Week 12b: Baby Headbands

I thought to accompany the baby pacifiers, I would make some fun headbands for Lisa's baby girl.  I initially thought I would only use fabric scraps that I had, but I did find a 3 pack of colored elastic hairbands at the store for that were only $1, so I did end up buying those to use.

I started by cutting out 8 circles of the same type of fabric that were the same size, and a small square (to serve as the bottom of the flower): 

Then I folded each circle over 2 times, and used a glue gun to glue each one to the bottom square so there were 4 "petals".  I repeated it for a second layer and glued this layer so the sides of each petal fell in the middle of the first layer petal.  

I cut two smaller circles of some leftover pink tulle,  folded them over 1 time, and glued to the top. Then I topped off the flower by hot-gluing a button in the middle of the petal.  I also cut and re-glued the elastic headband to better fit a baby's head (15 inches instead of 16).  Here is what the first finished headband looked like! 

I created the next headband flower the same way, but made a fabric headband in a complementary material and sewed a 3 inch strip of elastic to each side of fabric so the headband would have a little give. 

For the last headband, I used one of the elastic headbands from the 3 pack, and I created felt flowers in the same manner as described in my Week 1 post.  I then glued the flowers to a piece of red felt, then cut the felt around the shape of the flowers and glued the flower bunch to the headband.  Now baby girl can have a red, white, and blue headband to wear for Memorial Day, 4th of July, or just for fun this summer! 

  

After I glued the flowers on, I did have an afterthought that it might have looked better if they were all in a row, but I guess I'll have to try that for someone else another time.  

Now my friend's baby will be styling with her new homemade things!

Week 12a: Baby Girl Pacifier Clips

This week I wanted to make some fun pacifier clips for my friend Lisa's baby girl due this spring.  I started by buying some pacifiers she included on her baby registry and got to it!

Instead of using ribbon to make the clips as I described in my Week 6 post, I wanted to use up some of my fabric scraps so I made the clips using fabric.  It was nice because I already had the ironing board fasteners (aka clips I'm using) and the thin elastic.  So this didn't require any trips to the craft store :) Also, when I dug through my fabric it forced me to take all scraps out of and re-organize my tupperware bins full of fabric scraps.

I cut the fabrics in varying lengths and sewed a 1/4 seam allowance to each of the ends.  Then I folded the fabric in half and sewed the fabric together so the "right side" of the fabric was facing each other, and sewed one of the ends together.  I cut the extra fabric off and used a safety pin and a pen to get the fabric tube turned the "right way", then ironed flat so the seam was in the back.  I cut the elastic to a desired length and inserted in into the "open" part of the fabric tube, then sewed the tube shut.   You can find other instructions I loosely followed here and here.

Four might have been a little much, but I thought the more the better :)   And now the baby won't lose her pacifier in the car or at day care!

Week 11: A Quilt for Ceci

As I mentioned in my post where I made a quilt for my friend Ann's baby Josie, I made a couple of crib sized quilts for my twin nieces Lucy and Bett for Christmas.  I intended at the time to make a quilt for their older sister, my niece Ceci, but unfortunately with all of the Christmas gifts I sewed this year I didn't get one made by Christmas.  Ceci's 3rd birthday is in May, so I thought a quilt would make for a nice birthday gift.  Even though she sleeps in a double bed, I figured I would still make a crib sized quilt that she could keep in her playroom or to cuddle up with while watching a movie or something.

I knew her bedroom had teal, lime green, and pink in it, so I wanted make something with those colors in it.  I fell in love with this brightly-colored peacock fabric and knew I wanted to use it for the back of the quilt, so I tried to find other complimentary fabrics for the quilt squares.  I started with 9 cuts of 1/8 yard fabric to cut into squares, 1 cut of 3/8 yard for the border, 1 cut of 1/4 yard for the binding or edging, and 1 1/4 yards fabric for the backing.

I first ironed all fabric to get the wrinkles out and used my rotary cutter, quilting ruler and cutting mat to cut the following: 

• 1/8 yard fabric into 9 total 4 1/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch squares.  An tip to save on time is to fold the fabric and cut multiple squares at once :) 
• 3/8 yard of fabric into 3 1/2 inch wide strips (measuring 42 inches long or whatever the length of the fabric is)
• 1/4 yard of fabric into 2 1/2 inch wide strips (measuring the length of the fabric). 

Before I start sewing the squares together, I like to lay everything out to determine how things will look.  I try (and don't always succeed) to not place any two of the same colors next to each other and try to have each of the 9 fabrics appear in any row/column only 1 time, although that tends to get pretty tricky to make work when I get to laying out the last few rows of squares.  This is all of the cut fabric laid out:

Next I make 9 piles of fabric, one for each row, and keep them in the same order that I want to sew them together. I usually label each pile with a post-it-note and the number 1-9 to keep them straight.  Next I start sewing!  By now I've made the quilts so many times that I don't need to look at the tutorial I religiously followed for the first couple of quilts I made found here:  http://www.diaryofaquilter.com/p/beginning-quilting-series.html 

Once the front was pieced together and the front, batting, and backing was pinned together using curved safety pins, I started sewing the 3 pieces together diagonally through each square and from the edge of the borders.  I don't mark where I sew these lines, but just feed the material so I sew through the corners of each of the squares.  It does get a bit tricky to make sure the backing material doesn't get bunched up, and it can be a little difficult to sew the lines in the center of the quilt due to so much fabric needing to be curled up against the machine but it is easy to do if you can sew a straight line!  

When I finished sewing parallel lines through the squares, I iron the quilt again and use the cutting mat, quilting ruler, and rotary cutter to cut off the remainder of the of batting and backing. 

Next, I sew the 4 strips that I cut for the binding or edging together in 1 long straight line and the fold in half so both sides are the "right side" of the fabric.  I then pin the binding to the back of the quilt (described in detail here) and start sewing.  Once the binding is sewed to the back of the quilt, I flip it up, iron over to the front, and pin it to the front of the quilt.

Now for the easy part! I sewed the binding to the front using a 1/4 inch seam allowance (mainly just following the edge of the binding) and I am finished! Well almost, I usually give it one more good ironing, cut any stray threads, and lint roll the whole thing.  

Lastly, I look back and admire the final product!  And hope that Ceci will love the fun fabric as much as I did :) 

It will be hard to wait until the end of May for Ceci's birthday to give this to her!  

Week 10: Dining Room Curtains

When I repainted the dining room, I knew I wanted to keep the same style of curtains the previous owners implemented:  half curtains that were attached to a wire line using metal clips.  However, I did not like the orange curtains with green paint look as much as they did, and I definitely did not like the orange curtains against my newly-painted "cumberland fog" blue dining room.  Take a look and see if you agree with me!

Previous green dining room with orange curtains:

Current light blue dining room with orange curtains:

Initially I thought I wanted some sort of print for the curtains, but Jake was somewhat firm when he said he wanted a more neutral color for the curtains.  Which after some thought, I agreed with him and figured if I want to do something crazy I can always use some fun fabric when/if I recover the dining room chair seats.  I did get Jake to meet me in the middle and let me get a neutral colored fabric that had a design within the same color, so at least there would be a little pizazz to the curtains.

I looked at about every home decor and special occasion fabric at Jo-Ann's and Hobby Lobby and could not find any fabric I liked that a) was a shade of cream/ivory to complement the paint color, b) was a reasonable price, and c) had an interesting design to it.  I felt very discouraged after spending about 2 hours looking at fabric at Jo-Ann's and not liking any of it!

The next day I was at Target and figured I had nothing to lose by scouring their curtains aisle and basically wandering around aimlessly (as I do most of the time when I go to Target and don't have a timetable).  I came across these curtains on one of the aisle end-caps on clearance for $5.98 per curtain:

They were 54" wide and 84" tall.  What I needed were 5 curtains that are 46" wide and 28" tall.  So I had to get two packages.  At first I only found one package, but after some digging I found another one buried under a bunch of other random things on clearance.  There were a few good things about buying these curtains: 1) They were way cheaper than purchasing 4 yards of fabric, even if the fabric was on sale for $5/yard.  2) I could return them if the color didn't look good and wouldn't be stuck with a cut of fabric I regretted buying.  3) The material had a perfect transparency to it; transparent enough to let light in, but solid enough to not let everyone perfectly see into our dining room at night.

Once I got home I held the curtains up to the walls and to this wall hanging I fell in love with and purchased after repainting the dining room to ensure they complimented both (which they did):

Next I hung each up separately on the metal hooks to see if Jake and I liked the way they looked. I then had to start seam-ripping the seams out on both the top and bottom because I needed the entire 84" of fabric for making 3 curtains (28" height x 3 = 84") and 46" width.  Here's a picture of the tedious seam-ripping. Luckily it didn't take too long once I started going.  

Once I seam ripped the top and bottom seams of both curtains, I got out my trusty iron and started ironing away:

Finally I was ready to start cutting!  Which was actually the hardest and most time consuming part of making these curtains.  Because the material was fairly flimsy, stretchy, and had a noticeable large print design to it, I couldn't fold it and use my rotary cutter/cutting mat/large ruler like I usually do to cut fabric.  Instead I had to lay each curtain out on my bed on top of one another and match up the designs.  I had to cut the side hem off of one to get it to match up to the other curtain, and then had to constantly match up the curtains to cut a 46" width.  I used my tape measure to make the 28" cuts, but had to be pretty accurate since I had no wiggle-room for errors as I needed to use the entire 84" of the one curtain to make 3 small curtains out of.  I will say it was probably the most shoddy-looking cutting job I've done, but I did get the designs to match up on all 5 curtains so I was pretty happy about that!

Next I hung the curtains with raw edges on the hooks in the dining room to see how much room I had for the hems of each one:

I figured out I had more than enough room to do a 1/4 or 1/2 inch hem, so I started ironing and pinning a hem over. I thought I might end up a little short on fabric if I folded the fabric over two times and pinned before I hemmed it instead of once, so if I had enough fabric to do two folds then sew I would do that so no raw edge showed in the back.  I'm thinking no one will notice but when I wash them they edges in the back will probably fray pretty easily.

I ironed over each side, pinned, then ironed again before sewing.

When I sewed the hems, I sewed from the right-side of the fabric so the top-stitch would be seen instead of the bottom stitch.

There was only 2 instances where I didn't fold over the fabric far enough to stitch through the top fabric and the folded over fabric.  In one instance, I realized it pretty soon after I missed sewing the folded over fabric, so I seam-ripped a good 4 inches and restitched the two pieces of fabric together.  In the other instance, I had to hand sew a few stitches and made sure to iron the fold really well in the space I missed. 

After I sewed all of the sides of each curtain I was finally able to put them up and admire how great they turned out!  Finally, the green and orange are out of the dining room for good!

Oh, and I do have to say that another highlight of the week was when Jake unexpectedly brought me some flowers home from the store.   They do look quite nice up close and on the dining room table :)

Rachel

Week 9b: Hanging of the Coat Rack and Completed Hallway Redo!

You might think that it doesn't sound too difficult to hang a coat rack, but I've never really had to hang anything that would hold heavy items so I had to do some research regarding what would be the best way to hang a coat rack.

Let me preface this post-earlier this fall I found a really nice and sturdy coat rack that Jake's grandpa made in his woodshop.  I painted that a light cream color and wanted to hang it in our hallway (when it was still yellow).  Via google and some discussions with helpful guys working at the local hardware store, I learned that when you have plaster walls and not drywall like we do, to hang heavy objects you need to use a drill and toggle bolts to secure the heavy object to the wall.  The guys suggested I find the studs in our walls and drill/screw the toggle bolts directly into studs so it doesn't rip out the plaster walls.  To me they made it seem do-able, but when I went home and used the stud finder I had some difficulty finding the frames in the same distance as the holes in the back of the coat rack.  When all was said and done I figured that the coat rack didn't cost me anything, so I would keep it for some potential future use and start looking for something different.

Not too long after I decided to go with a dark teal and ivory theme in the hallway, I found a really fitting coat rack on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  I also like that it was a little older looking and thought it would look good at my house.

I made another trip to the hardware store (and brought my new coat rack) to get some appropriate sized toggle bolts to hang the coat rack.  This one was much lighter in weight (5 lbs vs. 15 lbs), and only needed 2 bolts to hold it to the wall.  I bought some bolts and washers and home I went!

I first started by measuring where I wanted my holes and by drilling a hole in the wall:

 Unfortunately I only could find a 1/4" drill bit but needed 1/2".  So I basically had to just move the drill around a lot to get the right sized hole I needed.

Next I slide the toggle bolt and fastener (probably not the right term) with the washer through the hole until the backing clicked and folded up against the back side of the plaster wall:

 I repeated this on the other side the same distance away from where the holes are on the back of the coat rack.  I was really hoping that the measurements added up so I didn't have multiple holes in the walls!

It took some struggling (and a few choice words) to get each screw to match up with the holes of the coat rack, but I finally got the coat rack mounted and was really happy that a) it didn't fall down in 10 seconds, and b) it was actually straight when I tested it with the level.

Here's a picture of the mounted rack:

I was nervous but figured I should test out the durability so I hung up a light coat and my somewhat heavy purse and was shocked when it didn't come crashing down :)

Now my hallway transformation is complete!  Here's some before shots of the prior owners's decor and some pictures of how it looks now:

 The pictures I took make the hall look a little more narrow than it actually is.  I have to say it is rare that my projects turn out 100% how I want them to but this hallway makeover actually went as planned!

Rachel

Week 9a: Hallway Photo Gallery

I wanted to finish hanging things in the hallway since the hallway looked a little bare with just the mirror and frames hung by the doorway (detailed in Week 8 post).  One of my maids of honor got Jake and I this nice frame that spells out our last name for a wedding gift, and since I'd yet to find a good place for it in our new house I knew I wanted to hang it in the downstairs hallway.

Here's a picture of the frame:

I was at Home Goods a few weeks ago and saw a black 7 piece picture frame set for $30 that I almost bought, but thought I'd wait to buy anything until I decided what frame layout I wanted to put up.  Then the other day I was at Dollar Tree, yes I said Dollar Tree, as I love buying greeting cards and holiday decor there since everything is $1.  They had a wide assortment of black picture frames so I thought I would buy some to use in the hallway.

I decided on two 5x7's, two 4x6's, and 2 double 4x6 frames:

I already had an 8x10 black frame sitting in a box downstairs, so I decided to make that frame the center and build out from there. I laid out the frames on the table, but it is usually easier for me to visualize things on the walls, so I cut out paper in the shape of each frame and taped to the wall to see how I wanted the gallery arranged:

Next I started going through pictures.  I was initially going to do photos of both Jake and my families, but I decided I wanted to hang some pictures here of just Jake, me, and our dog Harley, in addition to some scenic pictures I'd taken.

When I went to pick up my pictures at Walgreens, ink was splattered on some of the photos so I had to wait while they reprinted them.  Side note: one thing I've learned from getting pictures printed from anywhere is to look at the pictures while there and always count the number I wanted printed to make sure they a) print the right number and b) don't chop off people's heads or c) get ink splattered on them.  I've learned by bad past experiences!  So in my down time I wandered around the store and came across this little frames on clearance for $2.50:

I thought these little guys would be a good addition to my gallery!  All I'd have to do is apply a little acrylic paint to make them match the hall decor.  First I laid all the frames out on my countertop along with the pictures to see what order looked good.  Then I hung all the frames on the wall using my guides (I did add some templates for the little frames).  I used the 3M photo hanging strips to hang the frames and ended up with this:

I didn't want all pictures the bright and normal print so I faded the color using iPhoto for all of the pictures I printed.  I decided on pictures of Jake and I from some vacations, and 4x6 scenic pictures taken in Kansas City and Minneapolis since those are the two cities we've lived in since we've been together.   The smaller photos were flowers from our house in Minneapolis and some flowers I snapped during our vacation in NYC at Central Park.  Of course I had to print a couple of Jake and Harley cuddled up since he (and I) love the little mutt so much :)

After liking the layout of the pictures, I needed to paint the small frames the same color.  At first I was thinking black, but then I decided white might look like a nice contrast (and required me to paint fewer frames), so I started painting the two that were black and red using white acrylic paint:

I was quite pleased with the final look!

Next, all I need is to hang up my coat rack and the front hall will be complete!

Rachel