DIY Chalkboard Mat

Making a chalkboard mat is probably one of the easiest things ever and it will only take you 10-15 minutes. I made these for my nieces and they are absolutely adorable!

You'll need:

1 18" x 14" Rectangle of blackboard/chalkboard fabric (I found mine with the utility fabrics at Joann's and it came with instructions on how to primer it before use)
6 1/2" x 7 1/2" Square of cotton fabric (I used the same fabric as the rectangle)
A couple of pieces of big chalk or a whole box of little chalk whatever you desire

1 18" x 14" Rectangle of cotton fabric

Let's Begin!
I made two of these mats and am going to teach you the easiest way I figured out how to do it.
Start by safety pinning the square of fabric on to the bottom left corner of the blackboard rectangle exactly like this:

I found that I liked the look of the end product better if I pinned the square up a little from the bottom and not even with the bottom or sides. Now you can  pin the rectangle of cotton fabric onto the other side of the chalkboard fabric like this:

 I found it made it way easier to sew around the rectangle first. Then I sewed from the left side of the square to the right side going around the bottom and leaving the top open. This is where you are going to put your chalk.
Guess what? You're done! That's it! All you have to do is roll it up and wrap a pretty ribbon around it. Here is what mine looked like in the end and I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

DIY Pinwheel Quilt Block Tutorial

Today I will teach you how to make a lovely Pinwheel Quilt block! These pinwheel blocks are the perfect addition to many of the quilts we have made and don't take very much time once you get the hang of it. We also love using precut Charm pack squares, as they are 5 x 5 inches and save you the time in cutting your own!

Materials needed:

- Two 5 inch x 5 inch square piece of fabric in solid white

- Two 5 inch x 5 inch square piece of fabric in pattern of your choice

- Rotary cutter and mat

- Pencil 

- Ruler

- 5 inch x 5 inch quilting ruler for cutting out squares (Amazon link) 

Two solid color white blocks along with two pattern blocks will create ONE pinwheel measuring 8.5" x 8.5" inches before trimmed.

Let's get started!

1. Gather all your materials

2. Take all your white fabric squares and using a ruler and a pencil, draw a diagonal line on ONE side of the fabric -- going from one corner to the other.

 

3. Using your 5" x 5" quilting ruler, cut out your white & patterned fabric squares (if not already using a Charm Pack). I needed to make 6 Pinwheels and I was using a white charm pack already so I cut out 12 5x5" blocks from my patterned fabric.

 

 

 

4.  Time to sew! Take one white square and one patterned square, right sides together, and your white fabric on top with side with your line facing up. You are going to use your pencil line as a guide, lining up your sewing machine foot with the edge of the line & sewing down one side of the line from corner to corner -- than flipping the square around and going down the other side. This means each square will have two sewn lines, one down either side of the pencil line.

5. Do this to all of your blocks - I typically like to chain stitch them all down one side, than once I get to the end, turn it around and chain stitch down the other side. This makes it easier for me to save all the clipping of threads until the very end and doing it all at once. In the end, this means that you will have a chain of pieces held together by the thread between them.

If you aren't familiar with chain stitching, it simply just means that once you get to the end of your very first block, you just simply put the second block under your foot and keep sewing. You don't clip threads and this saves time and thread. *see more here

6. Once you have done this to every block, clip all your threads. Take each block and using your ruler as a guide, cut straight down your pencil line with your rotary cutter - creating two triangles.

 7. Iron and press open each triangle.

8. Arrange your 4 same-patterned triangles to form a pinwheel shape. 

9. Take your top two triangles and lay the right on top of the left, right sides together & lining up the right edge. Sew down the right edge.

10. Open and press. Repeat with the bottom two triangles.

11. Now you have two rows. Lay out your two rows and place the top row right sides together, on top of the bottom row. Turn this to the right and sew down this right side. 

 

12. Unfold and you will have your sewn together pinwheel!

 

 

13.  Using your ruler and rotary cutter, square & trim down each side of the pinwheel block. Press one more time and voila! You are done! 

DIY Baby Carseat Cover Tutorial

I absolutely LOVE the carseat covers that are all the craze today. I had one with my first and second, but somehow it got lost and so I was in desperate need to make one for my third. They are super quick and easy to make and you can pretty much customize them however you want (round the corners, add buttons on the handles, add some ric rac etc) - but I wanted something simple, easy and basic that gets the job done.

I have a Graco Snugride from 2011 so this tutorial is based to fit that. Carseats are pretty standard size but my only recommendation would be that when it comes time for the velcro straps, if it's possible to measure the car seat for it to go on, I would do that to ensure proper fit.

Materials:
- SIDES : Two one-yard pieces of cotton fabric (1 yard for the top and 1 yard will be the bottom)
- STRAPS: 4 pieces of 3.5" x 6.25" cotton fabric
- Velcro
- Coordinating thread
- Iron
- Washable fabric Marker 


1. Cut out all your fabric piece and cut off any selvedge edges you may have.
 
2.  Take your inside and outside and lay them right sides together. Pin and sew around all edges, leaving a 3" opening on a side to flip it. Clip your corners and turn right side out.

3. Top stitch these two pieces together and iron flat. Set aside.

4. Now let's take your 4 fabric pieces to make the handles! I used pieces that were from a Jelly Roll, so they already had been cut with pinking shears so I chose to just to do a topstitch across them to sew all sides of them together. You could sew the strap pieces right sides together (like we did in step 2) and turn inside out if your fabric has raw edges.



 

5. Once topstitched, take your 4 pieces of velcro - sewing on one onto each top front and than the other one at the bottom on the back. This way your velcro will meet up around the top handle of the carseat and form a loop. 

6. Voila! Loops! Now, let's attach them to the cover we finished.



7. Lay out your cover & measure down 16" from the top of your cover and lay the top of your strap fabric right there. Measure over 10" from each side and place your strap. This should give yourself  about 9" between your two fabric straps (from inside left strap to inside right of strap). Sew a 1/2" single rectangle to attach each strap, so we now measure down 3" from the top of the fabric strap and using your Mark B Gone market, draw a 1/2" square. Pin and sew your square outline (don't mind that my outline looks huge - just do 1/2 ") ;)

8.  Once the square is sewn in the middle of your straps, your carseat cover is ready for use! I outlined my squares for you because it's hard to see ;)

Once I finished this one, I made a few additional ones from other fabric I had too! Overall, they took me about 20 minutes each and make perfect baby shower/new baby gifts for friends!

DIY Reusable Snack Bag Tutorial

Reusable snack bags are a great (and easy!) way to keep from throwing out lots of Ziploc bags. In our case, I have a little toddler who has snacks in the car & so I decided to give it a try. This bag was SUPER easy and only took about 10 minutes or less - especially once I got the hang of it.

You can use a few different fabrics for these bags - Oilcloth, laminate cotton or even choose to laminate fabric yourself. The reason I give you these specific fabric options is because these fabrics don't fray, are waterproof and EASY to cut!

In this case, I chose oilcloth. It's not the cheapest fabric to buy by any means. I got mine off of eBay but I have been told that you can find it at Joann's download the app and use the coupons to get the best deal on it. Once you have your oilcloth, lets get started!

Materials:

INSIDE: Oilcloth cut to 6" X 7 "

OUTSIDE: Oilcloth cut to 6" x 8.75"

TAB: 1.75" x 1.75" piece of ribbon, oilcloth or fabric

VELCRO: Two 4" pieces of hook & loop sew-on Velcro

Quilting clips 

1.  Cut out all your fabric pieces.



2. Take your smaller (inside) piece and lay out your velcro and I didn't quite align it with the edge, but I got super close. I made sure to use the stiff piece of velcro here on the inside piece, so that way I can attach the soft part to the top and little hands don't get scratched getting in and out of the bag. I use quilting clips to hold these pieces together since I don't want to puncture the oilcloth in any way. You can use bobby pins, binder clips etc. to hold - whatever will hold but not put holes in your bag. 



3.  Once you have your inside piece clipped on, take your outside piece and lay it face down. Fold your tab piece in half & lay your tab against the edge, pattern face down.


4. Lay your inside on top of the outside piece to line up where you should put your velcro. As you lay down the velcro, make sure that the tab is UNDERNEATH the velcro & make sure to also clip your tab down with the sewing clips so it will catch once you start sewing.


5. Take your two pieces and sew the velcro on to each piece and your pieces should look like this.

6. Put right sides together and clip with your quilting clips. You are going to sew around the 3 sides where my clips are, back stitching at the tops.


7. Once you finish sewing the 3 sides, than your fabric should look like this.

 
8. Clip your corners, turn inside out and Ta da! You're done!

This bag will hold quite a few snack crackers and it's perfect for little ones! If you make another one, you can experiment with sizes (depending on what you use it for) and you can also measure a Ziploc sandwich bag to get the size, if you were wanting one for a sandwich.