MIA

Hi everybody,

Today I need to apologise for my absence.  We are in the middle of Dance Festivals, and my daughter has 4 festivals this year.  She dances in 13 numbers so it keeps us very busy.  This last week we had a festival in our town.  She did her 12 groups and her 1 solo over the course of 5 days.  She did get 13 golds, yay, but it is very busy.  This weekend we do the same dances over 2 days out of town and then a week and a half after that we are out of town for 5 days again.  In May we have year end concerts and then tap exams.  At the end of June we fly to Vegas where she has 7 of her numbers performing in a festival there. Now it sounds like I am complaining but actually we love  it.  It does leave very little time or energy to do anything else.  I do have a few things going and I will be trying to get them on my blog.

So I will be trying to get here every now and then and also visiting all the blogs I follow.

Hope everybody is having a blast with spring!

Have a great day!

Michele

Busy day!

Hello everybody,

I hope you all had a great Easter break.  We do not have any family in Canada, so we are more low keyed than most other families.  My husband watched the Masters, my mother did her thing, my daughter had a friend over and I had loads of time in my craftroom.  My nirvana, hence my blog name Michele's Nirvana, get it right!

So I got out my cute fabrics I bought last week and started sewing some new napkins.  I am trying to get into doing the tablescapes, and I needed more table linens to work with, hence the sewing going on.

I love the blue and yellows together!





In my previous post I showed you how I made my own napkin rings.  So, today I have changed them out to match my napkins.  These I started by punching heart shapes out of cardstock.  I then cut out hearts from the same fabric as the napkins.  I attached this to the cardstock heart with glue.  The tiny heart wreath shapes I have had forever do not even remember where I got them from.  The flowers were white paper roses, I sprayed them with a mist and attached them to the hearts.  I attached the velcro to the back of the hearts and now they  can be attached to the rings.  New NAPKIN RINGS!



The mugs used in my little set up today, I have had forever, and honestly I have no idea where I got them.  They are handmade and are beautiful.

Here are my two sets of napkins I have made with their matching napkin rings.



I hope you all enjoy this post and I would love to hear from you.

Have a wonderful day!

Linking to:

http://diyshowoff.com/category/other/diy-project-parade/

http://my1929charmerblog.com/sundays-best-26-par-tay/

Making my own napkin rings.

 Today I am sharing my napkin rings.  This is my first tutorial, so be patient with me.  To start making my napkin rings I took cream felt.

 I cut strips double the width I would want my rings to be.  I cut along the length of the felt piece and then cut each piece in half.
















You are left with pieces like this, that you now fold length wise to make your ring.

















I sewed along the long side and one short side so that I would be able to turn them inside out.










Turn them inside out.











Now I wanted to pretty it up.  I had a crocheted lace that I hotglued to the tube.  I also glued the short end closed.  This decoration will be on permanetly.  The other I am doing so that it can be removed and I can put on another color to match my napkins.






Now I am left with something that looks like a napkin ring.










Now I want to make my decoration for the ring.  I started with felt pieces as my base.  I wanted pink to match my napkins.  I had this fabric which I cut into squares. I do not have any further pictures of how I layered these, but you really use whatever you want to make a pretty napkin ring.






This is the completed napkin ring.  The napkin is a fat quarter cut down to size and I just zigzagged the edges.  I then used my gluegun and attached velcro to the join of the ring.








Attach the other piece of the velcro to the decoration.










Walla, and there you have it a beautiful napkin ring that can be changed to suit your need.  Just make different decorations in the colors you want and attach with the velcro.








How gorgeous is that.  Here they are with one of my favorite tea cups, the candle is another project I did long ago.  I used acrylic paint to do the flowers on the candle.








If you have made it this far with my post I thank you for your patience.  I will show you some other napkins with my rings as I finish them.

Thank you again.

Have a wonderful day.






Linking to

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.ca/2012/04/feathered-nest-friday.html

http://www.thecharmofhome.blogspot.ca/2012/04/home-sweet-home.html

http://www.atthepicketfence.com/2012/04/inspiration-friday-no-59-and-giveaway.html

http://thethriftygroove.blogspot.ca/2012/04/thrifty-things-friday-53.html

http://www.fivedaysfiveways.com/search/label/Feature%20Friday

http://ivyandelephants.blogspot.ca/2012/04/hot-stuff.html

http://classyclutter.blogspot.ca/2012/04/spotlight-saturday-8.html