The Fabric Floozie

A friend of mine posted recently about the decorative letters she made for her 2 boys, using the tutorial I’ve posted. Check out her blog post below.

So, I have this friend, her name is Jackie. I’ve never actually met her in person, but we met through the mommy board we both joined before we had our first children. The funny thing is we both had our boys on the same day of the same year, and actually just hours apart! Anyway, I ended up buying my first DSLR from her, and learning alot about photography from her. She’s a kind person who’s always been willing to help anyone, really. So anyway, she’s amazingly crafty. She repurposes things, sews, paints, you name it, she does it. We don’t get to talk much anymore as we are both so busy, but I do keep up with her on her awesome blog. Yeah, you’ll want to bookmark it, so just do it now! I”ve been wanting to do the boys letters for their names for the walls for quite some time, and she has an awesome tutorial on there for the letters! She has a lot of awesome tutorials for lots of things I want to do. I must get a sewing machine, and SOON!

SO..back to the letters.. I bought some inexpensive wood letters from Hobby Lobby, and painted them white. When they were dry, (and actually like over a month later because I had holidays in the middle of doing this) I traced out the letters onto scrapbook paper, and outlined 1/8 of an inch from the edge just like Jackie shows in her tutorial.

Can you see I had a little helper?

Then I put a layer of mod podge on the letters and carefully put the paper on top of the letters, and tried my best to keep them smooth and without bubbles! After they dried, I put a layer of mod podge on the top, and voila! They are done!

Now, I just have to add brackets to the back so I can hang them! Then I can finally show the before and afters of the boys room since we moved here! So look forward to that.

You can look here to see the amazing transformation she did in her little girls room! Thanks for the inspiration, Jackie!

(though out this post will be photos of past reconstructions. click on a photo to learn more about the project)

Since we all know that one of my favorite things is reconstructing clothing, I’ve decided to commit to hosting a semi-annual Recon-a-thon. That means in January and July(or August), each year, I’ll host a Recon-A-Thon open to ANYONE that wants to participate.

I’m pleased to announce that the first Recon-A-Thon is just right around the corner and with Spoonflower as the fabulous sponsor for this contest, you can not possibly go wrong!

If you’ve never been to Spoonflower… well, first, Shame on you. Second, go there right now. They are a fabulous up-and-coming website where you can not only order some of the coolest fabrics on the net, you can also… brace yourself… upload your own designs and have them printed to high-quality fabrics for… brace yourself again… LOW prices, with NO minimums! No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I swear on my childhood-pet-goldfish’s grave. The prize for the RaT10 will be a fabulous addition to your fabric stash, from Spoonflower.

So go on, lovely readers. Go dig in your closets and grab out anything you can find that you’ve been wanting to try to recon. I’ll post all the nitty gritty details later, but for the time being, know that you can use up to 2 items from your home/thrift store/corner dumpster (i’m only kidding… sort of), so dig around and set it aside. The rest of the details are coming soon!

If you plan to participate, please grab the button from the right column, and comment on this post with a link to your blog

Here is the tutorial you asked for: How to make a Super Hero Cape

Last night I started working on Lily’s. Overall, these capes take just a bit less than the length of the average football game. How’s that for precise?

What you need:

3 Colors of Satin (* indicates which color I’m referring to on the images below)

Primary Color: 2 yards (*yellow)


Circle/Accent Color: 1/3 of a yard – 1/2 yard depending on how big the kid is (*lt pink)


Decoration Color: 1/3 of a yard (*raspberry)

3 colors of thread to match satin color

Sharp scissors

Lots of pins

sewing machine

washable ink fabric marker

Measuring tape

Spare Fabric for design template (felt works best!)

Directions:

Measure from the nape of your childs neck, down to where you want the cape to end. Start with something around 20 (for small toddlers) to 22 (for bigger toddlers) inches and adjust as needed. This will be called distance A. (For Reference: Lily’s was 19.5″)

Measure around your childs neck from the throat, around the back, to the throat again. This is so you know how big to make the neck opening.

Lay out your primary color satin, right sides together. Place a pin 2.5″ from the bottom of the fabric panels.

Measure up distance A. Place another pin.

Take your measuring tape and place the 15″ tick on the bottom pin in your fabric. Mark at the 1″ tick with a pin, and the 30″ tick with a pin. This give you an approximate width for your cape. You can make it smaller (for smaller kids) or wider (for bigger kids) as necessary. (Lily’s was 29.5″)

Measure up  from top pin, 5-6″ (depending on how large you want the neck opening to be. Mark with pin.

From halfway up that small section, measure across the same distance and pin on each side.

Sketch a circle with your fabric marker. This is the neck hole opening.

At “nape of neck” measure across 15-16.5″ inches based on cape size. mark with pin.

Measure up 1″ from very top  pin. mark with pin.

Using pins placed, sketch out the overall shape on the cape using your marker.

Move pins to inside the lines to hold 2 panels of satin together. Stitch along sketched line, except for a opening at the bottom, big enough for turning. (red area shown)

Now on to the real photos

Now that you have your cape edges sewn, go ahead and trim off the excess fabric, leaving 1/4″ seam allowance.

Turn

Topstitch

Now for the design.

For the circle, decide how big you want it. Brendan’s was 10″ exactly. Lily’s was about 9.25″ I used a cake pan for Brendan’s

Outline the cake pan

Sew, leaving an area for turning

Turn

Set aside.

Using some scrap fabric (I like felt, it’s sturdy) sketch out the design you want for your cape. We had to do this 2x with Brendans, so I made 2 designs for Lily’s to see which I liked better.

Cut out the shapes and place them on your cape to be sure you like the shape/scale.

Place 2 pieces of design color, right sides together. Place template over fabric and outline

Stitch, leaving an area open for turning

Cut out and trim on curves

Turn

Place both smaller pieces on cape to check for placement

Pin circle down

*Load machine with accent color on your spool and primary color on your bobbin. (ie: Light pink on top, yellow on bottom)

Sew circle down

Pin design down

*Load machine with design color on your spool and primary color on your bobbin. (ie: raspberry on top, yellow on bottom)

Stitch the design down

Option: Using primary colored thread (yellow), do a decorative stitch all the way around the design. I did this on both and it adds a nice touch.

The reason for the primary color on the bobbin is because it will blend in with the main panel, and not show very much on the underside:

Add velcro to neck tabs

Wrap it up and place it under the tree

If you love this tutorial, please take a moment to utilize the “share” button to post it on facebook, twitter, or whatever social site you use

If you USE this tutorial, please send me a photo when you are done (or a link to your blog post about it). I’d love to share it on the site

Thank you so much!

Just a quick post to say that one of you needs to go buy this sweater on Etsy. I keep looking at it and thinking “hmmm, I bet Lily could fit that…” when realistically she probably can’t, and even if she could… the child needs more clothes like I need a hole in my head.

So please, put me out of my misery and go buy it before I cave.

This week I hit up a local thrift shop in my old neighborhood. While some of their areas were a bit lacking ( how come I can never find vintage tea-towels when I need them?) their book section was NOT.
In getting our living room and kitchen organized, refinished, and decorated, we’ve completely neglected the tables in our living room. So I hit up a thrift store to seewhat I could find, and $8 later, I have a side table that doesn’t look like no one knows it exists.

The books were $2 each. The dish was either $1 or $2, I can’t remember now. And the vase, etc, was something I already had (come back tomorrow for more on that. It only cost me $3). There will actually be a small, brown lamp in the place of that vase, but it’s packed up and I couldn’t find the right box in time for taking this photo. So for the time being, the vase remains

Here are the books (and no, I have no idea what the books are, or what they are about. I picked them completely based on the color/design of the covers, and the titles)

(although evidently one is for “young moderns” )

Blessings on Amazon

Hotel on Wikipedia

While surfing etsy yesterday (for an orange tea pot, of all things) I came across a shop called The Cottage Cheese.

Oh.   My.   Gosh.

*faint*

I love everything in her shop. It’s all antique finds she sells.

Here are just a few items in her shop that I am adding to my wish list for Santa.

I swear, I could live in World Market (and several other stores that always reel me in for hours at a time).

I even love surfing their website to check out what little trinkets I need for my house. Here’s my current wishlist:

If you find anything on their site that strikes you, check out this deal they are offering today only:

Save 20% Off Your Entire Order, Plus Get Free Shipping on Orders over $50 with Coupon Code 1DAYAFF – One Day Only at WorldMarket.com (11.30.09 Only!)

Check out this recent post from Shanty2Chic! It’s amazing. I can’t wait to try this!
A DIY Cake Stand using all items from Hobby Lobby!

Click here to view the post

If you haven’t yet, check out the most recent pattern available Via TFF@Etsy

atleast you can pretend to.

This was our island before hand.

It was “FREE OR SALVATION ARMY” on the side of the road.
It used to be a hutch, it appears. Now it’s going to be my island for my kitchen

First I took the drawer and doors off

Then I dismembered it. LOL. I removed the counter top, the trim on the bottom, and all the hardware. I also scrubbed the crap out of it.

Then I set it up in my kitchen to see what measurements I wanted to take with me when I bought the wood for the counter top.

I showed this photo to a friend who immediately claimed “I don’t get it”. LOL.
I’m a very visual person too, so i knew what she meant. So I hopped in photoshop and got… well, a little carried away.
Here is my kitchen before we moved in

Here is my completed kitchen… according to photoshop

Now lets see how close we can get to that…

Have you ever heard of three Potato four?
If not, don’t click the above link. I’m serious. Don’t. If you don’t want to spend your entire paycheck on freaking adorable vintage home decor… if you don’t want to lose 3+ hours of your day, scouring through their online shop. If you don’t want to end up renovating your entire kitchen to accomodate the the things they sell that you simply CAN NOT live without…. then don’t visit their store.
Or if you’re like me, and you’re cool with losing hours of your day and having money flood from your bank account (whether it’s there or not), then go for it

We are painting our living room and kitchen this weekend… it’s an awesome shade of green called Wheat Grass by Sherwin Williams. It’s kind of a lime/sagey green… it’s calming but also spunky and fun at the same time.

After that, our kitchen cabinets are getting a full makeover including bead board insets, 2 coats of cream (”biscuit”) paint, and the addition of hardware. We’ll also be finishing our island and placing that in the kitchen as well.

It’ll be a while before we can rip out the linoleum and replace it with wood, or take out the laminate counter top and replace it with something prettier, but it’ll atleast be a decent head start into our renovation for the time being

With my new look to my kitchen, I’m finding all of these things at three Potato four that I’m not entirely certain I can live without. Check them out below.