Christmas Projects (A Little Late)

How is it February already?  Wow time is flying.  I meant to post about this way back in January, but never got around to it.

This Christmas I decided to 'save' some money by making many homemade gifts.  The problem with this idea is that most of the time, the homemade gift ends up costing more in the end.  But most of the time it's also worth it because it turns out exactly like I wanted and it's super cute.  Here are some pictures of the things I made this year.  I forgot to take pictures of everything I made, so some of them are the pinterest picture of my inspiration.

For Kevin, I made this chalkboard to hang in our bedroom.  I started with a piece of plywood I found in our garage and went to town.  I love how it turned out and we use it all the time to write little love notes back and forth to each other.  Every married couple should have one!

I made a few things for some children in my life.

The apron I made is this exact apron, but with cupcake fabric.

Burp cloths out of prefold diapers.

The headband I made was bright pink, but I learned how to do this cool knot.

I also made this style apron, but in an adorable grey and pink polka-dot pattern.

And a basket made out of paper grocery bags.

I also made our girls each their own rice bag that you can warm up and snuggle with.  I can't find the cover right now to Elsie's, so there's no picture.

Whew!  Kevin informed me that if I don't have the homemade gifts done by Thanksgiving next year, we will just be buying something.  It took a lot of time and energy to do it all, but I enjoyed every minute. Making something by hand for the ones you love is something I love to do!

Reupholstered Chairs Project

So, we have owned these chairs for almost a year now.  They have been used many times in their sorry condition.

I have had plans to reupholster them for a very long time.  Well, since we got them actually.  I picked up some fabric at a thrift sale earlier this summer, and have just been waiting for some time to get this project done.  Once I got started, it didn't take any longer than a couple of hours.  It's a very easy project to do, but I thought that in case you've never done something like this before, I would put together a little tutorial, just for fun.

Supplies needed:
*Chairs
*New foam padding (if needed)
*New fabric
*Screwdriver
*Pliers
*Sharpie
*Scissors
*Staple gun

Step 1:  Take the seat off of the chair.  Mine had four screws underneath and it popped off quite easily.

Step 2: Take the old fabric off.  This is where I used the screwdriver again (flat head) to pry the staples up, and then pulled them the rest of the way out with the pliers.  Pay attention as to how the fabric was put on i.e. which sides were stapled down first, how the corners were folded etc.  This will be important in step 7.

 Step 3: Determine the condition of the padding underneath, and throw away what can't be used.  For my chairs, the top white padding part was falling apart, but the straw type padding part underneath was in great shape.  I decided to keep the bottom layer and go from there.

 Step 4: Trace the board on the new foam with a sharpie for the correct size.

 Step 5: Cut out the foam using a scissors, and place on top of the other padding, on top of the board.

 Step 6: Cut out your fabric using the old fabric you took off as a pattern.  I cut mine slightly bigger than the old one because the foam I added was thicker than what was originally there. Lay the fabric face down (wrong side up) and flip your setup from step five onto the fabric.

 Step 7: Staple the new fabric onto the board using a staple gun.  I put the fabric back on the same way I took it off.  Sides first and then the ends.  Make sure you pull the fabric tight, as it will keep the fabric from being loose and floppy once it's on the chair.

 Step 8: Now flip it over and you're ready to screw it back onto the chair.

 Voila!  A brand new chair!

 I'm very happy with how my chairs turned out.  The only thing that perplexes me is that I am positive we had four chairs, but I can only find three in my house.  I have searched my house many times over, had other people search my house, and still only 3.  Oh well, maybe I'm just going crazy.

Girls Dress Project

My sister-in-law and I have been talking about making dresses for our girls since last summer.  We even went as far as going to the fabric store to look at fabric, but we didn't find anything that we liked well enough to pay $5 a yard for.  About a month ago we were cleaning out a closet at her house and found some old bed sheets that were hardly worn and had a pretty flower pattern on them.  We decided that they would be perfect for making the dresses we'd been talking about.

So, on Wednesday of last week we got together and cut out the pieces for the dresses.  This took way longer than I was expecting because every dress piece had to be cut out twice for each dress (one for the dress and one for the dress lining) and then there were three dresses.  It took us almost a full afternoon just to cut out the pattern.

We had decided between ourselves that there was no way we could get them done before Easter since it was only 4 days away and we both had other things going on too.  I decided to work on Evelyn's dress on Thursday just to see how long it would take to do.  Well, I got it almost all done except for the zipper and hem and a little hand sewing as well as a good portion started on Elsie's dress.  This gave me hope that I could possibly get the dresses done by Sunday.

Basically 2 1/2 days of straight sewing and I had all three of them done.  My fingers were achy and my back sore from bending over the sewing machine, and I was generally lacking in the sleep department, but it was so worth it!  Here are the results:

Evelyn

Elsie

Karissa

Happy Easter everyone!

A Basket and A Box

I didn't complete a HTCI area yesterday because I was too busy working on these:

This basket is made out of paper grocery bags.  I cut them open, rolled them up, sewed down the sides, and weaved them together.  (Thank you Pinterest for the idea) It's held together with hot glue to help it stay together.  I was going to use it in the game closet for organizing, but it's so cute I don't want it to hide in a closet.  We'll see if I can think of another use for it.  I'm already saving my paper bags to make another one.  It took 13 bags to make.

This is the box that Kevin made for me to help organize papers that come into our house.  They seem to all collect on one corner of our counter, so now this pretty box can sit there and hold them and look somewhat neat.

 

I think the best part of these two projects is that they didn't cost me a thing.  We had all the supplies here around the house and just needed to use come creativity to put them together.

My Latest Crafty Project

A few weeks ago, I picked up a little chair for Evelyn.  I got it at a thrift sale for $2 because she doesn't have any chairs that are her size.  Even though it was a little ugly, I decided to get it and give it a makeover. 

First, I took the ugly pad with orange yarn sewn through it and cut off all of the orange yarn.  This is where I took the above 'before' pictures.  I forgot to take pictures first I was so excited to get started on this project.

Next, Kevin took the chair outside and pressure-washed it to get the flaking pieces of plastic off of the arms and legs.

Then came the fun part.  Making a new pad/cover for the chair.  I decided to use the old pad and just cover it because there was really nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it was ugly.  It's a good thing I went through a purse-making phase in high school where I bought all sorts of upholstery fabric because I had about six different options to choose from.  It was a toss up between a light blue with yellow and navy stripes, and the one I chose.  Kevin liked the blue better, but I wanted something a little more fun, plus this one will hide the dirt better.

Because of the specific nature of the project, and the fact that I've never made anything like this before, I had to invent my own pattern.  The main thing I wanted to be sure of was that it wouldn't slide around (much) on the chair.  With Evelyn it's always up, down, up, down, and I wanted to make sure the pad/cover would stay in place.  I determined that the best way to accomplish this was to have the cover slide over the back of the chair and have ties along the sides of the seat.  Both were easier said than done, but in the end turned out exactly as I had planned. 

It's kind of hard to tell in the pictures below, but I did add four little sewn through dots on each half of the pad to give it that 'patio chair cushion' look as well as hold the pad inside in place.


















After getting almost to the end of the project, I realized that I had sewn one section shut too soon and as a result, I was going to have to sew the front seam (shown below) by hand.  I really don't like sewing by hand, but what I don't like even more is having to rip out perfectly good stitching.  It's tedious to take the stitches out, and in the end you have to do it all over again.  I decided to just leave it as is and hand sew the front seam.  Somewhere in my brain, I pulled out the name 'slip-stitch' and knew that that's the stitch I needed to use.  I just could not remember for the life of me how to do it.  With a quick google search that led me to this blog I was stitching away in no time.

And the project is now finally completed.  It took a little longer than planned partly because I had to figure out each step as I went, and partly because I was trying to sew upholstery fabric with sewing machine needles meant for sewing lightweight knits and broke every needle I had.  Since I didn't want to run across town just to pick up more needles, I waited until we were going that direction which wasn't for 3-4 days.

The finished product and Evelyn enjoying her new chair:

We still have to paint the frame of the chair to cover up some rust, and then put the little white plastic feet back on, but other than that, Evelyn now has a chair her size to sit on!  (And she loves it too!)