New Dress

My daughter has been on a dress kick lately and has worn a dress for the past 3 weeks.  So, I decided to go ahead and make a dress for her.  We had the fabric and pattern already and it took no time at all to sew up.  I even put in a zipper on my own. Gasp!  I have a fear of zippers and have maybe put in a total of 3 zippers ever.  I seem to look for patterns without them.  I think I might have finally overcome my fear of zippers.
Here are the kids off to the park even though it has been a hundred degrees outside.

Steam Bent Furniture

I came across some really wonderful furniture and lighting designed by Tom Raffield. All of the products that he designs and creates are done by steam bending.  To see more of his work you can find it here.

I just love his light fixtures. This one is called the Ribbon Lamp.

Cage Light

Here is an example of the furniture he creates. The chair is called the Loop Chair.

New Bows for School

This year my little girl will be off to kindergarten. Where did the time go? In preparation for school I made some bows and headbands to match her uniform.  She's not wearing it in the picture, but that is why all the bows are navy and white with a bit of red.  I found a fantastic tutorial on how to make woven headbands.  You can go to hair-hardware to see the tutorial. You can't tell mine is woven since I didn't use two high contrasting ribbons.  One was navy and the other was navy with white polka dots. I plan on making the next one just white and blue.

What I found really great about the woven headband is that you can clip bows to it if you want to dress it up further.

And you know I can't resist designing my own ribbons with paint.  So, I added flowers to a navy ribbon and a plaid pattern to another ribbon.

Upholstered Headboard Tutorial

I'm on a roll!  I'm getting all kinds of projects done around the house.  I decided that I really needed to tackle the headboard.  We've had the wood sitting in the garage for a year now.  I just needed to come up with the dimensions for the headboard.  I wanted a tall headboard, so it is 62" high x 62" wide x 4" deep.  This is for a queen size bed and you will need to adjust the width if you have a different size bed.  A picture of the basic frame before the plywood is attached is shown below.

Then a piece of plywood needs to be attached to the frame.  

Next you need to figure out if you want a tufted headboard.  I wanted mine tufted with buttons so I needed to go ahead and drill the holes in an evenly spaced pattern.  Now the frame is complete and we can begin on the upholstered portion of the headboard. You need to purchase foam to glue to the plywood.  I went with a 2" thick foam and that seemed to be perfect. Cut the foam to the size of the headboard.  A tip for cutting foam, use an electric bread knife.  It cuts through it so easily.  Once you have it to size, we can start gluing it on.  I used spray adhesive and sprayed it to the headboard and the foam so that it would have a strong bond.  

Get your fabric ready to go.  I had about 2-1/2 yards of 54" width material purchased for the project and had a bit left over when I was through.  I went with a micro-suede material.  I laid the fabric horizontal to the headboard and started stapling it to the back of the frame. The trick is to start in the middle at the top of the headboard and work your way to the corners.  Once you get close to the corner you need to stop and fold the extra fabric so that it lays nicely. 

After it is all stapled we can begin on the tufting. First you will need to go ahead and cover your buttons with the fabric.  I picked up 1-1/2" buttons to cover. 

Next you will need to get your long needles out for this part along with a very heavy duty thread. I used doll needles and nylon thread. Push the needle through the hole in the back of the frame. Once through,, put the  button on and thread back through the hole.  This a two person job, so you really need to find a friend to help for this part.  Here is my mom and me working on the tufting. 

One person needs to push on the button to give it the tufted look we are after, while the other person ties it off on the back.  When you are tying it off use another plain 2 or 4 hole button on the backside of the headboard to secure the thread. 

Once you've finished with the tufting, the headboard is ready to be installed to your bed frame. Here are pictures of the finished product.  I'm so excited to finally have a headboard and really should have done this project much sooner.  I love it. 

Nume Bed

I've been on the search for a toddler bed for my little guy since he has discovered that he can climb to the top of the crib and hang on precariously.  Yes, his bed is lowered and he is not using anything to stand on to get up there.  He is just that strong and determined.  Anyway, back to the bed.  My mom found this super cool bed which would be perfect for him.  It has sides so he can't roll out, it's low to the ground and has a space at the end to climb in.  Unfortunately, this is out of my price range since it is $1400.  Although, I'm thinking I might be able to convince my husband to make something similar. I'd link you back to the Nume website, but it doesn't look like it is working.  You can find their products for sale, here.

Seashell Galore

Our vacation this summer was fantastic.  We spent each day on the beach and my daughter's favorite part was looking for shells.  Then of course my obsessive behavior took over and I started scouring the beach for shells too.  Well, of course we couldn't leave any shells behind so now I have enormous amount of shells sitting in my garage.  If you start seeing projects involving shells pop up on my blog, you'll know why.  For now I've cleaned some of them up and put them in a couple pretty glass jars.
Just look at all of them.

A nice reminder of our vacation.

Book Birdhouse

While I was up visiting Chicago, I came across some wonderful birdhouses that had a hardback book as the roof and pages glued to the sides.  You can see an example here, but retailing around $120 I decided to make one myself.  The upside to making it yourself is that you get to pick the book.  I made the birdhouse for my sister's upcoming birthday and one of her favorite books is Anne of Green Gables.  Happy Birthday Annie! You are getting a sneak preview of your birthday present.
Here is how I made it.  I was planning to buy a prefab birdhouse from the craft store, but they are on the small side, so I had my husband put one together for me.  The dimensions were figured out by the size of the book.

Once the birdhouse was put together, I got started on gluing the pages to the sides. I used a spray adhesive and it worked perfectly.  Once this was complete I did some decorative painting on the base of the birdhouse.  Then I had to come up with a bird perch and decided that a carrot would make a good one since they say Anne's hair is as red as carrots a few times in the book.  I used Sculpey to make it.  I  loved using this stuff.  It is so easy to sculpt with and then you bake it in the oven for 30 minutes and paint it.

I had so much fun making the carrot that I wanted to make a little bird that would hang off the ribbon bookmark in the book.

Cute, right?