DIY Harry Potter Themed Election 2016 Shirts - Happy Harry Potter

I'm usually not one to get too passionate about politics, but some tickets are just so perfect, you have to get excited (or too awful to ignore.)  If you're as disgusted as I am with this election cycle and the candidate options, you'll probably be excited with some rumored third-party tickets that may be entering the race at any time.  (This post contains affiliate links to help support my blog.  I have not be compensated in any way for writing this post and all ideas are 100% my own.)

Who wouldn't love to vote for Harry Potter and Ron Weasley as President and Vice...

Or is that Ginny Potter and Hermione Weasley (that's how my 7-year-old is reading it.)

Or if you're looking for a ticket with progressive minds and creative thinking, you might find yourself supporting Hermione and Luna for a run for the White House.

Yeah, I know all the characters are English...but at this point I'm willing to consider anyone who is not Trump or Clinton, and we're sure you'll like these logos more than the recently retired logo from the Trump campaign.

And you can have your very own shirt to, because I'm sharing the files to make your own as my contribution to the Happy Harry Potter series on Raegun Ramblings.  (Seriously...my favorite blog event of the whole year.)  You'll want to head over to Raegun Ramblings and check out all the cool tutorials each day.

Accio Books - Book Tote Tutorial - Happy Harry Potter Celebration

I'm super excited to be part of Happy Harry Potter - Wizarding Wonderfulness over at Raegun Ramblings today!  The celebration will be going on for the next two weeks in honor of Harry Potter's birthday coming up on July 31st.  And there's an awesome giveaway toward the bottom of this post, so be sure to scroll all the way down and check it out.

Harry Potter themed fun has been an ongoing theme on my blog for a couple years now, and I've got some fun stuff planned here as well.

Today, I've got a pattern for an Accio Books bag for you...perfect to carrying your favorite Harry Potter books around...

...and a trip with Hermione to the library.

And if you don't feel up to making your own, I now offer Accio Books bags for sale in my Etsy Shop here.

To pull this off, all you need are a few basic supplies:  Some freezer paper, metallic fabric paint, razor blade or scalple, plain tote bag, and an iron.

The Hermione Skirt - Perfect for Everyday Wear at Hogwarts or Hermione Granger Costume

***If you're looking for the Boutique Academia Anatomical Heart Necklace Giveaway, click here***

Just when I thought I'd come near exhausting the ideas we could do with Harry Potter, the stars aligned and the inspiration came for this fun Hermione Skirt.

And since it was this cute girl's 9th birthday, it actually got made in time for a birthday gift.  (You might remember her epic Harry Potter themed 8th Birthday here.  We don't do parties every year, so this year she just had two friends over for cupcakes after school.)

I hadn't been planning this as part of her gift, but when I saw this Peter Pan Skirt at Prudent Baby, it got me thinking I needed to make Katie a Hermione Skirt.  Scouring the web for a Hermione silhouette that was doable to cut out of freezer paper and also really recognizable as her turned up this silhouette of Hermione by fit51391 on Deviant Art which she had based off of this drawing of Hermione by Burdge on Deviant Art. So in the end, I came up with this...

You transfer the image onto the skirt by using freezer paper stenciling.  I don't have a fancy cutting machine, so I print the design onto freezer paper and cut it out by hand with a razor blade.  Then you use the freezer paper as your stencil.  For a full tutorial for how it works, you can see this post here.

Hermione walking along the hem.  I lengthened Hermione's skirt just a bit and added a wand in her hand, below the stack of books.  Especially since it's a silhouette, I felt like she needed a wand to be recognizeable.  I'd originally envisioned her wand trailing swirls of magic dust around behind her as she walked...but the skirt was turning out so cute, I chickened out.  The swirls would have been free-hand instead of freezer paper stenciled and I think it would have ruined the magic of it.  In the end, I love the little point of light sticking out of the end of her wand.

DIY Dragon Army Shirts - Ender's Game Shirts

Do you have any Ender's Game fans at your house?  I've loved Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (affiliate link) for years.  It's definitely my favorite in the series, and the Shadow books are my favorite sequels (affiliate link) to Ender's Game.  So I was really excited for the movie to come out.  In fact, it's the first movie I'd seen in the theater in YEARS.  We just don't go see movies all that often.  The movie was good...but of course the book is better.  I have yet to see a movie version of a great book that was as good as the book.  But, I digress...

As much as I like Ender's Game, my brother is an even bigger fan.  So much so, that he named his son Ender...for reals.  I thought it would be fun to make my brother and nephew some Dragon Army shirts...

...and as long as I was making shirts for them, I went ahead and made some for my boys, plus an extra one for a bloggy friend who also loves Ender's Game.

DIY National Quidditch League Shirts - Boy and Girl Versions - Freezer Paper Stencil and Applique

We've got one happy quidditch player at our house...

Actually, make that two...

Boy Reading Freezer Paper Stencil - Free Pattern

Some of you might have thought that all I do lately is quilts and Harry Potter themed stuff, but I've got something a little different for you today...

If you've been a blog reader for a long time (like several years), you may remember the Girl Reading freezer paper shirts I made for the girls a while back.  Those were inside a heart for Valentine's Day.

Several years later, here's a boy version...

We needed a baby gift.  One of my husband's high school students had a baby.  We don't usually give baby gifts to his students, but for reasons I won't go into, we felt like she should for this one.  The young mom loves to read, so we thought a reading themed gift would be perfect and practical.

DIY Ron Weasley I'm a Keeper Shirt (Quidditch - Harry Potter) Freezer Paper Stencil

If you're looking for my shop giveaway (which includes Harry Potter items), click here.

Quidditch season starts in October, so you best be getting your outfits ready!  If you don't live close enough to Diagon Alley to do your shopping, then you may have to magic up your own at home.

All it takes is a little freezer paper, a razor blade, iron, paint, and a little patience.

What?!?  You're not familiar with quidditch?!?  

One more unicorn...

I was just about ready to mail off the unicorn I-Spy Quilt to my brother's new baby, when Eric (my husband) pulled out his star chart to have a look at the night sky and casually mentioned there is a unicorn constellation named Monoceros.

Uhhhh...what?!?  You didn't mention this before?  I'd been thinking the back of the quilt looked a little blah.  (Now mind you, I usually make my quilt backs totally plain fabric, so using the night sky fabric was already a little fancy for me...but with the row of I-Spys and the moon there seemed to be a lot of empty space.

So I decided to add one last unicorn to the quilt in the form of stars.

Pi-rate (pirate) Shirt - Freezer Paper Stencil Pattern

Katie needed a new Pi shirt this year since she'd outgrown the one I made her two years ago.  I had a couple ideas and was about to go for just a plain Pi symbol when I did a quick google search for "pi puns."

Cow Pi T-shirt - Freezer Paper Stencil

We're getting ready for Pi Day around here.  I've been wanting to make a Cow Pi shirt for a couple years and finally got around to it.

Fresh Baked Pi Onesie (Cutting Files for Silhouette Now Available)

Pi Day is just a couple days away.

Here's Anson's little onesie he wore last year when he was just over a week old.

I LOVE freezer paper stencil for making near professional quality personalized T-shirts...but cutting out the designs by hand can be a pain.  Still I haven't been lucky enough to get my hands on a Silhouette yet, so I keep cutting my designs out with a razor blade.

Pumpkin Pi Onesie (Free Pattern)

With Pi-Day coming up here in a few weeks, I thought I'd update my list of Pi themed crafts and creative fun.  (Never heard of Pi Day...google it.  It's a day when you get to celebrate all things math and circles.  It's on March 14th of every year because 3-14 are the first three digits in the never ending number Pi 3.141519....

I shared Anson's Pumpkin Pi onesie several months ago at Everyday Art as part of their Pumpkin Palooza celebration!  I realized that I never got around to reposting it here.  So here goes...

I'm a former math and chemistry teacher and I married an even nerdier high school science teacher, so we're turning our kids into super nerds and they don't even know it.

Here's Anson, sporting his new Pumpkin Pi Onesie.  (Amazing how fast they grow.  This is him a couple months ago and he already looks totally different.)

He's outgrown his other Pi themed onesies, and this was a perfect one for Halloween and Thanksgiving...because what's more Thanksgiving than Pumpkin Pi?!?  (Hahahaha...5 months later he can still wear it, although it's considerably more snug on him now.)

Super Hero Shirt and Cape - Easy Kids' Gift

Katie got invited to a Super Hero party last week by a friend and neighbor.  All the kids were to report in super hero attire for their super hero training.  This was super easy to put together...and would make a great Christmas gift for your own little super hero.

Since Katie didn't have any super hero costumes and didn't want to wear any of Seth's (can't blame her), she came up with the idea of making a costume to coordinate with her eye patch.  Since we try to do as much as possible to make wearing her eye patch fun, I couldn't say no.  The eye patch is to help Katie's weak eye get stronger.  I ordered this one from Patch Pals.  They have a lot of cute options if your child needs eye patches.

Turns out we had a purple shirt her size and an adult size purple shirt in my T-shirt stash.  (Man, my t-shirt stash is happy.  The t-shirt bin is down at least 10 shirts this last week or two.)

The cape was super easy to make.  We basically cut out around the collar in the front to just over the shoulders.  (You want the collar to stay on because then your child can put the cape on by sticking their head through the collar.)  Then the cape also kind of looks like a necklace or choker in front.

Then I folded the shirt in half (so there's a fold down the middle of the back) and cut a slanted line to make a cape shape.  I used what was left of the front of the shirt to make the super hero decal to cover up the words that were on the back of the shirt.  I thought about sewing some pink bias tape around the edge of the cape...and it would have looked cute...but ultimately I decided to make it easier on myself and just leave it plain.

DIY Harry Potter Shirt - Freezer Paper Stencil

Katie has started reading the Harry Potter Books. 

Actually, she's falling in love with the Harry Potter books.  She's devouring them.  Note that this picture was just taken a little over a week ago while she was reading Book 2 and she's now on Book 4.  Granted we've read some chapters to her for bedtime stories, but she's read a lot of it on her own.  It's been fun to have her enjoying books that her dad and I enjoy so much...although we feel a little conflicted about how far we should let her read into the series.  We were going to have her stop after book three...and then she brought home book four from the school librarian.

The "If You Chance To Meet a Frown" Shirt - Freezer Paper Stencil & Applique

If you chance to meet a frown...

Do not let it stay...

Quickly turn it upside-down...

And smile that frown away.

No one likes a frowny face...

Change it for a smile...

Make the world a better place...

By smiling all the while.