Crafty Catch-up: Super Twirly Skirt

Big A is always begging me to make her things, so I figured I would make her a skirt that fits her style. 

I have been tossing around ideas for some things for her because she’s VERY picky about her clothes.

She’s a little diva, and also seems to think she’s a fashionista.

I’m thinking she liked this one. She wore it to church this morning after I showed it to her.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!

Drawing Pad & Pencil holder

A very special little girl in my life turned three in March. I wanted to make her something special, so I pulled my chair up to the sewing machine and got busy! Using the tutorial from Skip to my Lou, I whipped up this cute drawing pad & colored pencil holder. 

I've seen crayon rolls before, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted her to have something she could take everywhere with her. Here in Georgia, if you leave a crayon roll in the car for longer than 10 mins, your crayons will have melted by the time you get back. I think colored pencils are the way to go. 

With this tutorial, if you're going to turn & topstitch like I did, make sure you lengthen the width of your inner and outer fabrics by 1" to 1.5". I did the tutorial exactly as it said and my pencils were too long for it to close evenly. Evidently her tutorial doesn't account for lost space in the pencil slots if you turn & topstitch. Just a heads up there.

I will be making these for just about every kid I know, I think. I really like these. I like the convenience. I like that I can personalize them, and I like how easy the tutorial is to follow.

Give it a try! 

Big Red Ottoman

One of the many joys of having pets and children is that just about every piece of furniture in your house gets abused. Our ottoman used to be the place that Lola, our golden retriever/yellow lab mix, would lay. She's currently staying with my parents, but that's a post for another day.  Anyway, she created this giant tear in the middle of my ottoman. She also made the top of it very dirty and gross. I was ready to throw the thing out, but my husband likes to kick up his feet after a long day so he wouldn't let me. I decided to sew a cover for it instead. 

Do you see how stinkin' gross this thing is!?

There was no fixing this tear without stitching showing.

I decided to cover it in the fabric I'm going to [eventually] cover my couches with. I found this great tutorial online that shows how to recover your couch. I can't wait to do it!

I chose a red microsuede. It's machine washable and wipes clean easily.

As we were walking around JoAnn's looking for the right fabric, my mother-in-law suggested that maybe just buying new furniture would be easier and/or cheaper. In some cases, it would be, but I get 40%-50% off coupons from JoAnn pretty regularly. That makes it more affordable for me.

In the end, it only cost me about $30 to recover the ottoman. I'm sure that's way cheaper than buying a whole new one. I'm pretty confident that I can recover my sofa and love seat for $200 or less.

I'm a pretty crafty person. 

I love making things with my hands.

Sewing, crafting, building, cooking.

I just like creating things. 

It's getting harder and harder to sit down for long periods of time since I have 3 kiddos. It takes me forever to make things that should only take an hour or two, unless the kids are sleeping. 

Anyway, here are some things I've made lately. 

A couple of reversible headbands and a cute flower headband. 

I really think that I love those reversible headbands. They're super easy to make and you get two headbands in one. I made the green ones for my girls for St. Patty's Day.     

One of my close friends wants me to make her some of the flower bands to match her daughter's Matilda Jane clothes. I think they will be cute with that line. MJ is a very cute label. I just can't fork over the money for it, having 3 girls to dress! OUCH!

These are some prefold diapers I made. They're made with 2 layers of flannel and a strip of terry cloth in the middle. They're very easy to make. Little A was outgrowing the cotton prefolds I have, so I had to come up with something new. These work like a charm. They just stain like no other. I need to put up a clothes line so I can hang them out in the sun. 

Last is this khaki vest I made for Big A.

It is parent/teacher conference week, so of course it's also book fair week. 

They always hit you up for money when they know they have you  coming into the school. 

Anyway, there is a different theme for each day. The kids get to dress up in accordance with the theme. 

Today is Tacky Tourist day. Big A isn't one to look tacky when she's supposed to.  She evidently has no problem looking tacky any other day of the week, but not on the day she's supposed to. So she went to school all matchy matchy, but I think she looks tourist-y enough. Right?

I made the vest out of an old pair of khaki pants I found on the shelf in my closet. There are pockets on the front, but you can't really see them in the picture. It only took me a couple of hours to make (in between breastfeeding and changing diapers) so it was relatively simple. Big A really liked it, so that's a win in my book!

Don't forget, there are only 3 days left to enter my giveaway!

Super Kiddos!

Super heroes are awesome!

Every child, at some point in their life pretends to be a super hero.

They find whatever they can to tie around their necks to be a cape and run around with their hands out like they're flying.

We used pillowcases, sheets, blankets...whatever we could pretend would be a cape. Of course this was back when kids still played pretend for fun. 

I made my niece and nephew reversible super hero capes for Christmas and they were a big hit! I didn't use a pattern. I just kind of made it up in my head as I went. They came out great! They were so quick and simple, but they look professionally made.

If anyone would like to see a tutorial, leave me comments. I haven't made my girls capes yet, so I know I'll be making them sometime in the near future.

Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of both sides of my niece's cape, but here is my nephew's cape:

The reverse side of my niece's cape is purple with a pink star. 

They loved their capes!

My nephew ran around the house all night yelling, "Super Mason!" 

Blackout Panel Tutorial

I can't really make a trumpet sound with text (how would you do that? Bur bur bur?) Anyway, here is the much anticipated and long awaited blackout panel tutorial! I finally got Iphoto fixed on my computer so I could fix my pictures and such. I'm hoping I took enough to make the tutorial easy to follow. I made them weeks ago, so I can't remember now how many I took. 

Let's get started!

First, you need to measure your window and decide what size curtain you want. My window is 35"x60".  I wanted my curtain to measure 42"x72". 

**During the tutorial, 'material' refers to the fabric you're making the curtain out of, 'blackout' refers to the blackout material. I will not be speaking of both at the same time.**

For the material, we're going to add 4" to the width and 6" to the length.  

So my material needed to measure 46"x78".

Lay out your material on the floor and measure your length. I put a mark on the left and right sides so I could later match the marks when I folded it in half to cut.

Here you see I folded the fabric in half and matched the marks I made to each other to ensure I was cutting at the same height all the way across. 

Here is a picture from above. You can see the cutting mat below, the material folded in half, and my cutting ruler is clear but you can see the glare....I promise it's there.

And cut! 

Next, cut your material to the correct width. I skipped taking pictures here because it is the same: measure & cut.

Next, we're going to cut the blackout. This is going to measure 2" wider and 4" longer than you want your curtain. I wanted my curtain to measure 42"x72", so my blackout measured 44"x76".  

I hope you don't mind if I skip the measure and cut parts again. It's really repetitive. Here is my blackout after I finished measuring & cutting.

Put your blackout aside and get your material again. Lay it out flat on the floor. You're going to go around the entire piece of fabric, except for one of the short sides. That 'unfolded' side will be the top of your curtain.  Fold the other 3 sides in 1" and pin it.  

 Here is after I pinned. It's neatly folded and pinned all the way around, except for the top. 

Now lay your blackout on top of the material. It should line up right inside the seams you folded in. Place it all the way to the bottom right up to the fold. Do not overlap it. You will have more material at the top than blackout.  It's hard to see in this picture, but there is no overlapping anywhere around the edges. The blackout simply meets up with the material.

(Also, for whatever reason, blogger won't let me upload the lightened and rotated version of this picture. GRRR!)

Now you're going to go all the way around the 3 folded edges again (yes, again!) and fold it in another inch and pin. You will be overlapping the blackout this time. It is tedious work to remove each pin, fold, and repin. It's worth it in the end though. It will make your curtain look neat and straight.

Here is mine after overlapping and pinning. Don't mind that pen mark at the bottom of my curtain. Ava decided it was a blank canvas for her art work. Luckily it was disappearing ink. 

Now we're going to take it to the sewing machine!

Start at one of your corners. I sew the bottom first. Line up the side of your presser foot with the edge of your material.

Be sure to backstitch so as to make sure it doesn't come undone. 

Follow along with the presser foot at the edge of the material.

This is what it will look like on the front when you're done stitching: 

Here is what the back will look like:

Stitch the two remaining folded sides following the same directions. 

When you're finished with that, you should have 3 finished sides and one 'raw' side (the top). 

Either serge or zigzag stitch across the top edge to keep it from fraying later on. 

Here is what the top of your curtain should look like:

Fold down the top 1", pin & sew--just like you did the other sides before.

See the 1" seam?

Fold down the top and overlap 3" down.  Pin & sew, just as before.

Are you still with me? Great! You're done! 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of just the curtain hanging up, but I have some action shots of the 'Big Reveal of the Big Sister Suite'.  You can see this blackout curtain hanging in the background, plus other curtains I made for Big A's closet. Those are not blackout, but I used the same concept.

See the blackout curtain?

Curtains for the closet:

I hope everything was clear enough to understand! If you have questions or need clarification on any of the steps, leave a comment and I'll help you out!