Give Thanks Banner - A Tutorial & Challenge Submission

Give thanks...although I try to do it everyday, now is the season to deck the halls with it, right!

For this challenge, I was sort of all over the place with what to do. I settled on making a banner, bunting, garland thing (what is the official word?). But, I was again all over the place -- to use all felt, to make triangle shaped flags, to use woven or linen? Then, I found some leftover linen and decided to go for that organic look. It sort of fell into place then.

I found these felt leaves from last Thanksgiving (I bought them for my kids to play with and these were our leftovers - yay!). Also, I recently bought this Martha Stewart paint set on sale at Michael's; it's Pearl and Metallic and I've been dying to try it! Once I had all the "ingredients" in place (sidebar: it's so nice to have finally built up SUCH a craft supply that I practically never need to shop to create; it's all already here!) this came together nicely.

I put together a quick tutorial below with pictoral step by step.

Close up of the letters - these colors are truly amazing! The really are pearly or metallic :)

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Stamped & "Painted" Apron - A Challenge Submission

Tea Towel Challenge? Hmmm. I decided to think outside my box for this one, and came up with the idea to take a plain white tea towel, and embellish it with: A STAMP & FABRIC PAINT! After the stamping and painting was all said & done, I was so in love with this little towel, I decided to turn it into an apron. ;)

I'll be back tomorrow with a pictoral / detailed tutorial or explanation of how I made the stamped and painted design on the tea towel. But I bet you can get an idea of the process from the pictures below of what I did. In a nutshell, I took one large stamp and pressed it five times (In different directions) on the tea towel to "decorate" it.

The picture below shows one stamp:

When I was finished with the pink, I decided a pop of orange would be appropriate. So I added several orange dots (with a pencil eraser) throughout.

When I was finished painting, I searched through my neglected collection of woven fabrics (because I've been on a knit fabric kick of late). I was on the hunt for something colorful, not flowery and on the 'modern-ish' side. Enter my Rubix Cube looking fabric I picked up at Joann's on clearance a couple months ago! I fell in love w/ this fabric the minute my eyes found it. So colorful, so catchy!

To turn this embellished tea towel into an apron, I essentially just made a LONG tube of fabric, and sewed it to the top of the apron (I also top stitched the entire tube for stabilization). I wanted it long enough to wrap from front to back, back to the front, and then be able to tie w/ a big side bow. Excellent!

I love how this turned out, and if you do too ... be sure to vote!

ps- will be back tomorrow w/ a tutorial on the painting of the fabric.

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