i {MADE} something! :)

Wow so I actually sat myself down and followed instructions and made myself something. :)

I have decided I really want to improve my sewing skills, and learn to quilt as well. I have sort of a goal to do this just so I can get better, and also when someday I do have kiddo’s, I will already be decent at making things lol.

It’s been a while since I actually threw anything together. I’ve got plans for baby stuff and what not, but I haven’t actually put all the things together yet.  Well, I used some leftover fabric and some new fabric and made myself a camera strap!

It just fits over my regular one for my digital SLR camera. It’s got some mistakes but that’s okay-next time I can fix those :). overall I am happy that I finished it, and that it turned out cute, and that it is functional!  Not quite 'gift’ quality, but I’m much closer to that now.

If you can’t tell, the front is gathered, covered with 2 ribbons down the center, and backed with a padded damask material.

After this picture I actually took it back off, fixed a few things, and ironed it flat. It looks better now. Maybe I should take another picture?

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So for my sewing machine I recently purchased 2 new accessories. I got a walking foot and a free hand quilting foot. I have played with them both and think they will both be great. I actually used the walking foot to help me with the gathered fabric on this project today. The quilting foot will take some practice before I’d use it on a ‘real’ project, but I think I can get the hang of it and enjoy it.

drought

That’s about the only word I can think of to describe my craftiness of late.

In July Josh’s mom Jackie was able to come and spend a few days with us. That got me the motivation to turn a messy storage room into a guest room. I sorted through boxes, got rid of stuff, put stuff away, and moved storage elsewhere. We got a queen bed, got a frame, and put it in there. I found a tiny dresser and night stand at Goodwill. I also found a little ugly lamp there too. Okay-it was all ugly lol. We moved things around to make stuff fit-the new stuff along with a tall fan-that room just likes to be hotter in the summer than the rest of the house-a bookshelf, and a gun safe. Magically it’s all in there somehow. I  totally scored at walmart finding a pretty comforter set on sale and sheets for the room. It just happened to match the existing window treatments and even the paint on the tiny dresser. I also found a small old mirror to top the tiny dresser and a little basket from another 2nd hand store. I painted the night stand and lamp and dressed the lamp and basket up with some ribbon and scrapbooking flowers. All I had left was something I wanted to hang on the wall, which I finally have finished on the computer but haven’t sent to be printed or purchased frames. Oops.

The room was a total transformation and served its purpose well. Now it’s just a spare bedroom with the occasional pile of stuff on the bed. I haven’t taken any pictures-so I will try to do that.

That was my big craft project of the summer. All I’ve been doing is working and working and working. Time off is spend with Josh on his adventures or catching up on much needed rest.

The garden has pretty much all died except for some peppers in pots on the deck.  Too bad we have to do the work to prepare it for next year! lol.

I have started a new project-painting the deck. It looked horrible. All the paint has chipped and faded. Yes, paint. The previous owners painted it red. Then the sort of repainted it when we moved in-with really crappy paint. Hopefully the paint I got-specific for this-will last a bit better. I’ve painted a lot but still have a lot left to go. I haven’t had any whole days to devote to only painting the deck-and some of my planned painting days turned into rain days. I’m working on it though! And when I’m done it’s going to look great. It already looks so much better even though its a mess.

Next is…yes..finishing that curtain project. That same ol’ one. It’s so nearly done. I don’t know why I haven’t finished it. I guess just all those other little things have come first, like work, school, cooking dinner, etc. lol. But I will do it before I start my next sewing project-which I am totally ready to start-so that is my new motivation.

After the curtain, I am going to make some baby stuff. A girl at work is having a baby boy in February and I have planned a few things to make for her. I’ve already scouted out the instructions, made the plans, and purchased the fabric and supplies. BUT I cannot start cutting and sewing until that curtain is done-so guess what i’ll be doing soon!

Don’t worry-I’ll tell you about the baby stuff-later. :) It will be fun (hopefully) and cute! (also hopefully!)

slacker

My spare moments have lately been going to school work and gardening! I miss my craft stuff though…

I have some plans…next is to just find the time! I need to get back into some sort of routine and get some stuff done so I feel like I can take time for crafty creativity…

THINGS TO DO FIRST:
* Finish cleaning up spare room
* Do some all around spring cleaning: closets, cupboards, shelves etc.
* Clean up/organize my office
* Tear down some old wallpaper!

THINGS I WANT TO MAKE:
* Finish the last details on that one kitchen curtain-and possibly add a couple fun ideas to all of them I’ve thought of since making them…
* Make some front room curtains
* Make something for bedroom windows-ours and guest
* Make something for livingroom windows
* Make myself a small camera case for my little purse camera!
* repair a pair of josh’s shorts..they have a hole
* choose some fun ideas from other crafty blogs or previous posts!

Well I’ve got lots of ideas and chores to keep me busy…gotta find the time! Any tips?

Table Re-Do

So I have a friend from high school living in Idaho named Serenity. After getting married her and her husband Matt couldn’t decide on a dining table-they knew what they wanted but didn’t want to pay the $$ for it. I know exactly how they feel!! Well the waiting paid off when a friend recently gave them their old table . No one really wants an ‘old’ table so they made it their own and gave it ‘new’ life! Instead of just staining it or painting it-but they took the creative side and to match their own tastes and wants turned it into their own vinyl covered diner table!

HERE is a link to the post. Didn’t it turn out cute?

PiLLoWS :)

So I have some new curtain fabric for the front room. I am dying to use it, but I have to remember-one project at a time! I can’t start another ‘till I finish my bay window curtains. I work a tiny bit on them every day-or nearly every day. (Even if my tiny bit of work just includes stopping at the hardware store to pick up supplies). Well, my plan that goes with those front room curtains is making some matching pillows for the couch & loveseat…

Happened upon THIS amazing blog. This wife and mom has some talent and a zillion projects she’s done to browse through…

I’ve always loved these kind of pillows but they are pricy! So I knew I just would plan to make my own and they’d probably just be a regular ordinary boring piece of fabric. WELL…now I know how to mix it up and I can’t wait to get to that future project!!! Check out this pillow slipcover she made for her house…

This way of sewing ruffles is giving me all kinds of fun ideas :)

AND I also love her simple wall hangings…super cute!

And a whole bunch of her other stuff.  Last but not least I’ll show you the wipes and diaper cases she made. I don’t have any kiddo’s-but someday I can put this to use. Until then maybe they’d make good gifts?

Hope you enjoy browsing her blog as much as I have.

I admire people who take the time to photograph each step of their project and write instructions out for the rest of us. Just doing my little projects I’ve discovered that taking pics of each step is kind of annoying!! It takes up time to set it all nicely, get the layout to include the right tools, and edit out the messy background parts of my project perimeter. THANK YOU to all those talented crafty people who take the time to make all your fantastic tutorials for people like me-that don’t have a clue as to what they are doing :)

IF anyone is bothering to read my ramblings on here: Do you have any favorite websites for crafty inspirations? What kind of things have you made? What was your favorite project? What is your dream project or what do you want to make next?
Please post a comment!! Thanks :)

Things I wanna make…

So this is a neat idea I found at  http://www.flythroughourwindow.com … For most people this is a dish mat to put on the counter when unloading the dishwasher-for those dishes that just didn’t get dry yet. For ME (who washes the dishes by hand) this would replace my dish towel that I set down next to my dish rack when doing dishes-because the rack doesn’t hold all the dishes I’m washing. It’s super cute and I might just have to see about making one for me in the near future :)

You can see the tutorial HERE on the website

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I’ve already shown something I found from

  Classic Campbell

but here’s another cute thing…  If I had someone to throw a baby shower-I would probably be making these!!!

Aren’t they cute! They are party invitations enclosed in little diapers.  A simple and fun idea! She explains how she made them HERE on her blogpost

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Now back to the current project which I can hopefully post soon!! I’m making roman shades for my kitchen bay window-and they’re slowly coming along! Last night I marked out all the places for the rings on the back-and sewed all the rings on one of the three curtains. Now I just need to finish sewing them on the other two-and get the hardware to hang and then hang them! Yay!

My 1st Baby Blanket!

Okay so I went all out on this one (sort of) and made a quilt-batting and tied it too!  Went to the fabric store (good ol’ Joann’s) and bought 2 pieces of matching flannel, batting, yarn, thread, needles, bobbins, and whatever else I needed.  I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the pattern on the flannel at first-but it was the best I could find there for a new little baby boy! After I got it all done though-I think it turned out cute.  I’ve never made any sort of blanket before. It took me probably twice as long as it should have but I learned a lot and and happy with the overall result. Just don’t look too closely at it Molly-because it is very homemade and far from perfect!

Things I’ve learned on this project:
* Buy enough fabric for all the batting! I wasted about 5” of batting because it was that much longer than the fabric. (Okay, so I’m putting it in my scraps just in case it has a future)
* I need to find a way to be able to cut the sides closer to 100% straight before sewing
* After I sew it-check for pins before turning, then check a 2nd time and even a 3rd!  Yes, I left a pin. I used the kind with really big round heads so I could easily find them. You can tell how well that worked. I didn’t find the pin until after I had sewn the hole together from flipping it, so the pin was stuck on the inside. I ended up taking the wire cutters and cutting the whole pin part off-leaving the giant round head inside. Oops! I’ll say its for luck.
* Don’t try to make my machine sew the hole shut after flipping…It was trying to sew through 4 layers of flannel and batting too. I unpicked a few stitches and untied a bunch of knots after that one. It was much easier to just hand stitch the hole closed…
* BE MORE CAREFUL about making sure my pretty boarder is STRAIGHT! Just don’t look too close :)
* I need a little rubber square like my mom had for gripping the quilting needle when tying the quilt. I finally made more use of the wire cutter/needle noses to assist me in pulling the needle through the fabric. Almost at the end though I gripped too close to the eye and broke my needle! Dang!
* As learned in the last part-when using pliers to grip the quilting needle-don’t grab the eye!!
* And make sure I have spare needles-good thing I got the  multi -package!
* my cheapo sewing scissors are sharper than I thought!  I have a missing chunk in my finger to prove it…which leads to the next thing I learned…
* Pay attention and be careful when trimming the yarn after I finish tying…It’s easy to about cut off my finger.
* And…make sure I have a few Band-Aids handy – we don’t want any of my blood on the blanket!!
* And finally-it’s never too early to start a baby blanket. Here I was thinking I had a couple weeks before the baby was coming and we find out today he’s probably going to be here this week! Hope she gets the blanket in time :)