Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A Pink Octopus comes to life

So I had the fun task of making an stuffed pink octopus for a little girl. Here i will show you how it all came together.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pics on how i made the head, so what i did was cut out 4 of the same size lemon wedge style pieces out...flat bottom and curved sides that come to a point. I attached 2 felt eyes on 2 of the pieces that would be side by side. I sewed those 4 together to the points. I used my how to make a fleece winter hat knowledge to make the head :)


Than after that I measured the circumference of the bottom of the head opening, drew it on a piece of paper, added about 2 inches than drew 8 legs protruding from the circles. I put down the underside of the octopus fabric down, than a piece of the pink fleece and than a layer of high loft batting ( I used high loft instead of stuffing it because i didn't want the stuffing to settle in each leg ) than i put the pattern i drew and cut out on top of all the fabrics and pinned it to all the fabric


After i had everything sandwiched together it was time to head to the sewing machine.



I figured the easiest way to get an accurate cut out without having everything shift on me was to just put it under the machine paper and all and start sewing. It worked well and after i finished sewing all the way around, I tore the paper off and than cut around each leg until i just had the bottom half of the body.



Me cutting around each leg.  After i finished cutting around, i pinched the middle of the body ( pink fleece ) and made sure i only had the fleece and not the batting and underside fabric and cut a hole out of the centre from the circumference of the head opening.



So what i did here was place the head upside down and stuffed it into the body part, pinned the opening of the 2 holes together and sewed around until i had a 2 inch opening. I than started by sticking a knitting needle in each leg and turning them the right side out and poking them through the opening i had left open to turn the octopus right side out.


Once i got the little guy turned all inside out i continued to stuff the head with stuffing through the opening until i could no longer stuff . Than i hand stitched the closing closed.



And this is the finished product, I did add a little tiny blue bow at the top side of the head.
This is the underside of the body.

Thanks for reading and looking at my awesome home taken pictures and handmade baby girl octopus.

Monday, March 21, 2011

How to make your own Crayons

Alrighty, so I saw this pic of homemade crayons and was like " I HAVE TO HAVE THOSE " upon contemplating purchasing like a thousand off this other WAHM mom from the States, I decided to give it a shot first, I just happen to have a pack of crayons lying around and wasn't gonna let my son use them till he was older, so my adventure began to let him use them sooner than later.

OK so first off you need to remove all the paper from the crayons { we don't want any oven fires }
*Than you need to line a muffin tin with tinfoil. I individually wrapped the muffin spots instead of trying to spread a piece across and going from there. 
*Once lined, you need to break up the crayons in thirds and place them in whatever color scheme suits your needs. I just matched up the colors the best I could and did it in its basic parts.  I did about 5 crayons per muffin spot of a 12 cup muffin tin. Have to be careful cause it can melt over.  PS make sure you line your pan well, you will see why.

*Once you have them in the pan , place them in the oven at 250 degrees for 12-15 or till you can tell they are fully melted.  This pic shows them half way through the process.

This pictures who's what they look like once they are all melted.
How I put my crayons in the fridge for a couple minutes to help the cooling process cause I'm impatient.

Once they are fully cooled you can start to lift the cups out and peeling the tinfoil off.

After peeling my tinfoil off, i took an old parring knife from the drawer and shaved off that little flaky way edge you see there from the wax settling and hardening.  Less of a mess to try and clean up after handing them over to the little one.

This picture shows how i was too excited and accidentally punctured holes into the tinfoil and it melted through onto my pan  :(  if this happens to you, don't throw the pan out, just put it back into the oven to melt again than use some paper towel to mop up the oily mess and make sure not to burn yourself..

                                                                        VOILA

Aren't these the coolest things you have ever seen :)  they aren't as cool as per say a car shape or dinosaur, but they work just as good.    This is a picture of them in action, he just love love loves them.


 Just LOVING every second he gets to play with his crayons.

I hope you enjoyed and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask :)  cheers

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Wool Diaper Cover written Tutorial

So today was the day that I finally decided to cut into this ugly wool sweater i bought from the thrift store. It was a men's large for $4.99

So in my adventures i found some great little tutorials that i will share with you.

The first thing i made was Soaker pants

1. You take the sweater and cut off the arms, even the tops, measure the babies inseam and than put one slit on the side of both sides and than cut the slit up to the top of the sleeve were you cut it off the sweater.
2. You than turn one sleeve inside out so right sides are facing each other and sew the 2 pieces together were you cut the slits like you would sew together any pair of pants at the crotch area.
3. I cut off the collar of the sweater were the size tag was, and left about 1/2 an inch so there was room to sew it onto the top of the arms ( aka forming soakers )  pinned the pieces together right sides together and voila a waist band, mine measured about 20" and i needed it 18" so i put a slit in the collar and put an elastic band inside like you would any pair of pants.

Enjoy MSG me to ask questions.

Next I made the soakers x 2


 

1. Cut apart the remaining front and back of sweater, lay them on top of each other
2.measure the babies waist and legs - my son was 18" waist and 10.5 " thigh - cut out a 18 inch across and cut out the remaining length of the sweater so one big triangle. At the tip of my triangle i squared it off instead of a harsh point, so I'd have more room to sew the sides together.
3. Pull your point up to the centre of the long edge and fold in the sides of the soaker measure the hold I measured 5 inches from the bottom ( were it will be open for legs ) pinned and sewed from that pin up to the waist line. Do the same for both legs.
4. My soaker was a bit big in the waist so i just gathered it in the back and sewed a dart into it and cut off the access.
* This isn't an exact thing, i still need to make many adjustments, but its the jist of what to do. the tutorial  i took wasn't very thorough either.

Next  came the leg warmers.


These are the 2 pieces from the sides of the triangles we cut out, the top is the brim of the sweater so they go up near the thighs of the baby and i just tapered them down so a little foot could fit through the bottom :) and voila sewed up the sides and got 2 of the cutest little leg warmers in town :)

Hope you enjoyed these photo's and verbal directions, if you need further information as my instructions may totally suck just leave me a comment and i can get back to you as soon as possible.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Sew Much Ado: Tutorial: Felt Flash Cards / Memory Game

Sew Much Ado: Tutorial: Felt Flash Cards / Memory Game

WELCOME TO MY BLOG - FREE GIVEAWAY

So if you just happen to have come across this, why not become a follower, leave a comment below with your email address example blahblah ( at ) gmail (dot ) com.

I time to time have some interesting things, I am going to start doing tutorials and just crafty things all around.

The free giveaway for this month is a beautiful set of pillowcases.

Like these ones but in a different color scheme.


I will make the pillowcases and post a picture later. Just gotta get a few orders done first : )

So the closing end date it March 30/2011  hope you come to join us.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Another day of Diaper Repairs

So I took on the daunting task of doing an order of repairing 24 bum genius for a couple ladies.  Let me tell you, its easy as heck to do, but time consuming.  I think next time I may charge a little more than I did this time. But in any case when you times 24 x 3 elastics x 6 ends each....that's a whole lot of pain stacking elastic attaching.  My poor needs have gone through the shredder as Velcro is very course :(  but all in all I'm having a great time, my machine not so much, shes been called a few bad names followed with whispers, mutters and i may have smacked it once ha ha.  But shes a great machine.

I've been doing some research on cloth diapers and the ins and outs of it, I myself have converged over to cloth diapering 2 months ago 100% and I'm very happy and proud.  I do it a little more the hard way, I only have 5 AOI's and the rest are reg cloth diapers that require a cover. I do make my own fleece covers though, and i must say, they work pretty freaking fantastically.  They don't " soak " through but they do get a little damp which in turn lets the mommy or daddy know its time to change the baby :)




Those 2 i made, the leopard ones were given away as free prizes and the blue one with the grayish brown heart on the bum bum was a special order for a wonderful customer. I love doing custom orders more than anything, which is why I probably haven't gotten too much into the selling end of things. But I think that somewhere in the world there should be a store you could walk into and have like a zillion different types of cloth diapers to choose from, its so hard to find a brand you like over the Internet.  So maybe that's in my future, to simply have a cloth diapering store. I think its a great idea, so don't steal my thunder ha ha.

And since nobody wants the produce bag free give-away, I'm gonna pull it off the shelf and think of replacing it with something " cooler " what would you like to see as a free giveaway?  maybe cloth diapers ?

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Everything Pink and another FREE GIVEAWAY

So I finally have the pink quilt cut out, I just need to sew the strips together and start cutting out blocks. This is gonna be sooo neat, i cant wait until its finished.  I will add pictures of the progress.
So I'm thinking that the pink quilt is cursed, every time i start it I get sick sick sick.  :(

My project of the day yesterday was to make some reusable produce bags, they turned out really well and I'm super happy with them.


I made it masculine so that my husband wouldn't have a problem with using them.  I used jersey mesh instead of plastic mesh as I want these to last longer, as this will wash over and over again.
So my project to start today is sewing pink strips together and its currently 6 30 am

My Free giveaway of the week is......wait for it......A reusable produce bag :)  If you are female you will get a girly one, if you are male...I'll try to make it as masculine as I can.
So leave a comment and your e-mail or if you don't want to leave your e-mail on the blog cause of spammers, just e-mail it to me but still leave a comment.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Feb 01 Free Give Away WINNER

And since there was only 2 wonderful people who commented on my free give-away, they will each win something from the wonderful Diaper cover stash.  Amy and Marie you will both receive 1 each of a Animal Print diaper cover in a large size.  Since I have both your address, keep an eye out int he mail for your winnings :)

And on to my day, so we have this huge dollarstore were i found some things to get crafty with. I have purchased 1 red croc patent vinal placemat and 1 black croc patent vinal placemat and one vinal table cloth cover.  I think im gonna have a fun time with finding fun crafty things to do with these items.

But just incase

WHAT DO YOU THINK I SHOULD DO WITH THESE 3 ITEMS?

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Another Year Older

So my birthdays come and gone, I unfortunately was not able to correctly finish my dress, as I had made it a size too big and didn't realize until just before we left for lunch.  But here is a picture of the colors.


That's the overall design of the top bodice, the rest is just regular straps and skirt.  I do vow to alter and finish this dress though.

So good news on my pink quilt adventures, its all cut out all zillion strips :)  I just now have to sew them all together and than start cutting blocks, than adding a border or 2 and than the fun part, PINNING.  and than the other favorite part....QUILTING.  ohh and than it has to be binded :)  I love quilting, its been about a month or 2 since i have done my last one, and it was the cutest little car quilt for a little boy.  I will show a pic of it.



That one was really fun to do, as I've got a few under my sleeve now.....4 baby quilts and 3 adult i believe, its very fun and extremely rewarding.  I do hope to one day, just make up maybe 10 or 20 baby quilts and put them up for sale, or maybe just keep taking my custom orders.  But we will see. My husband has gone back to work finally so i currently have the house back to myself and with the baby.  I plan on some early morning 6 am wake ups to start sewing while the kidlet is sleeping, best time to sew assuming i have all my materials and they aren't in his room.

But good night you all.  I still am having the free diaper cover giveaway Feb 01 so make sure to post a comment and let me know your e-mail. 

Keep an eye out for other free give aways, I hope to do at least 2 a month so make sure you tell everyone to get a free goody :)

CHEERS

Friday, January 21, 2011

My Birthday Dress

Hello today

So today I'm gonna be working on my 28th birthday dress, its a Cynthia Rowley Simplicity patter 2250.  its got lots of pleats and darts in the bodice, so lets see how it turns out. I should come to about my knees by looking at the picture, I'm assuming the model is about 5' 10" and I'm only 5' 4" so in my case the longer the better don't wanna have and Britney moments getting out of a car :)

I'm doing my dress in a deep deep almost black purple with maroon and gold peaking out all around it, its pretty neat, so I'm very interested to see how this is gonna turn out eek.

Tonight I'm going to a hockey game just a local one to support the guys trying to make it into the big leagues.  I'm gonna wear my new jean skirt that i made, with a pair of black leggings and my new grey boots that i just bought from ALDO thanks to my husbands mom who gave me a gift certificate for Xmas i bought 2 pairs of boots and a skirt from Serena's. Anyways, I don't know what top I'm gonna wear, although I'm sure it wont matter since I'm gonna be wearing a jacket in the ice arena. 

But off i am to finish cutting out this pattern and putting it together, I'm gonna start with all the small pieces that i already know how to do before i tackle this bodice.....duh duh daaaaaa

I'll post pictures as soon as i get some progress

Sewer out

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

FREE GIVE AWAY

So I'm a little behind on the free give away, but please forgive me as I've been sick all week and needed some time to recover.  So I will extend the date of the free giveaway to Feb 01, 2011 I hope to get a few more followers by then.  So tell your friends, your friends friends and even your partner.  You never know everyone loves to get something for free.

OK so our free giveaway today is ........... Fleece Diaper Covers - To win this diaper cover or one of your choice, please leave a comment with your e-mail address.

Your choice of either the animal print, all Burgundy, Burgundy and black accents, baby blue or animal print with black accents.  Enjoy.

So on another note, yesterday and today I was working on a much anticipated jean skirt out of a pair of oldish jeans that didn't fit properly anymore.  I have to say, I'm pretty darn impressed with it, its everything I could of ever wanted and more and if I didn't know how to sew today, I probably would have bought it in the store and paid upwards to $60 bucks in of course Canadian dollars. Here's the finished product


Yes I'm in my Jammie's

I had alot of fun doing the skirt, of course a few mishaps along the way, but whenever aren't there...I'm a learn as you go kinda girl, what do you call that..TRIAL AND ERROR  ha ha..that's me.  So after I finished the skirt I had a few left over leg scraps, and I thought how great of an idea it would be to have a fantastic new bag to go with my fantastic new skirt....so lone behold the clutch was born. Here's the finished product.


Me peeking around the corner trying to see if I have it lined up in the camera.
So this little beauty has med weight interfacing with a snap closure and nail head embellishments ( which by the way I'm super in love with and hope I never ever drop one on the floor ) and a beautiful red lining.


I really do know how to smile :)

Anyways, so that's what I have been up to the last few days.  They were boredom projects.  But I always make something useful.  If you have any questions as to how or anything else about these fun things just let me know.

Tanya

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Success

So everytime i try to add a blog, is says web error and i cannot.  Im assuming this blog will work.  If so...my success of the day was finishing my oven mitts and potholders.

Although im sad my big blog i wrote up dissapeared.  :(

Let me know what you think of them.

I will be posting a FREE GIVEAWAY  -  JANUARY 17 - KEEP AN EYE OUT

Friday, January 14, 2011

Cloth Diapering and reusable washcloths

So I spent my morning sewing up an order of thee cutest reusable wash clothes and baby wipes.  They have 2 inch blocks of pictures that say the color and a picture of lets say Yellow = sun.  To match is a beautiful newborn cloth diaper and a baby blue fleece diaper cover with a little heart appliqued on the bum.  I've had lots of fun doing this order cause the colors are extremely vibrant.  Even the saddest person would smile :)

On my list of things to do this week are a set of pot holders and matching oven mitts.  Black with pink high lights....let me tell you, i look forward to these, I think black and pink are the best contrast colors ever.  They are super fun and well obviously super useful.

Than to start the infamous......PINK QUILT......all things pink all pink, pink pink pink.....my sewing area looks like Pepto Bismul right now ha ha, but lets say, I LOVE IT.....if anyone ever feels like there life is dull or boring...become a quilter....your life will be turned upside down and sideways with all the colors and fabrics and intense designs.  You will be able to pick out a Rail Fence quilt or a 9 patch in no time, things will start to make sense as you put 2 and 2 together, you will never look at a blanket the same way...you will envy it and its time and effort and artistic abilities. Its a WHOLE new world lets say.  I love my new world as I've only been sewing for approximately 18 m as that's how old my son is :)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

My First Post

My name is Tanya and im a fabric-holic. So im sick as a dog and the only thing on my mind is sewing. Daddy has the baby so im pretty much free to do whatever for the moment, and than I found myself wanting to start a BLOG. I find myself with so much to say and all sorts of things I want to share with people so here I am ready and willing to share my learning experiences and sometimes injuries...me and my sewing machine dont always get along.
So on another note, keep an eye out for free give aways and little contests.