Tag Archives: how-to

Pillow Meet Pillow Case

14 Thursday Nov 2013

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I’ve been making my bed for years.  Weekly I suck it up and strip down the dog hair covered linens and replace them with crispy clean new ones.  For my entire life I’ve put pillow cases on one way.  I grabbed the end with my teeth (some folks put them under their chin but I wasn’t one of them) and then forced the pillow into the sack and then violently shook it with all my might.  It didn’t work well and I nearly gagged each time I did it.  Still I stubbernoly continued doing that specific chore that way for years.  That was until I figured there had to be a better way.  A way that took less time and didn’t cause me to want to throw up.  Logically I knew there was no way every maid on the planet was making beds this way.  It was just too horrific.  I Googled other ways to do it and although they seemed super simple I couldn’t figure it out.  I used what I could from the tutorials and put together a signature move.  The Wendy Lobster Shimmy.  It is the best way to make naked pillows less naked!  (I realize people have been probably been using this method for years but I don’t care … it’s mine).  Here is what you do:

* Grab your pillow case and turn it inside out.

* Push your hands in and grab the two end corners from the inside.  Making lobster claws.

* Use your lobster hands to grab two corners of your pillow

* Flip the pillow case over.

* Shimmy it down!

Ta Da!  Confused.  No worries I made a tutorial video for you.  I look horrible in it so you are lucky I’m sharing it with you.  After watching it I thought about putting on make-up and shading, getting better light, finding a better location, and locking away the dogs.  All that seemed like a lot of work and I had already tried two takes so I wasn’t doing it again.  Please pretend I did …

Take 1:

Didn’t teach you much did it?  No worries here is take two (proof I need a professional make-up artist/team … and yes Asscher is humping me … she was excited by the entire production).

Take 2:

 

Self Binding Receiving Blanket – How-To

04 Monday Nov 2013

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Asscher and Riggins model.

Asscher and Riggins model.

I tricked you again!  This isn’t really a step by step how-to since those are boring to write.  Instead I’ll just link you to the ORIGINAL how-to that I used.  You are way better off getting instructions from that lady than me.  Believe me.

This past weekend I went to a friends baby shower.  I’m not good at baby showers.  I never have been but it has gotten worse in my old age.  I don’t know if it is all the pastels (this party theme was “Breakfast with Tiffany” since the mother-to-be’s name is Tiffany so the colors were pretty cool), or maybe the overwhelming scent of flowers everywhere.  Perhaps it’s the silly games (games at yesterday’s function were painless … we have gone to/thrown a lot of these and have all learned) or the claustrophobic nature of oodles of women crammed into a small space.  If I’m being honest the entire event just leads to me being sad.  If you are a single with no children woman, like myself, baby showers can be somewhat torturous.  Thank goodness all your friends are around and it’s a joyful occasion or it would be too overwhelming.  Me?  I head right for the booze in a “Don’t (Note cupcakes.)mess with me just pour the champagne sans orange juice before my jealousy causes me to go insane and dive head first into those carefully displayed cupcakes!”  That’s right mothers-to-be if you want to know what your single/no children girlfriends are thinking during the festivities its pure jealousy calmed only by the soothing love of alcohol.  I suppose I may be the only person on earth who feels this way but I doubt it.  Perhaps I’m the only one who admits it.  

Still … baby showers are a happy time and even in my state I can see how overwhelmed with joy the mommy is.  Plus a friend’s baby shower gives me a reason to get out the sewing machine and be crafty.  THAT I really love!  (There is a JoAnns opening in my hood this Friday … I’m giddy.  I’m not going to be in town for the opening which kinda bums me out.  I bet it will be fabulous.)

photo 2 (1)My mom had recently made some receiving blankets for a friend and told me about them.  She had me at “self-binding.”  If you have ever made a baby blanket of any kind you know the binding is a real pain in the butt!  This blanket is “self-binding.”  THAT is something to celebrate.  

My mom and I carefully picked out material.  Of course I headed straight for the dog themes, as if there was any other choice.  My mom asked if the guest of honor like dogs and I said, “sure … who doesn’t?”  Since I felt bad for forcing my theme onto my friend I also picked out one just for her.  Because of my dog obsession my friend would get two blankets.

When I was ready to get started on the blankets I watched this how-to video.  HOW EASY IS THAT?  It’s kinda brilliant.  Self binding … and the corners … loving it!  Oddly enough it was as easy as the nice woman in the video made it seem.  The blankets turned out great and I HIGHLY suggest you give this a try.  It’s super fun and the result is an amazing burrito baby blanket!  Not just for babies … you can make them for anyone.  My mom photo 3made one for my sister’s puppy!  I love anything that can be marketed to both dog parents and human baby parents.  They are the two craziest of consumer groups and are goldmine!

To finish off the blankets, and make it painfully obvious they were handmade by yours truly, I added a couple little tags safety pined to each.  Everyone loved them and since you are in charge of the fabric choices you can control the colors and theme. Creativity at it’s finest!

There you go!  Get to sewing.  I’m off to take MY babies (Riggins and Asscher) for a walk!

  

10 Minute Table Runner – Hot Tips

14 Monday Oct 2013

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photo (20)I wrote about the 10 minute table runners before.  In fact before sitting down at the sewing machine this weekend I re-read the blog post to make sure I remembered what I was doing!  The 10 minute table runner really is an easy and fun thing to make.  You can find the how-to here.  After making four of these I feel like I’ve become an expert and can share some important tips with you.

  • Fabric choice is key.  Avoid anything with straight lines or straight patterns.  Why make it harder on yourself.  Random patterns mean you don’t have to worry as much that you cut and sew at a perfect angle!
  • The brighter the better.  Bright colors will distract viewers from looking too close at your sew line and any holes from sew lines that didn’t make it and had to be ripped out with a seam ripper.
  • Have your mom cut your fabric for you with her quilting equipment.  Cutting something so it is perfect is a pain in the butt.  I suggest you don’t do it if you don’t have to.
  • 10 minutes is a big fat lie.  I’d say closer to 30 minutes and that doesn’t count getting the sewing machine out, threading the machine, getting the fabric cut correctly, etc.
  • Pins and the iron are your friend.  This is definitely a project where prep helps you out in the long run.
  • You’ll notice the instructions suggest use of a button while the one I made this weekend has tassels (made by my talented mother as if we were full Amish and don’t buy into silly store-bought niceties).  The button can cover up mistakes with lining up the two sides of your runner while the tassels are easier to sew on (just stick them in, tassel side inward, and sew at the same time you are sewing the sides together).  Pick your poison.
  • photo (19)Cursing usually helps any and all negative sewing situations you may find yourself in.
  • Longer stitches are easier to take out if you make a mistake.  It isn’t like you are sewing the crotch of some pants that need to be sturdy.  It’s a table runner.  It just has to sit on a table and look pretty.
  • It doesn’t matter how long you take trying to make the sides of the runner perfectly even.  They never will be.  Don’t sweat too much over it.  This is the step which usually takes me the longest and I have yet to get those stupid sides as perfect as I want them.

With these hot tips the 10 Minute Table Runner is pretty fun to make.  What are you waiting for?  Head on down to the fabric store and pick out some fancy material!

(Note – My mom found and purchased this fancy fabric for me.  Isn’t it brilliant?!?)

Stuff I Made

07 Monday Oct 2013

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I can’t really consider this post a “how-to” since I’m not telling you how to make these crafts.  It’s more of an announcement:

LOOK AT THE COOL THINGS I MADE FRIDAY.

photo 1 (4)More Animal Wine Glasses – First of all we have to have a moment of silence for my Asscher wine glass (honoring my golden retriever daycare baby) that I made for myself.  I used that one the most so, of course, it was the first to be broken.  Boo!  Now that we have taken the appropriate amount of time to mourn that loss to my wine cabinet … One of my good friends, Michelle, had her birthday celebration this weekend.  Luckily for me it was at a winery so I could easily them my gift around that.  Recently Missy had to say goodbye to her photo 2 (5)adorable pug mix, Buddy.  He had a wonderful long and loving life with her.  It didn’t take long for Missy to realize that her cat, Romeo, needed another dog playmate (as did she).  She adopted a long-haired dachshund mix from the newly opened NKLA (No Kill LA).  I decided to decorate her glasses in honor of her current and former pets who have given (and give) her so much joy.  I have written a “how-to” on this already so check it out – here.

photo 3 (3)Doggie T-Shirts – In other dog news my sister and her family got a new puppy!  There were down this weekend to pick him up.  He is an 8 week old weimaraner named Captain Shadow.  My young nephew loves pirates with all his heart (I suggested to get him over that phase we take him to see Captain Phillips but no one else seems on board with that idea) that’s where the “Captain” comes from.  I’m not sure were “Shadow” comes from.  Maybe because he is silver … you will have to ask my sister.  I decided my niece and nephew needed a t-shirt that featured their new puppy!  I hadphoto 4 (3) some left over printable t-shirt transfer paper from a project I did 10 years ago.  I’m sure the age may make the t-shirt design less durable but I had it in my drawer so I used it!  Between clearance and the new Cartwheel app I was able to get grey t-shirts for $3 each at Target.  Woo hoo!  I figured it wouldn’t take me long to whip up a design.  I was wrong.  I decided the dog needed a pirate hat on him I don’t really have great picture manipulating software so it took me a bit to figure out how to do that on paint.  Longer than I care to admit.  Then I had to remember how to flip all the images (you have to do that when you transfer onto light colors).  The entire process took longer than I expected but I finally finished!  I’d explain how exactly I did it but, to be honest, I forgot.  Sorry!

Happy crafting!

A Statement Piece – How-To

30 Monday Sep 2013

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A few weeks back my friend Dee Dee sent me to this website – HERE.  Along with the suggestion that we get on that fast!  Just a week or so later my friend Esther received this for her birthday:

photo (11)

It was a sign!  It was really two signs, that I needed to get the glue gun out and make some flower headbands!  I just needed a reason … then I remembered the perfect occasion.  Our friend Tricia’s birthday party was this past weekend.  A few of us couldn’t attend the actual gathering so went Hollywood bar hopping with her instead.  The ladies involved and the location was the perfect storm for gigantic flower headbands!

photo 1A little about me.  I live for “statement pieces.”  When I had a much more exciting life and went out more I would wrap myself in ribbons or a hat or a giant flower or …..   I love it!  What is the point of going out if people aren’t going to stare at you.  That’s my philosophy!

Off to Michael’s I went.  The flowers that were used for my friend Esther’s Frieda Kahlo inspired headband were super fancy roses.  I found them … they were $10 EACH.  I don’t care how pretty the flower is I’m not spending ten bucks on it!  Luckily for me the fall flowers were on sale and it was easy to find a few bundles that were well priced and pretty.  For the birthday girl I went a little fancier and got a softer color.  Me?  I’m not a soft color type of gal!  I want primary colors and I want them to be bold!

photo 5After a quick stop at Rite Aid (or something similar) to grab a bundle of basic headbands I headed back to my house to get the glue gun turned on.  Then I watched the premiere episode of Grey’s Anatomy that I had recorded earlier in the week.  That gave my glue gun approximately 1 1/2 hours to heat up to a temperature that could have the gun second as a spot welder.  I have the old fashion glue gun that spits out molten lava and causes me to scream FUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK on a fairly constant basis while using it.  The instructions on the site say to pull off the photo 4flower head from the stem and cut of the little stem that is left.  Don’t do that.  That little stem is what holds everything together.  Do pull off the flower head and just leave it at that.  Then grab your hot glue gun (aka tool of torture) and glob it on the flower.  I had to hold the flower in place, above my head, up to the ceiling fan to get it to set faster.  It is a little bit of a pain in the bum but not horrible.  Just keep piling giant flowers on your headband until you are satisfied.

Oh I forgot …. I covered the headbands with photo 2 (1)a strip of ribbon first.  I figured it would be prettier and would give the flowers something to stick too.  I had purchased a combo pack of headbands so each were a little different.  The ribbon helped unify them plus gave the super skinny headbands more real estate to work with.

After all were made I looked in awe at my creations.  They are BEAUTIFUL and were a big hit.  I was asked by folks more than once that evening where photo 3they could purchase one for themselves or their girlfriend/wife.  Yes they are big.  Yes they are bright.  Yes they are perfection!  Totally worth the multiple burns on my fingers and toe (yes I got hot glue on my toe) and the giant chunk of skin missing from my ring finger (if you get hot glue on you don’t pull it off … I repeat … don’t pull it off).  I’m sure it won’t be the last time you see pictures of me with giant flowers adorning my head like a mysterious fairy crown!

Birthday Crown – How-To

27 Tuesday Aug 2013

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image (8)I suspect you can take one look at the picture of the birthday crown I made for my friend Paul this weekend and think, “got it … no need to tell me how to make it … pretty self-explanatory.”  Alas that would make for a pretty boring “how-to” blog post.

Let’s start from the beginning.  My friend Leslie sent out an invite for a surprise dinner birthday party for her husband, Paul.  As a good guest I rsvp’d and put the info on my calendar.  What I failed to do is read the invite itself.  I’m pretty good at waiting until the last-minute to do that.  During my Saturday morning walk I went through my closet in my head searching for appropriate dinner attire.  I was thinking we were going to a swanky place in Hollywood so something LBD-ish would be good.  I figured out a couple of options and decided I’d wear the one that was cleanest.  Later in the afternoon I was laying on my bed heavy signing at having to squish into a pair of spanx in a few hours.  It was then I finally decided it was time to read the invite.

image (6)Turns out there was no swanky dinner in Hollywood.  This was actually a family friendly dinner at a BBQ joint/sports bar in Burbank.  I mentally stuffed my spanx back in the drawer and got to work.  The new location offered many more options not only for my limited wardrobe but also for special birthday gifts.

Since I have no money (sigh … someone find me a non-sales job … please) I decided I’d make Paul something special.  A birthday crown seemed like the obvious choice.  Looking at this specific royal head-gear you may be thinking, “what egotistical weirdo would want a picture of himself on his head all night?”  The answer is … everyone I know.  We are all pretty happy with ourselves.  To be honest it’s really a shock we don’t walk around with our favorite picture of ourselves plastered to our forehead at all times.  It’s just who we are.  Since it was Paul’s b-day I thought he had the right to actually do just that.

Here is the obvious how to part:

  • I took an appropriate patterned piece of scrap-booking paper.  Stiff-ish kind.  12 x 12 and cut it in half.
  • I didn’t have time to wait for glue and honestly I didn’t really trust it so I taped the two pieces together.  If you plan ahead you could get some of that colored duct tape and use that.
  • photo (6)Using my head as a template I taped up the other side of the crown.  I was really guessing at the correct size.  I figured his head was bigger than mine so went with that.  If you don’t have your subject right there to fit the crown on as you make it I suggest taking along a pair of scissors and more of your tape (scotch or fancy duct) just in case you need to make some last-minute changes.
  • After printing out a picture of the birthday boy and gluing it to the crown I realized the entire thing was a bit too tall.  Learn from my mistake and cut to the desired crown height before piecing together.  I had to take scissors and cut around the top.  Since I used a blade cutting thing to do other other paper cuts the top was a little uneven and not as nice as it could have been.   Tip:  I printed pictures straight from my subjects Facebook page.  I didn’t have any faith that the quality would be any good but I was wrong.  It worked well and I always figure if I use pictures that they posted then they have already approved it for public viewing!
  • I printed out some “diamonds” and a “Happy Birthday” message on blue scrapbooking paper, cut it all out, and glued it all down (I used normal glue).
  • Finally I had to control myself from covering the entire thing in sparkles.   Since it was for a man I figured he wouldn’t be too happy as pixie dust rained down on him from the sparkly crown on his head.  To give it a little more shine I took some sparkle star paper and made a small strip to decorate the bottom of the crown.

image (7)TA DA!  There you go.  Of course you can go crazy decorating your birthday crown and I highly suggest sparkles for anyone that can handle it!  If you don’t have the same type of friends I do you can always swap out the picture for a number or even a big ol’ diamond.

To finish off Paul’s present I made him a magnet from a family photo (when I gave it to him the glue was dry unlike when I took the picture here).  Unfortunately two of his children aren’t in the picture.  I just couldn’t find one on Facebook with all of them.  I suggest they sit down for a Wendy picture-taking session … STAT!

(Yes I made everyone at the party put the crown on and took a picture of them.  I did miss out on 3 of the kids.  They were in power sugar mode and I couldn’t pin them down long enough!)