Homemade Silky Fairy Wings -- Christmas Gift Idea

I've been having a bout of craft ADD lately. There have been so many projects that have popped up with higher priority while I've been in the middle of other projects, so I've had to stop one thing, change gears and complete another thing before going back to the first project. But I have been sewing up a storm lately and that feels good, plus I think they're all great projects so I'm extra excited about posting them all! (P.S. No offense intended to those who are affected by ADD for real.)

One of those urgent projects (well, two of them actually) were birthday presents for my son's friends who had a birthday today. They are twins, a boy and a girl. For a while I was feeling a little bad because our budget is tight and I wasn't sure what I was going to do for gifts. Then it dawned on me -- for the boy I would make a cape just like my son's Superman cape, and I would make wings for the girl. It was budget friendly and fairly simple to make... although for the wings I would have to make things up as I went along. Thankfully I figured it all out and now I can pass it on to you!

By the way, both these projects would work great for halloween costumes, dress ups or Christmas gifts.  I think I'm going to make some for my young relatives.  

For the cape I made one in the same way I made my son's Superman cape, except instead of Velcro tabs on the corners, I sewed on strips of fabric (mine were 27" x 3", with a 1/2" seam allowance on all sides) to make ties, and sewed them on like this:

This is the underside of the cape

Here's how it turned out (Seymour modeling):

The wings are a knock-off of a very awesome company -- I really hope they don't mind me saying this! -- Sarah's Silks. They make incredibly beautiful playsilks and silk dress-ups. They make real silk wings that are hand-dyed in gorgeous colors and patterns. If you have the money (they're $30) I would recommend buying them because they are well made by a great company. But I couldn't afford that much, or the shipping time, so I needed to make my own. Plus I thought the ribbon that had to be criss-crossed around and tied was a bit too much work from my experience with how often kids like to put things on and take them off again. I decided to use simple elastic as the way to keep them on the shoulders and wrists.

I started with about a yard of polyester chiffon. Since it was 60" wide I decided to cut it in half, as well as cut off the selvedges, so I ended up with a piece about 30" x 36". To "cut" the fabric and make sure there are right angles at the corners and it's not skewed in a funny way make a little cut at the right length, then rip it all the way down. There will be threads coming off, but just pull them off and you'll end up with a fairly clean, straight edge.

Chiffon tends to be fairly difficult to work with, whether polyester or silk, so when hemming all four edges to make clean finished seams I had to fold it over once, pin it, then fold it over again to make sure it wouldn't slip out.

Next I folded the shorter sides together so the longer side was divided in half, and marked -- with a water-soluble marker -- a line 5/8" away, parallel to the fold line. I went slow so it would soak through to the other side and I ended up with two lines 1 1/4" apart at the center of the rectangle of fabric.

Then I sewed a gathering stitch along both lines and set it aside. I cut a 25" long piece of 1 1/2" wide ribbon and sewed the ends with right sides together using a 1/2" seam allowance, then trimmed the corners of the seam allowance to make sure they don't stick out.

Also iron it so it is folded completely in half with the connecting seam at one end and a fold at the other. I slid the chiffon into the ribbon loop, evenly gathered the lines and sewed them into place on half of the ribbon. I left one half of the ribbon loose so I could stitch on the ribbon side and make it look nicer.

Next I cut a 32" piece of 1/4" elastic, overlapped the edges 1" and sewed it together (you can do this by hand or machine). I folded it into a loop and laid it on the back of the ribbon where I had sewed the chiffon, making sure the seam was within the edges of the ribbon. I stitched back and forth several times over the elastic.

I cut a 2" long piece of ribbon and pressed the raw edges under 1/2".

And sewed it into place over the top of the elastic, making sure not to sew into the loose side of the ribbon.

Then I sewed the loose side of the ribbon down.

For the wrists I cut a 3 1/2" piece of ribbon (one for each side), sewed a 1/2" seam, turned and pressed them.

I cut an 8 1/2" piece of 1/4" elastic, looped it through the ribbon, overlapped the edges 1" and sewed it together.

I moved the elastic so the seam was in between the ribbons and sewed them to the top corners of the wings.

After that Daisy had a great time modeling them for me.

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Whole Wheat Norwegian Rosettes -- Recipe

Every year when I was growing up my grandmother (whose parents immigrated from Norway in the 1800s) would make Scandinavian cookies and treats at Christmas time.  The two I remember the most are Rosettes and Krumkake.  I've always wanted to continue that tradition and a few years back my husband bought me a Rosette iron.  Since then I've made them every Christmas.  I love them but they're rather time consuming!

When my family converted to eating 100% whole wheat and whole sugar I thought I was going to have to stop making most of my favorite desserts and treats, like Rosettes.  Not so!  I've discovered I can substitute nearly every time by using whole wheat pastry flour.  It's a finer ground flour made from a less dense wheat than regular whole wheat flour.  Sometimes it takes a little modification, but other times not.  I also used whole sugar (Sucanat) in the batter for this recipe.  Since it only called for a small amount the molasses flavor would not be a problem. The only thing I "cheated" on was the confectioner's sugar on top.  I wanted the white, but otherwise would have ground Sucanat in a small coffee grinder to use instead.  Maybe next time I'll try grinding up Xylitol.  I wonder if that would work...

Whole Wheat Rosettes

2 eggs
1 Tablespoon whole cane sugar
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

confectioner's sugar to sprinkle on top

Place a sauce pan or low pot with oil about 2 inches deep and heat to 375 degrees F.  Combine eggs, sugar and salt, beating well.  Add flour and blend with fork or whisk.  Add milk, a little at a time, making sure to eliminate lumps, and stir until smooth.  Place the iron into the hot oil and and heat for 2 minutes.  Lift out and let excess oil drip from the iron for a moment.  Dip into the batter to slightly below the top edge of the iron and immediately transfer to the hot oil.  Hold the iron in the oil (keeping it off the bottom of the pan) for about 30 seconds, or until golden.  Lift out, turn upside down to drain excess oil.  Using a fork, gently push the rosette off the iron onto paper towels placed on a cooling rack.  Reheat the iron in the oil for 1 minute and cook the next rosette.  Repeat until batter gets too low.  Let rosettes cool, then sprinkle with confectioner's sugar. 

The amount this recipe makes is dependent upon the size of the iron(s).  I got about 18 large cookies out of it.  This recipe was adapted from a recipe submitted to allrecipes.com by  Pat Kersteter.
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I'm linking to all the fun link parties on my "Blog Parties I Link To" page, including

Gingerbread House with the Kids

Today the kids and I decorated a gingerbread house.  I had thoughts of baking one from scratch, but honestly with my kids aged 4.5 and 2, they wouldn't have had the patience for it (and as a result neither would I!).  So I purchased a ready built house kit (with a tiny amount of candy) from Target.  I bought some additional nuts and candy to use to decorate it. 

I wasn't too concerned with perfection, but I was hoping it would look nice.  The kids actually did pretty well with it and didn't try to take candy off of the house.  Daisy, 2, put on a few pieces but mostly sat there eating stuff out of the bags.  Seymour, 4.5, did really well and put on lots of decorations. 

Yogurt pretzel roof, tiny gummy bear Christmas "lights"

Candy rock chimney

The back door

Seymour had the idea to make a Santa Claus, but for a while I wasn't sure what I was going to use to make him.  Then I decided to just put some things together and hope for the best -- and he actually looked pretty good!  I used two red candy rocks that were roundish, half a cashew for the head, a slice of small white jelly bean for the beard (and the icing just happened to make a nice little point in the middle), and a peppermint candy for a hat. 

Santa with a ... turban?

I'm glad we all had a good time together.  Unfortunately our card making session did not go as well... Such is life with small children, no?

Make Your Own Fresh Evergreen Wreath - Tutorial

Every year we get a fresh Christmas tree and I make a fresh evergreen wreath.  Here's how I do it...

Acquire bunches of evergreens.  {Boy do I love that smell!  Nothing brings Christmas memories and spirit to me like the smell of fresh cut evergreens.}  The most common greens are Douglas fir, noble fir, princess pine and cedar.  You can use any one alone, or combine them.  This year I just purchased two bunches of cuttings ($4 each) from the Christmas tree lot where we got our tree.  As it turned out I had to trim some branches from the bottom of our tree to get it into the stand, so I only needed to buy one bunch.  You can also use any evergreens you happen to have in your yard, although you tend to need more than you think you will. 

Get a wreath form of some kind.  Sometimes I buy a wire frame from a craft store or floral wholesaler (since I used to be/still kind of am a freelance florist).  Last year I bought a wreath from the dollar store, and this year I'm using a grapevine wreath I picked up at a yard sale for 50 cents.  You also need hand clippers (floral or garden), and wire (usually green, but I had silver on hand so that's what I used). 

Cut off sprigs of greenery varying in length, mine were about 4-6 inches long.  Gather the sprigs, lining up the bottom edges and wrap with wire.  (As shown above)  I usually wrap the wire around once, then twist the ends together like a twist tie, and wrap the rest around so it doesn't stick out. 

Repeat many, many times.

I ended up needing 3 or 4 times this many bunches.

Secure the beginning end of a very long piece of wire to the frame (I like to use the paddle wire from craft stores for this).  Lay the first bunch on the frame and wrap the wire around the frame, securing the bunch to it.  Lay another bunch down, overlapping enough to cover the wire around the first bunch.  Repeat going around the whole frame, angling some bunches towards the inside of the wreath, and some towards the outside edge to completely cover the frame.  Wrap the long piece of wire around each bunch, securing it to the frame.  (Although when I put down the first bunch I really liked the way the evergreen looked against the grapevines, so I may do some kind of variation in the future.)

Lay the bunches down pointing in the same direction and continue in the same direction on the wreath. Keep going around and around until you get to the beginning.  Lift up the first few bunches and tuck some more in underneath to make sure the wreath is complete.  Tie off the very long piece of wire and...

Voila!

Back view

You can trim it a bit if there are any sprigs sticking out too far for your liking.  Then it's time to decorate!  I gathered up some things I have used in years past for various decorations.  I had a bow and a couple glittery gold snowflakes I used on my wreath last year, some mesh garland I got from the dollar store years ago, and some pine cones, a wooden bird ornament and gold bead garland, all of which I purchased from Michael's this year.  The gold bead garland came with six strands, and was four feet long, but I pulled it apart so I got 24 feet instead of just four.

Total cost $8-15 (or less, depending what you have on hand)

My four and a half year-old son also made a wreath, almost entirely on his own.  He was very proud of it.  I thought it was pretty impressive for his age, too. 

We hung his wreath on the front door since mine wouldn't fit between it and the storm door.

Does anyone else use fresh greenery in their decor?