What's in a name

For Christmas this year a sweet 11 year old little girl with three brothers graced my list. I thought I would use Martha Stewart's idea for an ABC Pillow and take from being a 'child's gift' by adding in some pretty embellishments, including a hidden pocket for a journal.

To Infinity...and on to 12:00

My son had a little birthday to go to and his
little friend is a HUGE Buzz Lightyear fan,
since I knew everyone else would be buying him all the
cool Buzz gear you can get from the stores I wanted
to do something a little different so,
I decided we'd make him a B.L. watch.

I had a limited selection of colors for the felt so the colors
could have been better since he's really more white, green and purple,
but I think it really turned out well, considering.
I looked at Buzz pics online and tried to imitate as many
of his little features as I could.

Since this was quite a bit more involved and I wanted
to follow a theme I drew up a little plan of attack.
The final product wasn't too far from my original drawing either =)

Wallets of fun

For my nephew's birthday I wanted to give him some cash, since at 5 years old it's rather exciting to hold cash and get to pick out the toys you want from the store.

I didn't just want to throw $5 in a card though, so we made him a wallet to cleverly double as a gift and the gift's wrapping.

I think you could say he was one happy customer!

The Great Pumpkin....t-shirt

 

My sweet little one!

Spiders

 

 

 

 

As you can see we had a lot of fun!!

**A special thanks to my friend Shannon for the idea (though I would love to take credit, it's so cute after all), time, energy and supplies to do the craft! Not to mention the delicious soup!!

Hope? chest

My mother's old hope chest was quite without hope with the old worn and torn leather that sat atop it. So I decided to share a little hope and love and bought new wood and foam to refinish the top.
It turned out quite well I think...

I used the leftover fabric scrap I had from my yellow chair project!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Only Time Will Tell

FELT WATCHES TAKE II!

I tried my hand at felt watches once again, especially after I gave it to my 2 1/2 year old for testing...many flaws were released in the initial report and I do believe the 'NEW, IMPROVED!' product to be much much better! More importantly though, to be destroy proof...as much as any toy can be anyway.

Here was the first attempt. A grand attempt if I do say so myself since I left all my sewing stuff (and I mean ALL) at my sister's the night I started this little gem.

These would be Take II

I did two layers of felt instead of one which should help with the stretching as well as gave it a much prettier look since I did everything in layers so you couldn't see all the back stitching.

I used the machine to sew the velcro on for a cleaner and better hold.

I added the cute buttons seen in this post.

I also used DMC Floss (for cross stitching) instead of regular thread for all the detail work. I think it came out AWESOME. It made for a much cheaper option to bring in bright colors and because it's thicker it seemed to hold and show up better.

I ended up making them this time as birthday presents for an adorable Reduce, Reuse, Recycle party (to be posted about later)

Here's the 'girls' watch

and here's the 'boy' watch

My son was devastated I didn't make him one...guess I need to make a few more :)

On someone else's time...

I saw the cutest homemade child's watch on a great creative website, it was up as a giveaway, but seeing as I didn't win and that I loved it so much I decided to give it my best effort and make my son one.

Here's my what it turned out like:

It didn't turn out just like the other, but for a first try and with limited supplies I think it's a pretty darn good job. Not to mention, my son LOVES! it. He wouldn't even take it off at bedtime.

New Life

I wish that I was talented enough to show step by step with explanations of how I was able to recover this poor well loved chair (the well loving part came from my son in the form of a permanent blue marker and a friend of mine in the form of red punch). However, I'm only just starting out and all I have are the pictures as I went along.  I can say that there is a fabulous book that is great on explaining though!

Here's the fabric I bought from JoAnn's for 50% OFF :)

Hooray for sales!

There was A LOT of pinning to be done

Laying out...moving around...more pinning

Finally towards the end - stapling the fabric underneath.

Are you ready for it?

The final product...?

Well here it is!

Pretty darn good for a first try I would say.

Thanks Aunt B. for all the help - you are a magic sewing teacher!

A facelift

I took a special buffet I was given by my grandparents and gave it a bit of a facelift.

First I had to sand the whole thing and take the back off (to be re-upholstered later)

My base coat was a gray and my top coat was an ivory cream color.
I used a mini roller because I liked the smaller crackling that it makes.

I was doing a crackle coating so I went to Lowe's and bought weathered crackle.
Once I applied the crackle I waited a little more than an hour before applying my final coat.

My final coat was an ivory/cream color.

Once the painting was done I went to JoAnn's and searched high and low for the perfect fabric to change the backing. I found Jayda Bramble (now with the name Abril Spring).

Because it was not going to be against a wall I decided to do the backing on the back as well. I ended up using Aleene's OK to Wash-it fabric glue and attached it to itself. I attached one side completely to the wood with the fabric glue and then folded the second side over and began to attach fabric to fabric. I folded the fabric under to create a mock hem/finished edge.

It turned out quite well if I do say so myself...and I do!

The plates came from Khols. The Pitcher and birds came from Old Time Pottery and the basket came from JoAnn's (50% off too!)

I just loved the little birds.