burlap | Oopsey Daisy

There Will Be No Pinching

March 15, 2010 5 Comments

Because I will be wearing this on St. Patty’s Day!

Yes indeed, I have gone burlap flower-crazy!! One day last week, I spent 2 hours making oodles of them. Some with fabric on top. Some with burlap on top. Some with green and natural burlap together.

I added some burlap flowers to my Lucky banner, and look how cute!!

The burlap flowers add so much!!

Pretty sure that burlap flowers have changed my life.

Filed Under: banner, burlap, St. Patrick’s Day

I have been so excited about this project!! I was going to post this tomorrow, but I can’t wait. I have been working hard on these little guys and gals: My little burlap bunnies. I saw this idea in Little Green Bean’s Etsy Store. I knew I had to give this a shot!! So here is a little tutorial:

You will need:

Burlap – I used scraps, so I’m not sure how much.

Sewing machine, pins, tan thread, and other sewing supplies.

Dry beans for stuffing.

Black acrylic paint.

Pink distressing ink.

Buttons, fabric strips, or other embellishments.

1. I cut 2 pieces of burlap. I did not measure, but I tried to make my pieces tall and long.

2. I cut a “V” shape in the top of each piece for the bunny’s ears. Then I matched them up and pinned.

3. I sewed up a little bunny sack to stuff with dry beans. I did not sew any part of the ears yet. So I started just across from the bottom of the V (does that make sense??) and sewed 3 sides and stopped, leaving plenty of room to sew up the ears later. Hopefully the diagram helps make sense of that.

4. Next, I clipped my corners and turned the little bunny sack inside out. I bought the cheapest dry beans I could find, and poured the beans in. I didn’t stuff them TOO full because I wanted to leave room to sew these up in the next step. (I still had beans pouring out… this is why I chose beans and not rice!)

5. Alright, ladies. If you are extremely talented and have a very capable sewing machine, you could attempt to sew gathers in burlap. I broke off a sewing machine needle trying to do this. So plan B: I sewed straight across the top of my bunny sack and used my ribbon/fabric scraps to gather them. Then I sewed around each of the ears and trimmed them to my liking. I love that my tan thread was virtually invisible.

6. Paint and embellish. I painted the faces using black acrylic paint. I realized that painting the face lower than I might think turned out the best so it didn’t get lost in the “scrunch” when I gathered it. Using a find Sharpie, I added a few details like whiskers. I used pink distressing ink (I think it was called “Worn Lipstick”) to add a little blush to the bunny’s cheeks and the insides of his ears. Embellishing was the fun part. I bought NOTHING for this project… just used all scraps and stuff around the house. I love scrap projects!!

Ta-dah! I found this cute basket and threw in some Spanish moss. These three pals are on my mantel.

Here are a few close-ups:

This bunny is my favorite. (He was my model for most of the photo shoot!)

Meet Bunny-zilla. I wanted one fat bunny, but I guess I went a little overboard.

There are still 2 more that need finishing touches. I went bunny-crazy for sure!!

So what do you think?!

Filed Under: burlap, craft, Easter, holidays, sewing Tagged With: burlap bunnies

Lucky Pillow

March 4, 2010 3 Comments

Remember my lucky banner? Well, I just couldn’t resist making a matching pillow!!

This was the easiest sewing project of my life. And I just realized that when you sew burlap by hand, your stitches can look atrocious!! As long as you use matching thread, it blends right in. Yet another reason to love burlap!!

Filed Under: burlap, sewing, St. Patrick’s Day

Lucky Banner

March 1, 2010 4 Comments

There is a burlap craze going on right now. I admit, I needed another project to feed my own burlap addiction! And tis the season for green burlap. Isn’t it lovely?!

So I took a piece of cardstock, created a triangle, and used that as my pattern. I cut out 5 triangles. *Don’t forget the secret to cutting out burlap, at least when you’re cutting parallel to the fibers, is to pull out one of the fibers where you want to make your cut. Much cleaner and fewer fuzzies!! I love that trick. I learned by watching those talented ladies at JoAnn’s.**

I used my cricut to cut out templates for my “Lucky” letters. It took me forever because my cricut mat wasn’t sticky, and the freezer paper kept tearing, but I figured out a solution, and we’ll address that on another day!! Anyway, don’t you love the cute font?! It’s one by DJ Inker’s.

I ironed my freezer paper, smooth side against the fabric, to the center of my burlap triangle, then ironed another piece of freezer paper to the back side. I used white paint to paint over my template next. I was afraid it wouldn’t look truly white on the dark green burlap, especially with such large fibers. So I gave it plenty of coats–probably too many, I realized, once it had dried. Oh well, nice white letters I have!

I wanted to hang it with twine, so I used hot glue to glue down the twine across the back of the top of each triangle.

I folded the top over, hiding the burlap. A bit of hot glue squeezes through. But no biggie.

Ah… so lovely. Burlap, banners. Two of my favorite things in the whole world! (It will be nice to have a larger mantel. Someday.)

Linking up to

Filed Under: banner, burlap, holidays, St. Patrick’s Day

Christmas in January!

January 18, 2010 Leave a Comment

Alright I admit it. I completely failed at a crafty Christmas. Somehow, being out of town for a week over Thanksgiving really put me behind. By the time we got back, unpacked, did the laundry, etc., etc…. I just wanted to enjoy all of our holiday events without a stressful to-do list. I vowed to do my crafty projects AFTER Christmas. And craft I did–all through the first 2 weeks of January. I hit up the after-Christmas sales to buy all my supplies and got some killer deals. It’s not a bad way to go. Maybe I’ll do this every year! So every day this week, I’ll be sharing a Christmas project that I just finished.

I saw this fabulous idea at Shanty2Chic for these J-O-Y plaques. She has a wonderful tutorial that I followed pretty closely. Here’s how mine turned out:

Be sure the guy at Home Depot who cuts your scrap wood cuts them STRAIGHT! Dare I point out that my “O” is slightly crooked. Oh well, it gives it a little personality, right?!

The base is just a wooden circle with a wooden candlestick. Using gorilla glue, I glued those parts together, then glued on the wood piece, a 1 x 4 that was about 6-7 inches long. I just used a wooden circle on top as an accent, although the tutorial used a lovely wooden finial. After gluing all pieces together, I gave it quite a few coats of black spray paint. Then, I roughed up the edges with sand paper for a rustic look.

I used my fabulous-new-Cricut-machine to make a stencil and painted the letters onto burlap with black acrylic paint. I used some black carpet tacks to secure the burlap onto the wood. I love the natural look of burlap.

** Be very careful while sanding and applying force to tack in the burlap. I think I re-glued my pieces 2 or 3 times each… and that was using Gorilla Glue, the toughest stuff there is! But that’s just another one of my “oopsey’s” for ya!

So there you have it… my lovely J-O-Y plaques. I can’t wait to get these out next year to decorate! I’m almost in the Christmas spirit again…