Wire Wrapped Ring

I have a confession. I weigh about 30 pounds more than I did when Jeff and I got married (insert grumpy, pouty, embarrassed facial expression here). One of the many downsides of this is that my wedding ring just doesn't fit anymore. Quite annoying, since I really love my wedding ring.

So I decided that I need something I can wear at this larger size, at least until I put forth the effort to lose the weight. Trust me, making a pretty ring is much easier than losing 30 pounds! Especially if it's this ring.

I used this very simple tutorial I found on pinterest. I did have to buy some equipment for this - specifically a ring mandrel and some craft/beading wire. The mandrel I purchased on etsy (here) and the wire came from the beads/jewelry section at Wal-Mart.

After seeing my lovely new ring, the kids were super eager to have me make one for each of them as well. So here's one I made for Zaylee:

And one I made for Thomas (I used a miniaturized version of this tutorial instead, no beads. Tried to get it a little less feminine):

I can see myself getting hooked on making these simple rings. So quick, so elegant, so fun!

Halloween Costumes

Along with the cute little crocheted ears I made for the kids, I also had to make matching costumes. I'm all about doing things simple and inexpensive. We had a prowling kitty cat, and swooping bat, and a fluttering butterfly, and I was able to crank out all three costumes in three days.

The Cat

For Zaylee's cat costume, I crocheted a long, fuzzy tail and sewed it onto the back of some brown sweatpants. Besides the ears, the tail is her favorite part of her costume, and mine too! It's a long tube of double crochet, in Lion Brand Homespun.

Next I crocheted a large oval. This I hot-glued onto a brown turtleneck to act as the fuzzy belly. Add the ears and some kitty makeup, and the cat costume was complete.

The Bat

For Thomas' bat costume, wings were an absolute necessity. I used the basic instructions given at Alphamom (which I found on Pinterest, and can thus link this post to the pin-did challenge at The Modern Marigold, yay).

I did alter it a bit - I didn't use boning because they didn't have it at Wal-Mart when I did my quick costume supply shopping trip. Instead, I made the wings out of two layers of fabric, one of which was somewhat stiff, and that way the wings supported themselves and boning was unnecessary. Also, to attach the wings to the shirt, I cut out the side seams and resewed them with the wings, so now they're actually "built in" to the shirt. Again, I used a basic turtleneck and sweatpants as the base for the costume.

Ears and makeup, and my little bat was ready to fly.

 

The Butterfly

For Audrey's butterfly costume, all I had to do was add wings to a black turtleneck and pair it with black pants. And make an antenna headband that she wasn't too fond of wearing.

The wings are just two layers of fabric, with some interfacing to keep them stiff. I used a zigzag stitch to emphasize the shape of the wings. Then I sewed them onto the shirt. If I had it to do again, I would have just glued or pinned them on, because getting the shirt up onto the sewing machine enough to sew the top of the wings was really hard! And I would have used a bent clothes hanger or something to help the wings keep their shape - even with the interfacing they flopped forward too much and didn't really hold their shape well. But still, for a last minute project, it turned out okay.

Fun costumes!