Carisa is a blogger from Bunnies and Pearls blog, married to her high school sweetheart and works as an accountant but spends her free time crafting and cooking!

Find her on her blog, twitter and facebook

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The other day I was browsing necklaces on Anthropologie’s website.

They are fabulous, but expensive! I had supplies at home that I used to re-create this beauty to my liking.

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Supplies

-Large Chain
-Small Chain
-Large Jump Hooks
-Beads or Pendants
-Head Pins
-Hooks
-Needle Nose Plyers

*the amount needed really depends on how many beads you want*

1. Cut large chain the desired length.

Double it and add two large jump hooks to each end.

2. Attach two small jump hooks and the small chain so the necklace is to your desired length.

3. Use a head pin to create a loop in your bead.

You will need your pliers to make a loop.

4. Find the center of your necklace and attach another large jump hook.

5. Hook the bead to the hook and the hook to the chain

6. Attached the other beads the same way.

I went with three because that is all I had. If I had bought more beads I would have gone with more. Make sure to space them out evenly because you will be able to tell when it is around your neck.

7. Below is the finished product.

If and when I make another one I will make the large chain shorter and add more beads. But I really like the edgy look of the one I made.

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A note from Kendra:

Carisa, thank you so much for sharing this great DIY! I’ve only dabbled in making jewelery before giving up out of frustration but this piece is beautiful and I’ll definitely be trying my hand at it when I’m out of my new baby haze!

You can purchase cloth wipes but I wanted to make some cute, custom ones…for cheap! I really like how they turned out and we have a good stash built now but we may get some nerdy (read: Star Wars) fabric to make a few special ones for bath time or something too!

Below is my tutorial on making Homemade Cloth Wipes! I hope you enjoy! (*please note: I wrote this tutorial for people who know a bit about sewing with a machine. I don’t go into detail about setting up/threading a machine or how to specifically sew or change any settings. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me for help.)

Supplies:

fabric
rotary cutter (optional)
weights (optional)
fabric cutting board
ruler
fabric scissors
sewing machine
thread
iron

Step 1 – Pick your fabric.

You can use sherpa, hemp fleece, flannel, and velour for cloth wipes. I decided to use flannel because I found a nice blue designed one in the remnant bin at the fabric store. This project can be done super cheap! Be sure to check your local fabric store in the remnant bin, red tag/clearance section and always look out for sales and don’t forget to use a coupon! To make about 24 wipes, we spent less than $4 (I already had all my other supplies).

Step 2 – Decide what size you want for your wipes.

This might be good to know before you go shopping, depending on the fabric you get. For me, since I got one fabric out of the remnant bin I was stuck with a certain size. I got just under 1 yard of fabric and made 3 different sizes of wipes – 6×8, 7.5×8.25 and 7x.8.5 These are the dimensions before sewing, so they ended up a little smaller due to seam allowance.

Step 3 – Measure your fabric and cut.

I used a rotary cutter but fabric scissors work too

Step 4- Pick your matching thread and set up your machine

Step 5- There are a few different techniques for sewing the cloth wipes.

You can keep your wipes as 1 layer and just zig-zag stitch or serge the edges so they don’t fray. But I made double layer wipes.
A- Lay down your 2 fabric pieces so the “right side” (the top, the piece you want to see when it’s finished) is facing the inside. You should see the “wrong side” for both pieces of fabric. Pin down if need be.

B- Sew around all 4 sides of your cloth wipe but on the last side leave about 1.5inches unstitched

(I would like to give a shout out to my fiance, Scott, to coming to my rescue and helping me with this whole tutorial and making the wipes. I can’t sew straight if my life depended on it.)

C- Push the fabric through the hole that’s left so the “right side” is facing out again.

D- Push the extra fabric sticking out of the hole inside and iron down (iron all the edges too while you’re at it)

E- Sew around all the edges on the top
F- Trim any extra thread

Step 6- You’re done! Just repeat 23+ times

(or however many wipes you plan to make)

Step 7- Wash your cloth wipes.

Use baby friendly detergent before using on baby. (We use Method Free and Clear for HE washers)

Step 8- Now your wipes can be used.

There are many things cloth wipes can be used for, here are a few examples:
-to replace of disposable wipes for baby (for a wipe solution check out these recipes)
-wash cloths at bath time
-spit up rags
-cover private area when changing diaper so you don’t get peed on
-to wash off faces after eating
-dish cloths
-family wipes (to replace toilet paper)
(*note: I recommend that you use each set for a specific purpose. For example, do not use your wipes at a diaper change, wash them and then use them at bath time. Make separate wipes for each specific reason.)

Do you use cloth diapers and cloth wipes? Are you planning to use my tutorial? Let me know! And enjoy!

Don’t forget to check out My DIYs&Tutorials section for more fun things to create and do!

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I’ve talked before about my Tips for Becoming a Better Art Journaler and those tips are a great place for you to start if you’ve never journaled before but still want to do my step-by-step tutorial. Art journaling is fun, easy and hard all at the same time and it can help to take a moment and get acquainted with my tips and what art journal is all about.

Here is a list of 8 basic materials

I used to use these supplies to create my journals. There is nothing fancy here and I list a few alternatives as well.

(questions about any of the materials listed above? Curious about using an alternative? Comment and let me know!)

I currently tend to only use a hand-bound journal of mixed media paper, watercolors and a tech pen. My art journal style has evolved a lot since I made the list above and that’s okay. Yours will evolve too but the supplies I listed above are a great place to start out.

Let’s start off with a prompt

Then I will take you step by step through the journal page I made using the prompt.
Use a favorite quote. Find a quote you love and incorporate it into the page, create the page around the idea in the quote, or use imagery that defines/describes the quote.

Step 1:
Get your supplies together

I decided to use acrylics in this page. I also usually pick out 4-5 papers I think I might want to use in the journal. I don’t always use all of them, but picking a color scheme based off the papers helps me get started.
-Journal

-Glue (I recently switched from rubber cement to mod podge, not sure if I will keep using it or not)

-Paint

-Paper/ephemera

Don’t forget the brushes, water, paper towels and scissors!

Step 2: Making your pages sturdy

There are several ways to do this.
If you decide to use a hard bound journal like I do, the pages are not very thick. That means they will get flimsy and wrinkle very badly when you put paint on them (especially if you are using watercolors).

To fix this you can-
1- Gesso your pages. This is a good way, it primes your page and makes it sturdy and thick. This is a good method if you plan to use watercolor or lots of different mixed media. A few things I don’t like about using Gesso, I am a very impatient art journaler. I don’t prepare pages and come back later to work, I don’t do pre-made backgrounds. When I am inspired I need to work NOW! From start to finish on the page and finish it in one sitting or I loose the inspiration for that page. So waiting for the gesso to dry, or gessoing pages well before hand doesn’t work well for me.
2- Buy a sketchbook/journal (or make one) that has thicker paper. You can get a watercolor paper journal, or Canson has a mixed media paper. This is also a great option, but it can be more expensive. And if you get a watercolor journal, you might feel like you need to use just watercolors and your journal should never make you feel contained in any way.
3- Gluing. This is the option I use and it is what is shown in my step by step. Since the pages of my journal are thin (and there are a LOT of pages, this method also helps cut down the journal from over 100 pages, which is a lot of journal pages, to maybe 10 or 12). Depending on what kind of glue you use, you might get wrinkles in the pages but I don’t mind that too much, I like texture. You can gesso over the pages once you glue them together (or use a white acrylic as a primer).

There are wrinkles on my pages, but I think that’s because of the Mod Podge, I didn’t used to get that with my rubber cement.

Step 3: Background

I really love to use my fingers to spread any and all kind of paint in my journal. It’s freeing, and I think it blends the paint better.

This is a process you should experiment with however, if you are using acrlyics, the more water you add to your finger/the paint, the more the colors will become muddy on the page.

If you look near the left side of the journal, that odd gray spot. That’s where I used too much water and it become a bit too muddy.

Finished background

Step 4: Preparing Paper and Ephemera

This is an odd in between step.
You have to let your page dry (most of the way at least! But like I said, I’m a very impatient journaler!) before you can start gluing, drawing or collaging on top of it.
So I took this time to cut out things from the paper I picked earlier.

Step 5: Gluing down your paper/ephemera

If you decided to not use paper in your journal, now is that time you could start doodling or writing (I will get to that in my next step)

The problem most people have with using paper or images is that they don’t know how to make the image blend into the page. I will do a more extensive post just on layering paper and paint later on but for now here are a few pictures of how I solved the problem in my journal.

Step 6: Doodles and Words

This is the fun part! Now you can doodle, write and do whatever! Add that quote now.

Here is the finished page!

So what are you waiting for, get journaling!

Plan to do this prompt in your journal? I would love to show off all of the pages everyone makes! Please send me a picture via the contact form I will post all pictures with proper credit

I’ve seen a lot of yogurt parfait recipes out there(because they are super yummy), but I wanted to share mine too! While this easy food is totally customizable with whatever ingredients you want, I’ve never seen a recipe that features green apples. I have to tell you, apples in yogurt are the best! So here’s my how to:

Ingredients:

-Activia vanilla yogurt (greek yogurt is healthier, if you're trying to be as healthy as possible here)
-Granny Smith green apples
-Blueberries
-Honey
-Ground cinnamon
-Granola

Ingredients are completely customizable. Use the kind of yogurt you love, whatever fruit sounds yummy and any flavor of granola.

Step 1 – Prepare your Ingredients.

I cut up my apple into small slices, washed the blueberries. And in my granola there were large almonds so I used a food chopper to chop them up smaller.

Step 2 – Yogurt

Step 3 – Fruit

Step 4 – Granola

Step 5- Garnish (honey or cinammon)

Step 6 – Enjoy!

It’s so simple! And such a fantastic food to eat as a snack, or with breakfast. I love it.

What kind of fruit are you going to put in your parfait?

From when we found out we were expecting, I wanted to make lots of cute clothes for the baby. I also got the feeling that for the most part, he’d be hanging out in onesies most often, especially at home. So instead of just a bunch of plain white onesies, we decided to screen-print some!

First off a bit of info about screen printing. There are a few different techniques to screen print and a lot of professional clothes you see and love, and would like to replicate are more difficult to do. Screen printing with film emulsion is a longer and slightly more involved process than screen printing with paper stencils, which is what I do. When screen printing with film emulsion, you can get a more detailed image sometimes, however screen printing with paper stencils is the easiest way to make your own clothes, fabrics and art at home with this technique. Several years ago I created a semi tutorial with some basic information on screen printing that you can check out here.

Note: I recommend having someone help you with this project. Wrangle your husband, or your artist-y friends to have a screen printing party! My directions are written out for 2 people.

Step 1 – Design and create your stencil.

For beginners (and this tutorial) it’s best to do only a 1 stencil/color design. When creating your design be sure to keep in mind the space you actually need to cut out. It can be confusing at first to decide what needs to be “negative” space (what’s cut out) and what needs to be “positive” space (what isn’t cut out). I use card-stock and a craft razor to cut out my designs.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and try a few ideas before settling on something you really like. It can also help to test out a design on muslin or cotton before screen printing onto your final product.

Step 2- Gather your supplies:

-Stencil
-Onesie (or other fabric, cloth or paper)
-Cardboard or newsprint
-Screen
-Squeegee
-Fabric paint (be sure you use paint appropriate for your project/surface)
-Paint brush (very thin bristles)
-Popsicle stick(s)
-Extra card-stock, newsprint or scrap papers
-Iron
-You may also like to have tape and scissors readily available

Step 3 – Set up your space.

Take either the cardboard or two pieces of newsprint and slip it inside your garment, if you don’t do this the paint will bleed through to the back. After that, lay your design in place on the onesie and choose the color you want to use.

Step 4 – Protect the rest of your onesie.

Take your extra card-stock, newsprint or scrap paper and lay them out on any pieces of the fabric that is showing.

Step 5 – Carefully(!!) Lay the screen on top of your protected onesie.

You want to be really careful you don’t move the design at all either now or during the process.

Step 6 – Put your paint on the screen.

You want a good amount to make sure you are getting enough paint through and saturating your fabric. Put the paint in a line an inch or two above where your stencil starts. I use a popsicle stick to scoop out the paint.

Step 7 –

You WILL need your partner at this step!! Have your partner hold the screen firmly down on the design while you squeegee the paint down. It is very! important that the screen and stencil do not move at all during this process or your image will come out smudged.

The images above show a dry run of the motion you need to use with your squeegee to spread the paint.

My squeegee has a “fabric” side and a “graphic” side, if yours does as well, be sure to choose the correct side. Hold the squeegee at an angle (about 45°) and, with your partner holding the screen, drag the squeegee down the screen until you get about an inch past your stencil. Then lift up at an angle so the excess paint stays on the squeegee. Put the squeegee back at the top, where your paint originally started and either hit it down to get the paint off or use a popsicle stick and then drag the paint down again. You want to squeegee down the screen about 4 times total.

Above is how your screen will look when you’re done squeegeeing.

Step 8 – Very carefully remove the screen and pages below from your fabric.

Step 9 – Clean your screen right away.

You don’t want any paint to dry on the screen as it can ruin it for future use.

Step 10 – Let the paint dry

for just a moment and then peel it away from the cardboard or newsprint inside. You can leave the barrier in for now, you just want to peel it away so it doesn’t get stuck as it dries.

Above is how our first design looked right when we finished.

Above is the second design we made.

An additional step that is sometimes needed:
Step 10a – You may find that some lines in the final design on your fabric are not smooth or are missing altogether. You can make small touch ups with a thin paint brush right when you’re done screen printing. For example, on the onesie above I had to complete the airplane wings by painting the line at the top of the wings. In our stencil, I couldn’t cut out this line for the screen printing process or the stencil would not have been sturdy and intact.

Step 11 – Let your design dry completely.

I left mine overnight but 30minutes to a few hours is okay as well. Just be sure it is dry.

Step 12 – Turn the onesie inside out

and lay a piece of muslin or newsprint over the design and iron it for about 2-3 minutes.

Step 13 – Turn onesie back

the right way and repeat the same as step 12. Ironing the design will help set it in so it won’t wash out. I have never had a design wash out on me!

Step 15 – Wash onesie normally before use.

Step 16 – Enjoy!

If you’re interested in learning more about screen printing here are a few resources, videos and my supply recommendations:
How to Screen Print with Stencils via Dick Blick
Speedball Printing Kits (I have the fabric kit but the stencil kit would be a great one to start with as well.)
Some books on screenprinting

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and if you have any questions on making your own onesie (or other clothes!) please let me know!

 
Also any requests for future tutorials are always welcome too.

Ps- Like a Bird is now listed on Top Baby Blogs! It’s a great place for me to connect with other bloggers. It would be so great if you vote for Like a Bird, all it takes is 2 little clicks

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