An interview on Marketplace yesterday talked about how going over the top with your gift wrapping raises expectations about the gift inside. A Yale University study about how the wrapping of gifts influences the reactions of recipients showed that less is more when it comes to gift wrapping, and that the receivers of presents presented more simply were happier than those who got the same gift in more fancy packaging.

Brown kraft paper is my signature gift wrap–I use it for birthdays, for my Make it Pretty Monthly club (join! join!), and of course for Christmas! I think the message of Yale’s study about brown paper packages is completely true–give a great gift in a humble package. Being me, though, I still have to elevate the prettiness of the wrapping from the expected. Here’s how I make my brown paper gift bags in the same amount of time it takes to wrap a box:

Materials needed

♥ A roll of brown kraft paper–you can find this stuff in the mailing supply section of any big-box store. My 15-foot roll of paper was less than $3.
♥ A sewing machine
♥ Scissors

Step 1: Cut out a big rectangle of kraft paper. My standard size is about 30” x 15”, or the width of the roll by about half that length. As you make these and start wrapping gifts up, you will figure out which other sizes you need. I don’t measure, I just eyeball it. You just need lots of big rectangles of paper.

Step 2: Fold the paper in half loosely–don’t crease it at all–and sew the edge opposite the fold with a simple straight stitch. Long stitches are good. Just run it through the machine.

Step 3: Now you have a roll of paper with a sewn seam. Position the seam in the center and flatten the roll of paper into a rectangle, centering the seam. Fold up the bottom edge one inch, and one inch again. Sew that edge shut.

Step 4: Now you have a bag! Put a gift inside and sew the top closed.

Tips and Tricks:

♥ I like to cut up a roll of paper in one sitting into rectangles of various sizes and sew all of the bags assembly-line style. It’s just a little cutting and sewing two seams per bag over and over, and you’ll save a ton of time.
♥ These sewn packages are SO fun to open. Consider leaving a tail of thread on the top seam that the recipient can rip open!
♥ It’s easy to get creative when you start with a brown paper package. Tie twine or cord around the center.
♥ Let your kids draw on the packages or cover them in stickers.
♥ Create another thick paper band to go around the middle where you can slip in a card.
♥ Upload finished pictures of your embroidery projects to Princess Lasertron’s Flickr stream, Make it Pretty!

xo
meg

For this tutorial, I embroidered my mom’s initial on a canvas envelope template (you can see the tutorial for my felt gift envelopes here on Rock N Roll Bride) to fill with some of her favorite goodies and tie on top of a gift. You could embroider an initial on anything–a patch to sew on a bag, a pillowcase, towels, a wine gift bag…it’s a really versatile technique, and once you have a few staple supplies on hand it’s easy to whip one up for any gift throughout the whole year.

With just two different simple stitches, I can finish one of these monograms in about 20 minutes if I focus. It’s just a little bit of time for a nice personalized touch.

Materials needed:

♥ a set of alphabet stamps (or just buy the letter stamp you want individually)
♥ a stamp pad (fabric-safe is better, like Staz-On, but if you don’t have fabric ink you can just be careful and it’ll work fine)
♥ something to embroider (a napkin, a pillowcase, a towel, your underwear, whatever)
♥ embroidery thread
♥ needle
♥ iron-on stabilizer (if the thing you are embroidering is a little bit loosely woven or thin)
♥ embroidery hoop (it’s optional, but it helps)

Step 1: Lightly ink your letter stamp–less is more, here–and press it down firmly onto the surface where you want to embroider your letter. The idea is just to get the outline visible so you can see where to trace the letter with your thread.

Step 2: If your fabric is thinner or with a looser weave and you want to stabilize it for stitching, iron on a little bit of interfacing to the back of your fabric where you will be sewing. This step isn’t necessary if you stitch carefully (or if you’re just impatient), but it can help make the finished product look a bit neater.

Step 3: Put the fabric in an embroidery hoop, if you want. Thread a needle and sew long backstitches around the outline of the letter. If you’ve never done a backstitch before, PurlBee.com has a great little how-to. Once you master this stitch, I’m sure you will use it all the time–it’s great to have in your arsenal of skills!

Step 4: Next, fill in the letter with a satin stitch. The best way to describe a satin stitch is that it’s analogous to scribbling back and forth with a marker, but with thread. You’re creating a solid field of thread by running single long stitches back and forth just outside the letter outline. Bring your needle up through the fabric just outside of an outline stitch and put the needle back down through the fabric across the letter outside the other side of the outline. Make a parallel stitch as close to the first stitch as possible, just going back and forth across the letter until it is all filled in. Depending on the size of the letter, this can take a lot of thread, but luckily it’s quite an easy process once you get the hang of it. Just the same stitch over and over, filling in the letter.

Step 4: Tie a knot in the thread, give it a snip, and you’re done! If you lightly press the thread with an iron, it can help “set” it on the fabric a bit.

Tips and other suggestions:

♥ Fill in your letter with a different stitch–the chain stitch is a great filler stitch, I love filling outlines with french knots, and you can even backstitch the inside of each letter.
♥ Many craft stores have letter stamps and small alphabet stamp packs in the dollar bins, or near the checkout.
♥ Instead of using a stamp, try hand-drawing a block letter to embroider.
♥ Make an embroidered pillow case with the initials of your child to send on sleepovers.
♥ Upload finished pictures of your embroidery projects to Princess Lasertron’s Flickr stream, Make it Pretty!

xo
meg

Every year I get so many beautiful Christmas and holiday cards from my friends, and I keep them all. It’s so fun to know people who care enough about you to hand write a note, put a stamp on an envelope, and send a nice thought your way. We write so few letters during the year that you must take advantage of the holiday season as the perfect time of year to make some extra effort to reach out to those you love by sending some snail mail!

When I want to make something, I like to get it done NOW. I don’t like to go all over town looking for materials or printing out templates or ordering things, so I look for the easy, time-saving,(but pretty) way out whenever possible. So when I wanted to create some nice little handmade Christmas cards, I looked around my studio to see what I had to work with. You can make so many of these if you just give yourself an hour! Read on to make your own quick ‘n dirty holiday cards.

materials needed

♥ a relatively high-res photo file (or several) of you, your family, your cat, whatever you want to share
♥ some photo paper to print your pictures (packs of 6×4” photo paper are great to just have on hand near your printer for many projects)
♥ 8.5×11” sticker paper (another important office staple to always have on hand.)
♥ decorative washi tape
♥ a gold paint pen
♥ black Sharpie
♥ scissors
♥ this printable 6×4” postcard back

step 1:

First, sit down at the computer for a moment. Print 6×4” of your favorite photo for each card you want to send. Also print as many copies on sticker paper (I get two to a page) of the printable postcard template which you can download here. Or by all means, create your own!

step 2:

Trim those postcard stickers and photos up so they’re all the same size. Peel off the sticker backing and adhere each postcard sticker to the back of each photo, being careful not to allow any air bubbles.

step 3:

This is the fun part where you can be a bit artistic. To reproduce what I did, draw with the paint pen a little flag banner on the front of the postcard in the background of the photo. I used small cut triangles of polka dot washi tape (you could also use masking tape, or stickers) and outlined them with my gold paint pen and black Sharpie for a little flashiness. I wrote “2011″ on the banner. You could also write directly on the photo “Happy Holidays,” “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah,” “Frohe Weihnachten,” whatever floats your boat. The paint pens and Sharpies are awesome for doodling on photos, and the washi tape flag banner is just a cute detail.

step 4:

Write a personalized note on the back, slap on a stamp, and send it!

If you do create this project, I’d love to see photos in my Make it Pretty Flickr group, or you share them with me on Twitter! And if you’re sending out lots of cards and you feel so inclined–especially if you use some of the ideas from this tutorial–I’d love to receive one! I’ll put it up on my wall. Send me anything at Princess Lasertron / 1111 N 13th St Suite 119 / Omaha, NE 68102.

xo
meg

In the meantime, I’ve been making headbands for babies by popular demand! I don’t like a lot of baby headbands and Alice won’t wear them, so they have never really been on my radar as far as a product that I identified my brand with. But the requests kept coming and I decided to challenge myself–what does a Princess Lasertron baby wear? Here’s what I came up with–just these four at first:

bee baby headband - $35

drew baby headband - $40

sasha baby headband - $35

lucille baby headband

All of these little beauties are available at shop.princesslasertron.com now! I also uploaded a few new embroidered flower pins, so check those out too.

Today I had a great photoshoot with Daniel Muller and the girls who are planning Lovestruck 2012 with me–I haven’t said much about that yet because I like to wait until the website is up for things like that, but I’m working with Candace Kalasky and Lesley Pick to bring a nontraditional wedding fair-type event to the Midwest here in Omaha. In the next few weeks we will launch the website so I’m sure I’ll say more then. In fact, I’m sure you’ll get sick of hearing me say more.

As always is the case.
Thanks for reading and make it pretty!
meg

Materials needed:

• Sewing machine
• A magazine or two–I used one with lots of beautiful, brightly-colored pages
• Scissors

Below I’ve outlined all of the steps in photos–it’s quite intuitive and easy to make your own. Luckily, this isn’t a project that must be done perfectly to be successful!

This is a pretty versatile tutorial–you can use the same technique to make tiny garlands to embellish gifts, big color-coordinated garlands to wrap around your Christmas tree, or just do what I did and make something to liven up your workspace. You don’t have to use just magazines for this project either–here are some other ideas:

• Use newspaper for a shabby black and white color scheme
• Fringe the sides of the circles after sewing them–fan them out and fluff the fringe!
• Cut the paper into different shapes–hearts, squares, flowers…
• Vary the sizes of the circles from stack to stack as you sew
• Make this project with other meaningful materials–cut big circles out of old greeting cards, saving the signatures of your loved ones. Reuse old school papers from your college years or artwork from a particularly prolific child in your life.

Make it project and upload your photos to our Princess Lasertron Projects group on Flickr. And if you like this project, you will also love the recycled magazine bouquet featured in the premier issue of Rock N Roll Bride’s new magazine. (Those flowers are next on my list to make and I will definitely share how they turn out!)

My outfit: Dress: Ann Taylor Loft // Jacket: Merona // Tights: Hue // Necklace: Erickson Beamon for Target

Anyway, until I share photos from that night (I can’t decide if I’m going to wear our Jamie dress or this more dramatic polka-dot number from Jovani) I will show you what we have new in the shop!

All of these little beauties are available at shop.princesslasertron.com now! Our embroidered pins always go super fast–I can’t keep them in the store usually so if you want one, jump on it.

Lulu Felt Flower Pin - $25

Suzanne Felt Flower Pin - $20

Jane Felt Flower Pin - $25

Lisette Felt Flower Pin (my favorite!) - $23

Agnes Felt Flower Pin - $22

You have until tonight to enter our giveaway from ONA Bags for a Roma camera insert for your purse–it’s amazing, I love mine. It converts your favorite bag into a safe, secure camera case that will keep your precious SLRs from getting jostled around among your lipsticks and pens! Next week I’m excited to share some more professional photos from a few of our brides and a few business-related posts about starting out on your own venture, and some things I have learned so far. Thanks for reading. I love you guys. You make my life so fun.

Going out the door today: Our Kalena romper in ivory and a felt flower bouquet kit for an amazing bridal customer, and a custom felt flower pin for a friend. On the table for tomorrow: A hand-embroidered label for a bride with her wedding date, a few baby headbands (that I HAVE to finish!), and another custom pin for a sweet friend.

xo
meg

First, I read a lot of blogs written by people who are amazing jewelcrafters and designers (like The Glamourai and Leah Ashley) and I am in complete awe of their creativity and skill. Like many of you, my bracelet and necklace-making endeavors are limited to brief flashes of inspiration I get going through my grandma’s jewelry boxes, or pawing around in baskets of vintage baubles in secondhand stores. I never make jewelry, but sometimes it’s fun to go outside my comfort zone and try to make something different.

I was at Second Chance Antiques last week on a without-Alice day looking for buttons, and I found this long, thick gold chain in a box in the basement. It was just my style for a necklace–bold, singular, a little gaudy–and I got the idea to use some of my favorite pairs of vintage clip-on earrings (with the clip hinge removed) to embellish it.

I had planned to attach the earrings to the chain with jump rings, but I didn’t have the right size, so I just improvised with some 20 gauge floral wire, twisted it around the chain, and snipped off the ends. Below I stepped out my process if you want to create something similar!

This method would be great for any length or thickness of chain, especially if you had the right size of jump ring–ha. If you have to loop the chain around a few times, you can attach the earrings in a way that binds them all together too.

I like it.
xo
meg

For those of you who aren’t able to attend The Creative Connection where I’m teaching four sessions, there’s a great alternative for you because registration is now open for my first online class! It’s produced by Rick Rack and you can register through June 20. The class starts on June 22.

When you register for the class you will have access to a video tutorial of me teaching my Felt Flower Fascinator Headband project. (I’m going to California to shoot the video in the next week! Pretty freaking excited.) The details are being worked out but you will either have a discount code to order the class materials online or I will produce a limited-edition kit for the class participants to order.

I’ll be teaching some of my signature techniques that I use on the hundreds of bridal orders we create every year for women around the world, but the headband is pretty versatile–you could wear it to prom, a fabulous party, give it as a gift, or wear it to church. (If I went to church this would for sure be my go-to Church Hat.)

You’ll learn how to make felt flowers and leaves, how to free motion sew, hand embroidery techniques, how to fringe, how to create a birdcage veil, how we embellish with buttons and some other general sewing tips. I think you’ll like working with the pretty French lace netting too.

So that is that! Sign up for things (this headband class, and The Creative Connection!)…and if you are short on cash, just listen to the free podcast. Smiley!
xo
meg

P.S. Don’t forget to take our Annual Reader Survey 2011! You could win a grab bag of my favorite things.

This year’s Creative Connection 2011 takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota and I am pleased as punch–it’s a great central location for everyone from the U.S. coasts all the way up to Canada. TCC is a huge conference of crafters, bloggers, artists and writers, tech people and small business owners, coming together for a weekend of creative inspiration. There are business roundtables, social media panels, shopping (!!!) and hands-on workshops.

This year’s featured keynote speakers include Holly Becker from Decor8 and Nora Abousteit of BurdaStyle, and workshop teachers like Betz White, Charlotte Lyons, my friend Jenny Heid, and me! I’m very excited to have been asked to teach workshops to this incredible group of people, and we’ve been brainstorming great new projects to be worthy of this great event.

I’m teaching four classes–two sessions of Alice’s Marvelous Monogrammed Prize Ribbon, and two sessions of our Signature Button and Felt Flower Headband.

When planning my classes, I wanted to make sure we had projects that would challenge the skilled crafters without overwhelming the less-experienced; something that would keep students engaged for the entire class but something easily finished by the end of the session to be worn for the rest of the day! I decided on two of my favorite accessories–embroidered headbands and prize ribbons–and developed brand new techniques exclusive to our TCC classes to make them extra special. We’ll be teaching basic embroidery techniques, hand ruffling, custom button making, and more! I’m also opening up my private collections so each student will have vintage buttons and trims to complete their project.

Want to join us? Registration is open now! There are varying degrees of participation, from weekender to a-la-carte, so you can attend with pretty much any budget. Let me know if you’re taking my class and I’ll be sure to bring you something extra special to make your project! My whole team will be there–Emma, Shannon, my mom, and baby Alice too!

The inspiration was the disappointment of that order falling through. The unused flowers sitting in a box in my studio for months. As the weather got warmer, I looked at the box with new optimism and became excited to give them another chance.
Now I love them all!
There are also some new headbands and notebooks in the shop.

You can buy them in our Princess Lasertron store–I believe they are $30 each. Let me know if you are local and want your shipping refunded–you can come pick them up at my studio!

xo
meg

p.s. Hello, Big Omaha participants! Thank you for visiting and I hope you become loyal readers…I think you will become hooked.