Project

The DIY Cacti You Need In Your Life Right Now

January 31, 2017

If you’re anything like us, you love the idea of adding plants and greenery to your home but aren’t the best at keeping them alive. Spare yourself — and your plants more pain by whipping up one (or both!) of these adorable plush cacti created by Berlin-based maker Na’ama. Read on for the full how to.

Na’an: Hello there sweet makers! How great is a plant that you never need to water, and still will have a long and beautiful life? When you solve problems with fabrics, like I always do, everything is possible! And if you have the love for cacti, it is a unique plant that can decorate your window, shelf or table. I created 2 different cacti design, so each will never feel lonely. They share similar sewing techniques/methods, with slight variations. Let’s make some cacti! [Read more…] about The DIY Cacti You Need In Your Life Right Now

Birds of a Feather Sew Together

August 13, 2016

Celebrate friendship and the people who stick with you through thick and thin with this adorable DIY Birds of a Feather Friendship Napkin. The perfect gift for those who flock together, this DIY napkin takes only a few minutes to sew up and is great for beginners and experts, alike. Add some cuteness to any setting and celebrate friendship with your closest pals!

Our exclusive DIY Gift includes:

1 fat quarter of Organic Cotton Sateen featuring our limited-run designs
A lovely postcard of printed instructions for finishing your project.

This project always ships within two days.

Birds of A Feather NIY Napkin on Organic Cotton Sateen

Birds of A Feather NIY Napkin on lux 100% Organic Cotton Sateen

January Refresh: Fabric Hanging Shelves

January 28, 2013

We devoted the month of January to sharing projects to inspire us to transform those unloved items in our homes into treasures and to reorganize our spaces beautifully. Anda from the Etsy Europe team shares a final brilliant organizational DIY, fabric hanging shelves.

You’ll need:

one yard inner fabric in Spoonflower linen-cotton canvas
one yard outer fabric in Spoonflower linen-cotton canvas
two 20cm lengths (7.5”) of 5cm wide velcro (2”)
four 20x30cm (7.5” x 11.5”) pieces of fiber board, lightweight particle board, or 900+ weight cardstock

Note 1: I live in Europe, and all the rulers in my house are in centimeters, so I created this tutorial in metric. For best results, please measure in cm! I tried my best to convert all measurements to inches anyway, in case you don’t have a way to convert on your own.

Note 2: I didn’t have any velcro when I took photos so I faked it with felt. Please use real velcro or your shelves will just fall off the closet rod! 🙂

Cut fabric:

12 pieces 23x32cm (9”x12.5”) rectangles of inner fabric, for interior of shelves

2 pieces 23x32cm rectangles of outer fabric, for top and bottom of shelves

2 pieces 20x23cm (7.5”x9”) rectangles of outer fabric, for hanging strap

2 pieces 32x69cm (12.5”x27”) rectangles of outer fabric, for outer sides of shelves
All seams are 6mm (1/4”)

Create the hanging strap (use the 20x23cm squares):

With right sides together, stitch around hanging strap, leaving an opening large enough for turning. Trim corners. Turn right side out and press. Slip stitch opening closed.

Sew one side of velcro at one end, flip over and sew other side of velcro at opposite end.

Find center of the top outer fabric piece and measure 1cm from center in each direction and mark. Do the same with hanging strap.

Pin down and sew two straight lines to attach hanging strap to top piece of shelves. You probably want to sew over these lines a few times for security.

Create the top of the shelf (the outer 23x32cm piece you just attached the hanging strap to, and one inner 23x32cm piece):

Press under 1.5cm (3/4”) on back edge of top shelf piece and inner shelf piece.

With right sides together, sew a straight stitch across opposite side (the front edge of the shelf).

The longer edges of the top shelf should still be open.

Flip top shelf right side out and press. Center an inner piece along one side of top shelf, so its right side is facing the right side of the bottom of the top shelf. There should be around 1cm fabric extending past the front and back of the shelf. Stitch along this side. Repeat on opposite side with a second inner rectangle.

You should end up with something that looks like this.

Create more shelves (inner fabric 23×32 pieces):

13-adding-second-shelf

Take two inner fabric pieces and repeat step 2 to make the second shelf. (First press 1.5cm under on back edge of each side, and then with right sides together stitch across front edge.)
Attach this shelf to the side pieces of the first shelf by facing the right side of the top of shelf to the right side of each inner piece above it and straight stitching along this edge.

You’ll always have about 1cm extra fabric extending past the front and back of the shelves, and will need this later when adding the outside.

Attach two more inner side pieces. Make sure you have the front of your shelves all at the front— you’ll be sliding fiber board into the open backs of each shelf at the end.

Repeat steps with next shelf. Repeat steps to make the bottom shelf, only this time use your second outer fabric 23x32cm piece for the bottom of the last shelf. Press everything. You’ll have something like this (seen from the bottom).

Add the outer sides:

Flatten out your shelves.

Face and pin the right side of one long 32×69 rectangle to the top & edges of the right side of one inner part. Everything else will be in the middle.

Straight stitch around this edge—you’ll have a sort of lumpy sandwich. Be careful not to catch the finished shelving fronts and backs as you sew this part.

Straight stitch around sides and top, leaving the bottom open. Turn right side out and repeat with second outer piece. Turn right side out again, and start to get excited because it looks almost finished and it’s kind of magical.

Slip stitch the bottom of each outer piece to the bottom shelf piece. Press!

Finish:

Slide your fiber board into the backs of your shelves and slip stitch the backs of shelves closed. Holy moley, you made some hanging shelves! In the photo I have the hanging strap wrapped around a coat hanger, but the strap will work best when wrapped around a bar in your closet. Be sure to use strong Velcro if you plan on hanging lots of heavy stuff. Now fill it with sweaters and underthings or whatever you like! You’re done!

About Our Guest Blogger

Anda Corrie is an American illustrator, Etsy designer, and émigré living in Berlin, Germany with her small family. In her spare time she obsesses over vintage children’s books, makes homemade schnapps, sews tiny dresses that her 4-year-old stubbornly refuses to wear, and draws. Visit her Spoonflower shop for some lovely hand drawn fabric designs and her Etsy shop, Boosterseat.

January Refresh: Mason Jar Decal Labels

January 25, 2013

This week in our January refreshing & reorganizing DIY series we’re sharing custom label tutorials for beautiful organization. Allie showed us how she designed fabric labels to wrangle her fabric stash and Caroline shared a decal label tutorial to make finding your pantry or workspace goods a snap. Today, Laurie shares her Mason jar decal labels for a colorful way to order your crafting and sewing supplies.

There is nothing I find more satisfying than good old-fashioned organization. It’s like a crisp breeze of fresh air that opens up new perspectives. Really, a good organization project does this to me! And if I take things one step further and combine organization with clean design, crafty goodness, and beautiful color, I’m in heaven! Here’s a simple tutorial to organize all of your lovely making materials into an artful display.

I designed my labels for craft and sewing supplies plus a few bonus labels to organize or decorate other jar lids. You can find the decal label kit in my Spoonflower shop.

Supplies:

An assortment of Mason jars, quart-sized or larger with lids and bands. (I used the regular mouth jars, not the wide-mouth kind.)
My jar lid decals (Or design your own! You can use Allie’s & Caroline’s label design tutorials for guidance.)
Straight-edge ruler or T-Square
X-acto blade
Sharp scissors
Spray paint in the color of your choice (optional)

First, using a cutting board or mat, straight edge and an X-Acto blade (or sharp scissors), carefully cut along the blue dotted line between each decal.

Once you’ve separated each decal, carefully cut around each individual circle using your scissors.

Remove the backing of each decal one at a time, and place each sticky side down onto a Mason jar lid, pressing the center of the decal into position. If you misalign your decal, just reposition and repeat.

Once the decal is centered, press from the center out towards the lid edges with your thumb to smooth out any bumps.

I opted to leave the silver finish as-is on my lid bands but if you want to spray paint your lid bands, you can do this now. Outside, paint the screw-on bands (but not the lid that the decal is attached to) then allow the bands to dry completely.

Fill the jars with the corresponding crafty goodness, top with a decaled lid, then attach the bands! Go on, I’ll wait.

Use the extra decals for anything you’d like! Arrange them on your wall, write on them with a Sharpie for your own custom label, or stick them on your laptop.

About Our Guest Blogger

In addition to being a fabric-obsessed Spoonflower employee by night, Laurie Shipley is a freelance graphic designer, surface pattern designer and illustrator, a mom, writer, crafter and cook. Her work is not limited to a medium or genre, although her current focus is a meticulous juxtaposition of simplistic and intricate pattern illustration for textiles, wallpapers and package design. She dwells in Durham, NC in a continuous creative environment with her son and two cats.

January Refresh: Kitchen Cabinet Decal Labels

January 22, 2013

This week for our January project series to show our spaces a little love, we're sharing a few ways to create custom labels for beautiful organization. Yesterday, Allie showed us how she designed fabric labels to catalogue her sewing room fabric stash. Today Caroline shares a tutorial for creating decal labels to personalize kitchen cabinet storage.

At the new Spoonflower office we have many simple and plain cabinets that all look exactly alike, so I figured using our wall decals I could label them for ease of use. Here's a simple way to organize your kitchen pantry, workplace, or any other space where some classification would come in handy.

I used Adobe Illustrator to create the labels– the tools in Illustrator make it simple to quickly create files with exact measurements. I determined how big the labels should be by measuring the space where I wanted to display them on the cabinet. Once I figured out the sizes my labels would be, I chose the 15"X15" decal size for my project.

In Illustrator I made a new file that was exactly 15" x 15". Seems obvious, right? But the next part is the trick. Using the object tool, click once on the canvas and create a square that is also 15" x 15" and white. Move the square so that it fits exactly into the canvas area so your file will be exactly 15" square. This ensures that none of your image will be cut off when you print your labels!

While still selected, lock the selection.

Next, using the object tool again, create your labels, using the measurements you took when you started. Choose a shape for your labels, and select a font and color(s) you like. I made brown rectangles to coordinate with the cabinet color.

Then I chose the font "StrangeLoveNextWide" for the text and made it white.

The final image will look like this (I printed the fish as something fun to use the blank space in the square decal).

Once you have your file ready, it's time to export it to a PNG of 150dpi. This will optimize it for easy upload to Spoonflower.

I was very excited when I got my decal! Next it was time to cut out the labels. I used a cutting mat, a non-slippery ruler and a rotary blade.

Once the labels were trimmed, I peeled the backing off and smoothed them onto the cabinets.

Voila– now everyone knows where the good stuff is located!

About Our Guest Author

When Caroline isn't working on Spoonflower collateral or the website, she is home cooking up a storm or practicing her kickboxing moves and acting like a kid in a candy shop with her new sewing machine.

January Refresh: Fabric Stash Organization

January 21, 2013

Continuing our January DIY journey to show our spaces a little love, this week we're sharing a few ways to create custom labels for beautiful organization. First up, Allie shows us how she designed fabric labels to catalogue her fabric stash, making an attractive display to inspire new projects!

I love the idea of being super organized, but I never fully execute the actual organizing part. Making cute labels was the perfect excuse to complete an organization project. My ever-growing fabric stash was in need of some serious help, so I decided to conquer it!

Supplies:

custom printed linen fabric
heavy weight fusible interface
velcro squares
scissors
iron

After much time spent browsing Pinterest and a few blogs for inspiration, I settled on two basic design ideas, either a more organic whimsical ribbon theme, or a fresh circular shape with crisp lines.

I decided the circles would look better with everything surrounding the bookcase that houses my fabric stash, so I continued to develop that idea. Picking a color palette was easy– I love to use aqua for everything. I chose the perfect shade from Spoonflower Color Guide:

The design process was fairly simple using Adobe Photoshop, my design program of choice. First, I created an outline of circle and added a dotted border.

Adding a simple aqua diagonal stripe gave the label some color and made it a bit more exciting. Dots and stripes, and I’m sold!

Overlay text of your choice and ta-da, a label!

I chose linen, my go-to fabric choice, to print my labels on since it is a nice weight and will hold up well.

Assembly was simple. Iron fabric to fusible interface for added stabilty, cut to desired shape, attach velcro to surface and fabric, and done!

The finished project is a beautifully organized fabric stash ready for many upcoming projects!

About Our Guest Author

When Allie’s not working as a part of Spoonflower’s marketing team, she can be found crafting, studying for her Masters in Textiles, or snuggling her dog Grace.

Project: Revive a bedside table with Peel and Stick Wallpaper

December 3, 2012

Spoonflower staffer Caitlin Topham of the modern quilting blog Salty Oat shares how she gave an old bedside table new life with paint and Spoonflower’s new Woven Peel and Stick Wallpaper.

A few years ago, before moving to North Carolina, I bought a bedside table at a thrift store for $10 (you can see proof of it on my blog here). While the table was solid and sturdy and generally in great shape, I knew from the start that I wanted to give it a makeover.

Fast forward two years and three moves later, and I was finally ready to do something about it. I hemmed and hawed about what color to paint it, but after seeing this amazing dresser makeover, I knew I’d found my palette: robin’s egg blue and black.

To start with, I removed the hardware, sanded the entire bedside table down, washed it with warm soapy water, and, once dry, primed it white.

Next, I spray painted the table using an aqua blue spray paint I’d picked up at the hardware store, applying two to three coats in each section. I had to be careful to keep the coats light and even, to avoid having the paint run down the sides.

To revive the sad-looking drawer pull, I spray painted it black.

To add more personality to the piece and make it unique, I decided to line the drawer and inside shelf with Spoonflower’s peel and stick wallpaper. I pored over all of the choices available, and eventually settled on Ninaribena’s black and white raindrops. I loved the bold, graphic nature of the design and thought it’d work well with the table.

First, I cleaned out the inside of the drawer with soapy water and measured it, to determine how much wallpaper I’d need. For a single drawer, I needed a 15″ x 15″ section of wallpaper. Since I was using the same pattern for the inside of the table, the safest bet was to buy a roll of peel and stick wallpaper.

Next, I cut a 30″ x 30″ portion of the remaining roll into four rectangles using a rotary cutter and cutting mat. Each rectangle was sized to fit the back, sides, and bottom of the shelf. I applied one side at a time, being sure the print ran in the right direction each time. Whenever possible, I also tried to match up the raindrops along the edges to make the design as seamless as possible.

I am so, so happy with the end results—I now have a completely unique piece, and love how it adds a pop of color and a bit of whimsy to the side of our bed.

About Our Guest Blogger

When she’s not working behind the scenes at Spoonflower, sourcing fabric, Caitlin can be found quilting in her home studio or blogging over at Salty Oat.

Tutorial: Create a custom fabric lampshade

September 24, 2012

This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful visits to show us how she used old love letters to create a personalized fabric lampshade.

My husband and I got together in the days when people still wrote letters to each other, and because we’ve both lived in various different countries (and not necessarily together, at the same time) we both accumulated a healthy stack of correspondence.

On a recent trip back to my parent’s house where I grew up, I rediscovered the large box of letters I’d amassed that he sent me over a 5-year time frame, chronicling my various university addresses, a summer stint as a nanny in France, a year I spent on a remote island in the Indian Ocean….The envelopes had postmarks and stamps from his various travels too — a windsurfing trip to Spain with his friends or snowboarding in the Alps. And because he tended to doodle on the front of the envelopes or use folded magazine ads as an envelope, there was an interesting mix of color and design in my collection.

I photographed various parts of many of the envelopes, concentrating on the addresses, stamps, postmarks and my husband’s handwriting and doodling. I zoomed in on various points of interest and panned out on others, for a more overall impression.

Once I had taken approximately 50 – 60 photos, I edited them in Picasa by cropping the photos to highlight the most striking parts.

Mail collage
I then created a collage of the images. Setting the purple background color helped to make the images stand out from each other. Picasa allows you to easily move and turn each element of the collage to create an image you love. Although my usual design comfort zone is subtle and orderly, I very deliberately decided to go bold, random and large-scale with this collage. It felt good to let my design inhibitions go for this project.

In Microsoft's Paint program I resized the image to fit 1 yard of Spoonflower’s linen-cotton canvas. I wanted to use my fabric print for an oversized lampshade for my side of the bed in our room. I purchased the largest lamp base I could find at the thrift store – which cost me less than $3 plus the cost of a can of spray paint to change the ugly black and red design to white.

I selected a large lamp shade to recover and traced a pattern on large piece of paper. I started by rolling the shade over the paper and marking a line with a pen as I rolled it from one side to the other, marking the top edge and then the bottom edge.

I then joined up the two lines at the sides with a ruler.

I cut my pattern out of the paper and checked it was the right size by placing it over the shade temporarily.

Assured my pattern was the correct size, I was ready to cut my fabric. I added a ¾” seam allowance all the way around the outside of the paper pattern so that I had extra fabric as an overhang.

To adhere the fabric to the lampshade, I began by spraying the shade with a spray adhesive. It’s best to do this outside or in a well ventilated area.

I then rolled the lampshade over the fabric, checking its positioning as I rolled.
At the seam join, I pressed the top raw edge ¼” to the wrong side and glued it down neatly.

In order to neatly finish the top and bottom edges, I first folded the over hanging fabric
to the inside of the lampshade and glued it down.

Clothes pins and paper clips were helpful to keep the fabric in place as I waited for it to dry.

Next, I glued a length of twill ribbon over the raw edge of the fabric. It’s an easy and pretty way to hide the raw edge and prevent fraying.

Finally, I secured the lampshade to my new and freshly painted base and placed it in our room.

About Our Guest Blogger

Hi! I'm Emma, and as well as working on the Fiskars Design Team, I blog over at hellobeautifulblog.blogspot.com/

I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.

10 Easy Cut & Sew Projects From Our Craft Party Contest

August 16, 2012

If you followed the contest this past week, you know that we challenged designers to come up with cut & sew patterns for quarter-yard pieces of fabric. The goal was to create a set of fun projects for the folks planning to attend a local event as part of Etsy's 2012 Craft Party. The winner this week is a first-timer who created a charming set of stuffed fabric finches: Shel of PotBellyBears. Way to go, Shel!

The final voting results:

1. 524 votes for Fun Finches by potbellybears
2. 490 votes for Amelia and her kittens by stacyiesthsu
3. 438 votes for Fat Quarter Globe by evenspor
4. 424 votes for "Wish You Were Here" hand-made Michigan mitt/potholder by saltlabs
5. 409 votes for envelope purse by melimiliá
6. 376 votes for iPad/journal bag for mushroom lovers by bippidiiboppidii
7. 331 votes for Skelley Baby Doll by shelleyfaye
8. 304 votes for Pillows of Lavender by bzbdesigner
9. 268 votes for The birdie bag by addilou
10. 251 votes for Roxie_Puppet by roxiespeople

How to turn handwritten recipes into tea towels

July 2, 2012

This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful shows us how she turned her grandmother’s handwritten recipes into tea towels for her own kitchen. Read the how-to below, or, jump to our up-to-date video tutorial from Spoonflower member Theresa at the bottom of the post. She’ll take you through each step from Emma’s tea towel concept, so you’ll learn how to edit your scanned recipe in Photoshop, all the way through to how to sew up the tea towel with a finished double-hem.

Emma: For a woman who keeps a newspaper from the day she was born, my mum has surprisingly few keepsakes or handwritten memorabilia from her own mother who passed away in 1999. When I asked her to trawl through her old papers and files, she managed to find three handwritten recipes from my grandmother. They appear to be the only remaining examples of her handwriting left in the world, and they are therefore as precious as they are priceless.