Reverse Applique Kitchen Towels!

Today is the day for the $5 Dollar Store Spring Decor Craft Challenge!

I made a new entry last night! I have two other entries, but I think this one is my favorite. Gosh, I like the wreath too....

(Here are my other two entries: Spring Ribbon Wreath and Decoupaged Vase)

SO quickly, here it is so i can submit it! (EDIT: Also entering in the CSI Project Challenge!)

Pretty Reverse Applique Kitchen Towels!






On with the tutorial! To make, purchase two contrasting kitchen towels from the Dollar Store. (I love Dollar Tree!)



Lay flat, and pin right sides together.



Sew around the outside seam, leaving a space for turning.



Clip the corners before turning to reduce bulk, and iron flat.




Turn, and top stitch around the outside edge. (This should also close the turn opening, but if you like, whipstitch that closed)





Draw circles with a water soluble marker on one side of the now two layered towel





Turn the towel over, and draw circles on the other color, on the opposite side from the other circles.

Stitch around all the circles. Then stitch lines across the circles, dissecting it like pieces of an orange. Don't worry about it being perfect. You should have stitched circles on both ends of your towel.




With small scissors, carefully cut away the fabric from each wedge of the orange, cutting only through the top layer of fabric.














Keep cutting through all the circles.
Wipe or spritz away your water soluble marker and figure out how to hang your pretty new towel!

$5 Craft Challenge Entry and Stitchalong square

First, here is my stitchalong square for the day. Also featured with U for Umbrella are a few stray dog hairs. Nice!

Next --- I have another entry in the $5 dollar store Spring Decor craft challenge!
Decorative decoupaged vase! Here it is on our fireplace mantel. I put little decorative flicker lights in it and with the lights off they glowed like candles inside the vase and it looks SO pretty. I thought about using pretty tissue paper with more pastel Easter like colors, since this is a "Spring Decor" item . But we don't celebrate Easter at our house. If you do, and like this craft, try it with different colors of tissue paper. I think it will be beautiful that way.

So here is the tutorial!

First, gather supplies:

Purchased with my $5 budget at the Dollar Store.

1 small glass vase.

1 package of patterned tissue paper

(optional) 1 package of fake candle lights

--- Other supplies I had on hand -- scissors, Mod Podge, paintbrush.

IF you don't have ModPodge glue on hand, you can purchase white craft glue, like Elmers, and water it down a bit. But then go buy some Mod Podge! It's awesome, seriously. There is a fantastic website featuring all things Mod Podge -- here's the link!

Next step, cut the tissue paper into small pieces. These ended up being tiny rectangles about 1' on the long side. Some were bigger, some smaller. Then I cut up several small squares about a half inch wide, to fill in gaps later. These pieces will overlap and don't require perfection.

Dip your brush into the Mod Podge (Hey, there's the Spring wreath in the background!)

(My vase is on top of an old magazine to protect my table)

And paint the glule on the vase, slightly larger than the size of the tissue paper.

Stick a piece of tissue onto the glue.

And brush out any wrinkles with the brush. Adding more Mod Podge over the top of the square.

Paint more glue next to that piece, to prepare for the next piece of tissue paper.

And stick!

This one I decided to overlap the top a bit. So I smoothed it over with my fingers then back to using the paintbrush to smooth out wrinkles and add more Mod Podge.

Keep adding and overlapping.

I decided it was important to make sure the top rim was covered, so placed my tissue paper slightly over the edge, made sure there was Mod Podge to stick well, and smooth down with my finger and the brush.

Leave to dry.

After completely dry, add another coat of Mod podge if you wish.

Drop in your fake tealight candles and you're done! I wish I could get a shot of the neat glow from the lights.

There you go, a Spring Decor item crafted spending less than $5 at the Dollar Store. Hope you liked it!

$5 Spring Decor Craft Challenge Wreath

No picture for the stitchalong today. I will post one tomorrow!

I read about a nifty challenge here.

Basically, spend $5 (or less) at the Dollar Store and create a Spring Decor item. Participants are allowed to use some items they already have on hand. Post a tutorial, and link it to the site on March 25th.

(EDIT: Also entering in the CSI Project Challenge)

Here is my entry!

SPRING WREATH

(Turns out I have no wreath hook on my front door, so here it is on the kitchen wall!)

Now, I figure there will likely be a bunch of wreaths in this challenge. For some reason, blogger peeps seem to really like wreaths. I just hope there isn't another one with this idea. Inspiration came when I saw a similiar wreath for sale in a fancy boutique store here in Atlanta. It looked so yummy with pretty bright candy colored curls and it looked perfect for a birthday party. The pricetag, however, not so perfect. I googled a bit trying to see if I could easily find other wreath tutorials that look like this, and was relieved that I didn't find any. I just wanted my entry to be somewhat original and not something that everyone had seen before over and over.

Here is how I made my version.

First, gather supplies.

Wreath form (My local Dollar Tree had 3 sizes, I bought the small and medium ones and decided to use the small one as I wanted to make sure I had enough ribbon to finish and stay under the budget) Curling ribbon (I bought too much), a pair of scissors, and hot glue gun. the rules say you can use your own tools and glue. This particular glue gun actually came from Dollar Tree also, and they sell scissors, so even if you don't have these items on hand, you could get them at the dollar store and with 2 spools of ribbon, still be under your $5 budget!

Cut your ribbon into pieces between 12-16 inches long and curl them. (I used my scissors, but I think you can buy little gadgets that make curling SO much easier.)

Don't forget to curl the tail. I mean, when you grasp the ribbon and curl it, the part you held will still be straight, like so:

(Ignore the bad manicure. Ick my nails are gross)

Curl that end also. Keep going, curl like mad! Be a curling fool! (Will Canadians be naturally better at this? Haha - we love Canadians at our house. It's a whole story. Some other time.) Then stop and admire your bunch of curls.

Ok, time to start glueing. For this step, I recommend having a cup of tea. Gather your supplies:

Mmmmmm. PG Tips is the best.
OK, back to glueing.

Twist a few pieces of ribbon together in the middle, like so:

Apply hot glue to the wreath and stick them on. Note: You don't need much glue.

(In order to protect my dining table from errant hotglue, I used the lid of a plastic storage bin as my workspace.)

Don't worry so much about how it looks at the glueing spot, later curls will cover it. Feel free to be messy.
Keep glueing more ribbons. Sometimes I glued 4 at once, some just 1 at a time, filling in and alternating colrs as I worked around the wreath. If you go in one direction, this is easier. I worked my way up the wreath, trying not to forget to glue some around the sides to give the wreath dimension. .

Stop every once in a while and admire your progress:

About half way through, sigh with relief that you are still on your first spool of curling ribbon and have not somehow massively underestimated what you will need and will be able to finish. Also realize you could have made the bigger wreath after all and wonder if you will ever get to it.

And there you have it! A pretty Spring wreath! I tied a piece of the non-curled ribbon around to hang.

In the end, I used 1 spool of ribbon and actually had a little left over. So this project was just $2 in supplies = a wreath and ribbon. Way under the budget! A bigger wreath would use more ribbon, but hey, the $5 budget has lots of room! If you don't have them onhand, you can also buy a glue gun and pair of scissors from the dollar store, and the total budget is still just $4.

I can see this wreath as a cute decoration for a baby shower, or with more colors of ribbon as a festive decoration for a birthday party.

I gotta say, completing this $5 challenge makes me feel like a million bucks. I love the wreath, and am so happy I actually figured out something to enter. (Being Jewish all the Easter stuff was off limits for me.) I can't wait to see what everyone else came up with!

Woo hoo!