Put a Pin In It

You know those tomato pincushions that all the stores sell, and everyone has, and are just plain ugly.



I couldn't have that.

I needed a cute one.

Enter Pinterest.

After seeing so many wonderful inspirations, I narrowed it down to this one.

It looked simple enough and I had tons of fabric scraps from years past.  I just needed a clear tutorial to stitch it together.

This was a great tutorial for the log cabin quilt pattern.
http://www.equilters.com/library/logcabin/easy_log_cabin_part3.html

Starting with a square center, sew one piece at a time to the center square, stopping to iron it flat after every added piece.

The picture in the link shows this better than I'm explaining.

I didn't take pictures during.  Ain't nobody got time for that.

Here's my final piece.

First Sewing Project

One of my big Christmas gifts this year was a sewing machine.  I've known the basics since I was a teenager, but my skills haven't progress much past a simple throw pillow.  With Pinterest flaunting wonderful projects in my face everyday, temptation wore me down.  It's time to teach myself some new skills.  

I did very little research when picking out a machine.  Just that most experienced sewers still recommend Singer.  They've really stood the test of time.  I didn't want a SUPER fancy one, but I didn't want a bare bones machine either.  I didn't want to out grow it if I get really into this new hobby.

In the end I went with the Singer 7258 Stylist with 100 stitches.  You can find it at Amazon here.

For my first project, I started simple.  Two beige rectangles.  Super exciting, I know.

Our bedroom has this ledge at the top of one 12 ft tall wall.  It's there to create a 9 ft ceiling in the other bedroom.  Without that ceiling "cap", the ceiling in the other room would become a narrow wedge, which would just look weird.  So we capped it also with the thought that we could use it as storage in the future.  With only 800 sq ft, and 12 ft ceilings, we are utilizing every bit of vertical storage space.

Decorative containers would be one solution, but that would require something with a lid to keep out the dust.  And they would have to be attractive, which means EXPENSIVE.

Then, I thought of a curtain on a cable line.  Any ugly plastic container could go behind it.

We found this wire curtain rod at Ikea for $13, and clips for $3.  

I wanted to find some thick fabric that would blend into the wall color instead of a contrasting color/pattern.  While at the fabric store, I found the perfect fabric made out of duck cloth(which is basically canvas) in an array of color choices.  Off white was a perfect match, but it was $8/yard and I was guessing I needed at least 2, maybe 3 yards.  Starting to get expensive.

So, I left the store empty handed and headed over to Lowes to buy a 9x6 inexpensive painters drop cloth.

Lots of people have been using the cheap painters drop clothes to make cheap curtain panels and all sorts of other things(just take a look at this blog post for ideas).  Once it's washed, it's actually quite soft.  But it only comes in one color(darker than my walls).  I decided it was close enough and worth the money savings to not have a perfect match.

Let's speed this story up.

I did not take photos of my cutting and sewing the panels, but it's pretty straight forward.  Once I washed and ironed the fabric, I layed it out flat and made measurements based on what I had measured after Matt installed the wire curtain rod.  

I went with two panels instead of one long one because I thought it would be easier to manage getting things in and out.

The ledge is 10 ft long so I made two 7 ft long panels for a total of 14 ft (room for gather).  That looked too full, so I cut them down to 6 ft.

There were many trips up and down the ladder to get the "fluff" right.  I'm using the space to store out of season clothes.  Since it requires a ladder from outside, it's really the best thing to store in there since I only need to get to it twice a year.

We realized after that the big plastic boxes we already had, were too big to fit because of the angled wall.  A trip to Walmart was needed and we searched for boxes that would still fit a lot of clothing, but were a little narrower than the others.  

We found some that almost fit the bill.  So close in fact, it was just the rim that made it not fit, and flare the curtain out a bit.  We just flipped the boxes upside down and it was fine!  There's nothing breakable in them.

And a photo during daylight.

Four bins fit up there, but I only needed two, which means I have two to grown on!  Here's a peak at what the bins look like and, of course, the OCD in me labeled them all (upside down so it's readable in the upside down bin). 

When summer clothes are in them we can face this side out, and when winter clothes are in them, we can turn it around and have a different label face out.

I'd say my first adult sewing project was a success, although not terribly exciting.  Next will probably be some FUN throw pillows!  With zippers!  Maybe.

Easy Christmas Crafts

It's Christmastime and this is the first "real" Christmas in our house.  Last year we moved in on December 10th and managed to keep our tree decorated and in tact during the move.  That was the only Christmasy thing we had up since we were still living in boxes.

I have collected just a few items during after Christmas sales and from thrift stores here and there.  Pretty much anything cheap that I liked, I bought.  I never felt inspired in our rental house, but this year I broke out my crafting supplies!

I started with "modernizing" a nutcracker.  No offense to anyone who loves or collects nutcrackers, but I don't really care for them and find them a little creepy.  But I have friends and family who love them, so to each their own!

My inspiration for this project was at West Elm last Christmas.  They had these solid white nutcrackers without all the hair and thrills.  

I don't have a before picture because once I decided to take the plunge and redo him, I immediately starting yanking things off of him before snapping a pic.  He came from a thrift store, but kinda look like the one below.

After pulling off the hair, there was a lot of hair fuzz and glue that I just sanded down a little so the texture wouldn't show as much.  While I was at it with a spray can, I also painted a paper mache thrift store deer that was plain brown paper.

Here it is finished, but I realize it looks terrible on that wall color.  I would love to do the same thing to the little red guy, but sprayed solid red.  

The white guy probably needs another coat.  I bet a warmer white would look good, but true white was what I had.  Maybe next year, I'll give it another coat in an antique white.

A free grapevine wreath hangs on my door year round.  Thanks to this Pinterest post, I was inspired to make my grapevine wreath christmassy instead of the usual wreath I hang.  Felt is so inexpensive, so this project is very budget friendly.  Probably cost me less than 50 cents.  You can find the tutorial on how to make the flowers here.  I did not have, and did not feel like buying just 6 red and white buttons. Not worth it to me.  But if you already have them, go right ahead and put the finishing touch on!

The only thing I did differently was I did NOT hot glue the flowers to the wreath.  I want to reuse the wreath for other seasons so I hot glued twisty ties to the flowers then stuck the twisty ties into the wreath to get them to stay.  So it's temporary!

I did take some time to make them all.  Probably 4 hours of cutting, pinching, stitching, and glueing.  A great project to do while you watch a christmas movie.

I swapped out a few prints like this one in the bathroom.  It was a free printable from some website (sorry I don't have the link).  It was originally gray, not red, but I changed it in photoshop.

I'm not real big into Christmas "characters" like Santa and snowmen.  I prefer more natural things like trees, deer, and angels.  I have a gold pinecone covered tree that I got on clearance at Target maybe last year.  So to add to that, I searched on Pinterest for cone tree crafts.  Most involved buying a foam cone from the craft store for around $5.  Then I saw this post on Pinterest on how to make a cone out of a cereal box.

You can look on there for more instruction, but I basically cut the box flaps off and started rolling to determine the size I wanted.  I also found that using a spray nozzle from a bottle of cleaner and misting the cardboard with water really helped it bend without creasing.  Then just hot glue it together.

I bought twine for another project, but used it here too.  The red yarn I already had in my old crochet supplies.  Using dots of hot glue every few inches, I attached the twine and yarn to the cone.  I had to go around twice with the yarn to cover up the cardboard.

Inspired by this Pinterest post, and a pine tree we just cut down in our backyard, I made a garland to hang over our big window.  

It was incredibly simple and quick to do.  Cut the ribbon about 3 or 4 inches long and tie in a granny knot.  Then, hot glue ribbon to the top of the pinecone.  Then glue pinecones about 6 inches apart along the twine.  That's it!

I also made a short one for the bathroom.  I don't have many rooms to decorate, so the bathroom got some attention.  They're pretty much my favorite right now.

I didn't craft anything for this one, but I just had to share the great deal I got at a local thrift store.  This pre-lit, pre-decorated tree was only $5!  Perfect for our bedroom.

And of course, a Christmas post wouldn't be complete without a picture of our tree.  We don't have enough floor space for a full size tree, but having a real tree is important to both of us.  Fortunately, Lowes sells tabletop trees for about $20.  This year, with the suggestion from my mom, we put the tree centered in front of our triple window.  It's sitting on top of our glass top coffee table, which has been pushed over right under the window.

Both our moms have given us an ornament a year for most of our life, plus the ornaments I have bought myself, so we have enough to more than cover a full sized tree.  We can only fit maybe 1/4 of our ornaments so this year we picked out our favorites to put on the tree.  

The skirt is just a burlap runner I made a few years ago.

Of course, this is not all our decorations.  Just the new ones that I crafted on the cheap that I wanted to share. 

We really need to start working on our outdoor decor, and plant some trees that we can actually reach the branches of.  All our trees are over 40 ft tall, and we have no bushes to put lights on either.  Next year, I would love to have a huge lit wreath under our triple window and some lights in the yard.  

I almost missed getting this post up before Christmas!