Orange and Lemon Rolls-Or, When Life Hands You Lemons…

We just picked more than a bushel of oranges and lemons!  My parents have a backyard full of citrus trees.  The kids and I headed over and helped lighten the load of those poor trees’ branches.  They were gorgeously full!  I love how pretty trees are fully laden with their fruit! 

Such a great way to spend some time with my kids!  Outside, gathering fruit, helping each other….

So we’ve been busy making everything citrus that we can.  First up was lemon and orange juice.  As a crafter, I just could NOT throw all of that beautiful peel away.  So, as I juiced we cut the fruit in half and pulled the flesh out to save them as fruit cups.

Next, I added frozen dough to each one and let it rise.  I also made a citrus butter (just added lemon juice to melted butter, or orange juice for the orange rolls) to coat the tops with before I baked them up!  I just baked them like I would normal rolls.

Oh these smelled like heaven while they were baking!

 

My overall conclusion was that they were not as citrus-y tasting as I was hoping for.  Next time I will add way more lemon or orange juice to the butter!  They also needed extra cooking time because the bottoms (that were inside of the fruit cups) wanted to stay dough-y.  They were still all devoured in one day.  We love carbs in my house!

 

After we ate the rolls out of the fruit cups, I shredded the cups and added them to my compost.  So that made these oranges and lemons a 3-for-1!!  YAY!

 

I have a few more fun things that I have done with my citrus bounty.  I have many more lemons, orange, limes, and grapefruit.  I’d love to know what you have done with yours.  Do you have any great citrus recipes?

 

Rebecca

Old Fashioned Summer Carnival-Great for 4th of July (or 24th of July)

Here are some great activities to make/do at your Fourth of July celebrations this weekend. 

We always grew up having an amazing Old Fashioned 24th of July celebration with our family (this is a Utah/Mormon holiday).  It was truly amazing.  So, last year we put together our own carnival, for our children.
I think you can figure out how to make each of these activities, but incase you can’t you can find tutorials for all of them, here!  This is a post about our carnival last year.
The above picture is a Water Bottle Bowling Game.  It has a super cute placemat that you have to go check out!


Fun action shot of my Nephew throwing the dart at the balloons!  This is a simple game to put together that I love the look of! 

Bean Bag Toss Game.  With homemade beanbags that each have a patriotic word embroidered onto them!  The game itself is made from a box!  Are you getting that we wanted the games to be part of the decoration?
Homemade Rubber Band Shooters!  Remember those from your childhood?  They are super easy to make!   Katrina made enough of these for each cousin to have one!  They are so much fun!  We just shot empty cans and bottles with them.
How about some Cork Guns!  These are made out of wood, pvc pipe, string, and a cork!

Tin Can Stompers are another super easy yet effective activity!
         
Tin Can Knock Down!  We used a ball that you get wet, just to keep water flying around the whole yard!

Hope this gives you some inspiration for old fashioned carnival games you can make yourself, from mostly things that you already have around the house!

Rebecca

Starbucks is my new best friend-Coffee Grounds For The Garden

I have always thought to myself that I needed to go to a coffee house and ask for their used coffee grounds (don’t use new as they are too acidic) for my compost.  However, I am not a coffee drinker.  So, I always forget to do this (and don’t have any of my own).
Today I happen to be at Starbucks for a snack.  I was SO excited when they had an awesome bucket out front that had these large bags of used coffee grounds, already ready to go.  They even put them into the empty coffee grounds bags so there is no additional packaging other than the sticker to seal it.  I always think about stuff like extra packaging for things.  Anyways, these bags of used coffee grounds are free and now super convenient!  I could have kissed the woman behind the counter when I saw this!
 
I am no composting master and have never used these before in my compost.  However, the sticker from starbucks had great information about it.  When I got home with my bag of coffee grounds I did a bit more research about using this. 

*In my research I also found coffee grounds are a great way to organically take care of slugs, ants, and to keep cats from using your garden as their toilet.

So, I decided to use it straight in my garden first.  The kids loved helping me spread it into the garden and it was a great way to reinforce that plants need food and water.  Then, I dumped the rest of it in my compost.  I also added some ash, to the compost, that I have from my patio fireplace (all wood burning).  I have always heard about adding this as well. 

I’m curious to know if other people have used either coffee grounds or ash and what their results/opinions have been!!!

Rebecca
Happy gardening and composting! 

Wednesday’s Creative Inspiration-Earth Day Style

Before we get straight to the fun links, I will share a few of the wonderful links from last week!
Beth at Be The Thread had a super cute Ladybug party.  These Ladybug Cupcake Toppers were so amazing to me!  They are just a dipped red chocolate heart!  Brilliant!  I will be making these!

Can you believe this quilt was a first attempt at a quilt?  Deborah, at Spindle Jigs did such a beautiful job on this!

I love Stephanie’s blog, Under The Table And Dreaming By Stephanie Lynn!  I swear she could be one of the sisters in my family!  I love this DIY Freeze Pop so much.  As you know, we live in the desert!  Children have to live off of ice things in the summer time (in Phoenix summer is from April through November! )  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this idea sooner.  Make healthy freezer pops.  I do make healthy popsicles for my kids all the time.  However, they always ask for those darn Otter Pops.  This would make their day (as I only buy them about once a year because of their high sugar content!)!!

Thank you to everyone who linked up their creativity to our linky party last week!

Feel free to link up anything creative you have been doing lately.  However, if you have an Earth Day type of activity, I’d love those linked up (no matter how old they are!).  I am adding some links of awesome Earth Day posts as well!  Recycled or upcycled posts are great, as are gardening posts or recipes using fresh foods!
Now onto the linking up!  You know the drill.  Go ahead and link up to anything creative that you have made/done.  I would also love for you to link back so that we can have more people jump in on this party!

Soda Can Butterfly Mobile

I have been loving making things with metal.  Quite awhile ago I stumbled upon Pam’s wonderful blog called, Gingerbread Snowflakes.  She had these beautiful tin butterflies made out of pie tins.  Ever since, I have loved finding my way back to her blog!  She has other things that make me swear we are family such as many Danish posts (my heritage) and beautiful outdoor trips!  Well, just recently she had a post on this darling soda can butterfly mobile.  LOVE IT! 
The above picture was taken with me lying on my back to get the bottoms as I even love the soda’s designs on these butterflies.  I also loved the shadows the flash and butterflies made on my house!

Another thing that I love are these cute little girl hands, chipped nail polish, dirt under the fingernails, pen drawing on the back and all!
So, my idea for these butterflies was to emboss designs into the wings.  I pulled out all of my stencils (like the one above) with fun designs on them and put them to use to decorate the wings of each of my butterflies.
 
If you look closely at this one you can see that I used a set of those metal stamps to engrave “Roots & Wings” into this butterfly (along the bottom of the butterfly, in the center).  I thought this was cute because that’s the name of our blog (obviously) but it was even more appropriate for where this mobile is going to live-in my garden.  Plant roots and butterfly wings!  So cute, right?!
  
So many fun designs to decorate these wings with!  
Again, I did not come up with this idea myself.  But is was something I HAD to try.  To check out the AWESOME tutorial of how to make this, check out Gingerbread Snowflakes!  For my hanger(where the butterflies are hanging from) I actually used soddering wire and used my jewelry tools to bend the nice loops to hang each butterfly from.
I still don’t know how Pam knew that I was jones-ing to make something with metal and that I was needing something to detract the birds from my garden!  I had always heard to dangle CDs in your garden to detract birds.  I am hoping this gives the same result!
I’m actually going to make a few more because I love this one so much (and I REALLY REALLY hate the birds in my garden!  I swear if they eat the strawberries that I’ve never been able to grow, but are growing so well this year, I will have to turn to more drastic measures.  Truly if they take just one bite out of each of my tomatoes, again this year, I will probably be just as mad.  Seriously, if you are going to ruin a tomato, eat the whole darn thing in the first place!!!)!
Rebecca
PS Pam, I can’t wait to find out what you think of my butterflies!  Thank you so much for the inspiration!!

Don't forget to add your creativity to our Wednesday's Creative Inspiration!!  Thank you!


As always, joining in the fun on some linky parties:
DIY Day, ABC and 123, Persimmon Perch, My House of Giggles, New Nostalgia, A Silly Little Sparrow, Tip Me Tuesday,  Today's Creative Blog, My Frugal Family,

Heart Box Tutorial With A Secret Cheat

If you were with us last year, you know that I do a Valentine’s Day Countdown with my children. I have Valentine’s Surprises every day for my children, starting on February 1st. This year I am trying to have everything ready to go by the end of January (wish me luck on that one!). These Heart shaped boxes are just one of the surprises I have planned.
I tried a bunch of variations of 3D hearts, to use for decoration. When I figured these out, I realized they would also be great as a container for some of the treats that I have.

Ok so now you see the secret cheat that I used. Toilet Paper tubes! Some people are grossed out by this…I’m not. They are perfect for helping the paper to hold it’s heart shape and make the boxes more durable! I figured out the easiest way to turn that regular roll of toilet paper into a heart shape. I thought I was brilliant and told my Mom about it. She had that figured out before I told her. See, this is why we are the way we are (my Sisters and I). We get it from this brilliant woman!
So the easy way to transform your toilet paper roll is to take the regular roll (1) and flatten it (2). Make sure to crease the folds well. Then, take the top fold and bend it the opposite direction to make the crease in the top of your heart (3). That’s it! Easy peasy, right?!
Then, I played around with the scrapbook paper I wanted to cover the boxes with. I made myself this handy dandy template. I needed it to go around the heart, but already have creases in the paper, because the paper I used was pretty stiff and would not easily conform to the heart shaped toilet paper roll. Notice that one crease will fold in along with the crease of the heart, and the other fold will go out(meaning fold it the opposite direction from the first fold) to go around the bottom tip of your heart. The side flaps/notches are what will make the top and bottom of your heart and keep in your goodies! I found you needed a lot of notches because of the heart shape. This is what worked best for me.

I then painted a nice layer of modge podge onto the backside of my paper (but only the center section that will be glued directly to the toilet paper roll) and wrapped the paper around the heart shaped toilet paper. The paper will not stay put on its own and it is quite helpful to use those large clothespins, to hold everything in place while the modge podge is drying.
Seal up one side of your heart shaped box. Fill your container with goodies that you scored in the after-Christmas clearance sales! Oh yeah! These ended up costing me 10 cents each for the bags of red and silver foil covered chocolates. Yes, the outside packaging was Christmas, but the inside packaging was perfect for Valentine's candy. Then, seal your last side of your box. I tried using modge podge and then I tried double sided tape to seal the ends up. Both seemed to work well.

I can not wait to have these waiting for my children in their Valentine Mailbox! Though, this year I am changing the mailbox idea up a bit. You'll have to keep coming back to see how that will change. Do you see that awesome skull and heart paper? That will be put into use for my Son! He’s starting to think some things are a little too girly, so I hope this fits the bill for him!
These would also be great to make with your kids, for their friends for Valentine's Day. I think I will be making them with my kids! I could also see making them during other times of the year, maybe as party favors. Who wouldn't love a heart shaped box?
I can’t wait to show you more of my Valentine’s Countdown surprises, so keep checking back!
Rebecca


I linked up to Today's Creative Blog, and My Frugal Family, and DIY Day.

Toy Box Repurposed into a Raised Dog Dish

Years ago this toy box came with a wooden train set inside. Since the set out grew this box it has mostly been unused. I finally have an idea for repurposing it. My sweet puppy is 13 and has all kinds of aches and pains. This make over is for her. I wish I had thought to do this years ago.

I sprayed a coat of primer onto the outside of the box. This helps to cover the design and for the final coat of paint to stick to the laminate surface.

The lid had particle board under the fabric and padding. Particle board does not take spray paint well. It basically soaks up all the paint. I wanted an easy to clean surface so I used contact paper instead of paint for the lid.

I marked the hole for the opening using the top rim of the dog dish and drew a circle inside those marks. Once I cut the opening I sanded down the whole board and removed all the saw dust. I cut the contact paper large enough to wrap over the edges and onto the under side of the board. I trimmed off all but about 2 inches of the inside circle and then cut slits to fold the contact paper over the inner circle. The above picture shows the under side of the lid. I cut another piece of contact paper just smaller than the outside edge of the board and to the edge of the hole in the center. I also cut a long thin strip of contact paper to cover the inside of the circle.

The end result. The bowl does not sit all the way down in the hole we cut because we wanted to be able to easily remove the bowl for cleaning. This also means that we didn’t have to make a finger hole or a handle to be able to lift off the lid.

Oh and another bonus to this make over is that I can store her canned food inside! My pampered pooch needed no encouragement to use her new raised food dish. I think she is grateful for the easy reach and that she no longer has to chase the bowl around as she licks it clean. ;)

Katrina

I interrupt this blog.................

I have a tooth that has been really bothering me since Christmas Eve. When I finally got into a dentist (any dentist) on Monday they told me the tooth needs a root canal. I was given antibiotics, pain killer and a referral. Thursday morning I had a root canal. Which was a piece of cake by the way. Unfortunately I found out I have another tooth that needs one too. It looked like it was a wait and see situation. Now that the general has worn off, I realize that most of my pain was actually from the tooth I didn't get done. Now I need to hurry up and schedule a second root canal. Why does this stuff happen over the holidays?! I usually respond to all comments pretty much as they come in. You will have to forgive me because I am not sure how much I will check in on the blog over the next few days (till I get this fixed). All I can say is that I am glad I have had this post waiting in the wings for months.

Also, for the month of January, I plan to take a little blog break. I am in much need of some craft blog down time. (Anjeanette and Rebecca will be working on posts this month.) My family has no idea how mine is doing because I have been seriously neglecting my personal blog. I haven't posted since before Halloween! I am going to take a little break to update my blog for my family (and because it is like scrap booking to me) and get to some other things I have been putting off. It also looks like I will be getting lots of dental work done as well. That is what I get for putting off finding a new dentist. I had one I love be he is out of network now.

Katrina

~~~

Anjeanette here,

Katrina, please do take care of yourself! We love you! No worries here guys, we will be filling in for Katrina while she rejuvinates and takes care of herself and her family.

We linked up here and here and here.

Technorati Tags: dog,recycle,raised food bowl,storage,organization,makeover,repurpose,toy box

Flower Pot Makeover

I purchased this flower pot several years ago for a miniature rose plant my husband gave me. It was originally a lovely navy blue with some fading around the rim for effect. Now it is more faded than blue and looking a little tired.

Last spring when I was planting my Strawberry Pots , I found this line of pots. They come 6 vibrant colors. I knew that I wanted to add more to my garden. I used them for my How to Make a Fountain Post. After seeing these I was inspired to spray paint some pots that I already have with colors that would coordinate nicely with the pots I have from this collection.

I washed down my pot to get rid of any dirt and debris. I used a spray primer as an under coat to help the paint stick and to cover the darker color beneath. I then spay painted the whole pot yellow. I spray painted the inner lip of the pot as well. For some additional color I spray painted the top rim with a lime green color. I didn’t mask it off, instead I let the over spray create a blending effect with the yellow beneath.

This is a fun way to inject some color into your yard. It is a great addition to a kid friendly landscape.

As a side note these are the same miniature roses that I used in my May Day Flower Cone.

Katrina

Technorati Tags: gardening,recycle,makeover,spray paint,flower pot

Thankful Candy Dish

I love candy dishes. I want to have Martha Stewart's expansive kitchen cabinets. Just to have enough space for candy dishes (oh, including cookie jars! sigh ). However, that is not my reality. So, I try to keep things simplified. I found this small dish and thought it would be perfect. My thought for it is to have it out on my counter for during November. I like as many things around, that remind us of gratitude, during the Thanksgiving Season! If you want to see how easy it is to etch, check out Erika's post on it from earlier this week. I knew this cute little dish was perfect for etching a fun thankful design onto. Instead of etching the design, however, I etched the negative. I used the word "thanks" in many different languages. I put them onto the cup, in what I think is kind of a "wordle" design.

When I pulled off the extra vinyl from around the cut out words, I just couldn't trash them (I have this problem often, like with empty drink holders, etc). So, I grabbed a clean glass jar (yes, this also points back to the before-mentioned problem of keeping things that I "might" be able to use in the future). I put these onto the jar and etched the words themselves onto this jar.

Back to my candy dish. Once all my vinyl words were put onto my dish, I actually contemplated leaving it that way. Since I was only using it as a candy dish, having vinyl on the dish would not have been a problem as I would just wipe out the inside of the jar (so I wouldn't have to worry about throwing it in the dishwasher and having the vinyl ruined). I just really liked how the vinyl looked on the dish (see the top photo for the example of this...I probably will do it this way in the future!). But I charged forward, as I already had a vision in my head that I wanted to finish out. To reverse etch this jar I had to put the etching cream all over the outside of the cup part (the area you see etched, just above). I'm glad that I went ahead with my plan and didn't keep the words as vinyl. Instead you can now see through where the vinyl letters had been and the rest of the dish is frosted. I love it.

Here you can kind of see how the jar turned out, using the vinyl from around my words. I only etched the words. After I decorate the lid, fill it, and tie a ribbon around this, I will be using it as a gift for my daughter's teacher.

This was an interesting project for me because I had it in my head for a bit. Once I started to work on it, my vinyl cutter and I got into a fight. When I say fight, I mean a full blown fight (I went through 2-3 feet of vinyl, a blade, and LOTS of my time). I prodded and coaxed her (or him...maybe that's why she's mad at me, because I don't even know if she's a she or a he...) for quite a while. I went through so many modifications and just couldn't get her working for me. But it's ok now. We got back on speaking terms in time for me to finish up this project! I don't know if she's kissing up to me to make up for her temper tantrum with me, but I swear the last 2 days she has cut better than ever! I finished at least 7 projects with her just today!

The best part of this? I didn't even keep my candy dish! I know, I know, after all that work (really the etching and all was easy, it was the all-out fight with my cutter that was tough). But it went to a super cause. Every year my sister's and I go to my Mom's church for a Service Auction. It is so much fun. Really, it's because of the auctioneer! She is one of my Mom's best friends and she is an absolute hoot! It makes for such an enjoyable night, with her at the podium and gavel in hand.

I have to give you a quick run-down on this event because it is always so much fun. People sign up to donate handmade items, food, or service. On the night of the auction you peruse the list of donations. Each person also fills out a questionnaire. It is a list of things that you get set amount of points for. A few questions are: "If you made your bed today. (10 points). If you are 18-25 (10 points)" There were 47 questions, and you are on the honor system. You tally up your points and that is how many points you have to bid with. Some of the items to bid on were crocheted baby items, cards, jewelry, homemade breads, a yoga session, babysitting, and even cleaning of your baseboards (it's supposed to be all homemade, but some "stretched" the truth on that one!)! I tell you, some people get so creative. There are secret items that you don't even know what it is, just who it's from. You can join your points with other people. I think one of the reasons that my Mom, My Sisters and I love this night so much is that we join our points together to make sure we get stuff. The bidding gets crazy (sometimes we bid against each other...just because it's fun). Although, it was not fun that Anjeanette bid against me for the salsa. I called it first! ;( Neither of us got it, so we'll be ok. ;)

Rebecca

Dishwasher Clean/Dirty Magnet

I don’t know about any of you, but it drives me crazy when my family puts dirty dishes in the sink when the dishwasher is just a few inches away. The biggest issue is that nobody even checks to see if the dishwasher is clean or dirty. For years I have been saying I want to put a sign on the dishwasher that can be flipped to say “Clean” or “Dirty”. Now that my boys are old enough to start putting their own dishes in the dishwasher it seems more important to have a sign.

Since I have one child that does not read yet, I wanted to make sure it would be easy to know which side is which. To me blue means water and bubbles mean soap. For the dirty side I decided to use earthy colors. Funny enough I used a fall image and used the smudge tool. Because each side is very different even my little guy can tell the clean side from the dirty side.

My sign is fairly straight forward.

You will need:

Magnet sheets or those handy magnet ads that come with the phone books.

Your favorite editing program –You are welcome to use my graphics for your signs. Just right click and save.

Printer-I used plain paper

sticker maker or some other kind of adhesive

Contact paper

1. Create your own or resize my sign images to fit your magnet size. Mine are 4x4 inches since that is the size magnets I had.

2. Print and cut out the images on plain paper. The magnets are not very strong so you want the paper as thin as possible.

3. Run your images through your sticker maker. If you have a cartridge that does laminate on one side and adhesive on the other, use it to save you a step.

4. You need two magnet sheets. The magnet ads that came with my phone books are quite thin so I decided to use two to make sure it would stay where I put it. Put adhesive on one or both magnets on the ad side.

5. Stick the sign images on each side of the magnet sandwich.

6. Use contact paper to put a protective cover over your sign. Trim edges.

Now, when we run the dishwasher we flip the sign to the clean side. After we put the clean dishes away we flip it to the dirty side. Right away my boys noticed the new sign and wanted to know what it meant. I no longer have to remind my family that the dishwasher is dirty. At a glance they know to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Hopefully the clean sign will encourage them to put the dishes away too. ;) It is such a simple thing and yet………

Katrina

Technorati Tags: Katrina,organization,dishwasher sign

Old Backpack Make Over

Does your child want the latest and greatest themed backpack? If you are like me you will look at the licensed backpacks and think they won’t hold up for a full year of use. They just aren’t made to last. This makeover is part of my son’s request to have a Clone Wars backpack to go along with his lunch bag and thermos. This has turned into a make over of an old backpack because my sister sent him a brand new dinosaur backpack. Which he also loves. I already had what I needed for this make over so I forged ahead. This will be a fun backpack for any other time.

1. I ran into a snag with this project. They don’t make Clone Wars Fabric or at least I couldn’t find any around here or on line. You can get vintage Star Wars Fabric but not Clone Wars. I found this space fabric to cover the straps with. You don’t need a lot of fabric for this. A fat quarter will be more than enough.

2. Measure the width of your straps. For my Jansport backpack I cut two 5 inch wide strips of fabric. I doubled the measurement of the front side of the strap, added 1/2 inch for the thickness and another 1/2 inch for seam allowance.

3. Fold down one edge of the short side and sew.

4. Fold down the opposite side and sew. You will want the finished size to be 12 inches end to end or however long your need it to cover your strap. I am leaving a space up at the top of the strap uncovered to make it easier to sew the tube to the strap.

5. Fold wrong sides together and sew down the length of the fabric to create a tube. Turn right side out.

6. Slip the tube over the strap. Position the seam on the tube with the underside of the strap where the center stitch runs down the strap.

7. Position the bottom of the tube at the point where the strap starts to taper. Sew along the stitching you made when you sewed the end of the fabric.

8. Sew the top of the tube just as you did the bottom.

9. The original strap to the backpack already had a seam sewn down the center of the strap. Follow the same line to stitch up the center of the strap.

I love how simple this is and how it turns a plain backpack into something so much more. With all the fun fabrics out there, you could really have fun making over your child’s backpack. Oh, if I had a girl I would be getting those fun dot patterned fabrics. You know the ones where it is circles inside of circles in fun bright colors. I could seriously go to town. Boys on the other hand are more subdued and are more likely to like it if it has their favorite Character on it.

This concludes the strap make over

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On to the front side.

I looked high and low for Clone Wars fabric and could not find anything other than sheet sets. Even the pattern on the sheet sets were too large for what I had in mind. Since I was not to be swayed from my end goal, I purchased some printable fabric. You can get this at a fabric or craft store.

1. Go on line and do a Google search “Clone Wars pictures.” Save several images. Some of them won’t be high enough resolution for this. Use your photo editing software to crop and resize the pictures. Test out the resolution by printing them out on plain paper. I printed out 3 options and let my son choose which one he liked the best.

2. Follow the instructions for printing on the fabric. You will be amazed at how well it turns out. You have to let it dry for 24 hours and then peel the backing off and rinse any excess ink off the fabric.

3. Once the fabric is dry cut a piece of Heat N Bond sew or no sew webbing to fit the back of your picture.

4. Iron on to the back of your picture according to the package directions.

5. Once it has had time to cool use a straight edge and rolling cutter to trim the excess fabric off.

6. Unzip the main compartment of the back pack and slip it over your ironing board. I then slipped a cutting board into the pocket behind my image to eliminate bumps from pocket dividers inside the backpack.

7. Confession time….. Originally I wanted to sew around the edge of the picture but realized I wouldn’t be able to sew the bottom edge with my machine. I decided to use the no-sew Heat-N-Bond thinking it might be enough to hold the image on the back pack. My gut told me that I needed to sew the image on after ironing it on. The printable fabric and the backpack fabric are very different. The bottom edge of my image started to come up right away. The bottom line here is that you will still need to sew around the edge. The Heat-N-Bond made the picture fabric stiff and didn’t seem to go into the backpack fabric at all. The lesson here is…..Don’t let it win! :)

8. Hand stitch in an “X” pattern all the way around the image to hold it in place. Because there is no way you will get this far and not have it work!!!!

All in all, 1/2 yard of material was about $2.50 and, with a 40% off coupon, the printable fabric was something like $6.50 for 10-8.5 x 11 inch sheets. I cut off the bottom portion of the sheet I printed on and will use it for a smaller project down the road. I had the Shrinky Dink sheets from a previous project. Go see my "Clone Wars Backpack and Lunch Name Tags" post to see how I made the tag on the upper zipper. All in all I spent less than I would have if I had bought the cheap licensed backpack and recycled an old one that is still in GREAT condition. Many backpacks out there will run close to $30. I spent less AND I have left over printable fabric sheets for lots more projects down the road. Because I bought 1/2 a yard of fabric I have some left over for something else………….a book cover or a reusable snack bag or something.

It wouldn’t be hard to restyle it again in the future. I would just remove the picture on the front and recover the straps again. The one thing I LOVE about suede bottom backpacks is that they last FOREVER!!

Katrina

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