Playground Love

I’m going to take this relatively peaceful time of day (Amina is playing tent with our kitchen table and blankets behind me) while I can to post some pictures of crafts I’ve been working on.

I bought a tonne of white onesies when I found out I was pregnant and have only now got around to personalizing them. Some I’ve tie-dyed, some I’ve dyed, some I’ve appliqued with fabric and some I’ve used freezer paper stencilling with fabric paint on. I think this last one is my current favorite!

Tie-dye and dyed onesies

Rockets and guitars

These ones were done with fabric and wool felt. I think that wool felt might hold up better than acrylic felt- am hoping it won’t pill like acrylic does.

Fabric paint using freezer paper as a stencil

The fabric paint is my favorite. I’m making A a  ”big sister” t-shirt at the moment using this same process. (google-it or youtube-it for a myriad of tutorials). I’ll post that one when we’re done with it. I did the stencil letters but I’d like her to decorate and make it “hers.” This is so fun and rewarding. The hardest part is choosing an image to make into a stencil. If you look under google images for “boy onesie graphics”, so many awesome and modern ideas pop out.

Anyhow- I’m officially on mat leave now- my last day of work was Friday and I am more than ready to pop this baby out. Come on baby!

xok

Finally- after how many months? I’ve pulled my finger out and finally finished A’s bedroom. Ah- as part of the purging process we’ve been going through since the new year (15 bags donated and counting, + countless items posted on Craigslist and at work, 3+ bags for consignment and several bags of trash) I felt ready to finish A’s room. And all it took was hanging up a magnetic board (repurposed from my sewing nook).

And cleaning her room.

And sorting her toys.

And wiping the walls of some funny foot gunk.

While it doesn’t quite look as finished as if a real designer had taken over, I am really pleased at how it turned out. And the irony is that A will probably only have about 10+ months to enjoy it on her own before we meld her and her brother into the same miniscule space. That will be a challenge. So anyhow- guess how much this whole endevour cost, even with second hand bed and new comforter? Supplies cost $184 plus tax (mostly fabric and electrical stuff) + $60 for the comforter set + $100 for the bed. Less than $350 for a whole new room. Fantastic. I long ago lost track of the stuff I sold to conteract any costs I had to incur to complete the projects, but I’m faily certain that I broke even.

Enjoy!

Our fabric tree complete with roosting owl (made by me), a birds nest (made by A) and several fairies (made by S+E) made of fabric flowers

The green book shelves- love these!

While it's true that the tree has seen better days, it's kind of nice that A is interacting with it so much- pulling leaves off here and there and re-sticking them.

All boxes repainted with orange paint (from the master bedroom) and rehung with fun little objects tucked inside

The closet that was a reading nook.

Some vintage treasures from my childhood

More treasures from my childhood (turtle bank) and from M's (lamb night light)

Another vintage treasure hand-made by an aunt and the multi-purpose magnet board for hanging art, etc.

The repurposed/ re-used list:

Pennants:

• felt, twine

Owls

• fabric scraps, batting

Patchwork blanket

• fabric scraps, interfacing, wool blanket

Doll crib + highchair

• repainted crib, recovered dolly mattress, made cushion for highchair out of fabric scraps and left over batting

Book shelves

• re-used paint, wall plugs, screws

Pouf for reading nook

• reused fabric scraps

Fabric wall decal

• fabric scraps, used old box shelves from bath/living room and repainted with paint from master bedroom

Reading Nook:

• repainted shelves with old paint, re-used rope light, mesh curtains, felt, curtain rod and cup hooks

Magnetic board

• repurposed from my sewing nook

Our X-mas blew past us so quickly! I love Christmas again though. Having a toddler in the house makes gift giving so much more exciting and fun. A gets super excited just finding an orange in her stocking! Here are some random pictures of our holidays- Solstice dinner by candlelight, sledding in Winnipeg and making crafty bubble wrap printed envelopes to wrap our salt dough ornaments in. Enjoy!

A few posts ago, I wrote about making salt dough ornaments as gifts. A and I also created some really cute envelopes to wrap them in. I got this idea from Todd Oldhams “The Modern Kid” book full of art projects. I’ve been renewing this from the library for  a few months now because I can’t bare to part with it. While most of the projects are for kids who are old enough to do these independently, I know have a tonne of really awesome ideas backlogged in my brain and will start working on them in the New Year now that X-mas is over.

Using bubble wrap, we cut out various shapes, like stars and triangles. We used our printmaking supplies- block printing ink, brayers and a glass plate. This was A’s first attempt at block printing with the brayers and I think it went really well. I set up an inking station on her art table with two colours, then laid our our table cloth on the floor. I put out craft paper and some coloured laser jet paper and let her get to work. She used the bubble wrap shapes for a bit and then progressed to using her hands. I love turquoise and fuchsia together and was really pleased how the colours looked in this. We used the bubble wrap from the inside of packing envelopes, but the next time I do this (and I have a whole project of baby onesies lined up for this) I will use just plain old bubble wrap as the bubbles seem better formed without any kind of backing.

Once the ink had dried, I cut the craft paper into smaller rectangles and machine sewed the seams. Using a hole punch I folded the top over and punched the holes so that we could put ribbon through them. The packages looked really sweet once we had finished. Fun project to do and now that I know A can handle the brayers, we will probably try some more block printing in the future.

Left overs from our candle light Solstice dinner. I love winter solstice. There is something very reassuring and uplifting both mentally and spiritually in celebrating the return of light. Must of been pagan in an earlier life!

Decorating gingerbread men in Winnipeg with A’s Pops. Just like her mama, A gravitates to the icing more than the cookie!

A showing off her dancing leg warmers and super hero wrist warmers (made from thrifted up-cycled cashmere and mohair sweaters). Since she saw me making these at home, I had to explain that Santa asked for Mommies help in sewing these.

Sledding in Winnipeg- nice weather for once. Above normal temps all during our visit. Hurray!

Pics of the vast, frozen prairie that was once my home. Beautiful and cold.

Nice to be back. Looking forward to the New Years purge. Interested in finding out more? Check out this blog about a minimalist mom from Downtown Van. Can’t wait to get started on ridding our home of unnecessary clutter. Also hoping to finish up some various household projects like the finishing touches on A’s Zero Cost Challenge toddler bedroom make over. Oh the irony- now I’ll have to redo the whole thing to fit the baby in! Also- would like to finish up the entry way that M’s parents so kindly donated their time in patching, sanding and painting for us. And dreaming up a new, more functional sewing space. With closed storage. Got Apartment Therapy’s Big Book of Small Cool Spaces for Christmas and now the upgrading ideas just won’t stop!

Happy New Year!

xok

I decided to make an advent calendar for our family this year based on fun activities we can do together (ie: low cost) or ways to take advantage of Holiday activities to places we have membership at (Science World, the Aquarium, etc). And to do fun crafts, of course! It’s a great way to count down the days until Christmas (and still keep us in the mood to celebrate- even when we hear those horrible carols on “all-christmas, all-the-time” radio stations. Example of worst Christmas Song ever: New Kids on the Block: “funky, funky Christmas.” Heard it at chiro yesterday. Sigh. Anyhow- this will get us through the pop crass-mas…

2010 Advent Calendar

I tried to think of fun things that were realistic for our busy schedules but that were really sweet and inspired at the same time and have come up with a bunch that I think will be really great. I found a lot of inspiration for the activities and the advent calendar itself from these crafty ladies:

• Artful Parent blog

• Canadian Living

• Mayamade blog (2010)

• Mayamade (2009)

I made our calendar out of old felt pieces- acrylic, wool and melton. I cut 24 7”x 3” inch rectangles, folded them up and zig zag stitched the sides, leaving a bit of room at the top to be able to attach the banner ribbon. I glued on stickers and other fun holiday items in our wrapping paper/ gift tag box and then sewed 12 of the pouches onto each of the two ribbons. I printed out the numbers, cut them and attached with wooden clothes pegs from the dollar store. Total cost for this project was probably $3.75- which suits me just fine!

Here is what we have planned:

• make salt dough ornaments for X-mas presents

• paint toenails red/ fuschia and green
  

  Advent calendar on mirror- familiar from last weeks' Ikea Hacks post, no?

• write and mail a holiday card for a loved one

• decorate paper X-mas tree with potato prints

• put up Christmas tree

• have some roasted nuts and hot cocoa at Granville Island

• Put up Ho Ho Ho window decoration up

• make pinecone ornaments

• go to library to pick out more holiday books

• snowflake spin art

• go to Christmas Market downtown with Aunty Jenna

• Scuba Claus at the Aquarium

• make wrapping paper with bubble wrap printmaking project (a la Told Oldham’s Kid Made Modern book)

• make a drawing with Christmas stickers

• watch a holiday movie and have popcorn for dinner!

• The Light Before X-mas movie at Science World

• bake x-mas cookies

• bring a toy in for donation/ Solstice brunch party

• make a lantern for solstice

• special art project at Dimpleskins

• candlelight dinner- Happy Solstice!

• Go for a drive to Trinity Street in Vancouver to see the Christmas lights

• bring back holiday books to library

• put presents under Grammy + Pops’ Christmas tree/ Ukrainian X-mas (perogies for dinner!)

If you’d like to join us for any of these activities, we’d love some company. Give us a shout and we’ll set something up.

Happy December

xok

I’m not sure it it’s just a little girl thing or not, but most of  our time these days consists of playing in the play kitchen making food for A’s dolls. Most of the time we are getting ready for some one’s birthday party and need treats. I’ve been making a few pieces here and there so here is my tutorial for making donuts (ironically, these look much better than the real thing, except for Honey’s of course!)

You will need:

• 1  sheet of acrylic felt
• 1 sheet of acrylic felt in a contrasting pretty icing colour
• embroidery thread for sprinkles plus embroidery needle
• regular needle and thread
• stuffing (old pillows work great)
• something circular about 6 inches in diameter to trace ( I use A’s wooden stacking ring for a disproportionate amount of crafting these days!)

1. Lay your circles down on the acrylic felt and trace them. Make a centre point and a smaller hole- about 1.5 inches. Cut them out. You will need two.

2. Lay right sides together and sew all around the larger (outer) edge with the regular needle and thread.

3. Turn the donut right side out. Begin sewing the smaller circular edge but leave about 2 inches unsewn. Stuff all the pillow stuffing through this hole. Sew it up tight.

4. Using the same size large circular object, trace another circle and draw a hole inside. Instead of following the chalk line all the way around the circumference, I cut the circle in a wavy pattern, mimicking the drippiness of icing.

5. Take contrasting embroidery thread and make large haphazard stitches over the icing circle. This is the icing wrong side facing the camera as you can see the stitching crossing over and the knots. Sorry!

6. Using the same colour regular thread, blanket stitch the icing in place over top of the sewn up donut (sew right side of icing facing up on top of right side of donut). Don’t forget to sew the icing to the donut hole small part too!

Enjoy!

xok

This is some awesome felted play food I’ve made for A’s cousin Jesse. It was his 2nd b-day last month and this is to go with the wooden pots and pans set we are gifting him. I am bummed that only the carrot made it into the picture, but it is a pretty good little carrot. Among the other fruits and veggies gracing the plate were a tomato, pea pod, banana, apple, red pepper and pizza. Pizza counts as a vegetable. This was really fun to work with. I found once I used some rubber tipped gardening gloves (so as not to poke my fingers with a prickly needle) I could really get up some speed with making the shapes. I also noticed some repetitive strain in my wrist but this was too fun to stop. You need relatively few supplies and they are pretty affordable. You will need:

1. felting needle: available from any reputable wool/ yarn shop (read: not walmart)
2. wool roving: this is like the wool version of cotton candy. It’s pull-y, malleable and wispy. Awesome to work with and takes shape given a few pokes of the needle in no time at all.

Some extra things to consider:

• rubber tipped gardening gloves or tape to wrap around your fingers. The needle stings like a bitch when you poke yourself.
• a bit of foam or a big sponge to use as a base. I used some foam left over from the stool I recovered. I liked being able to sit at the table and have this to cushion the needle as it poked through the roving. Be sure to keep moving your project as it might end up sticking to the foam, though!
• pour boiling water over your shape and then throw it in the dryer. This is great if you are trying to do alot of fruit fast and are running out of time. It’s great for really pulling all the roving together and making your fruit very compact.

How did time pass so quickly that I am now the mother of a 3 year old? Hard to believe! A’s birthday was the 20th but we celebrated on Sunday. The house was full of little people and the deck was crammed with friends. It was a lot of fun and A enjoyed herself immensely. I thought I’d show a little of what went into planning her party…..

1. Gift bags:

I decided to make wool felt barettes for the girls after reading Bonnie’s blog- the pattern comes from Purl Bee. For the two boys who were brave enough to come, I made them felt cowboy badges.

Here is the tutorial on how I made the badges. I found a great new Canadian semi-local (she’s on the Island) source for wool felt sheets: http://www.beardancecrafts.com/wool_felt.htm To keep everything together, I made little tote bags, added a balloon, a healthy fruit juice sweetened lolipop and not so healthy “fruit” snack. Sorry Aunty Jenna, I had to get those crazy Korean sweets out of the house somehow!

2. Woms and dirt.

Inspired by the dish of the same name at Munch. After looking at the ingredients of regular gummy worms (don’t ever look at the ingredients!) I sent M on a mission the day before the party to track down some healthy worms made by Yummy Earth. We bought some in bulk from Munch in case you were wondering! Unfotunately, I didn’t take a picture of the worms or the cake and ice cream that was their dirt, but it was a hit. I may have freaked some of the kids out when I mentioned we were going to eat worms, but they quickly overcame any aversions. The cake was a chocolate carrot cake recipe that was given to me in part by my co-worker Megan (who got it from a friend….) but I added 2 eggs to the recipe to lighten it up a bit as it seemed quite dense. Here is the recipe: It made a small 2 inch x 8 inch loaf  (which I crumbled up into “dirt” after A blew out the candles) plus 12 good sized cupcakes. Iced with cream cheese icing of course!

The cake before it became "dirt"

Five little monkeys eating worms and dirt...

3. Happy Birthday banner:

Made last year for A’s 2nd b-day. I can see the benefits of having a reusable banner. It may have been stressful making all that I did last year, but with the banner already made for this year, making the barettes, badges and bags was really enjoyable!

Here’s a few more shots of the party. Oh! Almost forgot- A’s friend M made her some flubber.

This stuff is amazing, and I think every parent needs to have some on hand for a rainy day. I searched for a recipe and here is what I found:

A’s big day was spent at the Aquairium. Both M and I were off work (me for the whole summer!). She had a pick of anything she wanted to do today and this is what she chose. She was a princess for her special day and we were there fo the ride. My how time passes. Such a sweet and caring little girl. What a pleasure it is to be her mom.

I promise to start posting more about A’s art. She really been into princesses and dragons lately. I’m more of a paper bag princess type, but A definitely gravitates towards the frills and tiaras. No matter- I’ll keep Robet Munsch handy to keep her grounded (not as in punishment, but as in centred). Castles and princess art to come.

xok

The tree with some leaves

This wasn’t nearly so difficult as I thought it might be. It was incredibly time consuming though, or perhaps could be done over the course of a weekend. Lot’s of little tasks and a lot of cutting involved.

Cutting many leaves

But both A and I are super excited with how the tree has turned out. Really pretty and so feminine. I will be looking to ad a few more things to wall over the coming weeks, but am in no hurry to get started on those backburner items.

A posing by the finished tree

The big expenses for this project was the Steam A Seam 2- @ $6/ metre x 4 metres it ran upwards of $24. You could do this project with a lot smaller of a decal, but I wanted this quite big and close to scale. Fabric cost $0 as it was all stuff I had on hand. Still less expensive than many wall decals I have seen in stores and much larger. I ended up selling some of A’s old toys and spent the money on the SAS2 and some strawberry plants I bought for the planter I made (more in the next post).

I was looking back recently to when my first blog post was posted and this week celebrates my one year anniversary. Unbelievable- I cannot understand where the time has gone. I’ve met some really inspiring people over this past year and have jumped into the crafty mama blogosphere head first. I’m in love with so many blogs and projects, that it’s hard to figure out which I love most. To celebrate this past year of crafting,  I have made this cute little wine cozy and I’ll do a random draw for it. To enter the contest, leave a comment in the comments section below (e-mails do not count!). My handy random number picker will choose the winner. Contest closes on Sunday, June 27 at midnight. Thank you and good luck!

Well- this is it. This is what I’ve been wanting to put up on A’s large wall in her room for ages but wasn’t sure how to go about it.Thanks to Sewing for Scarlet for the great how to. When I initialy tried this, I found that the decal left a stain because I immediately tried to pull it off the wall. Once the fabric has had a chance to cool off from the iron, this will peel off nicely without marking up the painted wall beneath!

So the challenge for me was working with something so large with limited amounts of fabric and even more limited amounts of Steam A Seam 2, which is the iron on adhesive used to stick the whole thing to the wall. It turns out, I had the perfect chocolate brown fabric just right for the tree trunk lurking in my fabric stash. The two panels used for the tree were the bottoms of curtains I made shorter a while ago.

First I figured out how big (roughly) I wanted the tree to be and what shape I wanted it to be. I googled tree wall decal images and picked something that I thought I could replicate easily enough. I cannot draw free hand for the life of me, so this is how I do things…

Then I taped together pattern paper and art paper to the size of the tree I was going to draw. I drew it out, making a few adjustments here and there. I cut it out and then hung it up on the wall in A’s room to see where I’d want to centre it.

On the floorl, I laid out the fabric for the tree trunk/ branches and overlaid the paper template on top .On top of this, I placed my one small roll of Steam A Seam 2- you can see the skinny white rectangle covering the middle of the tree section below. I was going to try to avoid seams as I wanted the decal to be one whole piece, but that’s not the way it worked out. The SAS2 is not the same size as the fabric or the pattern, so it will be in sections, which looks fine.

So once everything was laid out on the floor, I traced the pattern onto the roll of Steam A Seam2, taking care to make a mark on each branch where the Steam A Seam 2 didn’t cover. I cut the branches off of the paper pattern and set them aside. Then I cut out the pattern on the SAS2 only. Laying one side of the sticky steam a Seam 2 onto the fabric, and smoothing it out, I then cut out the entire trunk. Remember that if you are following these directions, the fabric will be stuck to the wall in reverse- very important if your fabric has a good side and a bad side or if you are doing letters. If your fabric has a good side/ bad side, make sure to place the SAS2 on top of the bad side.

It’s up on the wall in three sections so far- the trunk and the top branches, and one side branch. I’ve run out of Steam A seam but will probably try to pick some more up this weekend to finish this off. I think I’ll only need another 2 metres of this for the 3 other branches and 50+ leaves I’ll be making to cover the branches.

The project wasn’t so scary once I figured out what I really wanted and what I had to work with. This coming weekend is going to be a busy one. HappyFather’s Day to all the terrific dads I know!

xok

In the last post, I mentioned that I’d be taking a bit of a break from the Zero Cost Challenge project of redecorating A’s room. If you’ve been keeping track, I’ve done 3 out of 4 walls plus a closet and window. I’ve got a grand idea for the fourth and largest wall involving a fabric tree decal as seen on Sewing for Scarlett. I tested this on a spot on our wall and it didn’t peel off as promised and left sticky goop on the walls so am now torn about doing the decals this way. I think the size of the project is intimidating me and this makes me want to step back a bit and take a break. However, I love a good challenge, and I think to make it more manageable, I may document it in smaller steps. Anyone have some nice latex brown paint (nice for a tree trunk brown) they’d like to lend me or do a fabric swap? I’m looking for fabric that’s got nice modern prints with greens in them for leaves.  In keeping with the spirit of the challenge, I am trying to refrain from buying anything (especially paint and MORE fabric) that I cannot reuse.

But I digress, the real purpose of this post it to highlight some of the cutesy items I’ve been making lately:

A’s beautiful sundress. This pattern is from Heather Ross’ Weekend Sewing. I found the pattern to require an excessive amount of fabric. Most of this ends up getting trimmed off. You can use a bit less length wise and about 12 inches less width wise if your keen to try the pattern.

Close up showing smocking

This is A modeling the dress with her cowboy hat and ballerina tutu. What a fashion maven.

A’s super cute shoulder-tied “halter”.

This was inspired by the pillow case dress I made in February when we went to Cabo San Lucas. For the halter, I used up some of the fabric from my most treasured red dress. When I wore this dess and cruised around East Van on my custom baby blue faux cruiser, I could almost smell the Parisian baguettes in my front bike basket. Sigh.

Favorite red dress. ruined. sigh.

I had this for ages but got a rip just below my bust (no idea how that happened!) and it was unfix-able. I also had tried to let out the seams underneath the arms to make room for a bigger bust while pregnant. Bad move. It’s been sitting pretty in my closet because I can’t bear to part with it. I can’t consign it because of the alterations, so I am reusing it.

It’s a pretty simple idea, take a pillow case, use the hemmed bottom and cut above to desired length, make a casing with the raw edge, cut out some ½ circle arm holes. I rolled and finished the arm holes for a cleaner look. Fold, press and sew the fabric strip that becomes the tie, thread it through. I also added the matching ruffle along the bottom in a fit of brilliant inspiration. This was done by making a really long fabric strip  (about 2.5 times the width the circumference of the bottom hem), stitching it with the tension let out and then pulling the thread so that the tie bunched up. I pinned and sewed it from there. These are brief instructions so if you’d like more I’d be happy to share them.

A’s cute tights from old stretchy fabric. I used a pair of her old holey leggings that couldn’t be fixed as a template and made a pattern from them. This was super simple and fast. It took me about 2.5 hours from the creation of the pattern to finished product and I’m not speedy when sewing! I’ll be looking for odds and ends of stretchy fabric now that I know how to make pants. I have an overabundance of elastic (a Value Village score) so A should be set for stretchy leggings now. In our climate, it’s a great way to still wear a skirt but keep the breeze off of young legs.

Shay’s b-day party frock.

Back view showing cross over straps

Front view. Check out the buttons and button holes. Buttonholes!!

Thanks to Soule Mama for turning billions of women on to this pattern from Near Sea Naturals (after it was featured on her blog, NSN experienced a shortage and had to do another run on the pattern). I happened to be one of the people who got backlogged waiting, but am so glad it finally arrived! Shay’s is made of with two gorgeous batik prints. One is a bit more subtle than the other but complement each other well.

I made a vintage fabric- inspired version for A as well:

Front view with vintage buttons

Back view

Product testing

I made something for me after finding some lovely fuschia organic cotton jersey at my last Fabricana trip. I used the “Yard Sale Wrap Skirt” pattern from the Heather Ross Weekend Sewing book and really was not impressed. I’m not going to dwell on patterns, because I hate them. I hate following instructions. However, if I am going to take the time to sit,read and learn, the pattern better be made properly. The “wrap” was ditched in favour of a seam. I kept the tie waistband and made the skirt more of a faux-wrap. I liked this fabric because I didn’t have to finish the edges. It’s the first time I’ve worked with jersey and I don’t really want to work with it again. I really like quilting cotton and wool felt the best.

Love the feel of this- very swingy

Next up:

It’s A’s birthday in a few weeks and I’ll need to start thinking about making some birthday treats. Capes? Felted food? Not sure, yet.

I will have a lot of time this summer. I’m looking forward to getting a break from work. It will be nice to comb the beaches and waterparks with A. Ah summer. It can’t get here fast enough!