The DIY Experiment

Craft Supplies Mystery Box or $25 DIY Gift Card Giveaway

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 04:00:19 +0000

Welcome to the Gifts For My Girlfriends Giveaway Hop hosted by BloggerPR! September is Women’s Friendship Month, so we decided to celebrate our girlfriends! In honor of these friendships, we have put together an event to highlight some of the best gift giving ideas for our girlfriends!

Here at DIY Experiment, one of our favorite things to do with our friends is crafting. Because, let's face it – creating is more fun in a group! We've put together two great prizes that you can choose from.

1. An awesome mystery box of crafting goodness. Whoa, right? May contain beads, yarn, fabric, sequins, lace, paper, and so much more! OR

2. A $25 Gift Card to DIY Experiment Shop. Offering lots of fun stuff like kits, beads, papers, and other fun bits. This hasn't launched yet, but is scheduled to launch approximately Oct 1st.

Winner will get to choose. Open worldwide, too! Woohoo!

Enter in the easy peasy rafflecopter form after the jump.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This event will END on September 27th, which gives you plenty of time to hop down the linky list below! Each blogger is giving away prizes valued $20 or more, so you don’t want to miss out! Good luck and have fun!

How To Hem Jeans and Leave the Original Hem

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:32:57 +0000

Did you know you could hem jeans and leave the factory hem intact? I had heard about this a few times, but couldn't really visualize how it was done. When Cathy at Sidetracked Mom shared this tutorial, I had an A-HA moment.

From Cathy:

I’m short. Five foot nothing, to be exact. I have a 28” inseam. Most of the jeans and pants I buy pool at the end of my leg on the floor, even with high heels on. I was taking my jeans to a tailor – but that was costing me $20 each time! Add that on to the cost of a good pair of jeans… Ouch! And, because jeans today usually have a worn edge on the hem, I was usually dissatisfied with the newly folded clean edge I just paid for. In fact, I have a pretty expensive pair of jeans sitting in my closet, never to be worn again because they look so obviously tailored and it is just not attractive. (Unless you are my husband reading this… in that case, no such jeans exist!)

I was at my mother-in-laws one day and somehow the topic of having jeans hemmed came up. She told me she had hers hemmed but I couldn’t tell by looking at them… the tailor had somehow, miraculously in my opinion, kept the original hem while shortening the leg!! I set out closely examining these jeans because I was determined to figure out HOW in the world this was accomplished!

When I called my tailor to see if she knew how to do it this way, she said she did but it would cost me even more! So, needless to say, I did get it figured out on my own and I want to share it with you today! It’s very simple and if you’re anything like me, cringing at the thought of having to shop for jeans that you know will be too long and will then cost you an extra $20+ just to have them tailored… You’re going to love this! And, it’s so simple! Here we go….

Here are the jeans I need to hem. See how the edge has a worn look? These just would not look right folded and sewn!

First, you’re going to need to know how much you want to raise your hem. Take that number, divide by 2, and cuff your jeans to measure that number. For example, if you want to take them up 3”, you’ll cuff them at 1.5”. I needed to hem mine by an inch and a half so, as you can see here, I cuffed them at 3/4 “ and pinned it.

I suggest measuring & pinning all the way around because with the seams and folding that already exist in the jean, I find it doesn’t cuff exactly even all the way around unless I measure bit by bit as I make my way around the cuff.

Be sure to line up the stitching to help keep the hem inconspicuous.

Also, be sure to use a “jeans needle” so you don’t break your needle… not that I would know from experience….

Stitch as close to the original hem as possible.

After you’ve stitched all the way around, turn the excess material inside the leg and pull the original hem down to flatten out the stitch. Iron it flat. You can either cut the excess material off or use a fabric glue to help keep it flat against the inside of the leg. But, when there isn’t a lot of excess material, I don’t bother with either.

Here’s a “before & after” after one leg is finished:

In the photo below, the leg on top is the hemmed leg, the leg on bottom hasn’t been done yet:

I think if the material has less color variation, it’s even more difficult to tell they’ve been hemmed:

I had to look closely at the jeans in my closet just to find these to show you another finished pair!

So there you have it! It takes about 30 minutes or less, almost no additional cost, and looks much better than the “fold and sew” technique the tailor uses!

Have You Ever Done Teabag Folding?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:51:08 +0000

I've heard of teabag folding, but I always thought it was really difficult. After seeing this awesome tutorial, I think I may give it a shot!

You will need:

1 sheet of 12 teabag tiles
personal paper trimmer and/or scissors
glue stick
card stock
double sided tape or glue dots

Instructions:

1. Find a tiled paper that you like. You can purchase pre-printed papers if you like but I generally print free teabag folding tiles. I chose a pretty tile with some pink in it for Valentine’s Day.

2. Carefully cut out each tile. I use a personal paper trimmer because it cuts the tiles out more evenly than I can by hand but you can certainly use scissors.

3. You will need twelves squares to create the card I’m making.

4. Take one piece of cardstock and cut it to be 5″ x 10″ . Fold it in half. That will be your card base.

Read the rest of the instructions at Confessions of an Overworked Mom.

Excerpted with permission