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Hope this is useful to you! It was to me :) I try not to post too much web design related stuff here, since it’s not really the topic of this blog, but I figured this would be more universally useful. If you’re into this stuff, I post more if it at the DabbledStudios blog – latest was a post on troubleshooting problems with Contact Form 7, if you’re interested!

Hi! I’m Heather from Dollar Store Crafts, a daily blog devoted to making cool crafts with dollar store stuff. I’m so excited to be swapping posts with Dot!

Fall is here, and with it, an abundance of oak leaves and branches in my yard! I love our old-growth oak trees, but they sprinkle me with more presents than I can handle. What to do with nature’s bounty? Craft with it! I spent a couple minutes gathering branches to transform into this spooky Halloween-themed tree. Ornaments are quick and easy: dollar store erasers!

Project Estimate:

• Tree branches, gathered from outside
• Halloween erasers, $1
• Ribbon, on hand
• Acrylic craft paint, on hand
• A mug, cup, jar, etc., on hand
• Floral foam, on hand (or use playdough or dried beans)
• Hot glue, on hand

Total cost: $1 and up

Making the Ornaments: My biggest stroke of crafting genius happened when I was in the checkout line at the dollar store: the impulse buys near the counter included a set of Halloween erasers. Perfect for ornaments for my tree. I found ribbon to attach to them in my stash, but you can also use yarn, thread, embroidery floss, or whatever you have. I glued the ribbon to the backs of the erasers with hot glue (I pressed the ribbon into the glue using the tip of a pencil, thus avoiding the typical hot glue finger burn scenario!).

You can also just make your own ornaments out of paper cut outs, or other dollar store Halloween decorations you come across. I think it would be really cute to accent the tree with tulle bows in black, purple, or orange, but I was trying to keep this really simple and low-budget, and I don’t have any in my stash.

Painting the Branches: I chose to use acrylic craft paint for this project–it’s usually my go-to painting solution for dollar store crafting because it’s cheap, comes in a ton of colors, and is easy to clean up. Craft stores have acrylic paint in small bottles for about $.50 or less, and usually have hundreds of colors. The main drawback to using acrylic is that it will take you a bit of time: it’s easy, but it takes a few minutes. Like about fifteen minutes, depending on how many branches. I just put my branches on a paper towel and painted them.  Oh, and I kept one leaf on a branch just because I thought it might be spooky. I just painted it along with the branch, and I really like how it turned out!

However, it would be quick and simple to use spray paint to paint the branches. You could probably be done painting in about two minutes if you use spray paint. I glanced at the spray paint aisles at my local stores, but I didn’t find the color I wanted (chartreuse), and all the fashiony colors were more expensive than I wanted for this project. You can find black or white spray paint at your local big-box retailer for less than a dollar, though!

Potting the Tree: I used a dollar store mug I already had on hand to pot the tree. You can use pretty much any sturdy container, though: jars, flower pots, vases, etc. I don’t have any floral foam on hand, so I filled the mug up with dried split peas and stuck the branches in. This works to keep the branches fairly upright, but they did shift around with the slight weight of the eraser ornaments. This method might work better if you are using lightweight paper ornaments. Also, I have little kids, so there’s no way I’m actually going to leave a decoration out with tiny loose objects within easy reach because they know how to reach messy town in seconds! Another good option is to put playdough in the container to anchor your branches. You can make your own for pennies (my favorite no-cook playdough recipe is in the first comment in this Instructables tutorial).

You can customize this project any way you want, but it could be a fun one for kids (just do the hot glue part yourself).

Thanks, Heather, for sharing!  I’ll be visiting Dollar Store Crafts next week to share a Dabbled project! – Dot

My brother, Brett, wrote up this Tutorial for me, and I love it.   When we visited him in North Carolina, he took us all down to the river to look for fossils and sharks teeth and whatnot, and it was a fun adventure.  This would also be very cool to use at the beach for shells.  It’s a perfect end of summer project– Do something fun, especially with your kids!

Most kids like dinosaurs, sharks, and such, so when The Boy and Dot came to visit I decided to take them to creek to look for fossils from dinosaurs, sharks and such. We had a great day, and The Boy found all kinds of shark teeth from millions of years ago. Now while The Boy (3 years old at this point) seemed to be more interested in digging than actually finding things, many older kids really enjoy finding fossils and artifacts. After all, finding stuff is fun! It’s also great to get outside and get some exercise. Anyway, I decided to make a new screen recently, and figured I would document the steps in case anyone else was interested.

Keep reading for the supply list, and all the steps, well documented with pictures!  You don’t have to be a carpentry expert to do this…

Materials

1 1”x4”X8’
1 1”x2”x8’
1 Roll of ½” or ¼” Hardware Cloth
8 2” L Joints
2 Pull Handles with Screws
24 ¾” #6 Wood Screws
28 2” Deck Screws
1 Swimming Pool Noodle
6 14” Zip Ties
A Whole Bunch of ¼” Staples
About 6’ of Nylon Clothes Line (optional—for a leash)
(I believe everything but the pool noodle is available from Lowes.)

Tools

• Tape Measure
• Carpenter’s Square
• A Pen
• Wire Cutters
• Staple Gun
• Circular Saw
• Drill with Screw Driver Bits and a 1/8” drill bit.

Always use safety goggle when using tools

Instructions

Step 1- Cut your boards!

Note: I suppose this step is optional as you could have the folks at Lowes do this, but what’s the fun in that?

Measure and cut your wood 1×4 into 2 30” pieces and 2 18” pieces. These pieces will be the walls of your screen. I measure and cut my first 30” piece, and then use it to measure my second 30” piece. This helps make sure they are the same length. I then cut the 2nd 30” piece. The remaining board should be about 36”. Measure it to get the exact length, and then cut it in half. Your 2 halves should be about 18”.

Next, repeat the process with the 1×2. These pieces will be the bottom of your frame and help hold the screen in place. When cutting my 1×2 pieces I generally use my already cut 1×4’s as my measuring sticks.

Step 2—Assembling Your Frame Walls

Use your #6 wood screws to attach 2 of the 2” L joints to each end of each of the 30” 1×4 pieces- make sure the L joint is flush with the end of the board. Next, attach the 18” 1×4 pieces to one of the 30” pieces. Finally, fit the 2nd 30” piece with L joints across the other ends of the 18” pieces, completing the rectangle, and attach using the L joints. Note, when assembling your frame, the 18” pieces should be inside of the 30” pieces. Next put a 2” Deck Screw between the L joints on each corner. These should pass through the 30” 1x4s and into the ends of the 18” 1x4s. You will probably want to drill the holes (with a 1/8” bit) for the screws before doing this to reduce the likelihood of splitting your boards. I didn’t do this, but note the beginnings of a split in the photo below.

Step 3—Assembling the Bottom of Your Frame

Lay your 1x2s out in a rectangle—be sure to keep your 18” pieces inside of the 30” pieces, so they will match up with your screen walls. Put 2” Deck Screws into each corner to hold the rectangle together. Again, first drill holes for your screws using a 1/8” drill bit.

Step 4—Cut your Screen

Warning: You may want to wear gloves for this step. Hardware cloth has many very exposed wire tips. It also comes tightly rolled and has a tendency to roll back up often causing those sharp tips to inflict painful damage to the unprotected hands and arms of those ignore this warning.

The first thing you will want to do here is cut off those pesky points. Take your wire cutters and snip the sharp edges off the hardware cloth. Once you have done this unroll the hardware cloth lengthwise over the bottom of your frame, and cut off a section approximately the 30” length of your frame. While you want to screen to cover most of the 18” end pieces, you will only want about 1 square of wire (2 squares for 1/4” hardware cloth) on each of the 30” side pieces. So, lay your section of hardware cloth over the bottom of your frame, lining it up so that only one square width (2 for 1/4″) is covering one of the side pieces. On the other side, mark the first row of squares covering the side piece (2nd for 1/4″) and cut off the remaining rows.

Once you’ve cut out your rectangle, use your staple gun to attach the screen to the frame bottom. Remember, the screen should cover most of the 18” end pieces, and only about 1 square (or 2) of the 30” side pieces. This is so sharp edges will not extend beyond the area covered by the 1×4 walls. Now, I have no idea how many staples are required, but staples are cheap, so I use bunches. Start by stapling a corner, putting a vertical stable just inside the vertical wire and a horizontal staple just inside a horizontal wire. This should keep the wire from slipping. Then stretch the screen as tightly as you can and staple all the way around the screen. Now you have the bottom of your screen!

Step 5—Attaching the Frame Walls

Now lay your frame walls on the floor and place the screen bottom on top of it. Line it up carefully, and then use 2” deck screws to attach it to the frame walls. Again, first drill holes for the screws using a 1/8” drill bit to prevent splitting. I use about 20 screws here—5 per side.

Step 6—Attach Handles

Place a handle in the center of each 18” ends and screw them into place.

Step 6—Make your screen floatable!

Take your pool noodle and cut it in half. Place the halves along the sides of your screen on the flotation ledges, and use zip ties to hold them in place.

Step 7—Attach a Leash (optional)

I didn’t do that for this one, but will probably add it at some point.

Cut about a 6 foot length of nylon clothes line and tie it to one of the handles.

Congratulations! You now have a floatable fossil Screen.

Happy hunting!

In my house, we (and by “we,” I mean me and my uninterested husband and kids that I am forcing this on) are doing our best to be better stewards of our environment.  So when Dot asked me to be a guest poster on Dabbled while she sunbathes on an exotic beach being served fruity cocktails by 22-year-old buff cabana boys (I am now thinking I got the raw end of this deal), I immediately racked my brain to come up with a crafty “green” project.

And thus, the reusable sandwich bag project was born. Here in the South, school starts ridiculously early – like next week.  So since we are heading back to school, I thought it would be the perfect time to make

these bags.  These bags are the perfect size for holding sandwiches, cookies, crackers, chips, apple slices, grapes and all the other lunch staples.  And while you might not want to store watermelon or last night’s pot roast in them, they work really well.  Not to mention, they are simple to clean and can keep untold amounts of plastic bags out of the landfills.  So without further ado . . .

Reusable Sandwich Bags

Materials for one sandwich size bag

• 7”x 15” piece of plastic or vinyl lining (This is located in the home fabrics section of most craft stores.  This is a much easier project if you buy the plastic lining that DOES NOT annoyingly sticks to itself.)  If you want to make snack size bags, cut your plastic into a 7” x 8” rectangle.
• Construction paper/cardstock/heavy duty paper template – 6.5” x 10” will work
• 7” piece of sew-on velcro
• (2) 7” pieces of Decorative Ribbon

Step 1.  Place your vinyl right side up on your working surface.  On each of the short ends, you will sandwich the vinyl between a piece of velcro and a piece of ribbon(ribbon on outside or right side edge, velcro on inside edge).  Pin in place.

Step 2.  Stitch the ribbon/vinyl/velcro together.  The end product looks and works best if you hem both the top edge and bottom edge of your velcro.

Step 3.  Fold the vinyl in half (wrong sides together) so that you have a 7” x 7.5” rectangle (7” x 4” for snack size bags) with the velcro on the inside.  Place your paper template inside the folded plastic so that ¼” overhangs both sides (template will overhang top).

Step 4:  With your iron set to a medium heat, fuse the vinyl together on the edges using your paper template as a guide.  DO NOT place the iron over the entire piece of plastic.  Instead use the tip of the iron to seal the edge.  When you’re done, let the pouch cool for 30 seconds and then remove the template.

Step 5:  Stitch the now sealed sides using a 1/8” hem.  Be sure to hem the entire length of the bag, including the ribbon/Velcro portion (I suggest backstitching this portion as well) to ensure your bag can endure repeated use.

This project is easy, fast and cheap.  You can easily make a dozen bags in an hour, and when all was said and done, the cost for each bag comes in at just under 30 cents.  And best of all, most vinyl is dishwasher safe on the top rack (test a single bag first to make sure).  Enjoy!

The Dragon Cake I made for my 4 year old’s birthday was so popular, that I decided I’d better do a tutorial. Note, I am not a professional baker, and i’m sure there are things I’ve gotten ‘wrong’.. but that’s one reason i did this tutorial to show that you don’t have to be a professional to attempt something cool!

PS: You guys better appreciate this! I actually didn’t do the best job of documenting my process while making the Dragon Cake, so I took some of the leftovers and made a mini version just so I could get some good pics of the process. And since I did put a lot of work into this tutorial, I would be tickled pink if you’d link to it, stumble it, or share it around!

So, you have a couple of ways to see it…

I wrote the whole thing up as an instructable, here. If you’re really going to try it (or want ALL the details) be sure to read the instructable, as it’s much more thorough.

Or if you just want a quick and dirty version I documented the creation of the mini dragon as a photo-tutorial here and below.

Oh, I’ll do an entire Dragon Party Wrap Up(cakes, invites, favors, etc)
this week, so stay tuned.

1. A possible skull material (the original dragon’s skull was modeling chocolate), 2. “Skull” modeled out of Tootie Roll, 3. The guts! (cake ball material-but I do recommend a light color instead of red velvet), 4. kneading, 5. Rolled fondant for head., 6. a platform for holding the cake while draping, 7. molded dragon body, 8. Place cake on an upside down cup, and drape fondant., 9. Tuck the edges under, but leave the neck and tail ends untucked., 10. Layout, and place skull., 11. Cover skull in fondant., 12. Shape tail out of fondant., 13. Roll out a contrasting color, and cut into strips, 14. Cover joints with strips of fondant, 15. Cut out a wing shape., 16. Shape the wing, and Attach to toothpick, 17. jun09 240, 18. Use a large straw (or larger circle) to make dots., 19. To make the eyes, 20. The eyes!, 21. Cover a Ball with fondant, Mold Foot from Fondant., 22. Mold the Claw, 23. Place the Claw, 24. Finished Mini-Dragon

Get the whole thing here:

How to make a Dragon Cake – More DIY How To Projects

Related “Dragon Party” Posts:

• Download dragon thank you note and party invitation
• Finished Dragon Cake…
• Cake Baking Day!
• Dragon Wings…
• Dragon Invitation Graphic
  

How to Make a Flower Pinata (instructions below photo)

(photos correspond by row from left to right)

Materials:
One 10inch balloon
Newspaper
White liquid school glue
Pinch of Salt
¼ cup Warm water
Spray paint
Tissue paper
Brads
Hot glue gun

STEP ONE: Cut newspaper into strips. Mix ¾ cup of glue with one ¼ cup of warm water to create paste. Add a generous pinch of salt and mix in. The salt will stop your piñata from molding. VERY important!

Blow up balloon, tie the end, and tie a long piece of string or ribbon to the knot. Dip newspaper strips into paste and layer onto balloon. Do two layers at a time, and let dry completely by suspending from ceiling (or other tall space!) with ribbon/string. I did four layers total, but you can do up to eight.

Note: to speed up the drying process, set one or multiple fans directly underneath your piñata, facing upward. Two layers will dry in less than half a day- no joke! (My husband’s idea – GENIUS!)

STEP TWO: To make the points (and this is where you can get creative – you don’t have to have points, you can add whatever shapes you desire!) I folded cereal boxes into cones using a bone folder to score the folds, and secured them with masking tape. When attaching the cones to the balloon, be sure to use multiple layers of tape for security.

Cover entire form with at least a couple more layers of newspaper and glue mix, paying extra attention to the areas where the points and balloon meet – those are the weakest areas.

STEP THREE: Spray paint! Mine needed three coats – but that will depend on your color choice. Let dry.

STEP FOUR: Push a pin or needle all the way through on side of the balloon to allow the balloon to deflate and air to escape. Using a craft knife, cut three sides of a square to create a flap big enough to insert your candy through. Insert candy, and tape closed if desired (don’t worry, you won’t see it later!)

STEP FIVE: Cut lots of tissue paper flowers. If you are one of those lucky folks with a die-cut machine, I’m sure this will take you all of two minutes. For the rest of us, I drew the flowers free-hand and then cut them out by hand. Because tissue paper is so thin you can cut multiple flowers at once.

STEP SIX: Make sure you have a variety of flower colors and shapes

STEP SEVEN: Cut some strips of tissue paper to use as streamers. They don’t have to be perfect or exact – make them whatever length and thickness your heart desires!

STEP EIGHT: (not shown) Grab a couple of flowers in varying sizes, and stick a brad through the middle and fold over in back. I just used regular scrapbooking brads from Hobby Lobby.

Using a glue gun, attach the assembled flowers to the piñata form. Overlap them slightly and “froof” (I know that’s not really a word!) the petals so that they have some volume and don’t just lay flat. The closer the flowers are together, the cooler it looks! Be sure to cover the entire form, and check for “NAKED” spots!

STEP NINE: And you’re done! Based on how you’re going to hang it, you may need to cut some small slits or holes at the top of your piñata to allow rope to be tied though. Hang, hit, and enjoy!

NOTE: I didn’t made the piñata stick shown – but it would be easy to do with a lightweight wooden dowel from a craft store and some more tissue paper.

More Cinco de Mayo/Fiesta ideas here!

Published on: May 2, 2009

My friend Heidi Bragg gave The Boy an adorable basket filled with goodies as a thank you for borrowing his tux. I found out that she actually made this gorgeously cute basket herself, and insisted that she tell us how! She did, and even provided a pattern for you to make your own! Check out the so cute monkey and banana coordinated fabric… the possibilities are endless. Wouldn’t this be special for a keepsake easter basket? Or a gift basket for a friend?

I’ve updated the photo at the top of this post to include a couple of the baskets that Dabbled readers (Gina Allen & Justine Wilson)  have made, using these instructions.  Really nice job, guys!

Welcome CRAFT, Tip Junkie, and Whip-up readers…
Look around, we have lots of cool projects here!

More pics and the pattern below the instructions.

Materials for basket:
½ yard of fabric (¼ for the outer basket shell; ¼ for the liner)
1 yard Pellon, double-sided fusible interfacing – you can make 2-3 baskets from a single yard of interfacing, but since you need the length for the basket handle, you need at least 1 yard even if you only plan to make one basket.
Iron on backing (WunderUnder) for letters
Contrasting fabric for letters

Step 1: First things first, you’ll want to design your basket or download the pattern I created. The basket I designed is a tapered square design, but you could easily create a rounded basket with just a few modifications.

Step 2: Cut out the pieces as shown in pattern from both the outer shell fabric and liner fabric. You’ll also want to cut out a 2.5” wide x 25” long piece from each fabric for the handle.

Step 3: Trace the interfacing pattern pieces onto the Pellon. You’ll also want to measure out (2)1.25” wide x 26” long pieces of interfacing for the handle. Cut out all the pieces.

Step 4: Iron each piece of fabric to remove wrinkles. Fuse the Pellon onto the outer shell fabric (follow the directions on the interfacing to do this), leaving about a ¼” of excess fabric around the edges (the basket side pieces will have additional excess at the top).

Step 5: Sew the outer shell together keeping the needle of the machine as close to the interfacing as possible. I found it easiest to sew all the sides together and then attach the bottom of the basket. The basket should now be formed – simply turn it right side out (this might seem a bit difficult to manage with the stiff interfacing, but don’t give up. Any wrinkles that appear can be ironed out later.) Iron the top edge of the basket down over the back of the interfacing.

Step 6: Sew the liner together – sides first and then attach the bottom. Insert the liner into the outer shell and fold the top down so that it is even with the outer shell. Iron into place, following the directions on the Pellon to complete the fusing process.

Step 8: Follow the Pellon directions to fuse your handle fabric onto each piece of your handle interfacing, wrapping the fabric around the interfacing so that the raw edges meet. Sew the wrong sides of the handles together.

Step 9: Attach the handles to the basket by sewing them onto the interfaced-lined outer shell. Ideally, the handle should rest at least 1.5 inches below the top of the basket on each side.

Step 10: Stitch the liner to the outer shell using a decorative stitch. Or if you prefer, you can use sewing glue to close the seam.

Lettering:
Follow the directions provided here to add lettering to your basket. I choose not to outline my letters with stitching and therefore applied them after the basket was complete. If you prefer to edge stitch your letters, you will need to do this before you fuse the fabric to the Pellon or stitch the basket pieces together.

Step 1: Find a good table.
Check the size and make sure it has a few drawers or doors.
In this case, we used a small table with long legs, and multiple drawers.
We don’t have a ton of space, so we wanted to go small.
The key to this project is working with the piece you have. Figure out how
to use the lines and details of the piece to your advantage.

Step 2: Modify as necessary.
In our case, the table had long legs, which weren’t what we were looking for
in a kids stove.
So we measured 1 ½ to 2 inches, and cut the legs off, using a circular saw.

Step 3: Sand/prime.
We took the drawers out, and sanded everything down enough that it had a
‘tooth’ to take paint.
Then primed the whole thing with white primer. If you’re lucky enough to
have a piece in a light color, then less primer will be required, but for
us, several coats were necessary.
Lesson learned, for this one, we should have done more coats of primer to
cover the dark green. If there is anything you want to leave the original
color, tape off before priming.

Step 4:
We had taped off anything we wanted to stay green, in our case the panels on
the drawer fronts. The rest was painted yellow. Allow to dry thoroughly,
multiple coats if necessary.

Step 5:
Make the knobs.
What we did: cut 3 circles out of ½ in thick MDF (we had three knobs in the
current top drawer, modify per the number of knobs you have/want).
Paint the circles yellow.
(While this dries you can put more coats on the base piece if necessary.)
For the black centers of the knobs, cut scrap wood into triangle or
trapezoid shapes, and paint black.
{ For the less carpentry inclined, you have multiple options with the knobs
. Ours were circles cut out of MDF, but if you want, you can buy disks from
the craft store, or even easier, find some flat round drawer knobs
(something like like this knob) and paint on the details. If you
use store bought knobs, your step 7 will actually be easier. }

Step 6:
The top.
Tape off the bottom (yellow) and spray the top with a metallic paint (we
used a hammered aluminum).
Let it dry.
After it’s dry, tape off the top with painters tape.
Use a circle cutter (or a saucer or something else round) to cut out circles
that will become the burners.
Peel out the circles, leaving the remainder masked.
Paint the interior of the circles Red. Let dry.

Step 7:
Attaching the knobs.
Remove the original knobs. In our case, there were three drawer pulls which
we were replacing with burner knobs.
For Homemade knobs:
You’ll need for each knob, a washer, your disk, a screw, and the
triangle/trapezoid shape. Additionally, you’ll need some scrap MDF to screw
into, inside the drawer.
Place a washer, then the disk, then slip the screw through. Screw into the
scrap MDF, leaving it loose enough to turn. Then glue the black triangle to
the top, covering the screw.
{For Store Bought Knobs: Simply attach the knob as you would to any drawer,
but leave loose enough to turn easily. No extra MDF backing is required. }

Step 8:
Now to finish off the top of the stove.
Peel off the paper you were masking with, to reveal the red circles. The
size of your burners will depend on the size of your circles, so estimate
accordingly.

To make the burners:
Take about a 1 in wide piece of MDF, about 7 in long in our case, and cut at
a 10 degree angle on each side.
Do this 3 times.

Sand edges, paint tops and sides black.
Glue to top of stove, as shown, using wood glue. Put something heavy on top
until it dries.

Step 9:
Send the Chef in!

Oh, and The 6 o’clock stitch asked me to include this in their tutorials round up… check out other cool ones here.

This was inspired by something I used to do when I was a kid back in the eighties, make friendship bracelets out of fishing tackle (specifically a barrel swivel). You can buy these anywhere they sell fishing gear – I paid 99cents for a pack of 12 and didn’t even use them all.

I combined that with my love of faux shrinky dinks from #6 plastic (previous instructable here or check out my Shrinky Dinky Test Lab experiments) for a fun, updated twist!

Of course, bracelets aren’t the only thing you can do with this — you could make drop earrings, necklaces, bead curtains, or whatever! This would also be a great project for kids to do, I could see this at a pre-teen girl birthday party…

All the instructions are here as an Instructable

PS… Don’t forget to please go vote for my Chocolate Dipped Chocolate instructable in the Sweet Treats contest!

Related:
All the Shrinky Dinks Test Lab Posts
Shrinky Xmas Ornament
Shrinky Wine glass markers

I don’t know if anyone else did these in the Eighties, but if not, maybe you can find other Eighties stuff you did do at Crafting with Cat Hair!

Oh, and the winner of the Anti-Valentines contest hasn’t contacted me yet. I’ve tried to find him/her and haven’t been able to. So please contact me in the next 2 days for your choice of prizes. Otherwise I’ll just start giving them out to the other winners, and you’ll have to take what’s left :)

1. Felted Sweaters, cut into fun shapes – I’m lucky enough to have borrowed a die cut machine (thanks, SomeArtMama!), but you can just cut them out with scissors. Trace around cookie cutters or look for shapes on the web to make a paper template (search google images for things like heart template and flower template).
2. Supplies: Embroidery floss, a button, 3 felt shapes in graduated sizes, safety pin(make sure you needle will fit through the holes in your button!). Felt shapes: for the 2 I did, this one was heart, then flower, topped with circle. The other was flower, star, topped with circle– be creative!
3. Use wire pliers to sprong out your safety pin – You’ll want to separate the loop at the end so you can slide your fabric around it.
4. Stick it in, centered where you want the pin to go, (look at the back – all the silver showing should be able to be covered by your next layer).
5. Slide it through until its on the other side, you’ll have to bunch up the felt and twist it to get it around your loop.
6. Close pin, If you’re giving this to a small child, you may want to dull the point of your safety pin so they won’t prick themselves as easily.
7. Stack your design, (well, you probably did this earlier!)
8. Ready to assemble, Start with the side without the safety pin closure.
9. Place first flower,
10. Sew it on, starting in the center of the flower so your knot will be covered by the next layer. Make as small stitches as possible on the back side. For extra security , you can stitch around the saftely pin so it’s held by the thread as well.
11. Sew on top layer and button, You’re just sewing these to the middle layer, so you don’t have to go all the way through to the back (hides most of the stitching)
12. Note you’re hiding most of the stiching in the middle.,
13. Tie off thread, hidden in the middle,
14. Completed Front,
15. Completed back,
16. Looking adorable! I gave this as a gift for a three year old, attached to the cute heart pink shirt.

Update:

A second version