January Collaboration

So I have not been on here in a while but had been checking up on all the wonderful stuff going on here!

So I bet Im not alone in this but I was prepared to say I collaborated with Pintrest and Martha Stewart but I ended up asking my husband for help with some simple man tasks... Things I probably could have done BUT I felt he had watched enough football yesterday! Im such a B!

So I initially was trying to decorate my mantle and thought it would be cute to have a chalkboard to write a Valentines Day quote and carry over to other holidays. My husband was super busy with work so I was stuck with a piece of plywood i had found in the garage but thought it was a good size. I thought I wanted something pretty big because we have high ceilings. I ended up hating how big it was so I had my hubs drill holes and I hung it in the kitchen as a family message board! I really like it!

This is the plywood I used. I sanded it down quick but especially rounded the corners and sides.

This is the Martha recipe i used! I chose a standard color but you can use any color. Its one cup paint and 2 TBSP grout. I have plenty left to do more projects. The directions are on there as well.

http://www.marthastewart.com/271574/custom-color-chalkboard-paint

It was a bit tricky to get the lumps out... but just keep stirring!Painting the whole board, I used a sponge brush which worked great. careful to get the sides!Here is a close up of the rounded corners. after the paint dries I sanded it like the directions said but I had two little ones in the house and I just used the orbital sander and a finer grit paper but not as fine as Martha suggested... It was fine.

Finished! It worked great I have horrible hand writing (as you can see) this was the 4 th try... I have erased it with a damp cloth a bunch so far!PS. This was a super easy Pin I found also! Felt carelessly sewn together and cut in slices! it was FAST!

work in progress

So I'm way late posting for December's work-in-progress challenge, but I'm going to use the holidays and travel as an excuse and post anyways :)

I'm co-hosting a dinosaur-themed baby shower at the end of the January, and I'm in charge of decor. This basically led to hours of me googling for craft ideas and then trying to replicate them.

Here's what I've got so far:


Framed dino silhouettes - really easy! I already had the frames from some other project that never happened, otherwise I think I would have gotten brown ones. The backgrounds are just scrapbook paper, and to make the dinos, I just found shapes I liked, printed/cut them out, traced them onto textured scrapbook paper, and cut them out. They were all supposed to be facing the same way, but I accidentally put glue on the wrong side of the poor triceratops.


rawr banner. I found a cute font (go to FontSquirrel for lots of free fonts!), upped the font size to like 400, and printed and cut the letters out. The flags are more scrapbook paper. I need to get some ribbon to string the whole thing together, and then I have plans to make cute coordinating paper pinwheels with dinosaurs on them to hang at the edges of the banner to make it a little fancier.

and finally, a request for ideas... in a moment of temporary insanity brought on by a free shipping deal, we ordered a bucket of FIVE HUNDRED small & medium sized foam dinosaur stickers... any ideas as to what I can make with them??

WIP from December

December was a month full of works in progress - many of which got out the door in the form of Christmas presents, but many still remain on my list because I ran out of thread or time!

The BIG WIP for the month was definitely stockings. I've been meaning to make stockings for the past three Christmases. I have several knitted stocking patterns in my Ravelry queue, a failed patchwork stocking attempt from last year, and four very nearly complete stockings from this year! I'm expecting to finish them for real next November/December.

But I made really good progress. I used a pattern from PrudentBaby for the stocking shape and some lovely Ikea fabric. For each stocking, I quilted together the Ikea fabric, batting and white cotton - following the outlines of the red shapes on the fabric.

Then I sewed two quilted pieces right sides together, leaving the top open.

On two of them, I sewed on bias tape to the top to finish them for use this year. The other two weren't needed this year and were done after Christmas.

Next year, I'll add cuffs to all of them with each of our names on them. But first we need to know who stocking #4 belongs to!

January Challenge - Collaboration

Okay, so I'm always a little late to the party, but I've got a good excuse this time! The internet went out at our house for a whole 4 days! Sorry! And, my next post will be all about UFO/WIPs.

I seriously considered making this month's challenge a request for suspenders for all us pregnant ladies, since my pants do not comfortably stay up anymore, but that seemed selfish.

Instead, this month is all about collaboration! Let's see if you can craft well with others.

One of my favorite things is working with my husband, Eben, on craft projects. We always make it a point to do Christmas cards together and we can sometimes be found trying to puzzle out how to make a toy that our three year old has requested. Although somehow I always end up doing all the sewing.... Plus when we work together, we can both be overly proud of the result.

So, challenge yourself this month to craft collaboratively. Be it with your partner (wedding planning, for example) or a friend or even a complete stranger. I've never made it all the way through a quilting project, but maybe you can swap quilt pieces with a friend. Or log onto Ravelry and see what other knitters, crocheters, and weavers are working on. Use the forums to share ideas or check out how others completed similar projects. Go crazy and collaborate with a kiddo! Or a neighbor!

For my part, I'm hoping that Eben and I can put together a mail sorter for the back of our door before our time is spent collaborating with one another on parenting a newborn. I'm in charge of the sewing and fabric parts of the construction and he's in charge of the metalwork part that will be three hooks that go over the door. We'll see how well we do!

Officially Late--I blame pregnancy!

I am officially late for December, but since Laura hasn't posted January's challenge yet, I figure it is ok...

Forgive me, the pictures are from my phone so the quality isn't great. My current work in progress is a twin quilt for Henry. I was working diligently on it, hoping to finish it before the baby arrives, but he is currently attached to a butt-ugly Blue's Clues quilt that belonged to his cousin, so I made the executive decision not to bust my butt finishing his new quilt... I can, however, show you the pattern and what I have started...

The pattern is called Disappearing Nine Patch. You start by making as many Nine Patches as you need for the quilt.

This picture is actually just the strips of three next to each other. Next, you use your rotary cutter to cut the Nine Patch in half vertically and then horizontally. Then you move the pieces around (like turning the top left and bottom right quarters halfway) and sew everything back together.

This gives the illusion that you pieced big squares, little squares, and rectangles, when really you just cut the Nine Patch and rearranged it! It's kind of involved, but when it's finished, it will look awesome, I am sure!