Mini Wallet Tutorial

Yay! It's finally here! Do you guys have your sewing machines out and ready to roll?

Before we begin, let me just say I am sorry for how picture heavy this post is. I am, however, the type of person that learns by seeing, and nothing drives me crazy more than a tutorial with only 1 picture every 5 steps or so. I like to see pictures for every single step. So if that's you, you'll enjoy this. If that's not you, well then, I suppose I'm sorry. But not really.

Click on any image to make it bigger.

Outer Fabric - The fabric I like to use for this is from the Home Decor section at Joann Fabrics. It's 100% cotton, but it's a heavier weight and more durable than plain cotton.

Lining Fabric - I just use plain, thin cotton for this. Your wallet is going to be pretty bulky around the edges by the time you're done sewing it, so try to go as thin as possible to avoid adding any extra bulk you don't need.

OK, you ready? Let's go.

1. Cut your fabric into 8 pieces (4 from the outer and 4 from the lining) matching the measurements below.

2. Set aside the 7x5.5 pieces. Match up the rest of the pieces according to size. Lay them on top of each other right sides together.

3. Sew each section together along the longer (5.5 inch) edge using a 1/2 inch seam allowance. 

4. Open up each section and iron the seam allowance to one side, and then fold along the seam and iron again. Do this on all 3 sections.

5. Get your large, 7x5.5 inch piece of lining fabric and lay it out right side up.

6. Lay the 3 smaller sections you just finished sewing and ironing, right sides up, on top of the lining piece in order of height. Lay down the tallest first, then the second tallest, then the shortest. The finished edges should be on top, and the raw edges should all line up across the bottom.

 7. Lay the large (7x5.5) outer fabric on top of this stack right side down.

8. Pin the bottom half together. If you laid everything out right you should be pinning through 8 pieces of fabric, so it'll be trickier than usual to pin it. 

9. OPTIONAL: Before you pin the top half, cut small triangles from the top corners.This will give the front flap of your wallet a little more shape.

10. Finish pinning around the top. Leave at least a 2 inch gap on the right side. 

11. Sew all layers together, except for the marked gap, using a 1/2" seam allowance. 

 12. Snip a small amount off the bottom two corners. Be careful not to get too close to your seam.

13. Turn the entire wallet inside out through the 2 inch gap. I know this can be tricky, but just go slowly and try not to tug too much or you may burst your seams. Once it's turned inside out use your fingers to push out the corners and make it as flat as possible.

14. Iron the life out of it. 

15. Make sure the raw edges where your 2 inch gap is are tucked inside. If they are sticking out or are folded funny, straighten them out, tuck them inside, and iron to hold it in place. 

16. Put two pins just above the tallest pocket. These are your "don't sew past this point" guides.

17. Now the scary part! Top stitch around the top half of the wallet, stopping before you cross the pins. Technically speaking you could top-stitch all the way around the wallet, but chances are your machine can't sew through that many layers without busting into flames or something like that. 

Remember that when you top stitch you want to stay very close to the edge of the fabric. To keep myself in a (relatively) straight line, I try to line up the edge of the fabric with the side of the hole in the center of the presser foot. The main goal here is to be sure that you're sewing close enough to the edge to sew over the raw edges where your 2 inch hole still is. If you sew too far in, you won't get them and they'll pop out and fray. 

When you're done it should look like this:

18. Double check that the formerly open gap is now sewed securely shut. Give yourself a pat on the back if it is. If not, it's time to familiarize yourself with my good friend the seam ripper and do it again. (My first mini wallet got top stitched about 4 times before I was satisfied with it, so no worries if you don't get it the first time).


19. Fold down the front flap and iron it. 

20. Almost there! The last step is to attach your closure of choice. Follow the given instructions on the packaging of the item you bought to add it to the wallet. Check, double check, and triple check that everything is lined up correctly before committing to anything.

 21. Jump up and down with joy, because you're done!

So that's it! I know that's a lot of pictures and a lots of steps, but it's really easier than it looks. Like I said before, I'm the type that likes to be babied through projects like this, so it's my personal preference to have each step outlined and have a picture for everything. I hope it all made sense! If you have any questions or suggestions to make this better/easier, feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll try to get back to you. And of course, if you make a mini wallet, please show me! Post a picture on your blog and let me know about it, or send me a picture via email to violetreaction@live.com. Happy sewing!

The After: (Hello Holes in the Wall)

If you didn't see the Before post yet, click HERE. Otherwise the following pics won't look all that spectacular.

The After:

Isn't is fabulous? I love love love it. Every time I walk by my room I have to stick my head in just to stare at it for a while.

I ended up using 11 of the impressionist painting prints (out of the 22 I had), 8 images that I printed out for free on Vintage Printable, and two small mirrors.

I already had the large frame that I put the two Renoir paintings in. The two big square frames (that house Starry Night and The Dancing Class) came from St. Vincent's, as did the two mirrors and two other smaller frames. The rest of the frames came from the Dollar Tree. A pretty cheap project, considering that to buy framed prints like these individually would probably cost $10+ at retail price.
You may be thinking to yourself, "Gee, I wonder how she got all those pictures spaced so nicely." The truth is that it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. It is, however, more time consuming that I thought it would be. My sister Lindsey has apparently done a similar picture wall in her apartment at college, so she shared her secrets with me on how to get everything looking uniform and straight. It took a while to get everything done, but it was well worth it to be sure that it was going to all fit and be spaced correctly before I started putting holes in my wall.

What it looked like before I started nailing:
Yes, that is newspaper on my wall. They were my guides to make sure everything was placed right and also so I would know where I needed to put my nails.

All in all, it was a very fun and inexpensive project. I kind of want to do this to every wall in my house now. Someone stop me quick!

The Before: (Au Revoir Pretty Painting)

Sorry about the lack of a Music Monday post yesterday... with my family being here I've been losing track of the days, and it didn't occur to me until last night around 11pm that it was Monday. Such is life...

Anyways, on to the real subject of this blog: Redecorating!

I took this picture of my bed last night around 6:30 or so. The less-than-stellar-ness of the photo can be attributed to the fact that it is pitch black outside around that time, and the lights in my room are yellow, making in nearly impossible to achieve a good picture.

The less-than-stellar-ness of this picture, however, can be attributed to a less-than-stellar camera. I took this picture on March 19th of this past year when my best friend Janell came over and helped me paint a giant canvas:
Mid-process:
We bought everything at Michael's and then just kind of made it up as we went. We did a base of dark purple, added some light purple/pink-ish streaks around the bottom, and then used rolls of packing tape, the bottom of pepsi cans, milk lids, and marker caps dipped in paint to make the silver circles. We did one dark green circle near the bottom left just for fun.

So that's the origins behind the giant purple painting in my room. It's been faithfully decorating my room for the past 9 months, but lately I've been thinking of making a change. Last night was when that change occurred.

The following is my official "Before" picture. If it ever decides to clear up and not be so gray outside, I will take my "After" pictures some time this afternoon and post them either tonight or tomorrow.
So what wondrous thing did I do to my wall? You'll just have to wait. :)

But because I'm nice, I'll give you a hint:

DIY: Bird Silhouette T-Shirt

Let's take a field trip from the usual clothing blogs and have a Do-it-Yourself day! I was day-dreaming about screen-printing today, and it inspired me to try a simple alternative. This was a very easy project and is a great way to add a little style to a plain shirt.

What You Need:
*Plain T-Shirt
*Regular Sharpie
*Fine-tip Sharpie
*Something flat and hard (a piece of cardboard or a large book would work fine)
*Two paper birds, preferably opposite facing. I cut mine out from a bird calendar, but there are tons of birds images available on Google that you could print and cut out.

1) Lay out your shirt on a flat surface (I just did it on my floor) and stick your cardboard/book inside the shirt under one of the shoulders., The book is important so that way your sharpie won't bleed through to the back of the shirt.

2) Lay out your first bird shape on the sleeve. Use your fine-tip Sharpie to trace the bird onto the shirt. The key here is to use short, light strokes, or even to dot the whole way around. If you try and do long strokes, your pen tip will catch in the fabric.

3) When you are done tracing the bird, use your regular Sharpie to fill in the shape. Now you have a completed bird silhouette.

4) Move the book over to the other shoulder and trace your second bird on the sleeve.

5) Fill it in as well. Now you have two complete bird silhouettes.

6) Now the scary part! Using your fine-tip Sharpie again, gently free-hand some branches for your birdies to sit on. I know free-handing, especially in Sharpie, can be scary and intimidating, but just keep in mind you're drawing branches. All branches are unique and no two are alike, so don't worry if yours end up looking a little odd. If you haven't free-handed branches before, I'd recommend testing it out some on paper beforehand.

7) After you have the basic outlines, go ahead and fill in the branches as well. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

And you're done!
After a few washes the color will doubtlessly fade a bit, but when that happens just grab your Sharpie and go back over your silhouettes.

Overall, this was an extremely cheap project. The shirt was bought up in Alaska at American Eagle, and it had already been marked down several times in addition to the entire store being 20% off. So the shirt was only $2.76. I already had the Sharpies and bird calendar, and the book was just one from my shelf. So yeah, definitely an inexpensive experiment.