How to Make a Fabric Fairy House - a Refashion & Tutorial

You are in for a treat with this project, because although it took me a while to create, this fairy house now tops my list of favorite creations! So who is ready to have more fun than you can imagine creating this gem using a shrunken sweater, a corn meal container and a few odds and ends from around your house? 

Supplies needed:

• empty corn meal container
• X-Acto knife or box cutter
• embroidery floss: 2-3 shades of green, brown & beige
• felt or felted wool sweater (a shrunken sweater)
• 1 button (for door knob)
• beads - from old necklaces
• fabric water soluble marker
• 9001 Epoxy Glue, clear
• thread
• scissors
• small pieces of lace curtains or netting
• optional items: decorative bird and or butterfly (I purchased mine from a dollar store)
• green felt or felted wool for the leaves
• 3 pipe cleaners
• cut 3 pieces of green felt 7/8" x 13", cut one end of each piece like this: 
  

Download templates for the door, window and leaf foundation color patterns HERE and the basic house pattern HERE.  

Cut two fairy house leaf foundations from felt and one from stiff interfacing.

1.  Draw the door onto a corn meal container.
2.  Turn the container upside down, using a sharp box cutter or X-Acto knife, cut along the door lines.
3.  Tape the windows in place and draw around the window pattern.  
4.  Cut the windows out with the box cutter.

5.  Wrap the felted sweater around the container. Cut enough fabric so it goes around the container and add at least 3/8" for a seam allowance.  Cut the felted sweater as follows:

Now, pin the door onto the fabric and cut out the door opening.

6.  Pin the window pattern directly over the cut out on the container.  Trace around the pattern with a fabric marker.

7.  Cut a small hole through the back side of the fabric and cut around the traced pattern.

8.  Cut out the door from felt. With a fabric marker, trace the wood lines onto the felt.

9.  From old lace curtains (or netting) cut 3/4" overall larger than the window pattern.  Pin over the window openings and sew in place.

10. Using two contrasting colors of embroidery floss, chain stitch around the openings of the windows.

11.  Sandwich interfacing between the 2 felt doors and pin. Zig zag using various widths the wooden lines onto your door. 

12.  Finish the edge of the door with a blanket stitch.

13.  Stitch the fairy house together to form a circle. Using a straight stitch, sew the door to the left side facing on the door opening.

14.  Blanket stitch all the way around the door (I hand embroidered this area.).

15.  Pin the door over the cut out area.  Add elastic cording by machine stitching to the right side facing of the door 3" from the bottom. Add random beads around the door opening.  Hand sew a button for a door knob to the door.

16.  Sandwich interfacing between the fairy house leaf foundation and sew around the edge at 1/4". Now sew the centers of the leaves. See the pattern for all the leaf details. This pattern is the actual size of the foundation.

17.  Blanket stitch the felt around the pipe cleaner.  

18. Pin the leaves to the top of the fairy house.
19. Stuff the felt vines into the hole at the top of the house.
20. For the rose leaves, make a stem that you'll attach the leaves to by cutting off some of the "fuzz" from the pipe cleaner.  Then apply some tacky glue to the pipe cleaner.  Now, wrap reddish brown embroidery floss all around the pipe cleaner.  I wrapped 3 1/2" inches for my stem.  Add the rose leaves to your house and glue on a rose or two.  
21.  Put strong adhesive all around the outside edges of the corn meal container, especially the windows and door.  Pull the house over the container and press the edges into the glue.

22.   I added paper clips to the door area to hold the house tightly against the corn meal container.  Set the house aside and let the glue dry.
23.  Add the house onto the leaf foundation and pin in place.
24.  Sew the leaf foundation to the house.
25.  If desired, add a few additional extra leaves, a butterfly and or a bird to your house using your adhesive.

26.  Create several fairies and watch your child or grandchild have fun!  For fairy creating tips see THIS post.


This fairy house is for that child in your life that likes playing in a world of make believe. You can turn this into a darling night light by tucking an LED light through the door. Just look at the soft glowing light that comes through the little windows once the light has been added:

Take your house outside for a while and see if any fairies want to take up residence in this cozy, whimsical little home.

If you don't want to take the time to actually make a fairy house but love this one, please stop by my Etsy shop.  xoxo Grandma

Annie's Dress - a Refashion

A while ago, one of my friends mentioned that her daughter would love to learn to sew.  I've know this cute eight year old since she was a toddler. She's a darling, polite young girl and I love her and her family.  I was curious to see how hard it would be to teach a young girl this skill.  So, a few weeks ago, Annie came to my house for a lesson in refashioning.

Before we got together to sew this dress there was a little preparation which took place. First, I had her mother pin ideas for me to look at so I'd know what style she liked for her daughter.  Next, after selecting this idea, I needed something to refashion.  I found an extra large teen's dress made from soft blue chambray cotton for $4 from a local thrift shop. Lucky for us, it looked like the same fabric as the dress her mother had pinned.  From this dress, I cut off the arms and elastic. Then I took a pattern and the dress over to her house to see how this pattern might fit her.  As you can see from the above photo, this girl is not large, she's simply tall and skinny so we had a lot of extra width to take off of the original dress. Before she arrived for her lesson, I cut the dress out and pinned the seams together.  

Her mother suggested a flutter sleeve on the dress.  My pattern didn't come with this type of sleeve so I drafted my own pattern for it.  I used the original sleeves to make her new sleeves.

Once Annie got to my house for her sewing lesson, I discovered that she knew quite a bit about sewing.  She was careful, cautious and quick to learn.

Three hours later, this is what her new dress looked like:

My favorite part of making this dress with Annie was explaining to her about the alphabet on the sewing machine and how we could make our own special tag for her new dress. I know she liked making this tag and punching the right numbers to get the sewing machine to spell her name.

Last Sunday, Annie walked into class wearing her new spring dress.  She had the biggest smile on her face.  I practically melted seeing her wear it. There is a great satisfaction in helping others succeed. There is also great satisfaction in creating.  Wouldn't you agree?  xoxo Grandma

Linked to: Sustaining The Powers, The Dedicated House

A Bike Lovers Sling Bag

After making my first sling bag over the weekend, I realized I had enough materials on hand to make one more. This biking fabric was my inspiration for this sling bag:

If you want to make a sling bag too, go to Sugar Bee Crafts to get a copy of this free pattern.

This time around, I turned my black and white strip fabric diagonally before cutting out the basic fabric. I joined the side panel pattern pieces and made one large panel.  Then I got down to some serious fabric embellishing using hand and machine embroidery, ribbon and tiny silver rick rack for the bike's chain.  I love how using different embellishments transpose these hand drawn images into both a vintage and contemporary looking bike.  

I also added a large black button to the panel with the vintage bike and an enclosure loop to the other panel to keep this bag's contents inside.

To this bag, I added two pockets about the size of a cell phone onto the sides of the embellished panels. I know a lot of kids have cell phones but I'm betting my granddaughter would rather have her pockets filled with her favorite books and maybe even some crayons.

I'm really happy with the way my bike lovers sling bag turned out! Don't be surprised if I make another one of these bags, this pattern is just so much fun! xoxo Grandma

This project has been linked to Project Run and Play April project, Nap-time Creations, Crafty Allie.

You might also like these related projects:

Spring Sling Bag

Ocean Bag   

Spring Sling Bag

What says spring to you? Is it caterpillars emerging into butterflies, the color of green grass, flowers blooming or maybe it's a new bag with pockets? These are things I thought about as I designed this reversible spring sling bag.

This is the first sling bag I've ever made and only my second attempt at even making a bag.  This basic project was selected by Mandy with Sugar Bee Crafts as April's Project Run and Play project.  The pattern was easy and fun, so hop over to Sugar Bee Crafts and download your free pattern. 

To start off this project, I knew that pockets were an essential item to add to any bag so I added two pockets to my sling bag.  For the first pocket, I had a little fun using the Sharpie fabric art technique found HERE and added an image of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. To make the image pop, I also added a few embroidery stitches to this design.  The second pocket was taken from the bodice of a knit tee shirt which was left in my refashion pile. I loved the floral sewn design on the fabric and thought it would make a fun pocket on the black and white stripped side. I simply took a little of the knit fabric and finished off it's edge and sewed it onto the bag.  I also love the details the buttons gave to this pocket.

I love that the bag was designed to be reversible. 

If you decide to make this bag, here's something you may want to consider: turning the bag inside out is TRICKY! As I was turning the bag right side out, it was incredibly difficult to reverse it!  I'd cut the pattern down quite a bit because my granddaughter is a petite four year-old and the bag pattern was designed for a 9 year-old. Plus, I'd added bulk with the addition of the pockets. So, the entire time I was trying to flip it, I was thinking it wasn't going to work. Relief washed over me as I finally, FINALLY got it after much tugging. I agree completely with the directions as they state it's tricky to do this.  

I love this little spring sling bag and have already started another bag, which I'll show to you soon!  xoxo Grandma

This project made it to one of ten selected for voting, please go HERE to vote for it.  Thank you!

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Linked to: Nap-time Creations, Crafty Allie, Project Run & Play

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Birthday in Numbers

I just wanted to share the cutest letter idea for a child to send to their grandmother or grandfather for their birthday.  

The above letter was sent to me by my five year old grandson.  Before this cute boy was born, his mother used to teach calculus and trigonometry to high school students - she's quite the math wiz!  As you can see, she's still teaching. She's teaching some of the most important little people in my life.

I've deleted all the answers he came up with just to keep part of my life private, but I want you to know that this five year old calculated all the answers correctly, he takes after his mother. 

Share this idea with parents of little people. As you can tell, I was thrilled with my special birthday letter. xoxo Grandma  

Linked to Crafty Allie, Sustaining the Powers

30 Minute Stuffed Animal - a Refashion

Who wants to make the easiest stuffed animal ever?  I love quick projects and this refashion to make a stuffed animal is so easy, you may want to make more than one. Plus, keep reading to find out how you can use them to help a good cause! 

Start this project with a tee shirt that has an animal on it.  

Using a washable pen, mark 3/8" around the animal. This will be your seam allowance.

Along the marked seam allowance, pin around the inside of your markings and cut out the animal.

Now re-pin your animal together with the right side of the image on the inside. 

Sew a 3/8" seam all the way around the animal, leaving at least a 1 1/2" opening along the bottom or the side of the animal.  Clip curves and turn right side out. 

Stuff your animal with fiber fill.  Hand sew the opening closed. That's it!

30 minutes later, you'll have a darling stuffed animal. I told you this refashion was so easy!  

Please think about making a few of these or other softies and sending them to Sew Mama Sew by April 30, 2015. 

• 
  
• Ship to:  Sew Mama Sew, 13850 SW Bonnie Brae St., Beaverton, OR 97005, USA

The toys donated to this drive will be given to children in foster care.  I just love when we can use our sewing skills to help children in need, don't you?  
xoxo Grandma

Linked to:  Creating My Way to Success, Nap-Time Creations, Crafty Allie, Totally Tutorials

Make a Mini Beaver - a Refashion & Free Pattern

Did you know that April 7th is National Beaver Day? If you didn't know, don't worry. That just means you've got plenty of time to create this little mini beaver to help you and your child celebrate this day in style. I'm an Oregonian, so my beaver roots run deep! 

After creating this little guy, I found a tin for him to sleep in.  Then I made a mini woodland pillow and blanket. I also made him a pine tree to take to bed with him just in case he gets hungry in the middle of the night.  I just love little stuffed creatures that have their own storage containers, don't you?

I started this project with a wool sweater that was accidentally put into the laundry and not caught until it came out of the drier. Sadly, this sweater shrunk way too much to ever fit a normal sized adult! A shrunken wool sweater is perfect for making a beaver but if you don't have a shrunken sweater you can also use felt!

BEAVER UPDATE, you had until July 2nd to download this pattern for free. This pattern is now available for purchase from my Etsy shop.  The pattern is a steel for $2.50.  Once finished, this beaver measures 3 1/4" tall and is 2 1/2" wide. 

So more about why I created this little guy. Like I said above, I grew up in Oregon and that was our state animal.  It's also New York's state animal and Canada's national animal... Any other Oregonians, New Yorkers or Canadians reading this post? Whatever the reason, I hope you enjoy making a mini beaver or even a colony of mini beavers!  xoxo Grandma

Linked to: Sew Mama Sew, 6 Weeks of Softies, The Dedicated House, Threading My Way, Nap Time Creations, The Dedicated House Before & After, Sustaining the Powers, Creating My Way to Success

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