Monogram Ruffle Flower Bag and Headband Craft Tutorial

"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous." -Coco Chanel

Having two little girls in my house, we sort of live by Coco Chanel's mantra. When I knew I'd have the opportunity to guest post for The CSI Project not too long ago, I decided to work on a project that could be swapped back and forth between mom and daughters.

And because I am as easily distracted as a raccoon with something shiny, I got an idea for a second project while I was in the middle preparing for the first one. So you get a two-for-one today. Aren't you a lucky reader?

I started with my supplies, mostly purchased with coupons or hunted down from my craft stash:

-Black canvas bag from Hobby Lobby
-Old Tights (yes, I said "tights!")
-Buttons
-Pink Ruffled Trim (I am aware that you can make your own ruffles, but I tend to err on the side of laziness)
-Matching pink thread
-Bling (every girlie project should have some bling, right?)
-Pink fabric paint (optional...I ended up using my Silhouette instead of stenciling)

I started out by roughly measuring out how large I wanted the design for the center of the bag. I say "roughly" because I tend to eyeball things because Math gives me a headache. After I used my Silhouette machine to print my design onto heat transfer paper (you could totally stencil it yourself with the fabric paint!), I ironed it on and pinned my trim in place.

(I did the initial for our last name, so we can share the bag when we go to the library)

My sewing machine is a little wonky and persnickety when it comes to thick fabrics, so I hand stitched the ruffle in place while I watched The Nate Berkus Show. Good times.

The bag seemed a little plain, so I decided to take some leftover trim and create a little ruffle flower.

I eyeballed about how large a flower I wanted, wrapped the trim around itself and stitched it into place with the pink thread.

And because I couldn't stop with the embellishing, I layered some buttons and added a "diamond."

And Project 1 was complete!

Next, I decided to turn those old tights into a stretchy headband to coordinate with the bag!

I took a rotary trimmer and chopped the toes right off of those tights, and made another cut at the top of the tights to form one long tube.

I turned the unfinished seam inside one end of my tights tube and stuffed the other end of the tights tube inside that. Then, I ran the material through my sewing machine to make a headband. (The side with the seam goes at the base of your neck)

Um, kind of plain, huh?

I had plenty of trim left, so I gave it the ruffle treatment, and look what I ended up with!

I had to negotiate with Natalie to get her to change clothes and model for me, but she was willing to do it for two bites of ice cream (?!). Some people are such divas.

She insisted that the stickers on her hands added to the ambiance of the shot. I'm not so sure.

Thanks for hanging with me through a long tutorial today. I hope it was worth it since you got to see not one, but two projects!

If you have a Silhouette/Cricut/Stencil/Transfer project, I'd love for you to stop by this week's I {Heart} My Crafty Cutter link party.

{I hope your day is classy AND fabulous!}