I Like Storage - Neat & Tidy (with a refashioned twist)

For the longest time, our laundry room was just cluttered and it really bothered me ... there was all this wasted space and a pile of bags on the floor. Not Good. All my craft blog reading comes in handy from time to time and somehow or another, I ended up coming across THIS fun (and free) pattern by JCasa - lots of cool stuff on this blog, worth checking out!

It was a match made in craft heaven ... cute pattern + a trip to Ikea = organized laundry room!

Another fun tid bit about this project is this ... the lavender one (one with pink / white lining) is actually an old linen skirt that I bought from Target when I was pregnant. Thankfully the skirt ended up being too big for me ... BUT it was pretty linen, and lots of it! SO ... I cut it up and used it for this Kidlet! There is still some leftover in the ever-growing scrap pile. The other kidlet is made from khaki linen pants that may have been purchased in high school (yep, over 10 years ago) and weren't getting any use! I dug them out of the Goodwill pile in the garage and decided to convert them into something I actually would use... at this rate, I'll never be able to donate clothes anymore - it seems that I can usually find another use for them!

PS: those patches on the front are actually POCKETS!!

Aren't the linings adorable? Love the pink / white polka dot (thanks Sarah for another great fabric donation!)

Close-Ups. Given their personalities, I think "i" gets the girly one with the pocket books on it ... and "a" gets the one with the cars & buses.

You can see here ... "my" stuff hangs up top, out of the reach of little hands and "their" stuff is just right and perfect for dumping all their stuff into!

Fabric Covered & Padded Letters - A Tutorial

Materials:



• 8" Paper Mache Letters
• Quilt Batting
• 1/4 Yard Of Fabric Per Letter (you will have some nice scraps leftover)
• Fabritac - amazing fabric glue! Works like a charm, but heed the bottle warning - it'll dry fast. And you'll get carded at Joann's for buying this. I just think it's comical that you'd be carded for anything at Joann's.
• Disappearing Ink Fabric Marker
• Flexible Tape Measurer
• Q-tips; yes Q-tips. I'll explain below.
• If you want to hang the letters, you’ll also need scrap yarn & scrap felt & more Fabritac.


Steps:


1. If your fabric is wrinkly, iron it! You don't want crinkles on your pretty letter - if you ignore the wrinkles, you'll see them later on display and it'll drive you crazy. (Or, maybe that is just me!)

2. Trace letters for Batting. You can put the letter right side up for this step. I use a sharpie for this step and marked right onto the batting.

If you are making lots of them, do it all at once!

 3. Cut Batting Letters. Cut just INSIDE the line because you want the batting to fit on top of the letter and not overlap it.

 4. Glue Batting onto Letter. Get our the Fabritac and start gluing the batting onto the front of the paper mache letters. If the batting overlaps the sides of the letter, you will want to trim that down.

5. Trace letters for Fabric. For both, place the fabric wrong side up - so you'll be marking on the wrong side with your marker. Use the disappearing fabric marker for this step!


          For the front of your letter, turn the quilted side down so that it's touching the wrong side of the fabric. Trace the letter.

          For the back of your letter, turn the quilted side UP. Trace the letter.

(For symmetrical letters like "a" it does not matter, but I've messed up an "L" before and it came out backwards.)

6. Cut Letter Fabric. Cut approximately 1/2" around the letter tracing. The extra fabric is how you wrap the letter; these little “flaps” will actually be glued down all around the side of the letter.


7. “Notch” the Letter Fabric. That extra 1/2" you cut ... now you want to make little cut notches from that exterior JUST TO but not touching the tracing of your letter. This is how the fabric will curve and lay flat to the shape of your letter. For the straight parts, you can notch every 1-2", for the curves and corners, notch every inch or as needed.

See the little slits all around the sides? Those are the notches / flaps.

 8. Glue Fabric onto Letter. Get out the Fabritac again. Lay the letter on top of the wrong side of the back fabric, and start applying glue onto the sides of the paper mache letter and wrapping the “notched tabs” onto the letter. The glue works fast, so work in small sections. Glue it all down and then repeat for the front fabric. Q-tips? They are helpful to get into the creases and the insides of the letters (ex: inside the cut out of the "a").

These little flaps are the notches I am talking about .. they do 2 things: keep you from having to put glue on the front or back fabric which will show (because you glue the SIDES) and make it easy to wrap the letters with the fabric.

 9. The Outside Lining. Make your "circumference" cover … this is a long strip of fabric that covers the sides of the letters and makes it look very nice and neat! Doing this is (as I understand it) sort of like making bias tape.

Measure. Use the flexible tape measure to find out the "circumference" of the letter exteriors... and the inserts. For example, I measured the outside of the "a" as 31 inches - in include wiggle room and overlapping, and the inside of the "a" as 6" (again that includes a little extra length). In the "a" example, you  need to cut a strip of fabric that is 2" wide and 31" long as well as a strip that is 2" wide and 6" long.

Iron. Now that you've cut the pieces, you'll use the iron and lots of steam to make it look like bias tape. The width of the strip is 2" and your letter is 1" deep, so we are going to tuck in the edges 1/2" each, so the finished width is 1" = the depth of the letter. Make sense?Finally, fold one end over, so when it's exposed, the raw edges will be covered up and tidy. (:

Hopefully this picture clarifies what I am talking about ... these are 2 strips: one for the outside of the "a" and one for the inside. They were 2" wide, but I ironed the long ends in by 1/2", so that the finished width is 1".

 10. Wrap the Exterior. Start with the "raw" end of the long exterior strip and glue it down. Start gluing and pulling the exterior strip taut all the way around the letter. Once at the end, glue down that folded over end and hold until it sticks. Don't forget the inside of the letters with “holes”: A, B, D, etc. Overlap the ends in the most inconspicuous area.


11. PS: I will not lie. Wrapping the inside of an "a" is not fun, at all.


12. Instructions for Hanging on a Wall. These letters sit nicely on a shelf, but when I made them for my girls, I wanted them to hang. SO, this is how I did it. The picture will help this make sense: take about 5” of scrap yarn; tie it into a knot so there is a loop; trim the ends. Then, flip the finished letter over and on the top of the back, glue it down. Cut a square of felt and glue it over the top for added “security!” For letters like “u” you will need to make two loops so the letter hangs straight. TIP: When hanging, they might not be perfectly straight – I used double stick tape on the bottom of the letters and stuck it to the wall to help the letters hang better.

Close up of the loop - envision this picture rotated left 90 degrees ... the loop obviously goes UP!

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Have fun! Any questions? Leave me a comment with your email address!

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My Favorite Kind of Shopping

Ahhh... the possibilities.

Warhol Dresses No.1

I'm gonna go ahead and call this Warhol Dresses No. 1 because I made these two, but I also have made... THREE more! Guess I like this pattern, huh?

It's another MADE pattern & it's free! This is the "Warhol Dress" and it's SO FUN & quite easy to make! I love making dresses like this because I feel like they'll go along way ... once they don't fit as a dress, I can throw some leggings underneath and have the girlies wear it as a tunic. Right?

The best part? I had to buy NOTHING to make these! The dresses are made from my old Alternative Apparel tees (the burnout kind) that I don't want to wear anymore (read, they are too tight). SO, it goes in the refashion pile! The grey neckline is leftover jersey from making my Moby wrap years ago. So ... two adorable dresses totally free for me! Love it...

THIS is The best part: When putting the dress on my oldest, she asked "who made it? you make this mama? for me?" Yep - and that's one of the reasons I'll keep on doing it!

Not Sure About Smiling ...

With a cute bow off the shoulder ... 

Yep she's cute.

Baby Shower Favors - DIY

Earlier this year, we had a little sprinkle for a good friend having her second daugher! Our timing was excellent - she went into labor the very next day! We celebrated at Liberty Market in downtown Gilbert, AZ - totally cute place and super yummy food! Seriously.

A friend and I made the little favors - using baby food jars - how appropriate! We mod podged (is that a real word?) scrapbook paper on the tops, added ribbon or trim and filled them with pink & white M&Ms. Courtnee made the adorable name cards ... using wine corks that she painted and added little names to!
We think it all turned out really cute.

This is my gift ... applique fabric on a soft tee for the big girl

Beanbags, Flowers & More

After getting my office / craft room (or "mama's room") organized, I've been able to get crafty more! It's so much easier for me to go DO something when my space is clean and organized. Know what I mean?

Beanbags for Kids - these are just adorable. Each bag has a freezer paper stencil for the numbers 1 through 10. The girls love to play with them, collect them and work on their aim by tossing (or hurling) them into baskets. For the filling, I used a mix of lima, pinto and lentils to fill the bags and took nearly 3 lbs!

I followed a tutorial found on this cool craft blog (a pretty cool life):





Also, notecards embellished with fabric SCRAPS! I am convinced now that I'll never be able to throw any fabric away ... I love how they turned out and think all cards I give out will be like this! (Need boyish options though). I think my fav is the ruffle ...







And, then there were the flowers! No Sew Fabric Flowers from my FAVORITE craft blog: made. The directions are under her Tutorials tab. I am really very obsessed with nearly everything that she makes ... all adorable. I need to get around to making the Can Can Skirt for the girls. Anyway ... I originally started making this as a project to do with my nieces during our sleepover. HOWEVER, that thing called the hot glue gun got in the way. It was HOT and consequently this turned into an "aunt only" project ...

I think I made about 40 of them ... wanted to keep them all because they are so fun and I love the color combo, but parted with most of them for Mother's Day. :-)

So cute with a matching card

(Below --- used an old food jar, washed it and let it air out, and then just used double sided tape to adhere the yellow fabric & blue ribbon.) So simple, maybe now I'll be unable to throw out jars? I am going to turn into a hoarder if this keeps up!



Finally - Fun fun this one was! This is a train caddy that I made for Miss A's friend who moved away. Sniff sniff. BUT is in driving distance to his grandma now. SO, I thought this would be a cute way for him to travel with his 5 favorite trains!

I roughly used tutorials from Here and Here ... the first link to (Homemade by Jill) is another AWESOME craft blog. If only there were more time in the day ...

Just changed them up to hold 5 trains instead of 6 cars. Don't the faces on these Thomas characters crack you up? I think it's funny how "Diesel" and the others who aren't in Thomas' camp have sour faces. They are probably cross.

More bean bags, a b'day card idea, and a clutch

More bean bags with Number 1-10! Love these as a gift for kiddos!




It's possible that these little bunting cards are one of the cutest things ever. I am obsessed with making them and may never (ok, let's be real, it won't happen) buy cards again!


And, finally the "gathered clutch" using Noodlehead's Tutorial. Fun times making this with Sarah ...overall pleased, but this is "the prototype" ... to do it over again, there are some things we'd change! But first experience sewing w/ a zipper and I have to say: not so bad!