Camera Strap Cover Tutorials

Remember how a while back I mentioned that I was getting out of the Camera Strap Cover business? I'm finally starting to take that plunge. As much as I love the covers, I am ready to put on my big girl panties and start making the real deal!

You can find all of these and many more at Designs by Jessie Measurements:
•Length of strap - 45 inches
•Nylon Strap Length - 6 inches
•Width of fabric strap - 2 inches
•Width of Nylon strap - 1/2 inch

I understand that not everyone is going to want a longer strap, so I do have an alteration option. For only 5 dollars you can opt to have your camera strap altered. Length, width, extra padding etc.

I will also soon have options on the site to build your own strap. You will be able to choose, your length, padding amount, width, fabric, minky, and regular or quick connect ends.

There are several of these loaded in the shop right now, and will be more to come!



So now after you have seen the new item, its a little understandable on why I'm going to give out the secret to the other product. Lets face it. Its not much of a secret. All you have to do is google camera strap cover tutorial, and you will get pages and pages of tutorials. I have decided to narrow that down for you. These are some of my favorite.



Priddy Creations has an awesome tutorial, and what is unique about hers is she also shows you how to line it for a very clean finish. Tutorial~Picture is from Priddy Creations Blog~

This tutorial just came out a bit ago, but its so cute. I found this one on Moda Bake Shop Blog, Its by Brassy Apple. It uses charm packs from Moda. Tutorial ~Picture is from Moda Bake Shop Blog~Ohhh I love this next one. Make It and Love It is one of my favorite blogs for all kinds of sewing inspiration. She is the place I go and think.. I wanna be just like her when I grow up!!! Tutorial ~Picture is from Make it and love it blog~

The Design Sponge uses a handy dandy looping tool. Goodness .. 1000 covers later I wish I had bought one of those!!! Tutorial ~Picture is from design sponge website~

I do still have some camera strap covers available in the store I will be slashing their prices this week to get the last of them gone!

Fabric Label Tutorial

I'm feeling pretty sick today, and not wanting to snot on any ones order, I decided to work on the computer instead. I want to share the love, but not the deep and meaningful love if you get what I mean!!!

This is a tutorial that I have wanted to write for a while now. You can be a quilter, knitter, etc.. and this will come in handy. No matter what it is that you make in life, you will always want to label it, to make sure future generations know that it came from you. In my case, as my handmade one of a kind items are shipped out to the masses, I want to make sure to have my brand on them!

When I first started out, This was a big conundrum for me. Where to buy labels! So I searched and searched. You can find cheap ones, expensive ones, sew in, iron on, some with premade designs etc. After I ordered several different labels, I really wasn't satisfied with what I was getting.

A. Some reason my brand always looked a little skewered ..

B. The wait time was forever. I'm talking 2 to 3 mos for a pack of 36 labels!

C. The expense. I remember paying 35 dollars for a pack of 36 labels. That is a dollar a label folks.

As a small start up, I really didn't want to have to wait, or pay those huge costs, so I set out to learn how to do this myself!

Things you will need:

1 pack of Ink Jet Colorfast fabric sheets. You can find these everywhere, Hobby Lobby, Michaels, JoAnnes, Hancocks. They are a little pricey. For a pack of 10 it is around 25 dollars, so I always make sure to take a coupon with me. All the stores above usually have a 40% to 50% off coupon in the Sunday paper

A Printer with Ink. You may chuckle at that, but the first time I attempted this I had NO ink!

An Iron

And some sort of scissor or rotary cutter. Step 1. I actually used PSE to do this. But any program really will work. I opened up a 8x10 piece of paper (that is how big your fabric sheet is) design your label, then just copy and paste, copy and paste copy and past until you have filled your whole screen.


As I designed my own logo I had it on hand.

Once your satisfied with what you have, print out a test sheet on regular paper. You want to make sure your font is easy to ready and your spacing is on target.

These are from my old label..


Once you have printed out your labels on fabric paper, let them dry for 30 min. Then run them under cold water.

Lay carefully of paper towels and blot dry
Once they are blotted dry take them over to your ironing board and Iron them dry to set the ink.
Take a rotary cutter, or scissors and cut them out!

After your all cut you should have many labels!!! I usually do a pack of 10, I can get 25 labels on a sheet. That is 250 Labels for less than 20 dollars!!! Compare that to 36 labels @ 35 dollars? That is a big savings!

My new labels are fold. I think they look pretty professional, but I am also able to put my website on the back side

Quilt Binding Tutorial

Binding my quilt was something I was really afraid to do. You have just picked up your quilt from the quilters, they quilted this beautiful intricate design. You sweated, and bleed over your quilt top. Now you have to finish it. And you might hesitate a bit, at this final stage you really don't want to muck it up! You can also pay your local quilt shop between $50 - $75 to put the binding on for you. But why bother? That is money that can go for another quilt top!

So I have come up with a little tutorial to get you thru this.

Things you need:
1. Your rotary cutter
2. Your binding fabric (this could be special fabric you bought, or just scrap) I like to use the scrap fabric from my backing.
3. A walking foot
4. quilting pins

Instructions:

cut your fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips. You can cut these on the bias, but I tend to only cut my binding on the bias if I'm binding a scallop edge. But enough strips that It will make it 1 1.4 way around your quilt. Sew the ends together so you get one continuous 2 1/2 inch strip. This strip should go around your quilt 1 1/4 times.

Iron your strips in half long ways. One one end fold over the edge so it gives it a finished look. That end I will refer to as your tail end.

Take your binding strip. With the tail section in your hand Place it on the top of your quilt raw edge of binding facing out. Leave about 4 inches of your tail free and then pin the rest down to the quilts corner.

Sew a 1/4 inch seam to the corner of the quilt stopping a 1/4 inch from the corner

Back stitch to secure it.

Fold your loose binding to the right, creating a L

Fold the binding back over and align raw edge of binding with quilt top again and pin to secure.

Start in the corner, and sew 1/4 inch seam to next corner and repeat for all your corners. Stop sewing once get 6" from where you started

Once you get all around your going to come back to your tail section. Remember that you kept this loose? Measure your binding until it overlaps your tail section.

Encase the binding strips raw edge inside your tail section and finish sewing to your starting point.

Turn the binding over the edge to the back.

Making sure to hide the stitching lines, hand stitch around.

Stitch all the way around. Yes it takes some time, and its a bit awkward in the beginning. You will get your rhythm soon enough. Just put a fabulous movies in, or some great music and you will be finished in no time!
Binding with perfect Mitered corners!

Cake Balls!

I have a pretty big love hate relationship with Cake Balls. These things seem to get more popular every year about Christmas time, and well.. .every year I attempt to make them, and every year they are a failure. So I tried again this year with a few new strategies .. and guess what! They worked!!! whooohoooo. So I put together a little tutorial to help the other cake ball challenged people out there.

All you need Is a boxed cake mix, a can of frosting, some chocolate bark and some perseverance and determination. I also got a jar of Christmas sprinkles, trying to be festive and all that!

Ok. So you make up your cake like normal. Bake it, let it cool but not completely. While its slightly warm start breaking it up and using a fork, or a handy dandy little tool start crumbling it into fine crumbs.
Add one whole can of frosting. As I used red velvet cake, I chose the cream cheese frosting.
Mix it completely until it looks like this. I know not nice. This is where I usually gave up as I thought I messed the whole thing up by this point.

Ok.. so here is the thing.. I went out and bought a fancy dancy little scooper thing because after repeated failures I had already learned rolling these suckers in your hands is messy. And you start to doubt if you had done it correctly. And then you have to wash your hands every 4th one .. blah blah blah.. so I bit the bullet and spent 6 dollars and got this little scooper. Worked like a charm.

See... All even!

Big TIP: Put them in the freezer for 20 min!! It will so help you handle them better during the coating process

Melt up your bark.

Hint: Everywhere says you only need one package of bark, but honestly I think you need 1 and a half.

Thought: Think about this.... If you are dipping red into white what is really going to happen? You should be thinking about these things about now.
Ok, yes I'm a finger girl. busted!

Dip the bottoms of your balls in the chocolate. With chocolate side down put them on some wax paper to cool. Once I filled up the tray I actually put them back in the freezer.

Then grab those little suckers by the bottom and dip the tops. I tried rolling the whole thing around in the chocolate and it just didn't work for me. They ended up with a huge covering of chocolate and looked all lumpy and stuff. While the chocolate is still soft add your sprinkles.
All Pretty and finished up!

Now to be honest, things weren't all hunky Dorey like the pictures may suggest. Although I did make it past the texture issue of past attempts the melted chocolate caused me alot of problems.

If I ever decided to do the red/white combo again I will have to revise a few things. The red cake DOES bleed into the white chocolate and in the end you end up with pink chocolate.

So I would do the bottoms the same, dip and then let dry. but at that point I think I would thin out the chocolate a little bit, place the cake balls on a cooling rack and probably pour the chocolate over them, it would give it a more even look I think, and Prevent the red bleeding issues from dipping.

I'm interested in trying some German Chocolate Cake with some coconut shavings. Or a little bit of triple chocolate that I can add some whiskey to.. The possibilities!