Oh, y’all…

You know when you think something’s a really great idea but know it will be a lot of work/time and think, “Boy, this could be touch-and-go, but that’s okay. I can pull it off…surely.”

Yeah, that would be:

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Of course the super-organized thing would have been to get all my tutorials done early (like last week) and then present them to you first thing every morning with panache and punctuality.

But that is so not my life right now (Baby, come hooooooooooome!).

And while I will spare you the details of today, suffice it to say that nothing (and I mean nothing) has gone right.

Do you have those days too?

(It’s a rhetorical question; I know we all do).

But you know what’s really cool?

Even though my “suffering” is ridiculously mild—after all I’m not imprisoned for my faith in Indonesia or battling a critical illness or trying to keep my head above water as a single mother—my God who supplies all my needs (even—or maybe especially—the emotional ones) notices when I’m struggling, and He reaches down at just the right moments when I feel like I’d rather torch the whole house and start over (rather than clean it yet again) or put my children out on the end of the driveway with a “free for pick-up” sign on their chests (I know, I know…the drama), and He gently taps my shoulder with a reminder of His unfathomable grace and love…

For me…

One of the most selfish, easily annoyed human beings I know (on my worst days) and one of the weakest (without His strength) on even some of my best.

Today’s shoulder-tap came in the form of an email from a sweet reader who told me she enjoyed my blog and had been thinking of me and wanted to encourage me in the Lord.

REALLY?

It’s not the first time this has happened (and I certainly hope it won’t be the last), but I can’t help but think every time: “Who takes the time out of their day to do that for someone they’ve never even met?”

It’s so humbling and good all at once.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

I do not have “it all” together.

I think most of you know that by now.

On days like today, I don’t even feel like I have some of it together.

But apparently God wants me to, “just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” (is it sacrilegious to reference God and quote Dori at the same time?) because just when I think that doing the doggie paddle in the middle of the mama-ocean isn’t going to cut it anymore, I get an email like Katy’s or a hug from my formerly rebellious and infuriatingly whiny child or an “I miss you” text from the world’s sweetest Ryan Gosling look-alike…

And I think, “Well, I guess I’d best keep flailing those arms and kicking those legs because life is too precious to give up on.”

All this to say two things:

1) Thank you for reading, commenting, emailing, and making the lost sleep and hot glue burns worth it (and then some)

and

2) If you’re having this kind of day (week, month), hang in there and just keep swimming.

God sees you, and He loves you more than you will probably ever fathom.

I don’t have an awesome transition from that post to the one that’s in today’s title, so I’ll just dive right in.

Just in case on the odd off-chance that you haven’t seen what got all this Skirt Challenge business rolling in the first place, here’s a refresher shot of what we started out with:

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Ain’t she purdy in all of her mullet-y glory?

And now for today’s trick, ladies and gentlemen, I will transform an unfortunately-shaped skirt with awesome fabric into three different kind of fabric flowers, using only my wits (which are at their end) and the following instruments:

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    • Hot glue gun/glue
    • Scissors
    • Fabric (I have several in here that I didn’t end up using)
    • Felt (craft felt is fine for this kind of project)
    • Candle/lighter
    • Embellishments (I delved into my stash of vintage buttons again)

First up, we have:

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1. Otherwise known as a rolled fabric flower, it’s one of the easiest to make. Simply cut a long, narrow strip of fabric (how long and how wide depends on how big you want your flower to be…mine was about 1”X20”).

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2. Fold the strip in half with the pattern on the outside.

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3. Fold one end of the strip down and then roll it under once or twice until you have the beginning (which will be the center) of your flower.

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4. Begin twisting and wrapping the strip around the rolled center piece, securing it with dabs of hot glue as you go.

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I usually add hot glue every two twists.

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Make sure to work outward so that you don’t end up with all of your twists piled on top of each other.

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5. When you only have a small little tail left…

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…tuck it underneath your flower and hold it in place with—what else?—hot glue.

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8. If you want, you can add some leaves made out of felt or, in this case, lace (I hot-glued two layers together to keep the leaves from “wilting”).

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And now, moving onto our second Act, er, flower, which is made up of:

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1. I used the scrap paper circle templates from Tuesday’s Leather Flower Belt to cut circles out of the Ikat fabric…

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…and the felt (at least for the largest circle, so you can combine the two and provide a sturdy base for the rest of the flower).

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I just attached them to each other with hot glue.

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2. I also cut out turquoise satin circle in the same size as the Ikat ones, even though they were supposed to be smaller because I knew I would be singing the edges with my candle flame, which would make them shrink.

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3. Starting with my Ikat/felt base (which was also the largest circle), I hot glued each successively smaller circle on top of the larger one below…

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…until I had this:

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Apparently, I’m destined to have at least one blurry shot per tutorial.

4. Finally, since the Ikat was looking a bit zebra-ish, and zebra + shiny turquoise is a little too Toddlers and Tiaras for my taste, I added a pretty vintage button to tone down the bling factor.

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Hopefully, it worked.

And for our final feat, I give you:

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1. Using my scrap paper petal template (also from the Leather Flower Belt), I cut out four flowers (I only did this once because I folded my fabric over twice…hard to tell in the picture).

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2. Then, I folded each flower in half…

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…and then again into a fourth.

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3. I cut a square piece of felt.

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4. Then, I glued each folded flower to one of the four corners of the felt square…

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…until I had this (hence the name “The Clover”).

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5. I “fluffed” the petals by adding hot glue to the center and gently pressing the top petal of each folded flower toward the center until the hot glue held them in place. You may need to do more rearranging, fluffing, or even trimming of the petals once the glue has set.

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6. You don’t have to, but I added yet another vintage button to the center for a bit of fun.

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Tada!

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Thank you, thank you very much.

Please hold your applause until the curtain, and please, no flash photography (it’s not nice to my crow’s feet).

P.S. Feature Friday FREE-FOR-ALL + the last installment of the Skirt Challenge will be live tomorrow @ 8 AM!

The CSI project ~ Menu Plan Monday ~ C.R.A.F.T.  ~ The Southern Institute ~ Making the World Cuter ~ Thrify Décor Chick ~ Metamorphosis Monday ~ Sumo Sweet Stuff ~ Gunny Sack ~ Singing Three Little Birds ~DIY Homes Sweet Home ~ Dittle Dattle ~ 1929 Charmer ~ Everything Under the Moon  ~ ModMix Monday ~ Sew Stylish ~ Coastal Charm ~ Under the Table and Dreaming

Tuesday ~ Get Your Craft ~ Tip Junkie ~ Blackberry Vine ~ Crafty Confessions ~ Me & my Boys ~ A Bowl Full of Lemons ~ Home Stories A-Z ~ My Uncommon Slice of Suberbia  ~ Carolyn’s Homework ~ Sugar Bee Crafts ~ House of Grace ~ Passionately Artisitc ~ My World Made by Hand ~ Uncommon Designs ~ Trendy Treehouse

Wednesday ~ Blue Cricket Design ~ Somedays Crafts ~ Sew Much Ado ~ Sew Woodsy ~ Handy Man, Crafty Woman ~ Savvy Southern Style ~ {Primp} ~ Midweek Fiesta ~ Rae Gun Ramblings ~ Polkadots On Parade ~ Lollipop Cards ~ JAQS Studio ~ Let Birdz Fly ~ Let Birdz Fly ~ My Girlish Whims

Thursday ~ Thursdays are Your Days, Transformation Thursdays ~ Somewhat simple ~ Show off your stuff ~ House of Hepworths ~ Delightful Order ~ My Simple Home Life ~ The Frugal Girls ~ Thrifty Thursday ~ DIY Diva Thursday ~ Tablescape Thursday ~ No Minimalists Here ~ Crafty, Scrappy, Happy ~ Thrifty Decorating ~ Between U and Me ~ 36th Avenue

Friday ~ The Shabby nest  ~ Show and Tell Friday ~ Finding Fabulous ~ I’m Loving it ~ Simply Sweet Home ~ Whipper Berry ~ Chic on a Shoestring decorating ~ Spunky Junky ~ Delicate Construction ~ Homemaker in Heels ~ Family Ever After~ French Country Cottage ~ Common Ground ~ Young And Crafty ~ At the Picket Fence ~ Fingerprints on the Fridge ~ Miss Mustard Seed ~ Addicted to Decorating ~Bacon Time with The Hungry Hypo ~ Making Lemonade ~ I Can’t Stop Crafting ~ Over the Big Moon ~ Shabby Art ~ Answer is Chocolate

Saturday ~ I heart nap time- Sundae Scoop ~ Tatertots and Jello ~ Be different Act Normal ~ Funky Junk ~ 2805 ~ Making Lemonade Blog ~I am Along for the Ride  ~ Lolly Jane

0 Comments

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  2. Wow what great tutorials. That’s what I needed too. I’ve been wanting to know how to make the twisted and rolled flower especially. You helped immensely. thanks a bunch really. If I can find out how I’m going to subscribe to your blog. Love your projects and the way you write. Cracks me up too. Have to appreciate a good sense of humor and humility. I’ll be back. Wish I had ink in cartridges for printer so I could have printed that out, have to see things to get it. Oh well we can’t all we brilliant.

  3. I followed you over from Shabby Creek and I am glad I did. I thought your tutorial was very well laid out for even the beginner. We all need to just bundle our “it all’s” and enjoy life as it presents itself – each day a gift.

  4. Blog readers are the sweetest!!! How cool that she felt the need to encourage you like that!!!! And thank you for the reminder to “keep swimming”. God has a plan for us even when we don’t understand!!! Your flowers are way too cute:-)

  5. These are my fav’s from your skirt challenge. So if you put the kids at the road with the free sign send the flowers along because I’m picking them up.

    Bliss

  6. Visiting from the Refresh Your Nest Friday links – I love those flowers. Thanks for the pictures in the tutorials, it makes things so much easier to make 🙂

  7. I knew I loved your blog from the first day I stumbled upon it and today you confirmed it! Just keep swimming is the theme song that my bestie and I sing to each other any time things get a little too hectic. And hot glue gun burns… I thought I was the only one who ever did that! It’s amazing how God always seems to meet us right where we are and care about even the smallest things! Thanks for all you do! And great job on the flowers! :o)

  8. I LOVE all of them! FAB job 🙂 And ((HUGS)) to you and thanks for the reminder of the Lord’s love….I need it all the time!

  9. these look great Abbie! And God knows just when to send that emergency sos doesn’t he? You are loved, and valued, and thought of as “awesome”…just so you know. Have a great Easter weekend!

  10. woohoo!!! You’re doing awesome! One more project to go….do you know how much you’ve inspired me to go to the GW and to start reconstructing something??!!

    Wishing you a blessed weekend!…and… I’m wishing you a movie night (that’s what I do when I’ve just had it)
    –Katie

I love hearing from you guys!