Cartwheels and Pearls

We're hosting a bridal shower at my house in the next few weeks for a soon to be cousin. Well hopefully people show up... I'm a little scared since we've gotten more no's than yes's. So fingers crossed people come! Either way, it's going to be awesome! We (being my mom and I) decided to make some decorations.



First you'll need 8 to 10 sheets of tissue paper. Stack them all up as best as you can. Fold it accordian style, creating approx. 1 1/2 inch folds



Cut the edges at either a point or a half circle. You may need to do it layer by layer since it may be tricky.

Carefully pull the layers apart and wallah!
We just tied the wire tails around our light and I think they look pretty good! They look a lot better in person. No worries!

Don't mind the mess...

You'll need probably less than a yard of fabric and a pillow.

I probably could have used a tape measure for this but it was better to see exactly how it was going to fit. Lay the pillow on one side of the fabric and fold the bottom up so that it's a little more than half way covering the pillow.

Lay the other side over and find the point where they overlap about 2 inches. This is going to be the length of the pillow. For the width just kind of gather up how much fabric will be required on either side of the pillow.

Cut out and iron the fabric. I left the selvage on the end since it's going to be hemmed.

Fold the prettier edge over around half way. This will be the edge that is exposed.



Here's the back:

Here's the pillow in it's new home. Don't mind the fact that the moldning still needs to be put back on and that the table still needs to be redone and that the picture needs to be hung higher.

• 1 Zipper (I recommend one around 13-16 inches)
• 2 pieces of Fabric (the length of your zipper by the length minus 2... i.e. for a 14 inch zipper, the fabric would be 14 x 12 inches)
• 2 pieces of oil cloth of the same size as the fabric

I picked up an 1/8 of a yard of oil cloth at Jo Ann's for under $2, found an old 13 inch zipper, and then had some left over fabric that I had found at a garage sale.

Anyway, since my zipper was 13 inches, I cut my fabric and oil cloth into 2 13 x 11 inch of each.

So, start off with your zipper foot. You'll want to switch back later though.

I had to piece together my oil cloth since an 1/8 of a yard is only 9 inches wide and not 11. You can't even tell. So don't worry if you have to do this.


Lay your fabric face up. Lay your zipper face down with the zipper head on the left.

Lay your oil cloth face down on top.
 Make sure the far side of the zipper is lined up with the edges of the oil cloth and fabric.
Sew it up and flip it so that the zipper is exposed and the oil cloth is face down and the fabric is face up. Sorry I didn't take a picture of this next step.
Lay your other piece of fabric right side up. Lay the zippered piece face down with  the zipper on the right. Lay the final piece of oil cloth face down with the edges all lined up and then sew.
 Lay the pieces out with the zipper up. Lightly iron it if it is poofing up. Be careful of the oil cloth. I ironed mine a bit and it didn't seem to damage anything.

Flip it over and again iron if necessary.

Fold it in half like below with the oil cloth side outside and sew the bottom.

Cut off any extra fabric. Not all layers will end up the same length so be aware and make sure to sew through all of them.

Move the bottom seam until it lines up with the zipper like below.

Unzip it at least half way. Sew a seam down both sides like how my hand is pointing. Go over the zipper ends a few times to reinforce it.

The other side should look similar to this:

The top should look like this:
Poof it up. Mine was kind of heavy so it wouldn't stay up too well.

Pinch the edges in a vertical way. Choose a height for your bag. I picked 3 inches. Sew a seam that is that long.

Repeat on all four corners. It should look like this:

Clip off the corners.


Flip it inside out... and wallah!

My bottom seam was a bit off center from the zipper but it still looks pretty good.

Perfect for holding a bunch of random junk!

I wish I had cut the inside seam on the bottom a bit short but oh well.

The bottom looks nice though. I was worried about the oil cloth pattern showing through since the top fabric was really thin and see through but it didn't turn out too bad.

I still have no idea what to do with this! I don't know if I want to give it to a friend or keep it. We'll see.

linking up here