Southern Scraps

I'm on a mission to use up some of my stash, particularly beads, so I can make room for nicer ones for some jewelry projects. I used to make ornaments and have tons of seed beads, pearls, and faceted beads left over. Follow along to see future posts of ways I come up with to use my beads. My first "leftover" bead project is hat pins. These have become quite popular in card making and scrapbooking.  I also have left over pins from the bead projects. So, I took a corsage pin, slipped on some beads, put a little glue between the beads, and here you have my very own handmade hat pins. I'm linking up here:   Thanks for looking. You can pick these pins up in my etsy shop.

I made another memory wire bracelet. I went a little chunkier this time. Here it is: I'm linking up to some of the parties on the side and to

Victoria Case is having a new release over at SCACD and there is blog candy to celebrate. Check it our HERE .

Do you see him? I made a new wreath for the front door. I went out and took the old one off and put up the new one, only to find myself face to face with a small frog. EEEEEWWW! I thought he would jump off while I went to get my camera, but he didn't. He just hid behind the wreath, so I took pictures with him on the door and then took one of him just for laughs. I saw a wreath at Michael's that used metal flip flops and was way out of my price range, but it inspired me to do something with real flip flops. I've also been seeing these rag wreaths or fabric strip wreaths and thought I'd combine the two ideas. I purchased some childrens size 12 flip flops from the Dollar Tree. I've decorated them with some fabric flowers I've made while trying out all the new (or new to me) tutorials for flowers on the internet. I used fabric from my stash, much of it vintage. I just tied on the strips, made flowers, hot glued them to the flip flops, and then hot glued...

It seems that lately I've been jumping from craft to craft- stamping, sewing, now beading. Actually, I'm trying to put to use my stash of supplies and try all those things that have been on the lifetime "to do" list. I have a collection of seed beads and faceted beads from my days of making ornaments. I also have this bracelet that was given to me - I've been wearing it lately and thinking that I could make some and use my seed beads. So I started doing some research and discovered these are memory wire bracelets and a very good beginner project. Perfect for me! I don't really want to get serious into jewelry making but if it's quick and easy I'll give it a go. Here is my new memory wire bracelet. The seed beads were in my stash and I purchased the larger beads on sale at Michaels when I bought the memory wire. Thanks for looking! Linking up here:

Hey, hope everyone has had a great week. We've been really busy with some house projects so I'm scratching and clawing to find craft time. I have nothing completed to share, but here are some great giveaways going on: Awesome jewlery from Mississippi Mud at TaterTots and Jello A necklace from Love Stitched at Little Miss Momma $60 CSN Gift certificate giveaway at Thrifty Parsonage Living

Last week I set out to make myself a dress- the first since I took a sewing class in high school. I've had this piece of striped fabric from my Grandmother's stash for years. I just couldn't decide what to make out of it. Then during my surfing one day I came across this dress . It inspired me to use this fabric for a similar dress. The complete directions aren't there so I did a litte more surfing. THIS video helped out a lot. Here is my dress: Here is how I made it (sorry- no photos of the process). Cut two rectangles of fabric- To determine size- take widest measurement (widest point of hips for me) and add 7 inches, divide in half. Each piece needs to be this wide. For me this is a little too wide- you could probably get away with adding five inches. My dress is rather "tent like" in the body and I wouldn't dare wear it without a belt. To determine length- MS says measure from top of shoulder to desired length and add five inches. I just held the mat...

This past week I played with fabric some more. I've made a dress (come back tomorrow and I'll share it) and I finished up this- a rolled flower bib necklace. Are you sick of these yet? I'm a little slow getting around to trying all the latest and greatest so this is my first one. If you haven't made one yet, you should. They are fairly easy. I studied the rosette flower tutorials at You Can Make This ( tutorial link is within the post), The Woman Who Couldn't Sit Still , and Erin Bassett , and a few others. Ultimately I decided that I liked my flowers made by tying a knot in the end of the strip for the rose "center" and then just twist and roll, gluing with some fabric glue as I go. I tuck and glue the end to the back and then glue the flower to the felt. When it dries, I cut it away so you can't see the felt. I then arranged my flowers on felt and glued, cut away again so you can't see it. I glued on ribbon, sewed and glued pearl...