Easy fabric vase covers

While poking around in my cupboard the other day, I found a shot glass that would make a lovely little bud vase. Except it wasn't very cute, so I put a removable jacket on it. This turned out to be so easy and so much fun that I couldn't stop making these vase covers. Here's how.

1. Cut a piece of fabric large enough to wrap around your glass or vase once, plus about an inch of overlap. Make it as tall as your vase is, plus an extra half inch. (Of course, vary this depending on how much glass you want to show at the top.)

2. Fold over and press a half inch at the top and bottom of the fabric; then sew a seam across it to hold it down.

3. Wrap the fabric around your vase, right side to the inside, and pin it exactly where you'd like your seam to go. Slide the vase out and draw a line along the pins to help you sew where you need to.

4. Sew the tube along the line and press the seam open.

5. Flip the tube right side out and put it on your vase.

I put some cuttings of pothos vines (is that what these are?) here in water. They'll grow for years like this. A fresh flower centerpiece would be nice, too. Or maybe at Christmas I'll sew new holiday covers and put in some holly or branches. So many possibilities.

Things to make

If you're feeling industrious...

Watermelon keg at the evite blog
Cute slippers by Heather Ross for Home Companion mag
Fabric flowers from Boutique NutMeg
Pebble mat at Curbly
Tiny felt pincushions at CraftStylish
Popup paper dollhouse rooms from Konica Minolta
Fabric-covered cabinet doors by Tres Chic Veronique
Child's kimono wrap by Habitual
Pyramid door stops at All It Took
Customizable vintage jar labels from HP

(Image from evite blog)

Biggest waste of time ever

Having a productive day? This site should stop you in your tracks.

Papercraft from Canon

Canon's website has a massive list of printable papercraft projects, including matryoshka dolls, paper airplanes, and basic boxes. Not to mention a whole gallery of printable origami paper, like this. I like this simple pattern here, which could be useful for something more contemporary looking. This oughtta keep the youngsters busy for awhile. (Um, or maybe me.)

Fabric and paint

I had leftover fabric from a pillow project, so I decided to try out Anna Maria Horner's silhouette idea. Worked like a charm! You stretch fabric over a canvas, paint it with gel medium to sort of seal it and make a smooth surface, transfer or draw on your shape, then use acrylic paint to fill in the outsides. You can see her tutorial here. (This design is based on some Chinese paper cutouts I saw in a book. The purple fabric is this stuff.)

Clarification: I didn't cut out a stencil like the tutorial said, but transferred my design on with graphite paper and then painted around it. And I used Golden brand matte gel medium instead of mod podge.
This was a project for my friend's office. (Some of you know who I'm talking about.) She has a little sofa, a desk, a bookshelf, and some naked walls, so I put together a few decorations. Because nobody should have naked walls. Sewed some pillows, found this print on Imagekind, got a cheap frame from Ikea, and made the purple painting to take up some wall space. This Photoshop collage was my test to see if the things would look okay together.

Greetings from Kuwait

A reader from Kuwait wrote to show me photos from a dinner party that she and her sister organized. The girls invited friends to come, and they all made paper ornaments based on the tutorial I put here. Look at their work! Amazing! To see more photos, visit their blog here (it's in Arabic, but if you can't read it, you can still look at the pictures.) I was thrilled to hear from far-away How About Orange readers. Does anyone else outside the U.S. want to say hello? Leave a comment and mention what country you're from. It would be fun to share where we all are and exchange greetings. (Access to this site is blocked in China. Hello to you anyway, Han and Ming. Miss you!)

Make a sandbox in your monitor

Got some time to kill? Go to this site and click the little box at the top of the window. You can read more about the digital sand project right here. Thanks, Rich.