze and embarked on a pettiskirt project, assisted by my Mum. The skirt is for Alice, daughter of Michelle. Alice is about to become a big sister so we thought it would be nice for her to have something new and special when the baby arrives.

But there are a lot of people making pettiskirts out there - what's my point of difference? Well, one thing - apart from the fact I had my toddler son model the skirt for the photos, as the recipient wasn't available (and anyway it's a surprise) - if you scroll down, you'll find a PATTERN LAYOUT DIAGRAM for how it's constructed, plus photos of how it came together, to assist anyone else who'd like to make one.

I am indebted to two sites - http://www.sewmamasew.com/forum/index.php?topic=242.0 - and

http://sewingmamas.com/b/downloads.php?do=file&id=414 for their helpful explanations. How does the saying go? "If I have sewn further it is by standing on the sewing machines of others"? Something like that!

And Kerri (@sewmamasew) is absolutely right about polyester chiffon - it frays and it will drive you mad. Remember this when you are at the fabric store. BUY THE NYLON! We forgot and had to overlock most of the skirt....

But it was Sandrahd (@sewingmamas) whose photos made it all make sense. I think I have a visual learning style. For anyone else who needs to see a pattern or a diagram, here goes:

The waist piece (in a satiny fabric) will be, in the finished skirt, one third its length. As you are making a double skirt (with inside layers and outside layers), the waist will be twice one third (ie two thirds) times twice your skirt wearer's waist measurement. Most preschoolers will have about a 20" waist, and twice this is just less than the roll width of most cheap satins (105cm*), so to make your life easy, just cut a piece selvedge to selvidge. Similarly with the layers - you will need at least 18 pieces one third the length of the finished skirt, and the same width as the waist piece - and the ONE GOOD THING about polyester chiffon is that it is easy to tear in a straight line selvedge to selvedge, so it was easy to create the 18 pieces.

This is what it looks like laid out - in diagram, and real life:

The more pieces you add, the more full your skirt. Or, you can add more to the bottom layer for more "pouffiness".
Here's the 18 pieces laid out on the floor. The bottom tier is bunched up to fit in the photo.

The best way to work is to cut all your pieces first, then work from the bottom up. It is much easer to sew each layer onto an ungathered layer, above it, than to sew it togther when all gathered.

First, gather your "fluff", or the frill for the bottom. You will need two or three times the length of your bottom layer, cut into 5cm or 2 inch wide strips (or buy pre cut strips in rolls).  Stitch along the middle of the strip with a gathering foot on your machine, or a long stitch if using an ordinary foot (but try turning the tension up and it may gather for you). Pull the threads to gather, but don't gather too tightly or it will be difficult to sew onto the skirt.

When you have a mountain of gathered fluff, stitch it onto the bottom of the bottom layer of the skirt. Don't cut the fluff if it is longer than your bottom pieces - just keep feeding new pieces in until they are all joined by the fluff.

Next, run a gathering stitch along the top of your bottom layer (or use a gathering foot) to gather. Now you'll need to remember your maths. Gather it tightly enough so that the gathered tops fit the (ungathered) bottom of the layer above. So if you are sewing two pieces onto one piece in the layer above, gather each of the bottom layer to half its length.

Sew the bottom layer to the top (ungathered) layer.

In this photo, I've gathered the bottom tier and attached it to the top tier of chiffon. As you can see, I gathered each piece seperately. As I was gathering by hand, it was easier to keep it in manageable chunks, then sew it all together at the end. With the mountains of gathering you are creating, you wont see the joins. 

Next, gather the top of your first tier of chiffon. Again, once gathered, the lengths should add up to the length of your satin layer.

All the gathering is done, and the next stage is to join the ends of the satin, so you end up with satin tube with frills.

Then, fold it in half (as indicated by the pressed line, below). Create a casing for the elastic, add a bow, and it's made.

Other websites have a lot more information about the process and the amount of fabric required (at least 4m for a 12" long pettiskirt, I'd say), but I hope that this is helpful to someone.

* I'm in Australia, where we buy fabric by the metre, but most advice sites are in the US, where everything is in inches. Isn't this how the Mars Rover project came apart? Lucky we are only making pettiskirts!

Christmas cards a five year old can make (with a bit of help)

Thomas wanted to make Christmas cards for some of his classmates and teachers, so we decided to make them together.

We've marbled paper before using the shaving foam and food dye method, so we decided to make marbled Christmas tree shapes on cards. This is how:

1. Marble your paper. Obviously for a Christmas tree, greens are going to dominate. This one had yellow swirls in the green, but red swirls were more seasonal (you just have to be careful not to swirl too much and end up with murk).

2. Grab a stencil - or a cookie cutter - in the appropriate shape, and trace around it.

3. Here's the cutter and the tree shape cut from the paper. Depending on how simple your shape and how dextrous your child, get them involved in cutting out.

4. Lots of Christmas trees.

5. Stick them to blank cards. We added a gold star at the top for a finishing touch.

6. Other uses for marbled paper, cookie cutters and blank cards. The dinosaur shapes are very useful for using up "murky" coloured marbelling, and make great boys' birthday cards.