Time For A Change! And No, That is not a pillow!

First a teaser and then an explanation:

While I hope the weather will clue into to the title of my blog post, I really mean this for you my dearest 29 followers. How you make our hearts happy! Every comment puts a bounce in our step! Thank you so much for supporting out endeavors in the world of the craft blog! We are hoping that you won't terribly mind the change of name. "The Craft Bucket" was originally meant to be like my own pinterset board until I discovered pinterest. Otherwise I would have thought of a better title right off the bat. So, our new title will be

"Made From ScrAtch."

We hope to provide you with fun crafts, recipes, sewing techniques, household tips and activities that will make your day to day activities more fun!
Please share our site with your friends!

And now . . . for the Craft!
Let's make a Beautiful Soft Covered Fabric Photo Album! It is really quite an easy craft and best of all . . . no sewing!

My cousins did this for a final during their senior year of high school. . . I never had a cool final like that!

You can really adjust this to any size you would like but to make one like mine you need:

1 yard of fabric, batting, cardboard (I used my diaper box), 5 ft of ribbon, scissors, a hot glue gun and 8-10 12x12 scrapbook paper.

I cut my card board to be 12.5 inches in ht and the width was 12 in.
Then on each page of the scrapbook paper I measured off a half inch and folded that piece back and forth a few times. That will become the spine of your photo album.

Then I glued all the hot glued all the pieces of scrapbook paper together
and created the spine . . . (p.s. you can see a bar code in this picture and it didn't matter because I will be attaching that part to the cover of the book. You should make sure that no bar codes are shown on the other pages.)

There is your spine!

I measured my fabric to allow 3 inches around each edge of the cardboard. My length ended up being 31.5 inch and my ht was 19 inches.

I didn't connect the two pieces of cardboard because I wanted to allow for the spine of the album. I left about an inch of room between the two pieces.

Then I wrapped the cardboard like a present and stuffed it with a generous amount of batting.

Pay attention to your corners and fold them as nicely as you can. Most of this area will be covered with scrapbook paper, but still, you want it to look nice:)

For the back cover I laid the batting down on top of the fabric and then laid the cardboard on top of it like a sandwich. Glue the fabric around the sides remembering to leave room for the spine.

How on earth did I miss taking a picture of attaching the scrapbook paper?!

Take the pages that you glued together and place them on your photo album so you can get an idea of where you will need to hot glue the edges of your scrapbook paper to you album. Once you have it all "eyeballed" glue the scrapbook pages to the album making sure that your spine lines up in the middle of your album.

FOR THE BACK COVER: Put the hot glue on the back side of your first scrapbook page and close the album to seal the two sides together. This will ensure that your album opens and shuts properly!

I measure out five feet of satin ribbon and hot glued the back of the ribbon to the back of the album only, then I tied the bow in the front.

I am so happy with the way it turned out!

Can you imagine all of the cute fabric/ribbon/scrapbook paper combinations you could come up with! Seriously, this project is only limited to your imagination! You could even add flowers to the front.

I think this would make a great gift as well. Fill it with your favorite family photos and then give it to Grandma! Christmas is coming you know. I'm just sayin'!

Happy Crafting!

xoxo, Amy

DIY Corker Hair ribbons

Wanna make these cute little things??? They are so easy to do!

I actually learned how to do these fun little ribbons from my sister in law Shanni (Thanks Shannon!) These are so fun to make and the best thing is, now you can have a ribbon custom made to match your little girl's outfit . . . or better yet to get into the spirit of a holiday.

I wanted to make a black and orange corker so here we go!

You will nee gross grain ribbon, I used orange and black, dowels (Walmart craft section), wooden clothespins, aerosol hairspray and a cookie sheet. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees

Begin by wrapping your ribbon around the dowel. Secure in place with clothes pin. Wrap ribbon around until you get to the end of dowel and secure other side with clothespin as well.

Spray with hairspray . . .

Repeat until you have 5 of each color. It is okay to use different size dowels. When you are done, place on cookie sheet (mine is kinda dirty- huh. Don't worry, if I use it for food I cover it with foil first) and cook for 25 minutes on 250.

Unwrap . . .

They should look like this . . .

Cut corkers in half (this make a large corker hair clip- for smaller corkers, cut in half and then in half again) and arrange them together, making sure you alternate colors in a pleasing pattern, separate in the middle, you can use clothespins to help you . . .

Tie a ribbon of matching color (I used an orange corker) tightly in the center.

Remove clothespins and fluff. I hot glued mine onto a hair clip. You could attach yours to a clip, a headband, a hat . . . whatevers:)

You can make them any size and any color.

Fun, fun!

Now, I just have to make one more to keep sisterly peace in the family:)

Have fun! Happy Crafting!

xoxo, Amy

"Fall" In Love With These DIY Placemats!

Hi 24 Followers! I am so excited that we are just about at out half way point! Remember that beautiful "Cambria Rosette Headband" that we will give away when we hit 50 followers is waiting for you! But on another note, let me ask you this:

Are you ready for the FALL?

I am!

Summer was once my favorite time of the year.

I couldn't wait for the school year to end so that I could spend my days

splashing in the ocean waves and lying on the sand.

After I graduated from high school I went to college in Hawaii,

so my love for the surf and the sand only grew.

Now, I live in the desert.

The ocean is no where to be found and summer temps often rise above 110 degrees. In light of my new surroundings, Fall has grown on me considerably. I welcome the break from the summer heat and look forward to cooler days and nights.

So, I say, lets bring in the Fall by making cute placemats to eat yummy dinners on!

Simple and easy!

I was inspired by all of the burlap creations I had been seeing lately. I wanted to try to make a few different things but settled on these placemats.

You will need:
1.5 yards burlap (walmart has some so I am told)
Placemat to measure out your placemat size (12X16 inches)
brown grosgrain ribbon
green grosgrain ribbon
Sewing Machine (if you don't have a machine I will give an alternate tip)
needle
thread
Hot Glue Gun

(are you surprised there isn't any modge podge?)

1. First I laid out my burlap, put my placemat on and literally just cut around it.

This is what the first one looked like:

I did that six more times because that is how many are in my family:)

2. I sewed a zigzag stitch with my machine all the way around the edges. It went really fast. But truth be told I have no idea if it will make a difference since I have never worked with burlap. If you don't have a machine: Get a hot glue gun and fold each of the four sides back and glue them down. It will look kind of like you hemmed the placemat. Experiment with your glue a bit because I think it might seep through to the other side of your burlap.

3. Next I used an oatmeal lid to measure out 6 orange circles from fabric I already had to make yo-yo flowers. Shanni gave a wonderful tutorial on this a few posts back.

Now I debated for quite awhile about what I wanted to put on these placemats. Did I want to paint a brown stripe? Did I want to glue ribbon? Did I want to cut out Fall leaves from felt? You could do any of those things and have a cute placemat. After much thought I decided I wanted to make a little pumpkin decal on each placemat.

4. Next I cut of 6 strips of brown ribbon for the stem and tied 6 green bows with white polka dots ( I don't think these were grossgrain) I didn't measure, I just cut and tied.

6. At first I tried to sew the brown ribbon on the burlap but realized my attempts were futile. So I glued it in the upper right corner.

7. Glued the yoyo flower on

8. Put a little glue on the "stem" to add my green bow.

And . . . voila! She is finished!

I just love how they turned out and so did my kids! I love how little, simple things can makes seasons and holidays seem more exciting!

I would love to see yours!

Happy Fall And Happy Crafting!

xoxox, Amy