DIY Snowflakes

My newest project was to create a couple large snowflakes to hang in an empty frame. I used basal wood (super lightweight) to create the snowflakes. I started with wood glue, but who am I kidding, there was no way I was waiting for it to dry. I switched to hot glue and was able to quickly get three snowflakes put together. I gave them a coat of gold leaf to match the frame. To hang the snowflakes from the frame I used fishing line. Perfect another project done!

Ninja Turtle Costume

This year we experienced Halloween in Ohio. Now I've lived in Ohio and in Wyoming so I know what it means when you need a warm costume. Living in Texas for so many years I avoided costumes that were made of fleece and fur, but living here you just might need to wear a coat with your costume. I promise he wore shoes trick or treating. The pictures were taken a few weeks before hand because Halloween was wet and chilly!
My son decided he wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle like the rest of the 4 year old boys out there. I looked at the pre-made costumes and couldn't bring myself to buy one. First they were way too thin and second I knew he'd wear it all the time so it needed to be able to take the abuse.
I purchased the green hoodie and pants which he literally wears all the time now. He already had the mask and sword. Then I sewed the turtle shell, the front, the belt and the knee and elbow pads.
I really should have taken step by step pictures, but I pretty much winged the entire costume. I used felt fabric and batting to give the front some thickness.
For the shell I stuffed it with polyfil to give it the shell shape. I did sandwich some batting for the shell too so I could sew the turtle shell pattern.
To connect the two pieces I used straps with velcro and the belt does a good job of keeping it together on the sides.
He loved it and really that's all that matters, right?

Pumpkin Hat

I am on a knitting streak! Not sure if it's the colder weather that caused this knitting bug or because it makes me feel productive while I'm watching TV. I just finished knitting the cutest little pumpkin hat for a new baby. It's so cute and just in time for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I found the pattern on Ravelry and you can find it on the Sonnentaler blog. It knitted up quickly in front of a movie one evening. I looked through a bunch of pumpkin patterns till I came across this one and I really think it's perfect!

Prismatic Scarf

I let my daughter pick out some yarn, oh a year ago and I finally got around to knitting it up into a scarf. She selected a very fine yarn so it took me much longer to knit up. I did find a fantastic pattern to use since this yarn is so very colorful. The Prismatic Pattern that I found on Ravelry was a great choice. I knitted it extra long for her so she could wrap it around herself a few times and for the possibility that I might be able to borrow it sometime. She was so thrilled to wear it that she wanted to wear it to school the next day even though it was going to be a high of 70 degrees. I love when kids want to wear something their mom made.

Knitted Infinity Scarf

This summer my sister requested a gray infinity scarf for her birthday. I looked for one that she might like to add to her Fall and Winter attire. I knitted it up and I seriously wanted to keep it. It's called Budding Infinity Scarf. I found the pattern on Ravelry courtesy of Linda Thach. I did what one of my fellow knitters did and knitted it from the backside so that I could knit it quicker. It turned out amazing. I'm going to go ahead and make myself one too in an off white color.

Robot Scarf

My son is obsessed with anything with robots. I asked him what kind of scarf he wanted, you guessed it, ROBOTS! I'm still a fairly new knitter, but am all for trying something new. The technique I needed to learn to complete this scarf was double knitting with 2 colors. He chose blue and orange which definitely makes the robots pop on each side. It took me awhile to get the hang of double knitting and there is definitely some mistakes, but my son doesn't seem to notice. He can't wait to use his new robot scarf this winter.

Knitted Pouf

I know you have seen the poufs or stuffed ottomans lately in the stores and magazines. I have been admiring the knitted version and decided to try it out. It was a super fast knit with giant knitting needles. I found the pattern on Ravelry and it is called Puff Daddy.

The tricky part was stuffing the pouf. I ended up doing what some of the other knitters suggested and bought a down comforter to use as stuffing. Thank you Ikea for having a sale on comforters! I also wanted the pouf to hold its shape and wrapped it up very tightly in a jersey knit before putting it in the pouf. The knit color I used to wrap the comforter was similar to the yarn, but gave it just enough contrast. I'm pretty pleased with it! Beware, if you have kids it will become their favorite place to sit.

Batman Crib Mobile

I just recently made a crib mobile for a sweet friend who is expecting a baby boy. She was looking for something very specific, Batman. I looked for some examples on Etsy and was able to make something similar as a gift for my friend. Please, ignore the loose ribbons hanging. I wanted to leave her some length so she could adjust how low or high she wanted to hang the Batman logos.

I even tried my hand at felting some beads to add to the mobile. 

Water Bottle Holders

My daughter had Girl Scout camp last week and on the list of things to bring was a water bottle holder. We didn't have one and my daughter made her own version of one. She used a stainless steel water bottle and decorated it with fun duct tape and used a piece of bias tape for the strap.  Pretty clever! Of course she received many compliments from her friends.

I thought I'd try to make a knitted one for her, but of course I didn't start making it till camp was almost over. Oh well, she can use it for school while she's playing outside for recess or PE. I'm sure it will come in handy at some point. I found the pattern at my favorite place, Ravelry. It's called Bishi. Super pattern and I've already made two others one up as well!

Heart Valentines

I found these cute little plastic hearts from Michael's and used heart erasers as the treat inside. Hurrah, another candy free valentine. My only dilemma was how to put her name on them. I went with labels and placed them on the bottom. Easy peasy!

Fish Valentines

I love all the creative Valentines out there. This year I am trying to avoid giving away candy with the Valentines for both my kids' class. I randomly picked up some fish stickers that I wanted to add to the Valentine. It was a little more difficult to incorporate a strip of stickers with the Valentine, but I figured out a way to thread the stickers through the cutout in the fish. I found the cute saying via Jasey's Crazy Daisy.  It works perfectly! 

Upholstered Cornice

I've been on a long blog break. Don't worry I had plenty to keep me busy. My hiatus consisted of getting my house ready to sell in Texas (huge job), keeping my house clean for showings (next to impossible with kids), living without my husband while he started work in Ohio (hated it), finding a new house in Ohio, preparing for the house to be packed up and moved (so thankful the company took care of that part) and then unpacking everything in the new house in Ohio. I can't tell you how ecstatic I am that there is a basement and I can just hide all the boxes I don't want to unpack yet down there. Now that things have settled down, I'm hoping to post more on the blog again.

First project for the new house, an upholstered cornice. The house has sliding doors in the back with vertical blinds which are NOT my favorite! I considered switching to draperies, but with 2 dogs and 2 kids I didn't think they would stay clean. I opted for the upholstered cornice.
They are so easy to make and don't require any sewing.

Materials

Wood (for frame)

L brackets 

Batting

Fabric

1. Build the cornice out of wood.  I used a 12" width so I could cover the track for the vertical blinds and give the sliding glass door some balance. My frame came off the wall 8" on the sides. You can adjust the measurements for your window. 

2. Attach batting to the front of the cornice board. I doubled the thickness of the batting and wrapped it around the edge and stapled it to the back. 

3. Next staple the fabric to the cornice board. I stapled it on all the edges in the back to get the fabric centered. During this step you need to make sure you pull the fabric tight to give it a nice flat appearance. 

4. I like my cornices to look nice on the back as well. I used white fabric and covered the back and attached it with hot glue. It hides the staples.

5. Attach L brackets to the cornice and install to the wall.

Custom Han Solo Stencil

So, it seems I took the entire summer off from blogging.  It wasn't on purpose, I promise. I seriously have 6 posts waiting to be posted, but I never got around to adding pictures to them.  Summer is always a little hectic around here.
Anyway, I've been cranking out stencils for my etsy shop and was asked to make a custom Han Solo stencil, which turned out great.  Here is the test print before I shipped the stencil.

Sleeping Beauty Costume

I've been meaning to post this forever!  I made my daughter a Sleeping Beauty costume for Disney World.  She hates itchy fabric and most of the princess dresses have some sort of tulle or scratchy fabric.  She loves the dresses, but won't wear them more than an hour.  I had scheduled her to go to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and then we were going to go eat dinner with Cinderella afterwards.  I wanted her to be comfortable.
I found a fantastic pattern via pinterest. Crafterhours made a cute little sleeping beauty dress with the pattern by indietutes.  I did make my dress separate pieces.  It's a shirt, skirt and belt.  Here she is at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique all dolled up.

Sleeping Beauty worn out from her long night of beauty and dinner with Cinderella.  

Prince Charming

We made our first trip to Disney World this last week and I made this cute prince charming shirt for my little guy.  We were having dinner with Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Stepsisters and the Fairy Godmother.  Prince Charming really liked his shirt and came to talk to us for a little while.  Then Cinderella came over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.  It was adorable.

For this project I used a white t-shirt.  I wanted it to be comfortable for him.  I added navy knit on the shoulders and trimmed it out with gold fringe.  I sewed gold buttons down the front and then sewed grosgrain ribbon on for the belt.

Custom Stencils

I've received a few pictures from some happy customers that were pleased with how their custom stencil came out.  I wanted to share them with you.

Here is one I made to represent the Wisconsin Badgers. 

This onesie is a lion with ADPi Legacy stenciled at the top. 

You can check out my Etsy shop if you would like to order a custom stencil. 

Pumpkin Carving

This year the kids made pumpkin carving more complicated.  They wanted them to actually look like something.  I wasn't getting away with the standard jack o'lantern.  The requests were Sleeping Beauty and Spiderman.  Thankfully, I was able to track down a pattern to use for each of them.  The Spider-man was a little more difficult since the pieces were so close together.  I only ended up cutting out the eyes and the remaining I just dug out most of it, but left the inside intact for stability. I have to say that they resemble the characters I was trying to create.

Firestar Costume

This year for Halloween my daughter requested to be Firestar.  Her brother is going to be Spiderman.  I love that they like to dress up as a pair. As you remember last year they were Jessie and Woody from Toy Story.

This was definitely going to be a handmade costume since this cartoon aired back in the 1980's.  My daughter is discovering many new to her cartoons thanks to Netflix.  

To make this costume I used a white unitard and dyed it yellow. As you can find in my previous post. To make the flames I used a knit jersey material in red and orange colors.  It needed to be a stretchy material for it to work with the stretchy unitard. I was able to use the sewing machine to piece the orange and red material together, but the flames had to be hand sewn to attach it to the unitard.  At that time I added some sequins to the flames.  For the most part the costume is complete.  All that is left is the mask.  That will be my next post. 

Fabric Dyeing

I have never dyed anything. I found it a little intimidating, but once I did it I can't figure out why I thought it would be so difficult.  I did have to use an acid dye since the fabric I was dyeing was 100% nylon. I found the dye online at Dharma Trading Co.

I dyed it on the stove top in a big stainless steel pot.  I didn't want to try it in my washing machine since I have a front loader and I wasn't sure how to go about adding it into the washer.  Once I put the fabric into the dye it just soaked it up.  Wow!  It turned out exactly the color I needed for an upcoming Halloween costume.  After it sat on the stove in the pot for 30 minutes I rinsed it several times and hung it up to dry. It turned out perfectly.

Moroccan Wall Stencil

I decided to try out the stencils by Cutting Edge Stencils.  I went with the Rabat Allover stencil and used it as an accent wall in my entry way.  I love the way it turned out!  This project did take some patience since I needed to put three coats of the brown paint on the wall, but otherwise it wasn't difficult.  I like the idea of wallpaper, but not the fact that its such a pain to remove later if you get tired of it.  This is much better, so when I'm tired of this color or pattern I can just paint over it.