Rag Tree Tutorial

This one is a Julia original :) I saw these ugly tinsel trees at Dollar Tree. I wondered what was underneath and there was a plastic cone frame. I thought it would be cute to make a rag tree. So here it is in all its glory!

This is what it looked like before:

First you cut off the tinsel and you're left with this nice tree frame

The stars were another thing. I couldn't find the rusty metal stars that weren't more than a dollar each, so I saw these glitter stars at JoAnn's. It was a bunch of 6 different sized glitter stars for $1. I scratched the surface and realized it was metal underneath, but scratching the glitter off was taking forever, so I soaked them in nail polish remover (acetone based).

The glitter slid right off, and I was left with these, exactly what I was looking for, rusty metal stars.

Then you cut out 6"x 1" strips of fabric and tie overhand knots on all the vertical spires, and the bottom hoop. When you have it covered, reach your hand up the middle and fluff out the fabic and Voila!

Cone Trees

I made some cone trees similar to the trees found here. She used the floral syrofoam cones, but they were $4 EACH! I Didn't want to spend that much, so I found some mirror disco-looking trees at dollar tree. I cut the cones with an X-acto knife to get some different sizes. I also put a metal star on top. Cute eh?

Before: (Not really my style)

After:

much better!

Hooded Sweater dress

I made Sarah another sweater dress. This time with a hood! I again just traced another sweater dress that she has for the body. Cut the length of sleeve she needed at the cuff, and took in the sleeves. Then I sewed the sleeves to the body. I used a seam ripper to get the hood off, took in the hood, and attached the hood. I had to sew buttons and button holes on this one also. Fun and cute! (The easiest way to figure out how to do this, is to turn one of your daughter's dresses inside out and make a pattern out of that.)

Before:
( I Even used a Mr. Sketch raspberry scented marker to mark where I wanted to cut it, I could not find ANYTHING to write with (obviously))

and after: