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.

Toucan Painting

I just finished up a painting of a Toucan for a boy nursery with a jungle theme.

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.  

Digital Paintings

I started experimenting with Digital Paintings.  It takes me a good amount of time to do a painting and I figured if I could draw it on the ipad I could produce them multiple times much quicker and for less.  I've only done a few, but here is one I drew of my daughter on the ipad and then printed it out with my printer.

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.