Obsessed

I've been a little obsessed with this fabric combo lately. Denim chambray (Joann's) and red polka dots. (Dottie by Moda).

Last week I made another Noodlehead fabric basket for my sister in law and new nephew (who arrived on earth today!!).

I loved how it turned out. They are so fun to make. And this one didn't take too long to make either. Maybe 3-4ish hours over the course of the week? Mostly cutting and ironing, it seems.

The combo turned out so great I even decided to use it again this weekend for a little 1st birthday dress for our friends daughter.

It's based off of the Made by Rae geranium pattern. I just used the newborn pattern and self-drafted a 12 month sized based off of one of Mia's dresses. Once 20-month Mia outgrows her bazillion 12-18month old dresses, I'll probably buy the geranium pattern since I'd like to have the different sizes and sleeve options. How do you do a sleeve in a lined bodice?!? Agh?! Although it is fun making my own patterns--for free!

Anyways...I screwed up the button in the back pretty bad on this one. So someone else needs to have a baby girl so I can redeem myself a bit. Or Mia can just finally move on to a 2T already. She has zero dresses in 2T...hmmmm. Just realized that.

So moving on....I ended up jealous that I gifted away all the cute chambray and polka dots. So sometime during my 3am pregnancy insomnia this week, I decided I needed to make a little zipper pouch using the same fabrics. Thank gosh for Pinterest! I'm not sure what else I would do between the hours of 2am and 4am (oh and PS, 4am is a terrible time to finally fall back asleep when you wake up around 5:20am. Makes for a terribly groggy morning). Anyways...sorry to all my Pinterest friends for the millions of sewing related pins! Oops!

So here's that little zippered bag. I need to buy more cute zippers and make more.

I should probably take the time to take better pictures of the things I make. And trim all my stray threads, too.

Oh well.

I used a few different tutorials to briefly figure out the zipper. It's easy. Every sewing blogger on the planet seems to have a zippered pouch tutorial. So thank you for that!

I quickly put this pouch to good use too, holding little things I might need at the hospital when baby Henry arrives. Nursing pads, Chapstick, hair ties, bobby pins. That sort of stuff.

Now...to make a hospital bag. Guys. I'm getting a little carried away. I've got this duffle that I want to make and a shopping cart full of fabric on fabric.com. Luckily, the little dude will probably arrive before I spend all his budgeted baby fund money on fabric...

Any ideas on how to fund my sewing addiction?!

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Little Henry's Nursery Loft

Over Winter Break we finally had time to convert our tiny upstairs loft into a mini nursery for our little guy. Amelia of course uses this space too for diaper changes and playing.

We really like how it turned out.

And for a pretty small nonexistent budget I think I did a good job of keeping to the theme/colors I wanted (mint, neutrals, yellow or a soft orange, natural wood and a contrast with some black). We painted the walls Dolphin Fin (Behr)....it's a little lighter and bluer than I wanted, but it changed the atmosphere of the room enough. And we repainted Amelia's changing table a nice minty green color (Mountain Mist - Behr).

[Etsy Mountain print] [Etsy Giraffe print]

[DIY changing pad cover...w/ a tutorial like this]

[Ikea Crib + Mattress]

[DIY sheet - tutorial]

Dan and my mom found this antique rocking chair at a local antique shop last year. Dan painted it yellow a while back and it's moved throughout our house. I made new envelope pillowcase covers (like these) to fit into the loft. I LOVE love the Michael Miller Bridgetown fabric. It showcases bridges here in Portland. I bought the fabric when Dan surprised me and took me to Cool Cottons, a really nice fabric store here in Portland for my birthday. It was so fun to pick out fancy fabric and I'm glad I finally found a good use for it! The changing pad cover and the fabric basket below also used fabric I bought then. Can't remember what the orange material is and I'm too lazy to look up the sciencey material....but the neutral linen is a Robert Kaufman Essex yarn dyed linen in flax. If I had an unlimited budget, I would buy yards of this linen in every shade!

Above is one of my favorite things I've EVER made! I bought a noodlehead pattern for this fabric basket and it was sooo fun and easy to make! I love it. For now it holds Henry's hospital clothes and other miscellaneous baby items we might need.

I so love this chemistry material that I used to line the basket!

And I think this will be his going home outfit, if it fits! We found it at Target and it was too cute to resist!

I also somehow managed to make a fitted bassinet liner all on my own! Dan used this bassinet when he was a baby and we are so happy to have it! Amelia used it in our bedroom too and it worked out great!

We really can't wait to meet this little dude!

It's been fun and exhausting celebrating him and giving him a special place in the house. I have a few other things that I made too, like a swaddle pouch, baby pants, and some fitted diapers. Plus, I've still got a couple things I'd like to make before he gets here...like a simple but soft baby blanket, and jazz up some baby things we already have (like burp cloths, etc).

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Homemade swaddle wraps

Somehow I've managed to continue my crafting ADHD and squeezed in making these lovely little swaddle wrap blankets on a snow day. I've been eyeing up gauzy swaddlers like these from Aden + Anais, but I'm not about to spend $50 on them! Thankfully, one of my favorite blogs, inspired me to simply make my own!

I really like how they turned out. I found the coral pink color on clearance at Joann's and then hand dyed the purple one from white. I also dyed a lot of other hand-me-down baby clothes that friends have given us. It was a pretty relaxing, but productive day!

Here's the growing baby bump at 30 weeks! :)

Read More

Antique chair

Dan found this awesome antique chair for $50 a month or so ago. It's super comfy, but I just had to do something about the yellow fabric. 

The retro yellow plush is actually pretty cool. But the old, musty factor of an antique fabric kinda creeped me out. Especially with a newborn. 

So I decided to make some easy slip covers in a similar yellow patterned fabric. This is so easy to do with elastic! 

Now it's sitting in the nursery, ready for calming a crying baby girl (or mom!) and late night feedings. :)

Read More

Nursery projects

Each weekend I've been slowly working on a few nursery projects. It seems like I've done a lot, but looking back at pictures, it's not too much. 

All I have left to do is find baskets for holding clothes, spray paint picture frames, decide on pictures/art and any other wall decorations. I also need to find a lamp.

Coral Ruffle for a grey bedskirt ($3 @ thrift store)

Changing pad cover (~$6 fabric) + changing pad (~$25)
You can also see the grey color that we used to re-purpose a piece of furniture. More on that later...

Ruched onesies. I think I'm going to dye this, possibly tiedye?

I'm trying my hardest to stay a way from pink, but it keeps showing up EVERYWHERE!
I guess that's what having a girl is going to be like....

Read More

Envelope Pillows

Every time I go to Joann's or Fabric Depot, I ALWAYS come out with way more fabric than I intended. This weekend, a lot of Joann's fabric was 40-50% off.

Heaven!

I went in looking for fabric for the little peasant dress I made, but also found quite a few yards of fabric to re-do our living room pillows (since we painted the grey stripes, we HAD TO do the pillows too, right?). Time (...and Lily!) had really destroyed some of our older pillows. Our silky purple pillows, are actually nice down feather pillows, but I'm totally sick of the silk purple fabric.

So I took off the cases and made the easiest thing on the face of the planet to sew....envelope pillow cases.

It was beyond easy.







I basically already knew what I wanted to do, but I used this blog to reassure myself.

I only made 2 for now, but I'll likely make a couple more. Plus, I've got plans for a few small pillows in the baby's room.

Read More

Tote Bag

This week has been a week of mini projects. Dan and I both got on a sewing kick (yes, my husband sews...probably better than myself).

I'm pretty proud that I quickly found this fabric and I wasn't too indecisive with my decision to make this cute tote bag. It did take me about 5 hrs, which is far longer than it should have. But I haven't sewn since I made these curtains in February. Most of that time was spent yelling at my sewing machine or trying to figure out how to sew the lining/strap in. I used a tutorial/pattern from a fun sewing website called thimble. The pocket was also super easy and based off of this.

I love the silky teal blue liner. 

I plan to make another small version of the bag (it's actually quite big!) and move my pocket up higher (it is a little low for my liking). I'm hoping it will only take 2-3 hrs next time.

The total cost was probably ~$10-$12.

Read More

Crafty weekend(plural)...

Maybe if I make a virtual commitment to doing something productive on weekends...I will ACTUALLY do something productive?!? Last weekend I finally got my act together and made curtains for our bedroom and kitchen sink window. It was about time I stopped walking in front of my bedroom window completely naked...I mean...we have neighbors now!!! :) Geesh.

Last weekend:

Dan dyed his coat a darker shade of blue/black, so we experimented by throwing in a bunch of old shirts we don't really enjoy. Now we have a few new shades in our wardrobe! This definitely needs to be continued with new colors/new fabrics on future weekends.

Just a new little flowery spring piece I added by the window.

Fabric for the kitchen.

crappy lighting, but bright, colorful kitchen curtains!

fabric for closet window

the lighting is pretty bad in this shot, but we have smaller sized windows in the hallway of our bedroom, so we needed little curtains to give us some privacy (=no more window nakedness).

The curtains didn't take long to make. I had a lot of fun and spent a good portion of saturday afternoon working on them. By the end I could do one panel in less than 30 minutes.

 sewing in a straight line = easy

The major time-consumer was ironing to perfection. :) 

Sewing< 10minutes.

So here is my list for this weekend and the weekends to come:

• Make matching curtains for other kitchen window.
• Buy roman shade for living room window.
• Shop for and prep these delicious desserts from Martha Stewart for Valentine's day yummy!

• decide what photos need to be enlarged for bedroom/living room walls. pick out frames. choose a fun design from a pinterest pin.
• try planting my flower bulbs (yes. i know. they are supposed to be planted in the fall. i get it. but it doesn't hurt to try. they will be useless next fall anyways. dang.)
• paint wall shelves antique white. put shelves up in guest bedroom.
• decorate shelves.
• figure out the bookcase situation upstairs. current state = disaster.
• organize outside closet boxes (HAHAHA...okay I won't actually do this...EVER. even though i really need to. i'll save it for an absolutely boring summer day when there is literally nothing better to do.)
• make more lists of things to do. i'm pretty sure this is a small portion of what really needs to be done.

Read More