Ashley - Minnie Mouse Party Window Valances!

Hi all! I have been wanting to do these window valances ever since I got the idea for them when I did the table runners so I actually took the time and sat down to do them. Originally I was going to just sew those few seams and call it good but I thought that was just a little too plain and so I brainstormed and this is what I came up with :)

( Don't mind the one broken slot on the blinds, someone found out they were tall enough to reach them) Anyways this is totally adorable right?!?!?! This is how I did it.

You will need:

Enough fabric to reach all the way around your window

1in. white grosgrain ribbon

Black and pink felt

Valance rods

First I took my fabric and cut it down to 15in X 84in. I then folded both ends, pressed it and started sewing. Quick tip if you use fabric like this the polka dots will help you line things up and will help you sew straight lines so watch the polka dots!

After I got the edges done I moved onto the ribbon. When I sewed the ribbon on I loosened the tension a bit (between 2 and 3) and made my stitches longer.  

When I was done with that I moved to the next step, the Minnie head. Cut out your Minnie head of your black felt. I left the stitches long and just switched out my top bobbin to to black thread. Sew on your Minnie head.

And for the cherry on top, the bow. Get your pink felt and cut out the shape of a bow. Now with my bow since the head was sewn on all I did was glue the bow to the black felt of the Minnie head just to make it easier and since it's going to be just hanging you can cheat lol.

I had my husband put the valance rod up for me while I was finishing up and boom!



You have an amazing looking party decoration that you can move into your princesses room after the party is over :)





Enjoy!

Ashley - Minne Mouse hair bows

So I have come to the conclusion that I'm not I'm not going have the time to make Melody's whole outfit so I'm still trying to decide if I'm still going to try and personalize something myself or just completely break down and buy her something to wear. No matter what I decide I wanted to still make sure to amke something for her to make so I felt better about it lol. I have looking around on pinterest to get ideas and I came across some very adorable hair bows on this website http://girlythingsbows.com/mouse_ear_clippies.html. This webiste has the full tutorial so go take a look. I made a goof and didn't buy the 1/4 in. balck grosgrain, my mind was completely somewhere up and I ended up with 1/8 in. ruban. OYE. lol so mine look different for that reason, but even so they still turned out pretty dang cute I think.

As you can tell I tried two different bows, I felt like the bigger bow was just a little over powering so I tried the smaller bow and all I did was took a 2 in or so piece of ribbon glued the ends together then creased it in the middle and then took a very small scrap of ribbon to glue around the middle and thus you have my smaller bow.

Which do you like better?

I can't wait for her party! September 8th is the day of it so make sure to keep checking back!!!


 Enjoy!

Ashley - Mickey/Minnie party favor bags!

Now I have to make the Minnie version of this still but I wanted to post my Mickey version because I think it turned out adorable :) I will be making these to use as party favor bags to hid all the goodies and we are also going to have a pinata so the kiddos can use their little bags for that too! I will also take better pictures tomorrow when I actually have light. (this house is horrible because I'm in a townhome and we are in the middle unit so no window on two sides of the house )

Now let me tell you how I did it. With your red felt you will need to cut out 2 pieces that are 7 in. by 11 in. Then in the bottom corners you will cut out 2 in. by 2 in. square. You will also need to cut 2 pieces of black felt 4 in. by 11 in. for the top and two ovals for the ears and two little wite ovals for Mickey's little buttons. Here are all my pieces cut.

I started by sewing the corners into the red pieces. This is what the corners should look like.

Then I attached the black pieces to the red pieces like so.

Now you will sew the bag together. You will sandwich the bag pieces outsides touching each other and you will put the ear pieces in between the bag pieces. I suggest you pin it all. If you didn't understand my funky wording lol here is what mine looked like before I sewed it together.

Make sure that when you sew your seams on each side of the bag are lining up and the seams at the corners line up so your bag lines up nice. Don't be afraid to tug a little to make things line up :)

Once you have sewn everything together turn it right side in and trim all your threads. Next I put on my little white buttons. What I did was hot glue them just so it was easier to line them up the way I wanted them but you can choose to sew them it's up to you.

You're almost done! The final thing to do is I took some 7/8 in. ribbon and cut two 18 in. pieces folded it and doubled an inch of it over and put the raw end up against the bag so that it's hidden when you sew it together and I just used a zig zag stitch making it as large as I could and ran the seam. And this is the end result!

All together planning, cutting, and sewing it took me about an hour so it's a pretty quick process now that you have the dimensions and the know how. So get working and have fun!!!

UPDATE: As promised, I am posting a picture of the Minnie Mouse bag for you too. Just got done with it!

I know it's hard to see the handle color, Minnie's is white and Mickey's is yellow :)