Return of the Giant Silverware

Alrighty, I am back to working on the giant silverware again.  When we last saw the giant silverware I was attempting to smooth out the handles using Bondo.  The Bondo was stinky and a little expensive and I was having to build it up in layers.  Lumpy, bumpy layers that were going to need TONS of sanding.Round 3 – This time I will be using homemade paper mache clay.  I had thought of paper mache in the beginning, but thought that strips of newspaper would be lumpy and I didn’t think I could count on store bought clay to get the results I wanted.I just globbed it on, this is about two rolls worth of clay.  It was really easy to find the supplies and mix up, and I can think of a lot of great ways to use this stuff.Using a palette knife and water I shaped and smoothed the clay.  This is where I started getting excited, it really looks like this might work.  It has taken forever to dry (a week and a half).  I am excited to start sanding, priming and painting, but first I need to finish the handles on the rest of the spoons and forks.
I think I am finally on the right track, I would really love to get these finished and hung soon, I think the only hold up will be drying time.  I can’t wait to get more stuff finished for my kitchen.
Have a wonderful, crafty holiday weekend!  I’ll see you guys next Wednesday!

Imperial Trooper Jacket

I absolutely LOVE making clothes from upcycled t-shirts!  It seems like I am constantly bookmarking new projects to try.  The t-shirt to spring jacket tutorial from I Am Momma – Hear Me Roar was one of the projects on my very long list.  I seem to always be making stuff for Little Miss, but not that much for Little Sir.  When I found this Imperial Trooper t-shirt I knew I had to use it to make him a jacket.  I actually purchased a brand new shirt to cut up just for him and his love of all things Star Wars.The shirt was an extra large adult shirt, so instead of using a premade boys shirt I made my own.  I used the Sienna dress pattern from Lilblueboo like I did with the Little Man shirt, adding a bit of width to the body and a little length to the sleeves.  I also used the custom screen printed fabric I made Monday and fabric that I discharged dyed years ago. 
I really like how it came out, I’m not so sure Little Sir likes it though.  He hasn’t wanted to wear it to school, but it has finally gotten warm.  I’m hoping that by this fall it will be a little less roomy and he’ll be a lot more excited to wear it. 

Screen Printing Round 2 – Contact Paper

I had so much fun with my first try at screen printing I wanted to give it another try.  I found this tutorial for using contact paper from Lilblueboo and couldn’t wait to try it.
It was very easy, the most time difficult part was cutting out the design.  Sticking with a simple design is really the way to go, but I think that is true for all screen printing.  I was very excited to have my own custom, one of a kind fabric. I used a bone folder to burnish my contact paper to my fabric screen from the inside.  I made several prints from each screen and they all came out wonderfully.  When I washed the screens some of the smaller pieces from inside the stars came off, but the large one is still intact and could be reprinted.  I really thought this was a great project.It is perfect for a small scale printing and I think it would be great for kids (with adult help/supervision of the cutting).  I was able to make numerous copies of my designs, the design edges are crisp, and I can remove the old design and reuse the screen again, win!
Check back later this week to see what I made with this fabric.

From Sketch to Garment

The original sketch.

To (almost) finished garment.  It looks kind of boxy, but I assure you it will look great on.  Made for a friend, I hope she likes it.

Have a super crafty weekend!

Knitting Wardrobe Malfunction

I am beginning to think that knitting, in general, may be my Craftfail.  This is the project I started working on after the scarf mishap.  I was so excited about this pattern I swatched, I never swatch!  My gauge was perfect, I started knitting and was obsessed, knitting in every free moment, trying not to lose momentum on this project.  Finally the day came when I could try it on to get an idea of how AWESOME it was going to be……well, it’s pretty tight.  It’s not supposed to be tight, it’s uncomfortably tight (notice how the stitches are stretched)…not even if it stretches out a bit will this work.  Sigh, digging out the measuring tape.  Well, there’s the problem,  the pattern says that an extra large fits a 13” to 13 1/2” bicep and my bicep is 14 1/2”!  Yep, that explains it.
I will have to frog the whole thing, sigh, almost 2 weeks worth of knitting because, while I measured my chest, I did not measure my bicep, who knew that would be what wouldn’t fit?  The chest could stand to be a bit bigger too, I don’t want some sort of upside down muffin top going on under that cape.
The shaping on the pattern is beautiful.  I am always amazed at how knitting can be shaped around curves just from increasing and decreasing.  I still love the pattern, but I may need to take a break from it and pout about my mistake.  I will also need to sit down and do some math to get this pattern to fit, ugh, math.

Now With More Curtains

I know you’re probably sick of seeing my kitchen, but we’ll be looking at it again today.  When I was making my screen printed curtains I had originally planned to have another set to go below the sink, but I didn’t have enough fabric to print without piecing it.  I am so glad that I decided not to make everything the same.  I have wanted this Michael Miller chevron fabric ever since I saw it online (and now can’t even find a link for it, sorry) and I found it here in Lincoln!!!
This area is a real problem:This is what you see when you come in my back door, which we use a lot since we have a larger parking area in the back.  You have to come up three steps to get into the kitchen, so you’re eye level with my under sink clutter.  I have my recycling trash cans, plastic bags, and paper bags stored under here, it’s not really that messy, but it doesn’t exactly scream welcome to my home either.
And now:Ah, much better, Welcome to my home, come on in!  I have officially decided that all I need to make my entire house look nicer is shelves and curtains.Here’s a shot from the other end.  I still need some accessories and to paint the walls, but it’s already soooooo much better (flashback to the mess).  I have a little bit of that chevron fabric left over, I’m thinking some hot pads or towels.  Let me know if you have any great ideas, I have about a half yard left (in pieces).
Thanks for looking at my kitchen again, I’ll try to find something else to talk about for the rest of the week.

We Have Curtains

The curtains are finished AND hung.  I love them, the kitchen looks so much brighter.  The aprons were a good temporary (ahem, year and a half) fix, but these are just so much better. I just quickly snapped this picture, so excuse the counter clutter, it’s been a long day.  Little Man has been on antibiotics for a week and today he got a rash, so there was a little worrying and calling about.

I have another kitchen project planned for this weekend, I hope the sun comes out by Sunday so I can finish it up.  Have a super crafty weekend!!!

More Ghosts of Past Projects

Remember last year, before I had Little Man I had designed a silk screen to print my kitchen curtains?  And then you never heard anything about it again?  Ummm, yeah, well I found the screen while I was cleaning the craft room and was re-inspired to finish that project up. I worked on it all day yesterday and finished all the printing.  I could never have done this a year ago with all the piles of clutter, but today it was easy with my clean dining room table (note, I did not say the craft room was clean).I learned a lot with this project
1.  Do not expect perfection, drapery sheers, embroidery hoops, and Mod Pogde work well, but this is a low cost method, there will be imperfections.  I am a bit of a perfectionist and this was really hard for me, but even with the mistakes I really like the graphic print and once they are hanging up I don’t think the imperfections will be as noticeable/bothersome.
2.  Use a large hoop, make sure there is enough room around your design to easily get your squeegee to all parts of your design.  I really should have used a bigger hoop and given myself a little more room.  It was really hard to get the very top and very bottom to print good without going over it multiple times, which make the print blurry.
3.  Don’t be stingy.  Apply several layers of Mod Podge to your design to get a nice, sharp print.  Also be generous with the printing ink, the excess can be scraped off the screen and reused.
4.  Having a clean and organized work area makes the printing process go much faster and it a lot easier.  I really could have used a clothes line, but luckily the ink dried really fast. 5.  If you have a repeating pattern alternate your motifs so that you aren’t smearing wet designs.  Use registration marks to make your designs line up and look professional.6.  If you only need a few copies of you design it might be easier to stencil it with freezer paper.I am super excited to finish these up, I got too tired to finish sewing last night and I have a lot of stuff going on today.  I’m over half way done with the sewing and I expect to finish them tonight.  I can’t wait to hang them up!!!  I'm trying to decide if I'm going to leave them plain or if I should add some giant rick rack or some pompom fringe.
Also, my scarf fail from last week is being featured on CraftFail today, so pop on over there for a few laughs.  It’s always nice to see I’m not the only one who has weird, crafty mishaps.

Organized: Clutter Corner

The kitchen is the only area of my house that gets cleaned and de-cluttered daily, however there is one corner that is out of control.This area is supposed to be for my cookbooks and recipe box.  It is also where I keep our frequently used medicines and reusable tissues.  I have a lot of baking soda for some reason and there is a package of undershirts and a package of underwear in this mix too.  This is really the “I don’t know where to put this so I’ll just shove it here” corner.  The biggest problem is this mess makes it really hard to get to my recipes and plan my meals.
I found this free printable recipe binder cover on Prudent Baby (there are a variety of colors to match any kitchen) and decided to get the clutter corner under control.  Everything got sorted and properly put away and all of my recipe books, cards, magazines, and print outs got hauled to the dining room table to be sorted and stored.  I printed out extra cover sheets to make my dividing pages, I added a label over the top of the word RECIPE and I used self adhesive tabs to label all of the category pages.  I used a combination of sheet protectors and photo protector pockets to fill in the book.  It took a while to sort all the scraps of paper out, but it was worth it.
The recipe books will be filed away in a cupboard, I don’t use them often enough to keep them out, but I do use them enough to want to keep them (for now).  I will be working on the drawers on the left next and hopefully there will be room for me to store my binder away in one of them.  I think the bottom drawer has every kitchen towel I have ever owned in it and I only use the three that match the kitchen, so there might be some room in there.  I also might store the binder with my command center, the recipes for the weekly menu are stored in the menu planning organizer I made, so I don’t need to use the binder in the kitchen daily.  I only need to use it when I plan the menu, which I do in the dining room anyway, hmmm, definitely storing it on the command center (which also need a make over).
I am slowly getting everything the way I want it, now I’ll need to start working on some more decorations for the kitchen.  I have several half finished projects that need to be wrapped up (cough, curtains and giant spoon and fork, cough).

Vintage Owl Clock

This is one of my vintage finds from our junk store/yard sale day a few weeks ago.  I spotted this clock and thought it was pretty cute and when I saw that it was only a quarter I had to have it.It was really dirty, a combination of greasy and dusty, ewww!  I took the cover off of the clock, removed the clock works and the clock face and scrubbed it down with some Dawn (takes grease out of your way!)Better, I was thinking about painting the whole thing a bright color, like lime green or turquoise, but I wanted to keep those bright orange eyes.  The plastic eyes came right out, the glue must have yielded to the soapy water.  I was trying to polish them up a bit, they were just so scratched and dull, it’s like they had been scrubbed with an abrasive cleaner or sponge.  I had the brilliant idea to use the buffing wheel on my Dremel to shine them up a bit.  It worked great, they looked new.  I was even able to shine the badly scratched cover.The left side looks new, all shiny and clear.  I buffed the entire clock.  It brought back the shine on the plastic too!  I scanned the old clock face, edited out some of the water damage and skewed the colors to give it an orange tint.  Once that was printed out I Mod Podged it onto the clock and put everything back together.It looks brand new and I just finished hanging it up in the craft room.  Not bad for a quarter and some time!  What is your best yard sale/thrift shop redo?, I’d love to see it.
Have a super crafty weekend!

Five Pounds of Buttons

I won the auction for five pounds of buttons and they arrived last week.  I carefully sorted and admired them all.They have all been added to my button jars and are just waiting for the perfect project to come along, I have several in mind, I just need to find the time.1.  Dictionary flowers with button centers from MyLittleBirdie on etsy, she seems out of stock, but maybe could be reached for a custom order.
2.  Embroidered button display from Haylie Waring on Design Sponge for an excellent way to display those special, fancy buttons.
3.  Isn’t this button filled ball ornament wonderful? from Wendy’s Hat, I think my Mom would really love one or twelve of these.
4.  Button edging on an art journal page from Ingrid Dijkers, I find all of her work so inspiring, make sure you check out the other pages of her gallery.
5.  The emergency button from sheepBlue on craftster.  This is part of a fabulous Teesha Moore inspired bag and includes a lot of buttons, but this one was my favorite.

Scarf Fail

How exactly does one fail at making a scarf?  It’s just a long, skinny rectangle!  Well I can tell you it takes hours and hours of weaving and by the time I knew it had gone horribly wrong I was too stubborn to quit.
The knitted strip I shared on Friday became this:I dropped two stitches and made the “runs” in the knitting.  Next I decided to weave yarn into the “runs”, a rainbow of yarn! Weaving the yarn took FOREVER.  About half way through the weaving I began to have doubts that the scarf would turn out like I planned, but I kept going I had already invested way too much time in this one and I was going to make it work!
Um yeah, when I finished the last piece of yarn I had a wavy mess, so I thought I’ll just need to adjust/tighten the strings.  I started pulling, one at a time, I only broke a few……so I only tightened one half and then braided the ends together?  I don’t know where I was going with this, but I couldn’t stop, I had to finish this.  Once it was finished I promptly announced (to my husband) that it was the ugliest thing I had ever made and we started trying to figure out what to do with it.  There was a lot of snickering and weirdness and we came up with this: It’s a headdress like Queen Amidala (cough, Star Wars, cough) would wear.  I think I might keep this handy by the front door, you never know when you’re going to need a crazy hat to pop on when uninvited company drops by.  Do let me know if you’d still like the pattern :)