Applique Towel Tutorial: Again!

As you can tell from yesterday's post, I am currently SUPER busy! So, I decided to repost one of my very first tutorials. I thought my applique towel tutorial was very fitting since I am currently sponsoring a fun giveaway for one over on Amanda's blog! Go enter! And then if you don't win, you can use this tutorial to make your own:)

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ORGINAL POST:

I have been having a ton of fun with appliques lately.

So I thought I would share some of my {non-professional} techniques, so you can make your own SUPER Cute Personalized Towel!

Start with a towel of your choice! I made one for each of my boys.

Henry's towel is blue

Grant's towel is green

Eli's towel is orange

Using my computer, I found a font that I liked and printed out an H, G, and E. {You can make the letter as big or small as you want.} You can use any font you like, but the simpler the font, the easier it will be to cut out and sew onto the towel. I cut out the letter, traced it onto some interfacing, and cut it out again.
Then I used spray adhesive and attached the cut out interfacing to my fabric of choice {make sure to attach the letter upside down so that the fabric will be on the top and the interfacing on the bottom}.
Next, I cut out the fabric letter and use more spray adhesive to attach the letter to the towel. This helps keep the letter in place so that it doesn't move around while you are sewing! The next step is to sew the letter onto the towel.
You can use either a zig-zag stitch or a straight stitch. I have tried it both ways, and they both work pretty well...it is really just a matter of preference. The zig-zag stitch is a little harder to master, but once you finish sewing you are basically done. If you want to do a straight stitch {which I did on these towels} you will have to wash the towel after you sew it, and then trim up any of the frayed edges with some scissors.
Basically with both stitches, you just follow along the outline of the letter to attach the fabric to the towel.
And you end up with a SUPER Cute Personalized Towel!
I hope this was helpful and maybe inspired some of you to get out your sewing machines! If you have any questions or need {non-professional} help with anything just let me know.

A Lot On My Plate...

Crafts to work on A birthday party to plan
Kitchen {whole house} to clean
Cupcakes to make

Laundry to be washed, folded, and put away

{Plus}

Bible study to attend

Two t-ball games to watch

Goodie bags to make

and a birthday lunch with Henry at school

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If I'm not around much for the next two days, it is because I have A LOT ON MY PLATE right now!

Wordless Wednesday: Pirate Cowboys

Magnet Board

We have all stainless steel appliances in our house. They look beautiful, but the one thing {besides the fingerprints} I have always hated was that my boys never had anywhere to play with magnets. When Henry and Grant were younger I would give them a cookie sheet and some magnets to play with, but that just was never as much fun as playing with them on the wall or on the refrigerator.So, I made my own magnet board for the kitchen {with a little TON of help from my hubby}.

SUPPLIES:

Sheet of metal

wood trim

spray paint

buffing compound

adhesive

I picked up the supplies for this project for around $20 at Lowes. The sheet of metal was around $10, the trim was around $6, the spray paint was $3, and Jason already had the buffing compound and the adhesive.First, we had to decide how big we wanted our magnet board to be. Ours was only going to be a little bit smaller than the precut pieces of metal at Lowes, so Jason brought it home and trimmed it down. I'm pretty sure that they will also cut it to size for you at the store.

Then, Jason cut the frame and I spray painted them with at least three coats of black. I knew there would be lots of little hands on this, so I wanted it to be as durable as possible.

Jason also used some buffing compound to polish the metal so it would be shiny. We used some spray adhesive to attach the metal to the side of the kitchen cabinet, and then we attached the frame to the metal piece using the same adhesive. You could also use screws or nails to hold the metal and frame into place depending on where you put it. Now the boys have a fun place to play with magnets, and because it is in the kitchen {but not close to the stove} they can play in the kitchen more while I am cooking dinner. Now maybe I can get my tupperware cabinet organized:)

A Whole Bunch of Not Much

Today, all I have the energy for is a random post of basically nothing. So here it goes.
We had a good Easter weekend. We stayed SUPER busy and ate way too much junk food and candy. Jason got a ton of stuff done around the house and in the yard. And I spent most of the day Saturday working on Eli's Easter suit. It turned out really cute, and my sewing skills have gotten so much better than the first time I made Henry a suit 5 years ago:) We went to the early church service, came home, and took a few pictures:


Then we ate breakfast, went to visit Jason's family, went to visit my family, and finally back home to take a nap. After a few hours on the couch, I got up and started cleaning my TOTAL wreck of a house. It is sort of cleaned up now...but I still have a lot to do. Mainly, fold the laundry from last week that is still living on the couch!

I did finish up a few other crafty things this weekend. I will post more about this really fun project tomorrow, when I have more energy:) Here is a little hint until then:

My bloggy friend Amanda is having a SUPER giveaway gala all this week, and today she is giving away one of my SUPER cute personalized towels! Go check out her blog and enter to win one of my towels today, and ton of other cute stuff the rest of the week!

I shared this on twitter one day last week, but I won an iPOD Shuffle this week!?! I was so excited! I have won some great stuff from blogs lately, but this is by far my biggest win! I have thought about getting an iPOD before, but just couldn't make myself spend the money on it because it wasn't something I just had to have! But now I am going to have one! YAY! Winning stuff always makes me want to give stuff away too, so be watching for a possible giveaway on my blog soon...maybe when I get to 300 followers:)

I also wanted to link up to this fun meme...just because I have some great pictures to go with her optional prompt of "Your kiddo's first big owie"!

This is Henry when he was almost one year old. I don't really remember exactly what happened, but I think it involved him running on the concrete and then falling head first. It was a huge raw spot on his head, so we coated it with Neosporin and covered it with a bandage.
This picture was taken a week after he first hurt his head, and there is still a pretty big mark {and a bunch of chocolate on his face from his Easter bunny}!

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Okay, I think I have been random enough for one day! Tomorrow I will be back to my normal stick to the subject blogging....I hope I didn't bore you too badly with my whole bunch of not much:)