Giveaway is closed!

Supplies:
An old camera strap, for the hardware
Heavy fusible interfacing, the same length and twice the width of your strap
Fabric the same length and twice the width plus 1” of your strap
A strip of fabric approximately 1.5” tall by 45” long for your ruffle

You may want to refer to my Patchwork Camera Strap Tutorial if you want more detail on any of the steps involving removing the hardware from your old strap or reattaching it to the new one.

Cut a piece of heavy fusible interfacing the length and twice the width of your old strap. My strap was 26” X 1.5”, so I cut my interfacing 26” X 3”.

Fuse the interfacing to your fabric.

Trim the short edges flush with the interfacing and the long edges so that there’s 1/4 – 1/2” beyond the interfacing.

Fold both long edges of your 1.5” X 45” ruffle strip in approximately 1/4” and press. I serged my edges first. Set aside.

Yikes. My ironing board is getting NASTY.

Whilst you’re ironing, fold over the fabric edges on your interfaced piece and press them too. I like to use a piece of cardstock along the edge line of the interfacing to get a nice straight crease.

Then fold your strap piece in half the long way and press again.

You should have this now.

Head over to your sewing machine and hem both long edges of your ruffle.

Turn the ruffle strip right side up and sew a long basting stitch (on most machines this will be stitch length 5) right smack down the middle. DO NOT back stitch at the beginning or end.

For this next part, you’ll want to unfold your strap. I couldn’t hold it and get a picture by myself. You’ll be centering your ruffle on one half of the strap, excluding the non-interfaced part.

Line up the ends, middles, and then the middles of each half and pin.

Next pull your bobbin thread only (the one on the bottom) to gather your ruffle strip. Evenly distribute your ruffles (keep the last 1-2” on each end flat) and pin in place.

See how it’s only pinned on half the strap?

Go back to your machine and sew (regular stitch length, backstitching at beginning and end again) right smack down the middle of the ruffle.

Remove your pins and the threads you used for gathering.

At this point I think it would be cute to sew some ric rac or ribbon right down the middle of that ruffle, but I didn’t have anything good in my stash when I was making this. I’m imagining orange or red or hot pink on this one.

Fold your strap back up.

Edge stitch down both long edges, being sure to fold the ruffle out of the way.

I did one more row of stitching, about 1/4” from my edge stitching.

Here’s what the back looks like:

Reattach the strap hardware. More specific directions for that here.

And you’re done!

Want this very strap for yourself? Leave a comment before Monday night at midnight MST.

I’ll pick a winner Tuesday morning.

***GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED***

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You’ve all seen this fabulous wreath over at The Idea Room, right? Apparently every store in Utah is now sold out of heart shaped wreath forms.

I’ve developed a bit of a felt obsession as of late and came up with this instead:

It’s not too early for St. Patrick’s Day, is it?

I found styrofoam hearts at Michael’s for $1 each and then I glued them together like this:

I tried using Tacky Glue on account of my glue gun being MIA, but it didn’t hold. I found a mini glue gun still in the package buried in my sewing room and used that instead.

Here’s a shot of the back:

I used about 288 circles (from 2 36” X 36” pieces of felt) and pins.

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In December of 2008, we had a moment of insanity and decided to take the kids to Disneyland.  We took my parents along as reinforcements…it sill wasn’t pretty.

EIGHT people (4 of which were 8, 5, 2, and 8 months at the time) is practically a tour company!

How was I going to make sure I didn’t lose anything important (including all those “print this for your records” things you get when you book online)?

This one came from the dollar section at Target.

Here’s a look at the inside:

Each section had a task:

Airline reservation confirmations and boarding passes

Rental car confirmations (we had to rent 2!)

Hotel reservations

Ticket books (we bought the 3 days at Disney/Universal Studios/Sea World/San Diego Zoo things from Costco)

Birth certificates

It prevented stuff from getting misplaced or lost in the shuffle (the same cannot be said for BC’s laptop at the San Diego airport) and was not bulky to pack around.

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