book clutch -- part 2, sort of

A while ago Ashley and I began a three-part craft to make clutches from books.  The first part went pretty smoothly but then we were put on hold by her being in DC for the summer. 

Upon her return we attempted part 2, which was just to cut out the pages to form the cavity.  This seemed pretty straight forward. And I guess it is, but it's pretty time consuming...so after one attempt and a hundred or so pages cut, the books are on hold.  

Thin books make for thin clutches...but they would have been done by now.

xoxo

mini, helps

As mentioned, I've been behind on the crafting.  But, I've managed to do some mini projects:

I picked up some mini glass candle holders/planters/i-don't-know-but-they-were-cute/ things at some point and painted them using Martha's all-purpose craft paint in pink and gold.

I made more cards/postcards - these were with stamps and craft chalk.

I screen printed a shirt for the boy with  his home state of Arizona and a little cactus cut out around Phoenix. 

I sewed a utensil pouch to match my sandwich wrapper.  I keep a fork and spoon at the office, and now they have a nicer place to live than just in the drawer. and it's seersucker, so it's extra classy. 

i do love a mini project, finishing something in a couple of hours is so rewarding. 

keep crafting it up!

xoxo

quilt 2: in progress

I'm starting quilt number two and that's exciting, but it's also a little bittersweet.  

I'm making a t-shirt quilt from all of my wonderful Hendrix t-shirts.  What's Hendrix? Oh, just my super awesome college. It's tiny and in Arkansas, so it's likely you've never heard of it.  But it's great, and I had a pretty perfect college experience there.  

Hendrix is really big on the t-shirt, and making them for every event.  So not surprisingly, I have a pretty large collection -- around 30! 

They are very near and dear to my heart as they remind me of my wonderful time there.  However, they are t-shirts, which means they'll get old and need to be tossed at some point, and that will make me sad.  Also, many of them don't make sense to people outside the bubble and can come off as a little strange... so many just don't get worn at all anymore.  

So, I decided to preserve them in a quilt. 

It sounds great in theory, but it's a bit daunting, as any quilt is really.  

And it also means cutting up these sweet lovely things.  

But I know it's for the best.  

So the cutting has begun:

I'll keep you posted.

xoxo

book clutch -- part 1

Ashley found this DIY project to make a clutch out of a book! 

Of course, we had to do it.  

We are following Caught on a Whim's plan strictly, and have thus broken up the project into three steps

Here's how our part 1: covered book went:

We went to the used book store and picked out our books - I'm using a spanish-english dictionary and Ashley picked a bird book, adorable. 

We picked out our fabric - I'm using a colorful floral and Ashley is using a blue Marimekko from the pile of fabric Ben brought us back from his last trip to Finland (oh yeah, pretty awesome right?)

Step 1 is to cut out a piece of fabric with about an inch border around your book, like so:

Then, take some mod podge and a brush (we used the foam kind) and paint on an even layer over the cover of your book:

Carefully attach the fabric to the front, pressing it down securely.  Proceed with doing the same to the spine of the book, and then the back 

Next, open your front cover and paint some mod podge on the edge of the inside of the cover and fold over the fabric flap, pressing down to seal.  Proceed with the two remaining sides.  We folded the corners of fabric in half before gluing down the sides

We then did the same to the back cover so all you are left with are the spine flaps.  We put some wax paper between the covers and the book before continuing.  Then we put some mod podge on the fabric flaps and tucked them into the spine and pressed down until it stuck

And that's it! Let them dry before removing the wax paper and continuing onto the next steps.

1/3 done.

xoxo

our next venture

aprons.  

Shira had a birthday and Ashley had the great idea to make her an apron, and while we're at it, commission Megan to make some matching potholders! (Don't forget you can win your own pair!)

So we went to the store and picked out two fabrics - a yellow/grey floral and a black/white polka dot.

We didn't really have a pattern, we just looked at our favorite aprons (yes, we have a lot of aprons between the two of us) and went from there.

We cut a rectangle and sewed a folded hem around three sides, 

and then folded pleats at the top:

pinning as we went down the line:

Next we cut an 1-1/2 inch black grosgrain ribbon to be long enough to wrap around and tie a bow!

Then we sewed the ribbon to the pleated edge, centering it to leave equal tails on either end:

We then cut another square to be the top of the apron and sewed a folded hem around all sides and sewed it to the ribbon above the bottom piece:

We cut two more pieces of the ribbon to be the top ties and sewed those to the top of the apron:

Finally, we put the polka dot fabric to use in two ways. 

First, we cut two equal sized rectangles, sewed a folded hem all around, and then sewed three of the edges onto the bottom piece to form pockets.

We also cut a rectangle piece sized to cover the centered part of the ribbon 

(again we did a folded hem before sewing it on): 

Isn't it precious?  

Then we put Ashley in the apron as a test drive: 

And, Megan made the adorable matching potholders:

Sew Cute! 

(Ha! Get it?!)

Of course, Shira loved it all and is now ready to cook in matching style:

Ashley and I are thinking about making some more because we loved how it turned out.

xoxo

sweet hearts

it's time for a little love. so i made a valentine's garland to add some festive to the house.

I'm a big fan of felt garland because it's pretty much the easiest thing to make.

Just cut up some felt in your desired shapes and colors and then sew them together onto some embroidery thread or yarn.

I cut up hearts, birds, x's, and o's: 

I sewed the thread to the backside of my felt pieces in my preferred order:

And ta-da, my garland was complete: 

I made it a bit long so I pinned it up in three places to scallop it like so:

Now we have some sweet hearts in the place!

(hehe, get it?)

And yes, Ashley and I have already made all our valentine's this year, pictures on those after they've been received.

Hope you are crafting some of your own!

xoxo

stockings filled with cheer

No Christmas decor is complete without stockings.  So I had to make some for the Forum. 

I made one for myself, mike, megan, and jonathan.  Yes, it's true, the last two don't live with us, but we like them a lot.

I picked a red lightweight fleece (I think they call it baby fleece, or flannel...) with little white polka dots, and then a white and green linen for the trim and lining. 

I drew a stocking on cardboard and then drew a half-inch border around it and cut it out.  

Next I cut out all the necessary pieces.  This works out to be:

2 red cutouts per completed stocking, 

2 whites with an extra inch-and-a-half at the top, 

and 2 one-inch wide pieces of green 

**remember when cutting out the stockings to fold the fabric in half, with right sides out, so you will have a front and back piece

Your pieces should then line up as so:

The first step is to sew the green trim to the white lining.  You will sew them to the "front" of each white piece, as if the backsides were touching each other, so one stocking's lining should look like this:

Then when you put the respective white piece behind the red and flip down the trim you get this:

Then sew the green trim edge to the red, about an inch down from the top of the red piece:

Then iron all of the pieces.  

Fold each side of the trim over and put the two red pieces right-side in:

then sew around the edge of the stocking except for the top and trim edges: 

Flip inside out and ta-da:

Stockings for all! 

I then used some stamps and fabric paint to print our names on the stockings.

Hope everyone is ready for Christmas!

xoxo

fall garland

the how-to on my fall garland:

Gather your supplies: I used sheets of felt in various colors, burlap, and some fall-ish printed fabrics.  

I also picked up some embroidery thread in a copper color, and made a pattern for the bunting on a piece of cardboard. Basically a triangle with a 1/2 inch longer base.

Next I cut out plenty of triangles and made some bows.  

For the bows I just used felt and pinking shears to cut out strips of 1 inch by 6 inches, and then smaller pieces of 1/2 inch by 2 inches and folded the edges in on the bigger piece, and wrapped the smaller piece around the middle, and sewed to secure. 

For the fabric bunting, I cut out two pieces and sewed the two long sides inside-out, and then flipped it right-side out to complete the top edge. 

For the felt and burlap I just used one layer and the pinking shears.

I then sewed each piece to the embroidery thread using a zig zag stich to catch the thread by placing the triangle on bottom and thread on top so I could make sure the thread was in the middle of the stich as I sewed. 

And done:

So get cracking and bunt up some fall decor!

xoxo

a quilt, perhaps

well I got this semi-crazy idea last fall to make a quilt for ashley after a discussion on the modern quilt.  

yeah, an actual crazy idea.

the prospect of a holiday present turned into a birthday (february) present. and then into a belated birthday present.  I think it was may when i finally finished.

so. yes. a subway tile-ish quilt. I cut all the 'squares' to 6.5 x 9.5. It was a hodpodge of grays  pinks, and yellows, with some of her postcards printed onto white fabric. 

I then played around (a lot) with layout and worked in strips, sewing the pieces together as so:

and then connecting them with smaller strips of grey, and staggering:

that was the hard part. then i pinned it to a grey sheet, with a blanket in between. oh and yeah, this is an easy quilt, not some actual fancy thing. 

I sewed it up most of the way and trimmed the edges before flipping it right-side out and finishing the edge. 

ta-da!

yeah, it's a little crooked on one side, get over it.

not bad for a first easy-quilt-attempt. 

xoxo

shark week

Well, for starters, it's shark week, so it's only appropriate to have a related post.

Now, to be fair, this item was crafted a long time ago, but for some reason is just now getting posted (perhaps because I was waiting for shark week, but that's really unlikely)

Anyway, Jonathan requested a toiletries bag.  aka a pouch. 

You should know by now that is basically all ashley and i ever make, so it worked out well.

I went to the fabric store to get some especially ridiculous fabric. I was really hoping for some superhero but there was none to be had. Jonathan voted sharks over spaceships so I got to work. 

Supplies:

Fabric

Interfacing

Plastic,  I just used the same material I had leftover from the sandwich pouches, obvi.

What else?

Oh a zipper, thread, machine, and cutting mat; rotary cutter if you have it 

(i'm currently obsessed with mine)

What to do:

So, to get started cut two pieces of fabric, two pieces of interfacing, and one piece of plastic to the same size. The fabric should be an extra 1/4 inch-wide around. 

Cut to whatever size you would like your pouch to be.  I was making a small one so I think I did 10x12. You will need about an inch on either side of the zipper.

Apply interfacing to wrong side of fabric (follow your directions)

Then, line up your pieces so you have the fabric side on bottom (with right-side up), followed by the plastic, and then topped with the other fabric piece facing the wrong-side up.

Then sew up the two long sides together and flip rightside out:

Next pin the zipper in and sew:

Flip inside out again and sew up the sides, and then the other side of the zipper into the last open side:

I had to finish the last inch of the zipper by hand since it was so thick with the double fabric and plastic

Ta-da! 

ready to be on the go!

xoxo