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I'm a voracious thrifter, music aficionado, heathen, and owner of a 1984 Westfalia Vanagon. I'm a writer and a designer, but mostly just a secret cat lady. Vanagon Champion is about all of these things with a little bit of thrifty goodness and old-fashioned magic for good measure. Learn more about me here.
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Category Archives: DIYs
DIY: Fabric Inspiration Journals
Now that we're knee-deep in Love Your Body Week, I figured it was time to take a little break from the seriousness and do a DIY.
We've been talking about not only having a positive body image, but a healthy self image as well. So today's DIY is a little something I do for myself to stay inspired and positive--inspiration journals!
I like to keep a little journal on hand at all times to doodle/sketch/paper clip any and everything I find inspiring or uplifting.
I'm not a drawer by ANY stretch of the imagination, but whenever I get a good craft idea, find a quote I love, or see something that makes me infinitely happy, I throw it in the journal. Consequently, I turn to the journal whenever I'm feeling bummed or dreadfully uninspired, and it lightens my mood a bit. I thought this might be a fitting DIY for the week, seeing as it's a great way to remind yourself of the positive things and stay inspired!
(Also, I'm sure there's a bajillion tuts out there about making fabric journals, so if you know of a better way, that's great! This way is super fast and something I just concocted in 15 mins, so feel free to make yours ten times more awesome than these!)
So, on to the DIY! You'll need the following supplies:
- A nice little journal
- Spray adhesive (I got mine at Michaels for like...$5?)
- Fabric (I used vintage sheets. Supa cheap!)
1. Lay your journal on the fabric and cut around it, leaving 1/2" or so. You're just going to cut this edge off at the end, so it doesn't matter how much/little room you leave.
2. Spray the fabric with the spray adhesive and lay that journal all up in it. Press around all the edges to get things nice and stuck and then fold it over! You want to hurry and fold it so you can make sure all the wrinkles are out.
3. Once that baby is dry, just trim off the excess. If you want, you can make your fabric long enough so that you can fold it over the edges nicely. I, however, was feeling lazy, so I just went with a raw edge.
4. There is no 4! You're done! You might want to throw some fray check on there if you've got it on hand, but raw edges aint no thang for this project. Now just fill your pretty journal up with all things lovely to uplift you!
A quick and easy project with lovely results. Carry your journal with you everywhere to remember all the little things out there that all add up to make life one big great thing! Like kittens and wooly cardigans and finding that perfect vintage dress in your size. Have fun!
And in case you're just tuning in, make sure to check out all the amazing guest posts for Love Your Body Week! You definitely don't want to miss them.
Posted in DIYs, love your body week, she's crafty, the ED revolution
5 Comments
Turban Headband DIY
I mentioned how much I love this whole turban trend awhile ago, and ever since I've been hankering to come up with a way to make my own.
The good news is, Mitchell and I figured it out, and it's the eaaaaaaasiest thing in the whole world! All you need is a strip of fabric, a sewing machine, and 10 minutes.
All we're going to do is sew a little loop. Also, choose whatever fabric you want. I went with velvet because I'm obsessed with velvet. And it's stretchy. But I plan to make a ton of these things with lots of different types. Anyway--carry on.
1. Cut a looong strip of fabric. This thing has to wrap around your head twice.
Pro tip: Wrap a piece of yarn around your head the same way you do in step 6 of this tutorial before you cut your fabric and use this piece of yarn to measure how long you need your fabric to be.
It can be however wide you want it to be, but keep in mind that you'll be folding this piece of fabric in half. So, whatever you want your final width to be, double it and cut your strip that wide. For example, I made my strip 7 inches wide because I wanted the finished product to be 3.5" wide.
2. Fold your strip in half with right sides together. (So the "good or printed" sides face each other and the crappy back is facing you.)
3. Stitch all along the two raw edges.
4. Turn your strip right side out. Now you have a long little tube guy.
5. Stitch along the two end edges to complete your loop.
And your loop!
6. Now all you have to do is loop at around your head like such:
Voila. You have a TURBAN! Just remember to wrap the thing twice to get the turban look.
See? Pretty easy. You could probably hand-stitch if you don't wanna sew. Or you really could just stitch the ends if you don't care about raw edges, you know?
Anyway, I hope you like it! If you do it, send me a photo! I want to see if it worked for you.
Enjoy!
Posted in DIYs, she's crafty
2 Comments
Free Valentine's Cupcake Toppers
It's Wednesday. We're all entirely sick of working. If you're anything like me, though, you were over this week on Monday. Not even Monday. Sunday.
Anyway, Valentine's Day is 5 days away. Cinco. That is all. So if you've got some major baking to do, well then never fear because I've designed some terrific little cupcake toppers for your use and enjoyment!
Just click here or on the picture below to download the PDF!
I really, really, really hope you like them! And if you bake up a wild cupcake inferno and top them with these beauties, I would love you forever if you sent me a picture! I might even send you a bag of cinnamon lips and Reese's hearts. And that's no joke!
Enjoy!
Posted in DIYs, she's crafty
3 Comments
