Things I Can Actually Sew II

Anther post!  I love Christmas break!  Alright, so my my first installment of novice sewing tutorials was pretty popular so I thought I would do a part II with some more projects that I have taken on recently.

First of all I would like to share some sew-in labels that I made with my Silhouette Portrait.  Some time ago I made these iron on labels.

I decided that I needed some sew-in labels for things like scarves and smaller items.  I used the sketch feature and the same font on the sew-in labels and then put a simple dashed border around the words. I then reflected the image so that when I folded the labels the words would be printed on both sides.  Here they are on some of my burp clothes. 

I have been kind of crazy with the burp clothes lately but I want to have a supply on hand for when I find out that someone is having a baby

I have found that pretty much every fabric looks cute as a burp cloth!

The first tutorial that I tried was a king crown.  I teach music at a Christian school and a Nativity pageant is a part of my big Christmas program every year.  A few years ago, one of my students stepped on the plastic crowns for the wise men and broke them.  I decided to replace them with felt crowns.

I used this tutorial from the blog Small Things.

The tutorial tells how to insert elastic into the crowns but I wanted to make them really adjustable since I will have different kids playing the wise men each year.  I decided to put velcro on the backs.

I then added some glittery gold trim along the bottom and some plastic gems.  They looked so cute on my wise men this year! I am looking forward to using them for many years to come.

Next up is actually a sewing project that I created sans tutorial.  My classroom gets super dusty and my xylophones would be covered in dust no matter how many times I dusted.  My cooperating teacher for my student teaching had some adorable dust covers for her xylophones and I wanted to create some for mine.  I couldn't find a tutorial online so I decided to make it up.  I looked at a few tutorials for ironing board covers since the idea is basically the same.  I did have process pictures but since this project was actually completed this summer, they were lost with my old mac book.

Basically, I measured the tops of my xylophones with the bars on, added about 2 inches on each side to the dimensions and then made a casing for elastic.  Super simple and super cute.  Oh and I suppose I should share some pics of my classroom while I am on this subject.

The color scheme in my classroom is orange, blue, and brown.  Also, I am obsessed with owls so you can find them throughout my classroom.  The only thing you can't see from these pictures is the front of the room where I have my two white boards (one lined and one not) and my piano.

The third sewing project that I want to share is a tutorial for napkins.  This is my kind of project because it involves straight lines which I am good at sewing most of the time.  The only tricky part was the mitered corners but I found a couple of tutorials that made it super simple.  The first method that I tried was from the blog No Big Dil found here.  The second one that I tried and the one that was easier for me was from a blog that has an expired domain name but it involved pressing and then trimming the corners and pressing the corners and then the edges to create the mitered corner.  I included the first tutorial because you might find that one easier.

I made two sets of napkins from some fabric that I found.  So easy and so classy.

I may actually get one more post in before this break is up.  My husband and I are hosting our third NYE party so I hope to write a post with some decorating and food ideas.  We'll see what happens.