Archives for category: Sewing

Tutorial Tuesday : I <3 You

February 9, 10 //
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image via Craftstylish

No Valentine?  No worries!  Just go to Craftstylish and whip up your own with Erika Kern.  Found via Craft Gossip.

How do you crochet a heart? Find out here at Little Birdie Secrets.

I love the reverse applique on this sweet pincushion!  Find it here at Happy Together.  Another Craft Gossip find.

Can’t Stop Making Things shows you how to bang out this fantastic pin here.

This great mushroom clip is only one of the sweet tutorials featured in 5 Orange Potatoes’ Valentines Review.

Find this sweet paper heart garland over at Ohdeedoh.

Andrea shows us how to make these easy fabulous Valentines badges at Cut Out and Keep.

Brini Maxwell whips up this amazing mixed media applique at Craft.

OMC!  Oh My Cuteness, I can’t get over this little glasses bear plushie by Danny Brito, guest blogging at Kind Over Matter.

Have a Very Yummy Holiday!

December 25, 09 //
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I wish you all a very Merry Christmas tomorrow!  I get to indulged in some Honeybaked ham with family.  SOOOO looking forward too it!  In the meantime, though, I thought I’d share some festive, cute and just plain sweet finds:

image from Bakerella

OK, OK, so you all know about my Bakerella obsession by now.  Can you look at these dang cute trees and blame me?  Really?!  OMC!!!!  Oh my CUTEness!  Check out how to make them here.

image from Bakerella

Another amazing Bakerella find!  She shared this from her friend, Julie’s, party decorations here.  Julie and her husband actually made this stand.  Can you believe Julie made all the little cakes out of felt too?!  A.MA.ZING!  I’m thinking of doing this for my little girl’s birthday one year and then making cute little drawstring bags with her guests’ names on them.  That way each partygoer can pick a treat (or two!) from the stand as a take home souvenir.   Wouldn’t that be the cutest?!

image from Smashing Magazine

Check out these yummy icons from Smashing Magazine!  Totally free and totally darling!

Resurrecting Mr. Potato Head

December 3, 09 //
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A couple of months ago I got pretty excited about buying my daughter her first Mr. Potato head.  I found this Giant one at Toy’s R Us that had 2 large potato heads inside and 2 smaller ones with tons of pieces for them all.  To top it off, you could remove the eyes, nose and mouth of the giant potato head shaped container and switch then around too.  My little one loved it.  A lot of the time she spent playing with the toy involved her trying on the pieces herself.  So, she’d try to put the little hats and glasses on, stuff like that.  Cute, but after watching her put the little stems on the mouth shaped pieces in her mouth a gazillion times I started wondering what the heck the pieces were made of.  I’m pretty anti-pvc/vinyl when it comes to my little one’s toys, especially things she’s going to be putting in her mouth.  So, I looked it up and sure enough, like so many other fun toys (Fisher Price Little People!), the pieces are made of pvc.  So, poor Mr. Potato head found a new home in the guest room closet to maybe reappear once she old enough to know better than to put the pieces in her mouth.  In the meantime though, I am SO excited to find this post on Make It and Love It via Ucreate.  It’s a tutorial on how to make a cloth Mr. Potato head!  Yes!

Project 2: Curtains, cont'

October 17, 09 //
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So, all of my DIY has been curtains, curtains, curtains lately.  PLEASE excuse the pictures!  They’re from my phone pretty late at night!  I KNOW!  I’m suppose to do the whole natural daylight thing, but I know if I don’t get these up now, it’ll be a while before I can and I just HAD to show you!!!

I added a ruffle to the bottom of the bathroom curtain I made to go with that shower curtain I showed you last time.  I just took a long strip of brown fabric, and pinned it into little ruffles all along the bottom of the curtain.  Then, I sewed it slowly, making sure things stayed ruffled as I went along.

Another curtain for the kitchen.  This is a nice big window, but it faces a brick wall with a bit of the neighbors house peeking over the top.  All to see at the foot of the wall is a dirt ditch.  No fun.  So, up with the thick curtains.  It’s four cafe curtains (2 sets) and a small panel of tan fabric in between the top set to break up all the stripes.  The bottom tier is held up with a tension rod and the top (and most of my curtains) are held up with cup hooks and wooden dowel rods.  So easy and affordable!

These are in the downstairs guest.  The silvery panel I bought, the blue ones I made.  They need to be shortened a bit, but this will do for now.

Here’s the front room curtain.  It’s one black/tan panel cut in half to make two with a tan panel I made in between.  I need to make one more tan panel.  I think they’ll look better with a bit more fabric, all scrunched up.  I need to make a cover for the top portion still.  ~sigh~

These are 2 valences that I sewed fabric to to make long draping curtains.

Again, 2 valences with added fabric.  Between you and me, I cut the white fabric too short and had to add the tan on afterwards to make up for it.

Bought this window panel, made the tan one.

One cafe curtain from a set with white fabric added on.  There is an identical window on the other side of the bed where I used the other cafe curtain.

Again, I’m SO sorry about the lighting and everything!  I still have six windows to go.  When I’m finished I’ll try to get some pictures up that don’t make you cringe too awfully.

All of the curtains I bought were between $3 and a little over $4, except for the long black and tan one which was $7.  I found then on clearance at Target!  All of the extra added on fabric is from the $4 twin flat sheets we bought at Wal-Mart to cover the windows when we first moved in.  So, along with the cup hook/dowel rod hanging system I concocted, we’ve saved a bunch of money and things look good.  :)  Well, they look much better than the sheets tacked up.  ~grimace~

Of course AFTER I did all this, I found Thrifty Decor Chic’s blog.  She has some excellent tutorials over there and actually knows what she’s doing!  :)  Here are a few posts on curtains she has for you:

Cover Your Windows.

Faux Roman Shade.

The Easiest Window Treatments. Ever. Period.

Window Treatment Tutorial.

Third Time is a Charm.

Go check her out!

Project 3: Couch Cover!

October 17, 09 //
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A little side project I took on after the shower curtain…

I made a slipcover for our little sofa!  Are you proud or what?!  The sofa had originally been my younger brother’s when he had a little ‘ol bachelor pad.  Well, he moved home and his sofa moved to my mom’s garage where it sat and sat for a couple of years.  So, as happy as I was to get a free sofa… ew.  I steam cleaned it with our Bissel, but the ick factor didn’t come out with the stains.  So, I had these three red sheets layered on top of it and decided to turn them into a cover.

All I did was:

1. Draw pictures of the sofa.  Mine were 3 pictures, one of the back, a top view, and a front view.  If your first reaction to that is “draw… I CAN’T draw!” no worries.  My drawing were literally a bunch of simple shapes (e.g. rectangle, for the back of the sofa).

2. Measure.  Use a measuring tape (or tape measure…or yard stick….) and list all of the measurements on your drawings.

3. Adding an inch to each measurement (for sean allowance), draw the same shapes from your drawing to your fabric and cut them out.  I seriously did this with a regular pencil on carpet.  So, my shapes weren’t so pretty or perfect.

4. Lay shapes onto the sofa, wrong (the side you DON’T want to see when your done and it’s on the piece of furniture) side up.  This is a good way to make sure you got your measurements right!

5.  Using pins, pin the fabric together around the edge, leaving at least 1/2 inch of seam allowance all the way around.  This helped me see where I was most likely going to have watch things carefully while sewing.  Places like the ends of the arm rests were a bit tricky.  Pinning the fabric together while it was laid on the couch also helped me make sure the fit was snug, but loose enough to take off and wash.

6. Take the cover off of the couch and sew together, taking out the pins as you go.

That’s how I did it.  Obviously I’m no seamstress.  This was like the third time ever using my sewing machine.  I think it turned out good and it hasn’t fallen apart just yet. :)

It's Curtains for You…See?

September 26, 09 //
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Since we moved into our house last June, all of our windows have been covered in some sorry manner or other (see above!);  Usually a $4 flat sheet from Wal-Mart with clear tacks holding it up. I decided to try and upcycle some of these sheets into decent looking curtains.

I made a shower curtain and matching window shade for our downstairs guest bath.  Here’s the shower curtain:

Recognize the sheet from the first picture? :)  I added portions of a light blue sheet to the tops and bottom.  I used parts that already had a seam; less sewing.

Then, I found some cafe curtain at Target on sale for a little over $4 and made them into curtains for our porch door:

See, cafe curtain on top and a portion of sheet on the bottom.

I still have a lot to go, but this is a start!  Eight dollar curtains.  Nice right?

A New Brother

July 18, 09 //
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My first sewing machine was a Singer. I only used it a handful of times.  It was a good little machine, but I hated loading the bobbin with a passion!  I know… lazy.  Really though, the mere thought of taking out that little metal gizmo and fiddling with it kept me from using the machine.  So, I gave it away.  

Well, recently my little family bought our first house.  With all that is going on in the economy today, more than one (ok, more than 10 is more like it) well-meaning relative has reminded us moving into a larger space doesn’t mean we have to fill that space right away.  So, no shopping spree here.  My crafters eye looks around this place though and just wants to do SO much with it!  Curtains… a slip cover for a hand-me-down couch…  Doing it all without a machine is possible, but time consuming.  Time for a new machine.

Obviously, if we’re trying to tighten our belts and not spend a ton decorating the house, I couldn’t exactly go out and just buy the fanciest machine around.  I wanted a machine with a drop in bobbin mechanism though.  Not another basic model Singer.  So, I asked about the machines at my local craft store.  The least expensive machine that had the function I was looking for was $250 for the Singer Confidence.  A little more than I wanted to spend.  

So, off to the internet I went.  After reading blog posts and product reviews about many machines, I settled on the Brother CS 6000i.  I just received it the other day and barely took it out of the box.  So, I can’t give you a full review just yet.  I do have to say, though, that this machine comes with so much stuff!  I don’t know what to do with half of it really, but I’m excited to find out. The machine is actually $6 cheaper than I paid on Amazon now at $169.99 and includes free shipping (which I LOVE).  So, if you are looking for a decently priced machine with tons of accessories, features and that includes a hard case, check it out!