Custom made Canvas Laundry Hampers

This was an order put in by my brother and his girl-friend. They needed laundry hampers made for some existing frames they had hanging around. Was I upto designing some hampers...? oh  of course. Im always up for a challenge, I like to do things i've never done before, just to see if I can do it. I think I did pretty good considering i've never made any hamper of any sort, so I thought i'd fancy them up a little by adding some slightly contrasted hanging tabs.

So this is one of the hampers. They were fun and easy to make and I serged all the edges so it has a professional clean look and the canvas wont unravel.

I forgot to turn the pictures before posting them, but you get the jyst of what they are saposed to look like.

Life since April 2011

So since my last post in April lots has happened and I promise to blog more at least once a week. I was pregnant with my second child who was due Jan 26, 2012 of this year, instead I went into premature labour and had a healthy baby boy born Dec 17, 2011 at 6.7 lbs 21 inches. We spent a couple days in hospital and were able to come home Dec 23, 2 days before christmas. Now thats a christmas present.

So needless to say with a 2.5 year old toddler and a 7w old baby, getting to my sewing has been a little tough.

Thats my Peanut

Greyson Winter Gruszecki

My next post will be sewing related :)



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.

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

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.

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.