Cork Board Redo with Map

 I got this cork board from my mom and it has been hanging boringly on our wall by our dining room.  I was waiting for some inspiration to hit me, and finally, yesterday I was struck.  I frequently visit the paint and wall paper section of Menards and I saw these dry erase maps.  The downside was they were 20 dollars, but I think it was worth it.  I had to trim down the sides a bit to fit in the frame and used a credit card to smooth it out.  If I don't like it I can always peel it up and stick it to a wall somewhere.  Pretty fun and we can write messages to each other on it.  

T-shirt Rug!

Well, I finally finished my t-shirt rug for Colby's room.  It is about 3 feet by 2 feet and contains at least 12 different shirts.  It was quite the time consuming process, but once I got the knack of it latch hooking was a good activity while watching tv.  I was doing my darnedest not to start another project until I finished the rug so that is part of the reason I haven't been posting much.  The other part is that March felt like summer and when I wasn't feeding the babe, we were outside playing. 

Basically I cut all my t-shirts into really long strips, then cut those balls of yarn into little strips about 4 inches long, and then I latch hooked them onto the rug backing I picked up at JoAnns, and then I gave the rug a hair cut so all the ends were even-which worked much better than when I try to cut my own bangs.   Any who, good luck to those that attempt this it takes a lot of time and a lot of t-shirts. 

***Tips*** use all cotton t-shirts because they form a nice curl when pulled.  Also I found latch hooking in a diagonal pattern was faster than hooking them on horizontally.  If you go to church garage sales I have found that the last few hours they let you fill a whole bag of clothes for a few dollars-or maybe this is just for me since I always look a bit disheveled carrying Colby around on my hip.  Anywho, good luck***

DIY Rugs

Well, I've been accumulating a ton of old clothes that aren't even up to Goodwill's standards so my stash has been building downstairs of t-shirts, dress shirts, and jeans.  One prime spot for a rug would be for in Colby's room since the dog can't go in there the room stays much cleaner.  My favorite rug is this one from xoelle.com.  She cut all of her t-shirts into strips and then dyed them a dark gray.  I think I'd like to dye the shirts all different shades of blue, green, and gray so it gives the rug a watery appearance. Here's a few of the best ones I've seen.

Picture found here at xoelle.com

Lovely braids.  Found here at craftpassion.com

 

 

Loving the different colors, found here at creativejewishmom.com

I love these braided rugs-the colors are great.  Found here at moddish.blog.com

I'm not so into the pink but this website has good directions. 

Free Paper Toys

Free paper toys-basically little play figurines made of paper-great to entertain kids while waiting for the doctor, dinner, or whatever comes up.  I just ran across these yesterday from the freebies section of pocketyourdollars.com which has coupons and deals and it is found at madebyjoel.com.  From briefly looking at his sight he's been featured on Martha Stewart and also has a book out.  I'm sure when Colby is older we'll print some off.  The website is here .

madebyjoel.com

madebyjoel.com

madebyjoel.com

DIY Card Wreath

Well, I realize it's a bit late, but I made another card wreath to hold all of our lovely Christmas cards from our friends.  This time I decided to make it a bit heftier with some burlap and ribbon.  I used two embroiderly hoops of different sizes and simply tied on strips of burlap and ribbon.  The clothespins just wiggle in between the pieces so they aren't glued on or fastened in anyway which makes it more versatile to fit whatever size of cards you receive.  Now that I have them all done I imagine the clothespins could be placed on the back of the wreath so they would be hidden even more-oh the possibilities.  Happy Crafting!

Mittens Made from Sweaters

Pic from Mossymossy.com and tutorial can be found here.

A few weeks ago I was at the dentist office waiting in the reception area for my appointment.  I over heard my dental assistant going chatting on and on with a woman patient about the mittens she makes out of old sweaters.  The gal was selling her mittens to the office employees and she mentioned how ticked she was that a gal from a church bought a pair, copied them, and then started the whole church making them for fundraising.  The only thought in my head was, "Man, I wish I could just get a glimpse of her mittens so I could make some too."  Well, I never did catch a glance, so I have to resort to the internet.  I found this great tutorial on Mossymossy.com which looks like a really fun blog to peruse through.  The directions look very clear to follow, but I just am waiting for an opportunity to run out to Goodwill and pick up some wool sweaters.  Good Luck if you make these.

Homemade Diapers

It's about that time again to make some more diapers.  I'm working on making a diaper stash for one of my friends I used to live with in college.  I'm finding it harder to do than I thought it would be because I'm more concerned about the diapers actually looking pretty and not just functional.  Of course we just visited back home this last weekend and I waited until the morning we were leaving to start making the diapers-then my machine stopped working so I ended up with 5 fitted diapers and 3 hour glass diapers.  I also am finding it challenging to know what type of diapers to make because I didn't know what kind I wanted until I tried a few different styles out with Colby.  For the diapers I used some recieving blankets I got at a rummage sale for a few cents, an old pair of flannel pants, and some cute fabric from JoAnn when they had flannel super cheap.  I used the pattern Wee Weka from here.  Colby out grew these diapers at about 4 months but they are soooo cute. 

DIY Christmas Wreaths

Well, I have been in such a creative funk lately.  I think with the snow storms I have this urge to just wrap myself in a blanket and throw in a movie, but alas, with a ten month old that only happens after eight o'clock, so I have been spending my time chasing him around and preventing him from eating cords, dog food, and leaves.  What fun!   I have so many project ideas to do and I just need to start the sewing machine up.  For now though, I'll just add to my long list of projects to do.

Tutorial Here

Tutorial Here

Tutorial Here

Tutorial Here

Tutorial Here

Homemade Message Board Using Old Frame

This past summer I went to a wonderful garage sale and everything was 2 for 25 cents, so officially I got this framed oil pastel artwork for twelve and a half cents.

 

To make the board I simply cut fabric  a bit bigger then the backing and then taped it to masking tape to the board.  

Then I put the glass back on and I think it looks pretty snazzy.  Now it can be written on with overhead markers or white board markers and just wiped off clean.  Just a touch fancier then a white board hanging on the wall.  

 

Turkey Shirts

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is almost here already.  We got our first snow this weekend and managed to venture out in the blizzard to go to the fabric store-which proved to be the thing to do because we hardly had to wait in line to get our fabric cut when usually it takes up to thirty minutes to get fabric cut.  I orginally saw a version of these shirts on Pinterest and thought to that I could make something even more fantastic.  My first idea was going to be to sew felt on for the bird's beak, eyes, and feather; but then I just tried out painting free hand and it was much easier then sewing small pieces on.  I dyed the onesies brown using RIT dark brown dye on the stove top.  The dyeing part was the most fun so I'm looking forward to experimenting dye even more. 

Painted Curtain Ideas

I've been thinking about painting our bedroom curtains for quite a while.  Curtains have always bored me and usually they don't thrill me.  Our room is slate blue so I think I may go for a orange or burnt orange on the tan curtains.  Basically you could go as crazy as you wanted from just chevron stripes to hand painted animals.  Soon I will get around to this since it looks like a pretty simple project. Click on the pictures to go to the origin of the photos and tutorials if there are some.

 

Graceful gray and white stripes

Beautiful gray and white stenciled curtain

Painted Hummingbird

Free hand orange on white curtains

These may be my favorite-and most intense-white stencil on gray curtain

Diapering Advice for New Moms

Alrighty!  We have made it to almost 9 months of cloth diapering, which I guess makes me a  slight expert.  I was waiting for pictures to be developed at Walgreens and the cashier noticed Colby was wearing cloth and struck up a converstation with me about diapering.  She was happy to finally meet someone personally who uses cloth instead of just hearing about it on blogs.   Today one of my friends emailed me for advice on which type of cloth to use and the ins and out of cloth so I thought I would share my advice with all.  Sorry to bore you if you have no desire to use cloth diapers, don't have a baby, or just think it is plain gross.

DIAPERS:   Flannel diapers are quite easy and cheap to make.  I've made some that are just old t-shirts with towel inside.  they sound really back roads-but they work great and are pretty soft.  We're still on the cloth diaper train right now and he's been on solid foods for almost 3 months and it isn't too bad and it is actually a bit easier since they don't go all over the place like when he was just on milk-and he only goes like every 3-4 days so solids aren't bad at all and I just have a rubber spatula I keep in the bathroom in a cool whip container to scrape them off and then I use a Lysol wipe to clean the scraper.

 There are several routes you can go with cloth diapers and we are just doing flannel homemade ones with covers.  I use thirsties covers which you can order online at target or amazon.  I did buy two bumgenius diapers-these you stuff them and they snap up to different settings so you don't have to buy different sizes.  These are alright and the fleece liner wicks the moisture away better than flannel so you can leave them in wet diapers longer.  One of the mom gals I know uses softbums-they are a Minnesota based company and she apparently only uses 4 a day for her girl-they look pretty nice here's the website:  http://www.softbums.com/  If you want to go the expensive diaper route you will probably need 12-18 ish at 20 dollars a piece.  The cheap route is the diaper covers are 12 dollars a piece and the flannel diapers or they can be made out of t-shirts and towels which I have done as well-are practically free. 

24-30 Flannel Diapers or so (Colby is still a super pee-er so we have to change a lot of diapers)
4-5 small/medium diaper covers
4-5 Large ones
Diaper pail=cat litter bucket with lid-it keeps the stink in and it fits about all his diapers before I need to wash
Pins-we did pins at the beginning but now we just set them in the cover and velcro it up-seems to work well-so I wouldn't even bother with these
Wipes-you can use regular ones but I've done some flannel or baby wash clothes too-just in a tupperware with water and or baby wash and some baby oil-you can find lots of recipes online

Next time around I'm going to buy some flat birdseye or gauze ones from Target because they are super soft for the newborn butt and circumcision. 

Laundry is easy too-sometimes I do a soak in cold then a cycle in hot with extra spin and half the detergent-or I just run a cold cycle with detergent then run a full cycle in cold to get out all the suds.  Sometimes I throw in some vinegar in the wash too for an extra boost. 

Homemade Baby Girl Shoes

 This past weekend I worked on making a pair of cute shoes for my niece.  I found this awesome tutorial to make some cute ruffled slip on shoes. Click on the picture to go to her website fleetingthing.com.  The tutorial was very clear and concise.  I added about a half inch to the pattern to make the longer.  I had some issues with the sewing machine when I was making the ruffles so I just used some elastic on the back.  I ended up realizing that these shoes were going to be a bit too small for my chunky niece (22 Ibs at 6 months) so I didn't spend as much time on the details as I should have and Colby had to take one for the team and try on girl shoes.  

Here's mine made from one of my husband's old dress shirts.