stickin' it to pinterest - vol. 1

so if you follow me on facebook, you may have caught my little bout of pinterest anxiety the other night.  i can waste time on that site with the best of them & after a while it makes me anxious.  why?  so so many projects/recipes/outfits/diy crafts/home decor ideas/kids games/blah blah blahs that i LOVE, but i may or may not ever look to pinterest again when it comes time to use them in the future.  ya know?

in short, it fills me up with inspiration & then i hear this little voice saying, "hey, you just spent all kinds of time looking at random things on my site.  are you ever gonna do anything with all of this?"

actually yes i am, stupid belittling pinterest-voice.  i am.

so here's how this is gonna go down.  every now & then i'm gonna do a pinterest-inspired post.  it may be a recipe, a craft, or my interpretation of an outfit i pinned.

this is me stickin' it to pinterest.

i picked this project because i really just wanted to improve my sewing skills.  sewing triangles to a ribbon seemed easy enough & the reading nook in p-rays room needed a little somethin-somethin.  win win.

here are sites i had pinned for inspiration:  this.  this.
and here's the tutorial i {semi} followed:  tutorial here.

but honestly?  i pretty much made it up as i went along.  here's what i did & how you can do it too.

parker was such a trooper in the fabric store.  it is SO hard for me to decide on fabrics... there are just so many!  i'm like a kid in a candy store.

i bought half a yard of each color, which was way more than i needed.  if i was to do it over, i'd just use the little scraps for a buck or so each & do way more colors.  like, a couple different orange patterns, a couple different blues, etc.

i experimented with different pattern sizes until i liked the way the triangles looked.  i think my final ones ended up being 5.5" across the top & 6" down the sides.  like the tutorial, i chose to have a raw edge on my flags rather than finished.  i like the look of it, & it's way easier.

so you cut out all your triangles, stick them back to back {"wrong" sides together} and sew down the sides.  i left the tops open since they'd get shut when sewing the ribbon on top.

i measured out my ribbon to the length i wanted & then started laying out my flags.  you can experiment with spacing & color patterns.  you're the boss of you.

then i folded my ribbon down the horizontal line & ironed it so it'd stay folded over nicely for pinning & sewing.  wanna know a secret?  sam helped me hold down the ribbon so i could iron it, but he probably wouldn't want you to know he helped.  so don't tell anyone.

i only pinned about four or five flags on at a time & then went & sewed them on just so it didn't get too crazy keeping it all together.  again, personal choice.

after you've sewn all the flags on you can sew up your ribbon ends & celebrate!  because you're done.  easy peasy.

ok, actually this wasn't suuuuuper easy for me since it was my first time sewing all on my own.  but it was a huge learning experience.  i got way better by the end & i even had to do all kinds of crazy things like re-thread my machine on the top & the bottom.  AND, i even had to wind up my bobbin!  i used youtube tutorials for help with that.

i feel like an old pro.

so here it is in p-ray's room.  it was really hard to get a good picture of it so you could catch the "essence" of what it looks like.  if you want to see more of his room, check out his nursery tour here.

{bookshelves stolen from here}

and yeah, those bookshelves are totally photo-shopped in.  they'll be added soon & it will complete his little reading nook!  this is where he gets stories read to him in his great-grandma opal's rocker before naps & bedtime.

so yeah.  i think my first pinterest-ing project was a success!  take that, pinterest.

wanna feel successful?  just click twice to vote.  you'll succeed every time.