Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Christmas trees

I made three stuffed christmas trees.  I was so happy I found this fabric.  Its perfect.  All I did was draw the shape I wanted, cut it out, sewed and stuffed.  Pretty simple stuff, all though none of them turned out the way I wanted.  That's ok, they have character.  I think im putting these on my kitchen table for the season. 

Friday, December 7, 2012

Candy Cane dress

So, I have decided I love coming up with new ideas!  If you've been reading I have cut up a bunch of old t-shirts to make a quilt.  well, in the process, I ended up with a bunch of scraps.  I have taken a few of them and made myself a cute little dress. I didn't realize that it looked like a candy cane til after I made the dress.  all I did was take a few of the bottoms of the shirts, sewed them together into strips, and now I have a cute dress for christmas! I might add straps or something but here it is.....my candy cane dress:





christmas PJs!

I have finally got our christmas PJs done! I did a pair of pants for him, and pants and a dress for me! It was really quite easy to make them all. For the pants all I did was trace a pair of PJ bottoms I already have, cut it out, and sewed the pieces together.  There are tons of tutorials out there showing you exactly how to do it.  Most of them are for childs sizes but you can use the same technique for adults, I did! For the dress I used an old tank top and made it longer.  I also went with a square neck instead of a rounded neck.  I had fun making these.  I love seeing things come together!




His pants.....


<<close up
                                  far away>>>>














 showing off pants                                the whole thang                              the dress


Friday, November 23, 2012

jolly thanksgiving table

I decided to kill two birds with one stone this year.  I made placemats and a table runner for my kitchen table.  I did dancing fun loving christmas penguins on one side, and a thanksgiving theme on the other.  The placemats are quilted with just regular batting on the inside.  Each one is quilted differently.   The table runner is also quilted.  however, each side is quilted different and the inside is that hot pad batting stuff.  The idea of the table runner is that you can put hot pans on it and it not ruin the table underneath.  I haven't tested this theory out yet, but I'm confident that it will work out.  I decided to do this so that i don't have to fish for pot holders all the time and so that i could just use the same stuff all season! hope you enjoy!
 front and back together


 penguins up close


Pet placemats

I made cute little place-mats for my pets.  I have a cat and and dog.  They are both christmas place-mats so I will need to make more after the season is over. I know its the norm, but I made a fishy for the cat and a bone for the dog.  I'm not the best at drawing so they are perfect but they turned out alright I think.  They do not have batting in them because I figured the pets don't need it.  Hope you like them!




just some accesories!

I've made a couple of things all of you readers out there might enjoy.  The ideas are not entirely my own, yet again.  but I made them me! The first is a wallet.  It is 90% jean, the lining is just a plain cotton.  I used a couple different shades of jean.  a darker on the outside and a lighter on the outside.  I'm thinking of adding an applique or some bejeweled stuff or something to spice it up a bit and make it less plain.  It was fairly simple, however between the layers and the thickness that is jean, it got very difficult at times.  The tutorial I used for my wallet is at THIS site! it's very simple to follow.  Here are a couple pics of mine:
 

The next item is a tote! completely jean! completely my pattern.  I used the whole top portion of some jeans.  I then added strips of various other colors and styles of jeans at the bottom to give it something different.  I also took the opportunity to practice different stitches to see what the look like. I also didn't seam everything the way everyone normally does.  for the panels i just overlapped them and stitched them together. the idea is to get a somewhat frayed effect over time.  I have already used this tote once.  I don't need it for everyday.  However, I needed something big because the movie theatre in town quit selling mountain dew and good candy.....therefore, i need a bag to sneak some in.  I used it to hold 2 bottles of soda, 2 bottles of water, and 6 packages of candy.  It was heavy as heck, but it held up very nicely.  I also made the strap way to long, so I knotted it and I like it, it added something different.  Here is a front and back picture:
 
 Well, I hope you enjoy my accessories! I love making them and I love working with jean! It's so much fun to tear up the jeans that laugh at me because they don't fit! It's so much fun to come up with ideas or even to used old ideas!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

advent calendar

This is my advent calendar! I made it, if you couldn't tell. It was quite easy.  My inspiration for this project came from THIS one.  again, I couldn't find a how-to.  so i used a tutorial to learn how to do a pillow case and I chose the envelope style pillow case because it looked easy! The whole case is satin.  I had a set of satin sheets and used those.  the Belt is removable using velcro and is just plain fabric with that stuff you used for tote straps inside to give it stiffness. All the writing was done with fabric markers! My embroidery on my machine is too small, so I hand wrote.  I also added a fabric belt buckle and fabric loops.  the idea is to slide the belt each day as you get closer to christmas! I was excited to do this one. hope you like it!  

holiday chairs

Everyone loves a little holiday cheer.  So how about dressing up your kitchen chairs for the season.  I saw this idea all over the internet. All the sites I saw these on were to buy them for outragous prices.  Then again, I'm a poor retail worker.  I can afford fabric on sale but not the covers.  I could not find a tutorial anywhere for these, so I kind of made it up as I went.  My inspiration can be found on THIS site. I'm pretty sure the price is $30 each.  so for a set of 4 you are spending over $100!! I have four kitchen chairs, not 1! So I took fabric I already had and made it up.  Mine aren't nearly as professional or as good.  As a matter of fact, one of mine started tearing apart in the washing machine! Teaches me to do a small seam on satin! But, I hope you like these.  This is the first finished project for the holidays I have.  I love how easy these were to make.  If anyone wants to know how to make their own let me know and I'll post a tutorial when I make my next set!


 This is the whole set.  The pics below are close ups of each snowman. 
 this hat is shiny!

This is the one with the satin ribbon.....not my fav.  But it's also my first one made.









 This hat is shiny too. 
This one is probably my favorite cause it's so different and so fun!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Halloween costumes part 2

This is just going to be a few photos.  My husband, my dog, and I were all in patchwork.  We were gleemen from the Wheel of Time series. 







These were way fun to make! I love my coat and wear it every chance I get.  It's got all sorts of colors so it works with everything! My husbands turned out funny. So, we will be tearing it apart in the next few months, adding patches, and making it into a coat similar to mine. Keep your eyes open for the updated version.  I have til july to do it!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween decorations---living room

We had very few decorations in the living room.  We had a couple pillows that I posted pics of a while ago.  We also had a tiny grim reaper and a ghost that I made.


This ghost was fairly simple to make.  Anyone can do it.  All I did was cut a circle thing into to pieces of fabric.  sewed each circle to a piece of square fabric.  I then sewed the pieces together. I left the underside of the circle open.  Stuffed the head, and hand stitched the hole closed. I used a sharpie for the faces (a diff face on each side).  Tore strips in the squares. It was simple, fast, and turned out nice!




you might also be interested in:

 


Halloween decorations---outside

 Outside our apt.  You can see my painted pumpkin stand, our carved pumpkins, garland, and my hubby's reaper! Oh, and my dog.








These are our pumpkins.  Mine is on the left, and Lee's is on the right.  Mine was a design from a book, I decided to do something a little more complicated than a smilie face.  My husband, lee, did a devil.  The weather turned warm here in utah and as a result, our pumpkins died fast! I took this picture after they were out for two days! On halloween night they looked like total crap, but, what do you do? normally its 30 degrees in oct.  not 70!!!!

Halloween decorations---towels

 These were so easy to make, I think I'll make some for thanksgiving, christmas, etc. I love how they make my kitchen more homey too. These were cheap too. I think I paid less than $10 to make these.  Most of the stuff was 70% off at Jo-Anns. 
For this one the towel was too big.  So I had to cut it in half.  I then pleated the towel at the cut end and sewed it into the fabric.  I doubled the fabric so it was like putting a glove on a hand when i put the towel in the fabric. I added a button to hook it! so simple.
This was actually the first one I made and I didn't make it real tall. It was enough to hang the towel, but not as much as the other.  This towel was also the right length that I wanted so I didn't have to cut anything. super simple, super quick!
















Monday, October 22, 2012

Halloween Creation (no sew)

I made a neat little Halloween creation that had no sewing involved.  It took a few hours because paint had to dry.  This was a really simple project.  It was also super cheap....I think it may have cost $20!!! First I'll talk about the base!

The base was way cheap.  I brought home two boxes from work, then covered them in a white vinyl table cloth.  We have a lot of wind and weather here in utah so I completely covered the boxes in case of wet weather and taped the table cloth to keep it from flying away.  I then wrote Happy Halloween with orange paint.  I taped the little scarecrows on and hot glued all the leaves on.  I bought two bags of leaves.  I didn't use them all so I can have some for next year.  So that's it.  boxes, table cloth, tape and decorations!

Next, the pumpkins!!!

This is my spider.  I started with painting the whole thing black with acrylic paint.  I did two coats.  I used hot glue to place the eyes and legs.  I used 4 pipe cleaners for legs.  I then used red paint for the mouth.....his tongue is sticking out lol. Very easy, however it took a while to dry.







My witch.  Take a pumpkin and paint it green! While it's drying, start the skirt.  I used elastic and tulle.  I tied the tulle to the elastic.  the amount of each depends on the size of your pumpkin.  I again did two coats of paint on the punpkin.  If you don't the orange will show through.  Once Dry, I glued the skirt and hat on.  I then glued on the hair and eyes, followed by painting on the mouth. 




There.  Simple, easy, and cheap!!!  Hope you like my creation and hope everyone has a Wonderful Halloween!!!!! 


Here is a close up of the creation:  


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Halloween Costumes part 1

  I made my very own Patchwork Cloak.  This is my Halloween Costume this year.  Sorry, Pics aren't the best.  This took me a week to sew it all together.  Took me about a month to cut all the squares. I did the dogs costume about a month or two ago.  That one only took me a day to cut and sew.  I still have to make my husbands cape. We are modern day Gleemen.  If you don't know what a Gleeeman is read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.  My husband read the series and got the idea.  I made my cloak for under 30 bucks.  You can buy similar coats for any amount....the most expensive I have found was in the $500 range.....I have not found one under $75.  This was made with absolutely no pattern.  I took my measurements....even those were used loosely.  I kept having to add and subtract squares as I was sewing.  For the sleeves I had to add a whole section to each to get  the shape I wanted.  I also used an old sweatshirt to mark the size of the sleeve whole I needed. It was a little big so I took in the shoulders a tiny bit to compensate. It was fairly easy to make.  Once all the squares were sewn together it took maybe 2.5 days to sew it all together.  It was fun and easy.  I lined the whole thing with plain black cotton fabric. I can't wait to finish Lee's and post pictures of all of us in our costumes. 








Sophie in all her glory modeling for the camera!!!