How to Embroider Snowflakes Three Simple Ways

Learn how to embroider snowflakes in three simple ways with this free embroidery pattern. Embellish your winter and holiday decorations by hand! #winterembroidery #christmasembroidery

I love the warm days and cool nights of fall, but I am actually looking forward to cold winter days, drinking hot tea, cozying up on the couch under a blanket to read or watch a movie with the kids. So, in getting ready for …

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DIY embroidered sunflower blanket from a ruana poncho

Trasforma un poncho di lana in un plaid con girasole ricamato! Ecco come ricamare con il filato spesso e quali punti funzionano meglio con questo tutorial. #ricamo #girasolericamato

Have you noticed that embroidery has been making a huge comeback over the past few years? I have been seeing a ton of it used in all sorts of ways, from embellishing home goods, to simple hangable embroidery art, to visible mending of clothing. And …

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How to print on freezer paper with a laser or inkjet printer

Freezer paper stenciling is so much fun, but tracing designs can be a drag. However it's easy and quick when you learn how to print on freezer paper! There’s even a special trick to print with a laser printer instead of an inkjet, or on A4 paper! Find out how on www.cucicucicoo.com!

Freezer paper stenciling is so much fun, but tracing designs can be a drag. However it's easy and quick when you learn how to print on freezer paper! There’s even a special trick to print with a laser printer instead of an inkjet, or on A4 paper! Find out how on www.cucicucicoo.com!

Are you freezer paper addicted? Yeah, I am too.

Freezer paper stenciling is so much fun, but tracing designs can be a drag. However it's easy and quick when you learn how to print on freezer paper! There’s even a special trick to print with a laser printer instead of an inkjet, or on A4 paper! Find out how on www.cucicucicoo.com!

I use freezer paper ALL the time to stencil on clothing, costumes and all other fabric items. It’s a really simple way to paint designs onto fabric, even if you are far from being an artist. I really love how perfectly crisp and clean the lines come out with this technique. If you have never tried it, check out this tutorial on how to freezer paper stencil designs on fabric. You’ll see– it’s super addictive!

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And now freezer paper stenciling has gotten even easier, thanks to something that I’ve recently discovered:

Freezer paper stenciling is so much fun, but tracing designs can be a drag. However it's easy and quick when you learn how to print on freezer paper! There’s even a special trick to print with a laser printer instead of an inkjet, or on A4 paper! Find out how on www.cucicucicoo.com!

Printable freezer paper sheets*! This means that you don’t even have to trace onto the paper, because you can now use your home printer to print onto it! Absolutely perfect!

Freezer paper stenciling is so much fun, but tracing designs can be a drag. However it's easy and quick when you learn how to print on freezer paper! There’s even a special trick to print with a laser printer instead of an inkjet, or on A4 paper! Find out how on www.cucicucicoo.com!

These sheets* are the same freezer paper you’ve always used, with a paper side on the top and a shiny side on the bottom. However, they are conveniently US Letter sized so that you can just pop them right into your ink jet printer to transfer your favorite designs, all ready for cutting out and applying!

How do they work? And what if you have a laser printer that you use with A4 size paper? No problem! Keep on reading to find out how to print on freezer paper with a laser printer with whatever size paper you want!

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How to print on Heat N Bond for fast and easy appliqué!

Make sewing appliqué as easy as can be with your home printer! Learn how to print on Heat N Bond to transfer applique designs quickly without any annoying tracing! www.cucicucicoo.com

Make sewing appliqué as easy as can be with your home printer! Learn how to print on Heat N Bond to transfer applique designs quickly without any annoying tracing! www.cucicucicoo.com

I love embellishing clothing and other fabric items. And one of the ways I love the most is with appliqué.

I’ve written a lot about how to machine appliqué, including a trick to appliqué perfectly on stretchy fabric. I sometimes freehand draw my designs, but usually I either copy them from images found on Google Images or I draw them digitally in Illustrator. So how do I get those images onto my fabric?

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Excellent question! The answer is: Heat’n Bond Lite!

Make sewing appliqué as easy as can be with your home printer! Learn how to print on Heat N Bond to transfer applique designs quickly without any annoying tracing! www.cucicucicoo.com

There are a lot of brands of sewable fusible adhesive for appliqué work, but I’ve been using only Heat’n Bond for years because it is excellent quality. I buy a 5 1/4 yard roll* and it lasts for a long time. But there’s another type: Heat’n Bond Lite in letter-size sheets* that you can print directly onto!

Make sewing appliqué as easy as can be with your home printer! Learn how to print on Heat N Bond to transfer applique designs quickly without any annoying tracing! www.cucicucicoo.com

The sheets are just like the normal Heat’n Bond, with a paper side on the top and a “sticky” side on the bottom.

Make sewing appliqué as easy as can be with your home printer! Learn how to print on Heat N Bond to transfer applique designs quickly without any annoying tracing! www.cucicucicoo.com

I’ve been working on a new project, some appliqué packs with designs that I’ve drawn myself. This “POW!” one is part of my Comic Book appliqué pack (still to be released) and the parts can be easily printed on one sheet of printable Heat n Bond.

Want to find out  how to print on Heat n Bond to make all your appliqué work an absolute breeze? Let me show you how, as well as some great troubleshooting tricks!

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Making Good: Creative patches for jeans

Making Good: Fix rips and tears in pants with creative patches for jeans! Use reverse appliquè for imaginative repairs! www.cucicucicoo.com for www.greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com

Making Good: Fix rips and tears in pants with creative patches for jeans! Use reverse appliquè for imaginative repairs! www.cucicucicoo.com for www.greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com

In January I participated in Green Issues by Agy’s blog train “I didn’t throw it away,” which was all about why you keep certain items for decades. It was really interesting to read what was important to the participants and most of us tended to keep things embedded with emotional value.

So I was really excited to take part in Agy’s new blog train, Making Good,” in which participants write a tutorial about how to fix something and why they decided to fix it. I’m really looking forward to learning how to repair a whole variety of things! Yesterday Agy wrote about using a substance called Polymorph to fix a plastic water jug, and today is my day to participate with a clothing fix that is super useful: fixing rips and tears with creative patches for jeans!

Making Good: Fix rips and tears in pants with creative patches for jeans! Use reverse appliquè for imaginative repairs! www.cucicucicoo.com for www.greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com

Everyone loves wearing jeans, but the production process for them is actually very harmful to the environment, in terms of water usage, pesticides used on cotton plants, and the dyes polluting water. So this is why I like to keep our jeans useful for as long as possible. Then, of course, there’s also the fact that well-worn jeans are way more comfortable than new ones!

Making Good: Fix rips and tears in pants with creative patches for jeans! Use reverse appliquè for imaginative repairs! www.cucicucicoo.com for www.greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com

I’ve already written a tutorial on machine darning holes in jeans, and I use that technique VERY frequently. But sometimes it’s nice to add a bit of pizzazz to your repairs, and that’s when you can go all out with creative patches!

Making Good: Fix rips and tears in pants with creative patches for jeans! Use reverse appliquè for imaginative repairs! www.cucicucicoo.com for www.greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com

And how much fun is it to make patches for kids?! My little boy was thrilled to wear his “new” pants!

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You can, of course make classic patches with regular appliqué shapes (see my tutorial for that here), but I sometimes like to make patches even more visually interesting with the technique of reverse appliquè! Let me show you how!

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How to applique a t shirt to cover logos

Learn to Machine Sew: How to applique a t shirt to cover logos, stains or tears. A simple trick to make your appliqué come out perfectly every time! www.cucicucicoo.com

Learn to Machine Sew: How to applique a t shirt to cover logos, stains or tears. A simple trick to make your appliqué come out perfectly every time! www.cucicucicoo.com

My last lesson for the Learn to Sew series was about how to machine appliqué. Normally I publish a practical tutorial for each technique in the series a few days after the lesson, but life got in the way and almost a month went by. Whoops! In the lesson, I showed you how to use an iron-on adhesive (I recommend Heat’n Bond Lite*) to keep appliqué pieces in place while stitching them down. Today I’m going to show you how to use the same technique on t-shirts (or other jersey items) to cover up ugly logos, stains or tears!

Learn to Machine Sew: How to applique a t shirt to cover logos, stains or tears. A simple trick to make your appliqué come out perfectly every time! www.cucicucicoo.com

So grab your jersey garment and some jersey scraps, and I’ll show you how easy it is to applique a t shirt!

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How to Applique (with a sewing machine)

Learn to Sew: How to applique with a sewing machine, both symmetrical and non-symmetrical shapes, with the zig zag stitch, satin stitch or blanket stitch (aka applique stitch) | www.cucicucicoo.com

Learn to Sew: How to applique with a sewing machine, both symmetrical and non-symmetrical shapes, with the zig zag stitch, satin stitch or blanket stitch (aka applique stitch) | www.cucicucicoo.com

Today, as part of the Learn to Machine Sew series, I’m going to finally show you all how to do one of my very favorite sewing techniques: appliqué! This is so fun and easy to do, you will soon be embellishing everything you can get your hands on!

There is a LOT to learn about appliqué, but I’ll just get into the basics here, with just the two most common stitches and how to appliqué both symmetrical and non-symmetrical shapes with a sewing machine, not by hand. However, if you want to learn more, The Crafty Quilter has an excellent three-part series on appliqué that I highly recommend. Let’s get started!

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How to embellish with slashed t-shirt reverse applique

Tutorial: How to embellish clothing with slashed t-shirt reverse applique

Tutorial: How to embellish clothing with slashed t-shirt reverse applique

Working with t-shirts is so much fun. They don’t ravel and, depending on the fabric content, the edges roll up, which can be interesting for your projects. In the summer you can see loads ladies walking around with slashed t-shirts, with the strands of fabric rolling into something like cords. But two or three years ago I started seeing a different slashing technique. This more controlled version incorporates stitching to keep the slashes where they should be. Then I saw this post on Refashion Co-op (which I contribute to, as well), using this technique along with the technique of reverse applique. (Remember that? I used it on this layered t-shirt refashion.) I was fascinated, but there was no tutorial, so I decided that I’d just have to figure it out myself. Some day… which never seemed to arrive.

Tutorial: How to embellish clothing with slashed t-shirt reverse applique

That is until I found myself with these hand-me-down shirts for my daughter. Now, I never say no to hand-me-downs. But sometimes I just can’t bring myself to dress my kids in them. Bratz?! Are you kidding me? Those are the most horrifyingly ugly and uneducating toys I’ve ever seen. And I can’t say I’m much of a High School Musical fan, either. (Though back when it was popular amongst middle schoolers I did show it to some of my students with some activities to complete while they watched. It was the only time that particular group was ever quiet in my whole experience with them.) However these two shirts were in perfectly good condition and Sofia loves the color yellow, so it was a shame to just pretend we didn’t actually have them.

Tutorial: How to embellish clothing with slashed t-shirt reverse applique

All it took were some scraps of other old t-shirts to get rid of the offending graphics.

Tutorial: How to embellish clothing with slashed t-shirt reverse applique

And then we had another unique piece of clothing for my sweet gal! She calls this her “oven shirt,” and I have to say that she’s right; it does look an awful lot like the inside of an oven. Whatever we want to call it, this t-shirt has been one of her favorites ever since I made it over a year ago. (Yes, it took me a while to actually publish this tutorial, huh? You can tell by Sofi’s teeth. Her new front ones grew in  quite a while ago.)

Would you like to like to save a shirt by embellishing it with this slashed t-shirt reverse applique? Well then, read on!

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How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

Refashioning Tutorial: How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

Refashioning Tutorial: How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

It’s that time of the year again. You know, when your Facebook feed is full of first day of school pictures? Yes, back to school! Where we live, kids up through 5th grade have to wear these hideous smocks, but in the hotter months they’re allowed to wear a white t-shirt. I, of course, find plain white t-shirts terribly boring, so I like to embellish them (like I did with these spiral applique t-shirts and this other ruffled t-shirt).

Refashioning Tutorial: How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

Nicky did one year of private school/day care before he was old enough to start public nursery school last year. These two shirts were part of his school’s summer uniform. They were still in perfectly wearable condition, but I don’t like my kids going around like walking advertisements and in any case I don’t think his current school would appreciate him coming dressed in another school’s shirt. So what did I do?

Refashioning Tutorial: How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

I grabbed a bunch of t-shirt scraps left over from other projects in various shades of blue…

Refashioning Tutorial: How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

…and made some ombre stripes!

Refashioning Tutorial: How to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes

This could be done in a simpler way than I’ll show you here, but I wanted a perfectly clean effect, without any raw edges sticking out. To do this, I opened up the sleeves to be able to enclose the ends of the stripes. See? You would never say that these shirts hadn’t been made like this in the first place! Would you like to learn how to cover up logos on clothes with applique stripes? Then read on!

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Tutorial: Applique to cover rips in clothes

flower applique on ripped pants

Last July the daughter of a good friend of ours was getting ready to head to the Galapagos (lucky thing, her!). While her mother was ironing her things for the trip she accidentally melted a bit of her versatile polyester pants which were going to …

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Add a name tag to a backpack (or other bag)

Add a vinyl nametag slot to a backpack or other bag

Yesterday my little 2 year, 8 month old boy had his first day of public nursery school. And two days before that, I suddenly remembered that he needed a little backpack for school. I didn’t want to buy another because we already have gazillions of …

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Jeans + red wine

jeans vine embellishment

happy 2013! i decided to start off the new year with one of my favorite recente projects. flying back from boston last summer, my little charmer sent my dinner tray, complete with red wine, flying in the air (and all over me and our seats) …

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Not-So-White T Shirts

when it’s not too cool/cold out, the kids at our town’s nursery and elementary schools can wear a white t-shirt instead of a school smock. this makes me very happy, because i really don’t like the smocks very much and then we only have two …

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Stain-covering ruffles

stain-covering ruffles

i can’t believe it…i’d almost finished translating this long post, which i’d spent quite a bit of time on…and firefox went nuts and i lost it. i’m trying to suppress all the swearing i’d like to do (mostly because i’m nursing my little guy as …

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Transfer drawings to t shirts with freezer paper

Did your kid draw the best picture, or you found a great image online? Find out how to transfer drawings to T shirts with freezer paper stenciling! Such a fun way to jazz up boring clothing and the most addicting craft ever! Tutorial by www.cucicucicoo.com

I just can’t handle a plain garment. And I REALLY can’t handle a plain T-shirt. And this is one of the reasons why I do freezer paper stenciling so often. What’s another reason? It’s SO EASY. It’s SO FUN. It’s SO ADDICTIVE. (Are those enough …

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