I clearly remember the year my mom helped me make a sit-upon for my Brownie troops’ camp (I remember it as well as I remember the smell of the ancient canteen I used to have to take with me to camp…. but that’s a story for another day….).  What’s a sit-upon?  Well, it’s… something… you sit upon.  Hmph – that was easier to explain in my head.  Here, let me show you…

Back in the day, Mom and I made my sit-upon out of a black plastic garbage bag and newspaper.  I wanted to improve on the design a bit, because while I remember making it and using it, I have no idea how long that black plastic sit-upon lasted, and I remember not enjoying it being tied around my waist.  I was told that it was to be worn around my waist so all I have to do is sit down and it would be in the right place, but even then I thought that was silly.  Maybe I don’t sit down like everyone else, but that sit-upon was too tight around my middle and always had to be adjusted when I sat.  So here’s what I came up with…

Gather your supplies:

• an old vinyl tablecloth or a shower curtain (the dollar store has shower curtains a-plenty!)
• newspaper
• a hole puncher
• large plastic needle
• heavy duty string or cord
• ribbon

Using your newspaper as a template, cut out a rectangle (or two or three – however many you will be making) on a fold of your vinyl tablecloth/shower curtain.

On a fold?  Fold your tablecloth/curtain in half and use that fold as one of your edges.  You will wind up with a 2 layered piece of cloth/curtain, and you will only need to sew up 3 sides instead of all 4!

Take a hole punch and punch holes spaced evenly around the 3 cut edges of your cloth/curtain through both layers.  You will be whipstitching the sides shut – see the picture below?  You just “whip” your needle around the back of the cloth/curtain and bring your needle and thread up through a set of holes, repeating the process over and over.

And I did say “you” will be stitching… Elias gave it his best shot, and did pretty well for his first time sewing anything by hand.

He wasn’t too interested in doing it “correctly” – so I just had to back up and let him do his thing.  He “finished” one side, and I finished it from there.

So I mentioned I never liked the sit-upon being tied around my wait – I wanted to make these so they slipped easily over a shoulder and could be plopped down on the ground wherever needed.  I used a length of ribbon for each sit-upon – and look!  My hole puncher could punch through ribbon!  Who knew? Punch 2-3 holes in your ribbon (depending on the width of your ribbon).

Sandwich the ribbon in between the layers of your cloth/curtain before you sew up a corner, then sew the ribbon in with the sides.  I added extra stitches around the ribbon so it would be reinforced, since that part of the sit-upon would potentially take more stress and strain than other parts.

Once you have 2 sides sewn up, stuff the sit-upon with newspaper.  My one from back-in-the-day only had flat newspaper layers in it, and I never thought that gave any cushioning for a little hinder.  So I just added some fluff to it – sandwich some crumpled up newspaper in between 2 layers of flat newspapers.  Sitting on it will flatten the crumpled layers out anyway, but in the meantime it will be a bit more comfy.  After stuffing, finish stitching up the sit-upon and tie off the end of your string, clipping any loose ends.

This step is optional – and can also be easily done before the sit-upon is sewn and stuffed – let your little ones decorate their sit-upon!  Super fun, and one thing I never got to do with my black plastic one.  Use permanent markers – you don’t want marker or paint coming off on little hind ends during your hike.

Here are ours, all ready to go!

This really was a walk down memory lane for me, and the boys have already had fun with the sit-upons… well, sitting upon them, amongst other things.  I wonder how long these will last…

linked to WFMW at We are THAT Family, Creative Share at Trendy Treehouse, Hoo’s Got Talent at Night Owl Crafting, Show & Tell at Blue Cricket Design, Gettin’ Crafty on Hump Day at Nikki’s Nifty Knacks, We Did It! Wedensday at Sew Much Ado and Idea Sharin’ Wednesday on Women Who Do It All!

One of my favorite camp crafts each year were those awesome leather bracelets.  Remember those?  Then I would wear it the rest of the summer and try to make it last to the school year… I thought my boys would like to hammer the letters and shapes into the leather bracelets as much as I did, so I set out to make some special memories.

Instead, I made a fun craft really hard.  If you want to do this activity, plan ahead and order these.  It will honestly save you some time and money… I had a bunch of random things laying around that helped defray the cost, but I spent more on some wider leather strips than the imitation leather craft bracelets cost, and they don’t need assembly! I didn’t have time to wait on an order to come in… Next year we’ll order some early and have them ready.

Now, if you want to do it the hard way, gather your supplies:

• some leather scraps (sold at most large craft stores – or reuse old leather purses or belts!)
• buttons/snaps
• scissors and wire cutters
• heavy duty needles
• a hammer
• some metal stamps sets (like this or this - the larger one would be better, I think)
• other random metal bits you have laying around the house (just for fun… I had a set of tiny “cookie” cutters for polymer clay that made some great shapes)
• some permanent markers

Once you get your leather scraps, cut them to size.  For the kids’ size, cut them to about 7 inches long, and for adults, cut them about 9 inches long.  In the pictures below, the kids sizes are the dark gray leather, and the adult sizes are tan.  You can make them any width you’d like!

Decide if you’d like to put snaps on your bracelets (hard!) or buttons (much easier!).  If you’d like to do snaps, get really frustrated with the first couple attempts to pass the prongs through your leather strip, then do this… poke the prongs into the leather just to make an imprint.

Then take a heavy-duty needle and poke through each imprint for each prong, and then work each prong through the poked holes individually until they are all the way through.  Install the rest of the snap according to the package’s directions.

Once you’ve done that enough times, you’ll have a pretty cool closure to your cuff.  But you’ll also be really tired, so you’ll move on to the buttons.

Using a heavy duty needle and heavy duty thread/cord/embroidery floss, sew a button on to one end of your bracelet on the front part of the leather.

Take wire cutters or snips or something sharp to start a hole in your leather.  My scissors wouldn’t do it alone at first, so I started the hole with the wire cutters and finished it with the scissors.

See? Finished button hole.

If you have a wider bracelet, you could make it adjustable by putting 2 buttonholes on it like this:

OK!  Now that all of your prep is done, you can give your child a hammer and some metal stamps, punches, etc.

Make sure your work surface is protected, because this could get messy.

Let them bang away for a bit… I think this would be a lot more fun for the boys if they could spell out what they wanted, but Elias didn’t have the patience for that.  He pounded out his name, and added some fun shapes, and he had a great time with it!

He did decide it was a bit plain, so he asked me to draw on it.  He didn’t want to draw on it himself, though.  This is where the permanent markers come in.  Draw around some of the hammered shapes to accent them, or do a new design!  Donovan’s bracelet was stamped with the 1/8 inch steel stamps, and it says “Jesus loves Donovan.”  I used the same stamps for mine, and I just stamped “Be Still.”  I need a constant reminder.

Elias wasn’t too excited to get his picture taken, but I think this was a fun one for us all!

At least, it was fun for me again once all the prep work was done.  Let’s see if I can make mine last until fall!

Do you need another Father’s Day gift idea?  Did the week slip away from you and you just don’t know what you can whip up before Sunday?  I’m going to show you how to make some fabulous Father’s Day t-shirts for all the people in your family so you can show Dad exactly how special he is…

…and while I’m showing you things you might not have on hand, I will tell you what you can use from around your house to make this quick and easy.  First of all, go grab all the plain t-shirts that are floating around your house that have stains on the front.  You know, from bleach or chocolate or… sick-up (or whatever you want to call it – face it, we’re all moms and we’ve all been spit-up on or worse… and I couldn’t bear to throw all those stained shirts away).

Decide what you want your shirts to say, and find a cool font to say it in!  The font I chose was Coolector – I love how the lower case and upper case letters are each totally different styles! It looks kinds of grungy and… cool! Plus, since a lot of the letters were in a stencil style, it would be easy to cut them out as stencils!

1. Print out your saying on regular paper (I chose 72 point font – it just looked like the right size).
2. Grab some freezer paper (don’t have any on hand?  just use your printer paper and be careful when you’re painting!).  The side you will be attaching to the shirt is the shiny side, so we’ll call that the back side.  The front of the freezer paper will be matte/dull.
3. Tape your t-shirt sayings to the front of the freezer paper, and…
4. …cut out your letters with an exacto knife (fine point scissors would work too!).  This is NOT a step the kids can help with (at least not around here!).
5. If the font you chose does not have stencil letters (like the A and the D in picture #5), just leave little connectors from the white middle part of the letter to the space around the outside of the letter, like a normal stencil would.  You can always paint in these lines later, or leave them unpainted, like I did.

   

6. Pick out your fabric paint colors from your stash.  No fabric paint in your stash? Use bleach – but NOT with the kids!!! bleach + kids = no good.  But the whole project does get done faster – less drying time!  See this tutorial here for more details on stenciling with bleach.  Note: in the tutorial, she says to let your shirt sit with bleach on it for about 5 minutes, but I tried to do a little bit of bleach splatter on my shirt (you can see it below) and it did not bleach it out enough for me even sitting 20 minutes.  Wait until you see the color you want to see develop, and then continue on with her tutorial.
7. Prep your shirt for painting by ironing on the freezer paper stencil you just cut out (iron with no steam, shiny side down on shirt) or tape your paper stencil on.  Line the inside of your shirt with newspaper/paper bag so the paint/bleach won’t soak through to the back.
8. Let the kids choose their colors and paint them on!  You can mix colors while they are wet – and if you want to do any layering of colors, do that while the paint is wet, too – don’t wait until the bottom layer is dry to paint on your next layer.  The top layer will just peel off the bottom in the wash.  So paint everything together while it’s wet.
9. Help your younger ones paint in all the letters.  Donovan just didn’t get that he needed to paint the letters – he was more interested in painting the paper plate than the actual shirt.  After a couple minutes drying time, carefully peel off the freezer paper stencils and follow the paint’s instructions on drying times and setting the paint.

Also, let your kids be creative – I’m ashamed to admit that I was not going to make Daddy a shirt (because I couldn’t come up with something that wasn’t cheesy!) until Elias came up with a great idea: handprints!  He wanted to put one on his shirt, and then Donovan did, too, of course… and I thought a simple t-shirt with just their handprints would make a really cool gift!  I whipped out one of Josh’s old stained shirts and let them each press a hand in the front middle of the shirt.  No writing on Dad’s – I’m sure Josh would wear whatever the boys made him, but I think it actually looks pretty cool just with their two little handprints on it. (Again – do NOT do handprints with bleach – ouch!).

Oh, I love the way they turned out!  We’re letting the shirts dry flat for the allotted 24 hours high on top of bookcases where Daddy can’t see them! We’ll box them up, and everyone will wear their shirts on Sunday after Daddy gets to open them up!

If you do make something like this, I’d love to see what you came up with! Leave a link in the comments, if you’d like!

linked to Fireflies & Jellybeans Show off Your Stuff Party, Life As Lori’s Get Your Craft On, Somewhat Simple’s Strut Your Stuff Thursday