Make Naan in Less than Five Minutes with Two Ingredients!. . .Lazy Man's Naan

Okay, after my rant in my post from the other day, I hope you don't think I'm completely industrious every waking second. I am kinda...REALLY...lazy at times.

Here is one of those times.

Have you ever actually made naan? You really need to if you want to appreciate the ease of today's recipe! It takes a while to do the real process correctly. I always end up burning my naan or not letting it rise properly or something. Something always goes wrong for me.

Honestly. . .I'm a white girl. . .and that's probably why.

You only need two things to make this lazy man's naan. And these two ingredients are items that you already tend to accumulate (if you don't actually end up throwing them away): 

Flour tortillas and Garlic dipping sauce from Papa John's!

If you are Indian. . .Look away!

Okay, so you know how you get a hankering for tacos, so you buy all the ingredients? Then, you make tacos. . .And then you still have a butt load of tortillas left?

Likewise, if you are like me, you tend to accumulate a wealth of garlic sauces from "Pizza Night." (You can also use any other garlic sauce packets. Like. . .from QT for instance.)

Don't throw them away! They make for some really yummy naan!

So, the directions (if you can't already figure this out) are to (1) pour a little sauce into your frying pan, (2) heat the pan, (3) heat both sides of the tortilla until you get nice little brown spots on them (no black spots!). 

Mmmm! Tastes almost like the real thing and it'll take you five minutes or less! (Again, apologizes to the entire nation of India.) So, do something else with your time (like...do a DIY project!).

The End!

Sunday School Craft - The First Sin...Tree of Knowledge

This is really easy. It's my version of a craft I saw on Pinterest.

You will need: Cardstock and crayons.

Print out the template at the end for however many kids you have.

Then, trace each child's hand as the trunk of the tree.

Let them color it in. Done!

And. . .why yes, there ARE theological undertones about free will and how each of us would have reached for the fruit had we had the chance. . .But. . .I'll let you explain that when you kids get older!

You're welcome. ;)

Template

The End!

Sunday School Craft - Samuel Hears God. . .I Can Too!

Today's craft is about Samuel listening to God, but I wanted to make it personal for the kids.

Our little kids have already made those Pinterest "Listening Ears" headbands for this story about a year ago, so I didn't want to repeat it.

You will need: cardstock, scissors, glue, and crayons.

So, I have the templates attached at the end, but all you need to do is to print out however many heads you need, then divide that number by four and print out the ears. I got the clip art from Googling, but I added the verse and the words at the bottom.

I situated the ears so that you could use a paper cutter and make the least amount of cuts if you don't have a lot of time. But if you kids can handle scissors, just let them cut them out themselves.

Then, have them draw their own faces. (I accidentally wrote the directions for the teachers on my example before taking pictures. Sorry!)

Then, glue the ears on and have them write their names in the blanks.

Templates:

The End!

Make Your Own Pair of Shoes - A Modern Take on the Ancient Viking Style

I just wanna be clear here.

I started this blog, years ago, as a creative outlet from the hum-drum of life. I do projects all the time, but posting them online sort of holds me accountable. If I didn't post things here, I would be less likely to actually do them. I really enjoy learning new things, and I enjoy posting and cataloging them here, so I'm thankful to have this medium.

This blog is a needle in a haystack. There are millions of DIY blogs out there. Isn't that great? We can all learn from skilled people who bother to share their ideas and projects. We live in a day and age where information has become so accessible that you can actually learn a new skill every time you open YouTube. Back in the olden days, you would have to apprentice for years to learn a new skill...or at least read a book.

This accessibility is good and bad.

It's good because the ability to learn is literally a click away.

It's bad because once something amazing becomes uber-accessible, people stop caring. Most people don't avail themselves to this fountain of knowledge. Instead, they just get dumber playing games, watching TV, and posting mindless things on social media.

Anyways, my point with this blog is not so much to show off or to get you to ask me to do all these projects for you (Note: I'm for hire, but it'll cost ya!). I work a regular job, albeit part-time, but I still have all the duties of a regular housewife, plus random "extra-curriculars" with my church, friends, and family. So, I actually don't have as much spare time as you may think. It's just that when I do have time, I try to use it. I try to use my time either learning a new skill or honing an old one. I do this in hopes that my brain stays creative.

A wise lady once told me, "You gotta use it, or else you will lose it."

But it's not just me. You can be creative too. That is my MAIN reason for this blog: to inspire you to try something new yourself. Some of my posts are step-by-step. Others are just informative. Others are a combination of the two. But the main purpose of this blog is to inspire you. If I do something that you like, there is literally nothing stopping you from doing the same (barring a physical handicap).

I think sometimes people think that there are creative people and that there are non-creative people. Most people I talk to consider themselves the latter. I think that is crap. If you are living and breathing and have any kind of appreciation for art or crafts or DIY or whatever, the only thing stopping you from doing them is yourself.

I think the main reason people tell themselves that they can't be creative in certain areas is because of fear. It may sound silly to say that. I mean, are people cowering in trepidation of a pair of scissors and a glue stick? No. But what I mean is fear of failure. If I can tell you anything helpful, I hope you will at least hear this: Don't be afraid of failure. 

Sometimes, I simply like to do projects to see what I can learn from them. Not all projects have to be perfect winners. In fact, I didn't post this (and I TOTALLY should have) but I actually slit my finger open on my rotary cutter while cutting pieces for my first T-Shirt quilt and had to run to the bathroom to get it to stop bleeding all over the place. On my second T-Shirt quilt, I actually sewed a big, horrible fold into the outer seam and had to take out about a foot of stitches and resew them.....and I've been sewing on a machine SINCE I WAS SIX YEARS OLD, People! So, no one is perfect, but you know what?

It's called "learning"....and no one is immune!

But the problem is that most people let their fear get the better of themselves, and then that fear turns to very real laziness. I mean, really. Why spend eight hours on a quilt when I can just run to the store and buy a blanket for $12? Who has time for all that mess? Why spend days sewing a dress when I can just get my crafty friend to do it?......But at what real cost, though? When we live like this, we (...yes, fuel the exploitative "Made in China" machine, but that is a whole other can of worms...) end up completely losing that amazing feeling of accomplishment and self-worth. 

And isn't that what made America great? ;)

Anyways, don't be afraid of failure. This project today is sort of testament to that. (What? There's an actual project to come? This isn't just a self-righteous sermon???) Sometimes, you should just try your hand at something you've never done before, simply so that you can learn about the process. Even if the end result is crap and you will never end up using or wearing it, if you bother to learn what went wrong or what could have been improved, you will be better for it. The process itself actually (1) gives you a deeper appreciation for people who do the skill for a living ("Oh...I was going to pay him only $20, but this is clearly a $100 job!") and (2) you end up getting one step closer to becoming an expert yourself.

So...thanks for listening, and I hope that you take to heart what I've said. Now, let's get into today's project and end this rant that was not unlike a current episode of Saturday Night Live: 

Really preachy and went on a liiiiittle too long.

So today, Kids, we are going to make a pair of shoes. Remember that post where I made those Kimono-style shoes? Anyways, I was searching "leather shoe pattern" on Pinterest the other day, and came across these old Viking/Nordic patterns for shoes. I don't know why I'm always so dazzled by shoe-making, but I really am. I'm still learning, and one day, I'll get it right!!! 

(But today was not that day! Oh well, read on!)

I'd never seen a pattern like that before, and I was inspired by the other-worldly look of all the branch-like pieces sticking out from the toes. It's not really my cup of tea to wear personally, but from a mathematical standpoint, the fact that they all gathered--from seeming chaos into toe-covering order--was really compelling to me.

Okay, so...I didn't take pictures of this part, but what I did first to make my own pattern was to make a "tape cast" from a pair of ballet flats. I saw a tutorial about it several years ago on YouTube where this kid covered a stiletto with cellophane and then added strips of masking tape all around until the shoe was covered. Then, he cut the tape/cellophane part off the shoe. I thought that would be a great way to make a pattern for a shoe, so that's exactly what I did...except I used black gorilla tape instead, because I didn't have masking tape.

The picture below is after I cut the tape off the shoe. You can see that there are a bunch of triangular pieces sticking out. (If you make a tape cast shoe pattern this way, you don't have to cut it off this way. You can cut it off any number of ways as long as you get the whole thing to flatten.) I did it this way because I wanted to try to make a shoe--sole and top--in all one piece of leather. I also wanted to allude to the "branch-like" tendrils of the Viking shoe above, but in a more modern pointed-shoe way.

I traced my tape cast onto some cardstock. I added a little bit of seam-age in different places, trying to anticipate the final result.

Okay, so taping it together, this shoe looks pretty cute, no?

Part of the reason it looks so good is because the cardstock has so much body to it. Because it can stand up on its own, it holds a really great shape.

So here I traced the card stock onto some leather. Then, I cut out two mirror-image pieces. (One for each foot.)

Okay, so...Tieks, right? You know how Tieks have that double sole? (Well, you do now! Just look at the picture.) Anyways, I wanted to try that.

But I stylized mine. I made the ball and the heel parts into hearts. I thought that was kinda cute. (Copyright: Jessica Jones 2017.) :) I used recycled rubber from a roll that I think is supposed to be used for car mats or something. Anyways, I glued the pieces on and then stapled them in place. I learned from my last post on shoe-making that glue alone (even the really special cement-type glue that is EXPRESSLY for shoe-making alone) peels off over time. A stapler was the closest thing I had to those little nails or the industrial rubber/leather sewing machines that are used for shoe-making. And you know what? It worked!

I cut out some plastic canvas to use as the sole stabilizer and glued that in place.

Then, I cut out some craft foam to use as the cushion. (It works really well! Very comfy.) I think you can buy this stuff at Dollar Tree. After that, I cut out a piece of leather and glued it over the cushions to cover them.

Okay, so skipping ahead, I sewed a few stitches in the heels to hold those pieces in place, and then I sewed a few stitches in the toe area to keep those pieces in place. They were supposed to have only needed one stitch in the heel and one in the toe area because all the pieces were supposed to have gathered up to those two points, but...that ended up not actually working.

Anways, here are the finished shoes.

I mean, I guess they were a success if you are into Tom's and hobo-chic shoes like that. I'm not. These shoes looked different in my head, and they are way too big, so I'm not happy with them, but...oh well! I learned stuff for sure!

Next time, I think I will try making a tape cast of a sock instead of a shoe. See, I think that my taping around the outside of an entire shoe added a lot of extra, unnecessary dimension. I've heard that some people make tape casts of their socks for this reason. If I had taped around a sock, I would have had a better, more tailored pattern of my actual foot. Or...you know what? Forget the sock, I'll just put cellophane around my foot and tape that! That way I won't ruin a sock.

Also, I think I will definitely reinforce the leather with something with more substance...either interfacing or maybe another layer of leather. I'm just trying to figure out how to make a shoe with the least amount of sewing and without having to buy a shoe form (called a "last") and nails and all that stuff.

I am really happy with the sole and the inner workings of the shoe, like the cushion and the plastic canvas, so I'll have to remember that part. Good thing I have it posted here!

So...what did I learn? Well, This whole process took five or six hours and I found that I still have a lot to learn.

I learned that maybe Tory Burch isn't so much the hack as I once thought she was...Ha! 

(Just kidding. I like Tory Burch.)

Shoe making is a definite art!

The End!

Refashioning: T-Shirts and Socks into a Quilt. . .Bonus: Hair Tie Elastics

Who would make old socks into a quilt???? Well, I'll explain myself in a second. Let me start with the T-Shirts.

If you read my last post, you would know that I made thirty of my old T-Shirts into a quilt. Well, I had a few more. . .And these ones had emblems on them that were too big to fit into my square pattern. You can see below that they would only work in elongated rectangles. This required a little more forethought as I needed to plan out how they would lie. See, unlike the squares, they weren't all the same length, so I had to configure them so that they would fit into an even shape on all sides.

Then, I sewed the majority of them into five strips. (And then I sewed the strips together, but I didn't take a picture of that step.) Like last post, I doubled each piece with not only the front of the shirt, but also the back. (You can see why if you go here.)

All right. Now here come the socks. See. . .I lived in South Korea for three years. In Asia, you can buy the cutest little ankle socks on the street for $1. Needless to say, I bought a bazillion. They were so cute, but I don't wear them anymore. Some of them I never wore. But they are so cute! I didn't want to just throw them away! So, I thought I would add them to the bottom of my second T-Shirt quilt. Yes, I washed them a few times before doing this!!! Don't worry!

First, I cut the toes off. . .(And the heels and ankle bands.)

Then, I turned each sock around and cut up the middle. Because these socks were much thicker than the T-Shirts, I left them at one layer.

Then, I matched up the folds and sewed them all into strips like this.

Then, I sewed the strips together.

Then, I added them to the bottom of the quilt top. (I did measure them all out precisely of course. I don't just do things willy-nilly!)

Okay, here's the part I didn't show, but just explained in the last post. I laid my jersey backing fabric down first (very important to use jersey and not woven), and then laid my batting down. I was running out of batting at this point, so you can see where I've pieced it together.

Then, I laid my quilt top down and trimmed my batting around the outside of the quilt top, but within the backing fabric. 

Then I folded the backing fabric over the batting and pinned it through the quilt top and through all the layers. 

I sewed the backing fabric in place around the perimeter of the blanket.

Then, I pinned down my columns at regular intervals and did the actual quilting step. (Again, read the other post to see what that means.)

Here is the finished quilt.

Okay, last thing...I saved the prettier ankle bands of the socks to use for hair ties! They make the best hair ties because they don't break your hair!

The End!

Refashioning: T-Shirts into a Quilt

Making T-Shirts into a quilt was really popular a few years ago. Everyone was making them and it was revolutionary. Well. . .I may be a day late and a dollar short, but I still had a bunch of T-Shirts that I wasn't wearing, yet didn't want to get rid of, so. . .whether it's in vogue or not, I still did this project! I did do it a tad differently than the norm, so read on to find out how.

I work for my church in the office. Sometimes, I have to make these booklets with plastic binding. Well, I accidentally messed up two of the bindings, so instead of throwing them away, I took them home, taped them together to make a square, and used them as my quilt pattern.

This is how I cut my shirts out: I laid the pattern on top of the emblem of each T-Shirt, and just cut around it--all the way through each shirt--through the front and back at once. This made two pieces per shirt.

I kept cutting until I had cut thirty shirts. I had sixty squares when I was done.

Instead of throwing away the back pieces of the shirts, I actually kept them with their corresponding fronts as I sewed all the pieces together. Why did I do this? Two reasons: (1) Not all shirts were the same stretchy-ness. Some of the shirts stretched a lot more than others. Keeping an extra layer with every piece sewn added some body and heft which gave the whole project more uniformity. In fact, I actually traded around the backing squares on some of the stretchiest T-Shirts. (2) the extra layer added an extra level of warmness. (It also made the finished blanket 25-30% heavier, so if you want a lighter-weight blanket, don't do this. However, if you skip this step, make sure all your T-Shirts have the same stretchy-ness.) You can see my layers in the picture below. I used a simple zig-zag stitch with a wideness of 3 and a closeness of 1.5. The reason I waited so long to do this project was because I was hoping to have had a serger by now. Oh well, I don't. Anyways, the zig-zag stitch worked just fine!

I sewed them in five columns of six squares. Then I sewed the six squares together. I didn't use pins because they were all the same size squares. However, I only sewed a few inches at a time and made sure that all my seams matched up as I went along. Slow and steady wins the race!

I chose this baby blue/green jersey for the backing, simply because that was the only jersey I had that was wide enough. If you do this, make sure you use a jersey backing cloth as well. It will look and feel really weird if you use a woven cloth, that doesn't stretch, behind T-Shirts that do stretch. If all you have is woven, then you will need to iron on some non-stretch interfacing behind each of your T-Shirt pieces before you sew them all together, or at least before you sew all the layers together.

 Skipping ahead. I laid my backing cloth down first, then put my batting down, then laid the quilt top down over that. I trimmed the batting and then folded the backing cloth over the batting and connected it to the top layer with pins--pinning through all the layers at once. You can't really see it in this picture, but if you zoom in, you can see all the pins around the outside.

Once I sewed all around the quilt (and mitered the corners), I pinned through all the layers at the intersections of each T-Shirt piece. You can see what I'm talking about below. See how the pin goes through the corners of the white, yellow, green, and orange shirts? I then rolled it all up, and with the roll starting in my lap, I started feeding all these intersections through my machine, back tacking at just the intersections. This is a very necessary step because it keeps your batting (and everything really) in place. Little known fact: This is actually the act of quilting--when you sew through all the layers of a blanket to add warmth to a blanket, and to keep all the layers in place. (Some people think that quilting is when you sew a bunch of pieces together, but that is actually called "piecing" to make a quilt top.)

The finished quilt. Now I can keep all my sentimental T-Shirts that I never wear without them cluttering my drawers!

The finished quilt on my couch.

The End!

Refashioning: Moschino Inspired - Adding a Reverse Applique Graphic

Continuing in the Moschino vein...here is a "Moschino Cheap and Chic" shirt that I bought last week.

It's interesting because the graphic heart is actually a stretchy mesh that was frame-embroidered into the shirt, and the shirt part was cut away to make a sort of "peekaboo" situation. That is why I'm calling this "reverse applique." Instead of adding a piece of fabric into an item, the designer subtracted a piece of fabric. Does that make sense?

Studying the back, I saw that the designer had placed the mesh BEHIND the shirt. You can tell this because you can see seam allowance around the heart from the inside of the shirt here:

Okay, so this post isn't going to be so much about a success story as it is a process of learning and trying something new. Hopefully, it will give you an idea or two.

I had this T-Shirt in my "Get Rid Of" pile, so I grabbed it to use for practice.

I wish I had black stretchy lace, but. . .I don't right now. I do have a bunch of this white stretchy lace, though, so I cut a piece to use.

I folded the shirt in half to find the center of the shirt and I drew a line down the center with tailor's chalk.

Then, I ironed some tear away stabilizer to the wrong side of the front of the shirt.

Then, I ironed some stabilizer onto the wrong side of my piece of lace.

This is how the pieces will be set up inside the shirt. The lace will be behind with the right side of the lace touching the back of the shirt. (In this picture, the shirt is inside out.)

Hard to see, but I drew a second line perpendicular to the center line to use as reference in keeping my embroidery hoop straight.

This part took forever. Hooping both the lace and the shirt and making sure everything was straight and even. . .no easy task!

This looks like I centered the shirt wrongly because the line is going slightly diagonally. Actually, the shirt is hooped almost perfectly. The line itself ended up being a little off.

Here is a peek at the back of the hoop inside the shirt. See how the lace is in the back?

I put the hoop into the machine.

This was my first time ever attempting a frame--let alone a reverse applique--so it seemed to me that I should stitch the first round using just a simple once-over straight line, and also making sure that the heart was 9.8cm across. When I would go back over it with a thicker satin stitch, I will have made the heart 10cm across. This was to make sure that the satin stitch would actually pick up both the shirt and the lace and not leave any gaps. (This will make more sense later.)

Okay, so here is my first round: the simple once-over straight stitch.

After that step, I pulled the hoop out of the machine and pulled the red T-Shirt away from its backing stabilizer. Using thread trimming scissors, I cut the heart portion out of the middle. I tried cutting up as closely to the stitch line as possible, but these scissors are not really made for trimming fabric, only thread. I do have some actual "duckbill" applique trimming scissors on order, but. . .I was too impatient to wait for them! (You will see later how I should have waited.)

Okay, so now I programmed my machine to sew a thicker satin stitch heart that was 10cm across.

See how the machine is stitching perfectly over the former straight line? That's why I did the first line at 9.8cm and the satin stitch at 10cm.

Okay, here's the problem: I should have cut a little more closely to the first stitch line because see how much red is sticking out from under the satin stitch? There are three ways to eliminate this:

(1) Use the same color thread as the shirt (in this case, red). That will make the excess red part less noticable.

(2) Set both stitch lines at the same centimeters across (in this case, 10cm). That way, the cut line will be farther into the satin stitch margins. I didn't know where my margins were when going from straight to satin--because I'd never done this before. I had tried to anticipate marginal error by doing the first stitch at 9.8. Next time, I'll try doing them both at 10cm and see what happens.

(3) Use actual trimming scissors. Trimming scissors are curved, which allows a person to cut much more closely to seams without the handle of the scissors getting in the way. "Duckbill" scissors are even better, because they lift the cut fabric out and away from the project so you can get even closer to seams.

Anyways. . .here is the shirt from the inside.

I tore away all the stabilizer.

And cut around the lace (just like was done to the Moschino shirt).

The finished shirt.

You can see my fingers behind the lace. So there you have it! A reverse applique!

Was it a total success? No. This was just a practice. But I learned a lot, so I thought I'd pass it on!

The End!