Flannel Matching Game

A sweet little boy I know is turning one and tonight was his party. I had to spend a little time thinking about what to make him, handmade boy gifts are tough for me to come up with for some reason. While browsing pinterest & blogs I've seen a couple of really cute fabric match "memory" games. With that idea in mind I headed to my fabric stash to see what I had. I love buying cute flannel prints when Joann has a good sale and I recently added some great boy prints to my stash, which gave me a nice selection.

Once I pulled out all the patterns, I choose 6 of them. First I cut out the elephant and used that as the guideline size for all the others. (Mine ended up being about 4" x 2.5) I cut two matching pieces of each fabric.

I cut some batting just a little smaller than my flannel squares. I wanted the pieces to not be to floppy. I also cut 12 pieces of black flannel in the 4" by 2.5".

Then I sandwiched them all together and because I had batting that was fusible, I ironed each piece to help hold them in place while I sewed.

I opted to just sew a small zig zag all the way around, because I like the look of a rough/frayed edge. Then I trimmed each piece after they were sewn.

Think they turned out pretty cute. And best yet- they are washable! So when little Jack drools on them or plays with them using sticky fingers they can just get thrown in the wash. I see several more of these in my near future as a few other friends have babies turning one. :)

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DIY toddler dress forms

I have been on a hunt for two months or so for some way to display/photograph my tutu's in a more dimensional way. Since I don't have 24 hour access to any baby/toddler girls I have bought countless "roundish" things from St Vincent's and Goodwill and every time I got the item home and put a tutu on it I just didn't like how it looked. This past weekend I started browsing the internet for toddler size mannequin. Needless to say the most economical ones are still more than I want to spend and 2/3 of the cost is shipping!

A quick look on Pinterest for DIY dress forms came up with a lot ideas for using duct tape and an actual person to make a form. And while I do have a toddler boy around the house something makes me think he would not be still enough to make a duct tape shape of him! However I did see one link for a dress form pin cushion that gave me the idea that I could just try to sew my own form.

 First step was a trip to Walmart (love that it's less than 5 minutes from my house and mine carries by the yard material!) for some muslin (2 yards, 3.98). While I was there I also grabbed a bag of stuffing (3.96ish). I didn't need it, but I way overestimated how much I would use and didn't want to deplete my stash at home (definitely wouldn't have). I also ended up grabbing a 18 month onesie on sale for $1.50.

I laid out the muslin folding it in half twice. If it would've been a patterned piece of material I would have had right sides together... I traced half the onsie on (so I would be more likely to end up with mirrored sides) with a disappearing ink pen.

I cut it out while still folded and laid it out flat to pin.

I sewed it leaving about 3 inches open on the bottom, turned it right side out and stuffed it.

At this point I tried a onesie and tutu on it and got really excited, because even though it pretty much just looked like a slightly odd shaped pillow.... it worked almost as well as I wanted it to... now for a base... I happen to live like two blocks from a thrift store so off I went in search of a base. These are the two items I came home with...

For this first dress form I had to go with the glass vase because my bottom opening was not big enough. 

I was excited enough about how it turned out that I made another one up soon after the first. Since I followed no pattern the second one turned out slightly different of course. I left a big enough opening to fit the wooden candle holder in for a base and I actually opted to put some velcro on the hole to help secure it onto the candlestick. I have to go back and do that with the first one, because I like how it works. I can still take the body off the base if I want/need to do something different.

And the finished, dressed products! I think they will work quite well to display some tutus at my next craft show.

I usually party at: Crafty Scrappy Happy

Father's Day Take 1: Homebrew Subway Sign

Father's day is just around the corner (only 5 days away) and we have three Dad's to celebrate... well make that four dad's if you count my husband :). That makes for some fun times trying to figure out guy gifts.

 Guy gifts are HARD (at least for the guys in our families). Figuring out a CRAFTY guy gift?! REALLY HARD.

 Father's Day Project Number 1.

 Recipient: My hubby's step dad.

 Likes: Homebrewing. Football. Baseball.

Been there done that gifts: Craft Beers, homebrewing store gift certificates, football t-shirts, baseball t-shirts

When thinking about Father's Day gifts I started combing Pinterest and blogs for ideas The idea that began forming in my head as I browsed some projects/tutorials was some cool manly wall art with beer or homebrewing as it's subject. After some thought and input from the hubby, I decided on a homebrew subway style sign.

I started with a canvas from Michaels. My first thought was to stencil all the letters on. I quickly changed my mind on that, in part because the letter stencils I have were too big for the layout I wanted. So I headed back to Pinterest.

 I found a couple of posts using vinyl letters... putting them down on the canvas, painting over and then peeling the letters up. Only problem was, no vinyl letters in my house. Hmmm to go buy some or not...

I opted for not and thought maybe I could cut out all my letters, and glue them down with a glue that took awhile to set. I cut out two letters before I decided that was NOT going to happen even if it might work.

 My next idea was to see if the inkjet water transfer that I had read about for some wooden signs would work on the canvas. I tested it... and it seemed like it would work! First I had to alter my layout so I printed off the sheets and laid them on my canvas to see how it would look.

I also printed all the words off backwards. (I used Microsoft Word 2007... to do this you need to make all your words using WordArt, then while your WordArt is selected go to format, Rotate, Flip Horizontal.)  You will also need to print them off using and inkjet printer (I think this covers MOST- not all- home printers).

I cut out all my words separately so I didn't have to worry about shifting the paper too much. I laid my words face down on the canvas. Then I took a sponge brush and dampened it. For the first word, HOMEBREW, I tried to wet the whole word and then burnish it but learned it went smoother if I did one letter at a time.

  After I wet the letter I used my round handle end of my hole punch to rub over the letter to transfer the ink. After I transferred all the words, I took some really watered down black paint and did a little fill in.  You could also fill it in more solidly with undiluted black paint.


 I really like how it turned out- faded, old, vintage-ey.... And I was really excited that the water transfer worked, it meant no extra supplies I had to run out for and that is always a bonus!

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  Crafty Scrappy Happy