Revamping the Baby Room Pt 2

So you remember from a previous post that I've been "growing" up my little boy's room.  Out goes Winnie the Pooh and here come the tractors!

My parents came to visit last week and my mom decided to help things along a bit.  She gave me a little nudge to make a new valence for the window and some pillowcases for the little pillow on the bed.

The previous valence was celery green on top with a border of white with green polkadots on the bottom.  I didn't quite measure right (go figure) and the valence just went straight across, it didn't wrap around the the brackets.  Oops.  We originally wanted to use denim and a bandana print, but of course couldn't find it.  The next best thing we could find was a red and white check.  Turns out, it's perfect!

There's a basic white roller shade underneath with a scalloped edge.  I think it gives the window a little extra character.  I also love the ric-rac edging :)

When we converted Rowan's crib to a bed, I pulled out the little pillow I had used when I was his age.  Of course, it had a rather girly cover.  So this seemed to be a good opportunity to make a new one since I had extra fabric.  I even had enough to make two!

I think they're very farm and go with the tractor theme nicely :)  Rowan really couldn't care one way or the other, but I feel better now that his room is a little more matchy.  

My parents also helped do a few things in my craft room.  I've got a few more touches to do, and then I'll do a post on that!

But It's Too Cute NOT To Wear!

My darling little baby boy turned 2 in May and apparently is already having opinions on what to wear. This is exciting, but breaks my heart because I made something darn cute and, of course, he won't wear it!

 Last summer my mom bought Rowan this cute little white jacket from Carters to wear after swimming (naturally, I forgot to take a picture of it before I hacked it up). It was made of terry cloth, had a hood, and a little zipper that only went half way down (so you had to slip it over his head to get it on). It was an 18 month, so it was pretty big. This year it fit perfectly, once you got it on. Apparently his head is a bit big and pulling it on a squirming 2 year old was a nightmare.

 So I had this flash of brilliance! I'll take out the zipper, cut it down the front, and add buttons instead! After copious amounts of ripping out stitching that I could barely see and a quick cut job with the scissors, I had an unfinished, open jacket.

Seriously, the ripping out of the zipper was the toughest part of the whole project.  Carters sewed that sucker in there for good!  The next step was to serge those two raw edges, then turn them under a half inch and sew.  I also top stitched near the edge to make sure it laid nice and flat.

I rummaged through my horde of buttons (every seamstress needs a horde of buttons!) and just happened to find these 3 enormous orange buttons.  But how to close it?  Button holes seemed like a bad idea due to the ravel-ly nature of terry clothe and I really didn't want to lose any girth in the jacket.  My mom jumped in and suggested using bias tape to make loops.  So back to the closet I went and happened to find some bright teal bias tape that looked really striking with the orange buttons.  

Then bippity-boppity-boo, the jacket was done!

Of course, having developed compulsive-embroidery-syndrome, I then decided it needed a little something on the right shoulder.  Enter my favorite website for cheeky patterns, Urban Threads.  There was this awesome little pirate ducky that seemed only too appropriate for a swim cover-up.

Not sound too smug, but seriously, how cute did this thing turn out?  I finished it the night before Rowan had swim lessons and was all excited for him snuggle up in it when he was done.  

WRONG.  This jacket is like the plague or cooties him.  Every time I pull it out, he practically runs in the other direction.  Hence why there is no picture of him wearing it.  Sigh.  Good thing it didn't take 6 months to make!  Maybe I'll get him in it yet this summer....

Craft Room - Take 2

So my craft room drives me nuts.  It's really just a hodge podge of stuff and I've never really done much with it.  Mostly because eventually that room won't be mine forever.  Someday we might have another baby and then we'll have to play room shuffle, and if not, then eventually that will become Rowan's room.  With that in mind, I just haven't had the heart to put much effort into it.

However, the other day I finally had enough.  The closet in particular made me want to pull my hair out.

I decided to roll up my sleeves and tear in to that sucker.  First thing I did was pack up all the bellydance costumes on the bottom shelf.  Since I'm sort of in bellydance remission, they rarely get used and I could really stand the closet space.

Then I took everything out and sorted.  I even *gasp* threw some things away!  I was very proud of myself on that one :)

Next, I went to Wal-Mart and bought a few cheap fabric bins and a large jar.  Here's what I used the jar for:

Isn't it pretty all full of buttons?  The little jars from Ikea have sequins in them.  Seriously, these jars make me pretty happy.  I plan to get more of them :)

My next big project was my fabric stash.  Holy Moly Cow.  The pink and green bins in the top picture were just overflowing with fabric and there was more on the floor.  Big pieces, little scraps, cotton, denim, felt...

While procrastinating on Pinterest one day, I ran across this awesome tutorial on a blog called Smashed Peas and Carrots that shows you how to make mini fabric bolts to store your fabric.  Brilliant!  Now all my big pieces are wrapped on bolts and out where I can see them.  Currently they're horizontal because my shelves are wire and I'm waiting for my husband to cut a sheet of something to cover them.

I know it looks a little sloppy now, but once they're vertical I think it will really clean up nice.  And I adore how I can see at a glance just what I all have!  As for the little piece too small for bolts, I used the fabric bins to stow them.  I also decided not to wrap the felt on bolts.  I just chucked all of that into an empty plastic box with a lid for now.  

My goal was to cut down on all the random, loose, stuff floating around that closet.  Most everything (at least the little stuff) is corralled into either a jar or a basket.

Not perfect by a long shot, but at least I don't cringe or run screaming every time I open the door.  I have several more ideas I'd like to implement.  The next one is also a Pinterest inspiration.  I'd like to find a couple wood spice-rack shelf thingies to store all my little jars of sparkies and doodads.

Give me some time, and we'll see what happens!

It Only Took a Year...

Sooooo....around a year later, I  FINALLY  FINISHED  THE  STAR  WARS  QUIET  BOOK!!!!

Here's the cover in all it's glory!  I made it totally different than the directions said.  Instead of just 2 sheets of felt stuck together with grommets in them, I used black denim.  There's two long sheets of denim (that I did the appliqué on) that I sewed right sides together, then turned right side out and topstitched around the edges.

When I finished the pages, I put in the grommets and held them together with binder rings.  On the cover, I sewed a strip of black gross-grain ribbon down the middle, leaving gaps to insert the binder rings.  Then I just clipped in the rings!

Here's the last page that I never did show a picture of.  The End.  Finally!

On the inside of the back cover, I stitched in my initials and the year I finished it.  My grandmother used to do this on most of the things she finished.  That way some day when my great-grandkids are playing with this they'll know who made it.

Upon finishing this, there's definitely something I would do different next time.  I wouldn't make the pages out of felt.  I would do them out of muslin, like my gramma did in my old books.  I'm really nervous that the felt won't hold up well.  To help stave that off, I added interfacing in between the pages, but that makes them extra bulky.  I think muslin pages would make the whole book more compact (not to mention it would be cheaper!).  

& oh!  The wheels are turning for the next book already!  Stay tuned!  And maybe it won't take a whole year for the next one ;)

Time for a Big Boy Room

Sigh.  My little boy is getting older.  He just turned two last month.  Originally, I had his room all done up in classic Winnie the Pooh.

Wow.  That mobile has been long gone for quite some time.  And yes, feel free to laugh at the screaming baby.  I didn't realize you could actually see him crying until quite awhile after taking that picture, then just never got around to taking a better one.  The characters on the wall behind him were all vinyl clings that were a part of the set.  I loved the idea of the clings.  They filled up that big blank wall and could easily be moved/removed. 

Here they are on a closet door in his room in the apartment we lived in when we first brought him home.  When we moved, I just placed them on wax paper, rolled them up, and transported them to the house!  Super easy!

Anyways, I figure Rowan's probably getting a little old for Pooh Bear.  He's currently obsessed with tractors, so I thought maybe I could find some tractor vinyl clings to "grow things up" a bit.  My goal was to not spend a fortune, so in a year or two when he's moved on to something else, I can just replace the clings.  

First of all, there really aren't any RED tractor clings out there.  My dad sells case, so the green John Deer ones are out.  I checked out Etsy to see if I could have something custom made, but since I wanted a super big something, I couldn't find anything for less than about $80.  That was a liiiiitle bit more than I was hoping to spend.

So my next thought was was, "Hey!  I've cut vinyl on my Cricut before, maybe I could just make my own wall cling!".   That was the beginning of a very long, headache inducing  process.

Turns out (after much googling and smashing my head against my desk) that you can't cut anything on your Cricut that's larger than your mat.  It won't let you.  Poop.  Now I had to rethink entirely what I was going to do.  And of course, I had already bought all the vinyl.

So after some teeth gnashing, here's what I came up with:

I really like having his name up there because that could possibly stay even when the tractors come down someday.  I still think it needs a little something.  I do have a Cricut cartridge that has a bunch of cute animals, so maybe I'll scatter some little farm animals around to help fill it in.

Sigh.  Look at that.  No mobile.  Toddler rail.  Pillow.  Next thing I know he'll be driving and dating.  Heaven help us!

The Rad Rav 4 and it's Snazzy New Trashcan

Yup.  I just used the word snazzy :)

But back to the point...  This past weekend I just got a new car!

It's a 2010 Toyota Rav 4 and has a pop-up 3rd row of seating.  I didn't even know they made a model with a 3rd row!  

My Mercury Sable mysterious stranded me twice in 2 days and my husband said, "That's it!"  You know it's a mystery when Walt, a nuclear engineer, can't figure out what's going on.  

While I'm excited to have a fun new ride, the real purpose of this post is share this nifty little Pinterest project I did for the car.  My last car always had a huge wad of trash stuffed in to the side pockets of the doors.  That drove me nuts, but it's kind of inevitable.  

Well, I kept seeing thing little project on Pinterest and finally decided to give it a go.

It's a trashcan!  I took an empty Cascade dishwasher pod container and wrapped in scrapbook paper.  Seriously.  That's it.  The lid opens and shuts to help contain the mess.  I even got fancy and stuck some press and stick velcro onto the bottom of it so it sticks to the carpet.  Ta-da!

I'm rather in love with the zebra print.  It seems to fit the beige and black interior of the Rad Rav 4 :)  and hopefully it will help keep the tissues and snack wrappers at bay!

Princess Daisy or My New Apron

As a mom, I do a lot of laundry.  Especially since I use clothe diapers.  & Since I live in San Diego I get to hang the majority of my clothes on the line to dry :)  When we first moved in to our house, I was super excited to get a clothesline set up so I could hang up tons of stuff.

(Please excuse the mess, but you can see line ran from the porch to the jungle gym.)

One thing about my husband that has rubbed off on me is the need for efficiency.  It was killing my back to always be bending down to pick up clothes and clothespins all the way across that long line.  So I decided that a little apron to hold clothespins would speed up the process.

I found a nice pattern for a gardening tool belt in the book You Grow Girl by Gayla Trail.  (As a side note, that pattern was about the only thing book had going for it.)  Of course, as usually happens, I ended up altering the pattern quite a bit.  Instead of making 5 or 6 slim pockets, I just made 2 big ones to hold the clothespins and I totally went my own with the ties.  The author just used strips of bias tape or gross grain ribbon, but I thought it would be too thin.  So I just used some of my extra fabric and make actual ties.  

(Funny story:  Don't ask my two year old to say fabric.  Let's just say it comes out something that rhymes with Bucket, but starts with F!)

For the fabric, the brown stuff is denim left over from when I reupholstered a little rocker for Rowan and then I bought the floral cotton to match.

There I am hanging up diapers.  Something I do about every 2 or 3 days.  If you ever want to know about clothe diapering, let me know and maybe I'll do a post on it.  I LOVE it!  

The apron works like a charm.  & everytime I put it on, Rowan points to me and says, "Princess!  Daisy."  (Something from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I'm guessing.)  & who doesn't want to be called a princess on a regular basis ;)