oven mitts

DIYs are great - a mixture of hard work & personal touch. This oven mitt tutorial is perfect for gift-giving or for use around your own house! Either way, it's always a treat to make something cute & practical. 

You'll need a few supplies:

• Cotton cover fabric (I made mine at Spoonflower - an awesome website where you can design your own fabric)
• Cotton lining (in a complimentary color, of course!)
• Insul-Bright insulated lining (can be found at the fabric/craft store)
• Cotton batting (I'm using Warm & Natural, also at the fabric/craft store)
• Bias tape
• 4-5" of ribbon or thin bias tape (this will be used for the loop to hang your oven mitt)
• Thread
• A pattern (download mine below!) 

Side note about my fabric: The silhouettes on my fabric are based off the band Tegan & Sara (my girlfriend's favorite band). How personalized is that!

Okay, let's go!

Using your pattern, start by cutting two oven mitt shapes from each of your fabrics. If your fabric has a right- & wrong-side, cut one of the shapes in reverse, as seen below. 

Once you have two pattern shapes cut from each type of fabric, lay them out in the following way (you'll end up with two separate piles): 

Pin each pile together. 

Sew each piece around the edges with a zigzag stitch. 

Trim the excess fabric around the edges of the zigzag stitching.

Pin the bottom edge of your oven mitt pieces with the bias tape. This is where you'll pin your loop on too! 

Sew along your bias tape & loop with a straight stitch. Trim excess bias tape on the ends if there is any. 

Pin your two pieces together, lining side out on both. 

With a zigzag stitch, sew around all edges except for the cuff. Then trim off excess fabric. Turn your oven mitt inside out, & you're done!

What do you guys think? Have any of you used Spoonflower before for a practical & cute DIY?

xoxo-

m.e.

Related // Homemade Vanilla Extract

dried roses

Hello all!

Did your lover give you flowers this Valentine's Day? Are you reluctant to throw them out? Good! Drying roses is a great way to keep the love alive all year long, & it's super simple. 

This drying process works well with lots of flowers, but the key is to choose flowers that will preserve their color & hold onto their petals - for example, roses! 

You will want to use flowers that haven't quite kicked the bucket yet. My flowers haven't drooped, but they're starting to wilt. Perfect! Keep in mind that however they look now is how they'll look after they've dried. 

(I will be drying my baby's breath too, but they've got a few more days of spunk left in 'em)

Cut the bottoms off of your rose stems. Since they've been sitting in water, their stems will be gunky & gross. You'll want to cut up to the green part on the stem. Leaving the rotten brown stem bottoms will attract bacteria & trap too much water! 

Remove any leaves or petals that are too far gone, like this leaf shown above. 

Wrap the bottom of the stems in thread or yarn. Nothing too tight - you won't want to trap water at the ends of the stems. Just tight enough to keep your flowers together.  

Leave enough thread to make a loop at the end of your bouquet so you can hang it up!

Hang your bouquet upside-down in a dry, sunny place to encourage the drying process. 

In a few weeks you'll have a lovely bouquet of dried roses that will last for months, or maybe even years to come! Be patient, & don't get over-eager. You want your flowers as dry as a bone before turning them right-side up again. 

They'll last a long time, & look great paired with other dried flowers or in a pot of potpourri. Just so you guys know I'm not kidding, these are my Valentine's Day flowers from last year!

Any other ideas for leftover Valentine's Day lovelies? 

xoxo - 

m.e.

Related // Fabric Flowers & Tissue Paper Flowers

first!

Get ready, internet!

Because we're about to make some stuff!

Anything, in fact.

See you soon,

xoxo -

m.e.