Valentine Shabby Puff Hearts Tutorial

In my effort to put a Valentine decoration here and there around the house, I browsed Esty. For decor, I generally tend to lean towards primitive, shabby chic, or country style. As I was browsing, I came across some super cute shabby puffy fabric hearts. Normally, I'm a buyer instead of a DIY'er, but I'm trying to change my ways. I saved about $20 doing these on my own!

I knew these puffy hearts were something I could make, and I had all supplies on hand, thankfully. I'll try to quickly walk you through the steps, but they are pretty easy peasy, even with the most basic sewing skills.

You'll Need:

- tea bags

- jumbo bowl for steeping fabric

- Valentine's themed rubber stamps and pad

- cotton fabric (for hearts)

- linen or muslin fabric for decorating hearts 

- sewing machine

-thread

- scissors

- stuffing/filler

 First, you need to gather the fabric you'd like to use. Cut into big squares (depending on how big you'd like your hearts.

Steep two jumbo tea bags (or 4 smaller ones) and soak your fabric. I did mine for about 10 minutes. Since the tea was pretty strong, the fabric got 'aged' quickly.

Let your fabric dry after they have their tea bath. I got impatient so I threw mine into the dryer for 20 minutes.

While I was waiting, I took that time to stamp little muslin fabric pieces ( you could also use linen if in a pinch) with lovey dovey things. I stamped "te amo", my nieces name, me and Southern Hubby's pet name- Bee, xoxo, kiss me, and a cupid.

By this time, to be quite honest, I was getting impatient. These little suckers take a bit to make but they were fun in the process. Just can be time consuming. Consider yourself forwarned. :)

Iron your tea-dyed fabric. Make a rough outline of your heart shapes using a fabric pen. For a more primitive and shabby look, you don't want your hearts super perfect. I did everything free hand and liked the way they came out.

Cut around the heart shape, leaving lots of border. You will be handsewing to close.

{{This is where I stopped taking pictures. Sorry!}}

Pin and sew the small muslin stamped fabric pieces onto the front of the hearts. You must remember to do this first because you won't be able to do it after you've sewn your hearts together.

Pin your heart shapes with the right sides together and sew along your outline. Rememeber: Leave 1.5-2" open so that you can turn the hearts inside out.

Using a pencil or knitting needle, turn your hearts inside out.

Stuff some stuffing/filler into the hearts making them as puffy as you'd like.

Then using matching thread, hand-sew the hearts closed.

That's it! :) You've got some super easy (but time-consuming) Valentine's Day decorations! I've gotten plenty of compliments on my little bowl fillers already.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions. I can try and help. 

xo

PS. Today I'm linking up to...

Savoring today

These are the moments this homemaker dreams of...

The kitchen is clean from the breakfast rush. The dishes are washing. Cups of coffee have been consumed. Laundry is folded. The pups are quietly sleeping in their comfy beds. (I even had a few quick moments to knit this morning.)

So, I figured I'd take advantage of this time to blog.

As of right now, we're still in the midst of getting the house in order. I'd say the downstairs is about 90% finished. We just had some built-ins installed in a space that was wasted and I finally got around to decorating them.

I did some fall decorating. Not my best work, but it will have to do.

I'll be back soon to show you some of them,  but for right now I wanted to share this awesome coupon class. In no way am I a coupon diva. I don't clip. I don't print. I don't save. BUT- I want to be! I'm fascinated by those women I see at my Kroger with the huge coupon binders. I want to be her! Weird, I know, but true.

So, I was thrilled to stumble on The Frugal Find. She just made her coupon class free to everyone! I may not be a coupon diva, but I do know free is a good thing! :) I don't know this girl from Adam and I wasn't paid to endorse this class, but I just had to pass it along. Right now, I'm only a couple classes in. Before you know it, I will be one of those cool coupon divas! Yay!

I'll be back later this week with my quick attempt at making my house look somewhat fall-ish. :)

PS- If you do take her class, don't forget to give her some love. She's doing this out of the kindness of her own heart (and out of her pocketbook!) and as a ministry to others. :)

Kitchen Paint Colors and Cute Shoes!

I completely forgot to let y'all know what my kitchen paint color is. Sorry about that. I included a few more rooms just in case. And for some reason I cannot find a better kitchen picture! So, let's cross our fingers that my sweet friend, Kelly, forgives me for posting this one.

And lastly, if you're like any regular woman on the face of the earth, you probably have a shoe obsession. And if you're living in America, you realize we're going through an economic slump, so you're trying to save money. Obviously those two don't fit. Until now...

I came across Studio 32 a while back while doing what I do best- online window/computer screen shopping. All of their shoes are under $32! How cute are these wedges? And they have children's shoes, purses, and wallets. I just love finding steals and deals on my favorite things. AND, they have graciously offered my readers an extra 20% off their entire purchase until August 15th. That's a lot of shoe shopping time. :) Just use the code HSCHARM when checking out. Yay for saving money!

Oh, and stay tuned for a Vineyard Vines giveaway tomorrow! Yipeeeee!

Happy shoe shopping!

xoxo Y

Calling all y'all Coupon Divas

I was really hoping that I could bribe some Hot Coupon Divas out there to give me a hand in getting my coupon plan in order. Right now, I have no plan. I have this orange little file system, but it doesn't really do much for me. Plus, I feel so inadequate when I'm in stores and see all these ladies with huge 3-inch binders full of page after page of coupons. How in the world do that even make sense? It makes my head spin!

From my pictures, you can see that what I have is very basic and very simple. If I see a coupon in the Sunday paper that we may use at some point, I clip it and put it in the proper file. That's pretty much it. Three months later I'll be filing another coupon, come upon it, realize that it is expired, and curse myself! I don't plan the week's meals around coupons, as I've heard of some wives doing. I clip my coupons around my meals. So that may be a problem right there.

I would so so appreciate someone giving me the run down of their coupon system that works. I'd be willing to search the Internet, so if you have some good coupon sites, I'd love those as well. Many, many thanks my new amigas!