If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time you may have caught on that I love a teepee for a kids’ space.  And if you know me in real life, you may know that I love to build a good tent.  Finally, this Christmas, I decided it was time.  I was gonna’ sew one of these bad boys.  I was pretty much terrified, but took the plunge - and was pleasantly surprised how well it came together!

I used a canvas drop cloth from Lowes and some homespun rusty red gingham I’d had laying around for the contrasting fabric.  I love this tent.

The poles are dowels I cut down to 5’ at Home Depot, with some dowels slipped inside the trim around the back three panels to keep it sturdy.

I took the process slowly and figured out how to attach matching tie-backs with loops for the entrance.

The tops of the poles have holes drilled through them with some thick twine wrapped in and out and around and around to keep them together.

This gift turned out to be pretty popular. 

(P.S. - I’m working on a bit of a tutorial for this.  As I usually do, I poked around a number of tutorials and took a little of this idea, and a little of that, so you can certainly find all the same resources if you look around.  I’ll include links to those in my next post.  But stay tuned for my version…)

I’d been hoping since her birthday to buy Little L a cute little purse.  She previously had walked around with a shopping bag, or her brother’s bucket as a purse draped daintily over her wrist.  But after finding everything was too cheaply made, too ridiculously tacky, or too expensive I decided to make one.  Actually I made two.

The first one I used a large fabric sample I had in my stash and folded it over, sewed the sides and boxed out the bottom by sewing over the corners.  I pretty much free-styled. (Both the pleat on the front, and the bow on the side were happy accidents to cover up mistakes.)

The second purse I kinda’ sorta used this tutorial for inspiration - though I didn’t follow it completely, and obviously made it a more little-girl-size.

I love that cute matryoshka fabric. I think I kind of wish this was my purse. ;)

It was crazy how many of the kids’ gifts I made this year.  That was a lot of factors working together:

me trying to be frugal + they’re at a fun age to make things for (especially L) + I don’t have a lot of home projects to work on right now until we move into our house.

Before Christmas I showed you a bit of progress on Little L’s Christmas present, and I thought I’d show you the finished project!

I had claimed the crib from being thrown out of our church nursery and refreshed it with a coat of warm white paint (actually, the paint leftover from the kids’ nursery back at the condo.  Kind of nice to have a bit of it with us…)

I also sewed a mattress, pillows with cases, and a quilt for the bed.

I loved using every girly, pretty, flowery thread of fabric on this project.  

And it is nice, that at the end of the day L’s babies (that she loves so dearly) are no longer unceremoniously tossed into the toy box, but rather they’re kissed sweetly and tucked into bed.

I’ve got some grand plans for making the kids’ Christmas presents this year.  For Little L I was the lucky recipient of an old doll crib being cleared out of our church nursery.  It’s quite old (Sean’s sisters had one made by the same man when they were little) and pretty beat up, but I plan on sanding it down, repainting it, and creating some pretty bedding fit for L’s beloved little dolly.

Step one was making the pillows.  I mostly followed the tutorial by Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts.

Oh my word.  I love these little pillows.  I want to make a hundred of them.  I want to go into business selling just doll pillows.  I want to make them for all the girls with American Girl dolls in my Sunday school class.  These pillows are so easy and sweet.

I love the little separate pillow case.

Next up is the baby quilt…  So excited!!  (Why is everything miniature so much more fun?!)

Though there are so many gorgeous Japanese fabrics, I usually pass them by because I can’t handle paying so much for them.  But these ones.  Hoooo boy.  I may just have to save some pennies and splurge on such water-coloury prettiness.

This fabric is from the Kokka Nani Iro fabric line, designed by Naomi Ito, available through Purl Soho.  And this lap quilt project featured on their blog, the Purlbee, is perfect because it beautifully showcases such pretty fabric.

But I can see myself treasuring a piece of this fabric and being scared to sew anything with it, for fear of ruining it.  Because I do that.

*Sigh*  Love it!

(All pictures from the Purlbee)

So, I can be pretty cheap.  Luckily I’m also thrifty and creative, so it can work out pretty well.  Like today when I was working on a pillow cover and decided it would look better with piping, but had none on hand, I had to come up with a way to make piping.  I didn’t really want to go to the only fabric store in our city to find out whether or not they had piping cord to make my own, so I used my thrifty ways to come up with a plan with what I had on hand.  My supplies?

Chunky yarn and bias tape!

The yarn’s been sitting around for a long time (since the days when I crocheted more), and I had a pile of brown bias tape for some reason.

First I cut the bias tape down the centre, ironed it out, and placed the yarn inside.

Then I sewed right alongside the yarn…

And ta da!  Piping!  The yarn’s a little softer than piping cord, perhaps, but it should work just fine for my purposes.

How easy is that?  And I didn’t even have to buy anything!  Score!

(Up next: I’m going to see if I can use my DIY piping idea to make double welt cord for my Louis chair using a tutorial like this one…)

(via Sarah Jane Studios Blog) How cute is the paper planes fabric?

(via Sarah Jane Studios Blog) Love this colourway.

(via Sarah Jane Studios Blog) Especially love the balloon fabric.

(via Sarah Jane Studios Blog) How cute is this fabric from Sarah Jane Studio/Michael Miller Fabrics?  I love the combination of traditional dots, gingham, ticking and florals with whimsical scenes and illustrations.

(via Sarah Jane Studios Blog) Hooray Hooray!  Beautiful new fabrics from a favourite artist of mine!  Wishing I had time to make a quilt now…

As I mentioned in this post, it was long past due for me to clean, I mean organize, umm… attack our laundry/storage closet.  So I finally did it, and I’m so glad I did! (Especially before I get any more pregnant.)  It’s like a breath of fresh air.  But I hesitate to show you pictures, because, let’s face it: it’s an organized closet that stores cleaning supplies, laundry gear, tools and building materials, fabric, batteries and light bulbs, and recycling.

It is not the dreamy-styled-for-TV/magazine-idyllic masterpiece that we like to look at.  These are some of my favourite laundry room pictures.  But let’s be real, shall we?

Design by Sarah Richardson from Sarah’s House on HGTV Canada

Wouldn’t it be lovely if all I had to store was an abundance of fluffy towels and toilet paper?

Source Unknown

Or how perfect would it be if I matched all of our clothing, linens, towels, and laundry detergent to my laundry room paint colour?

Source Unknown

A laundry room will always be perfect if you never bring any actual laundry into the room.  This is clearly the laundry room of a nudist.

Photograph by Donna Griffith for Canadian House & Home

And this is my most beloved laundry room.  But I’m pretty sure it’s as big as (bigger than?) my living room.  And I’m afraid we have more to store than a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and a single cowboy hat.

Truth is, my laundry room is a small windowless closet.  But to impress you more by the “after” photo I’ll give you the embarrassingly sickening “before” picture:

Yech.  So bad.  Step 1 was PLAN (click on the link to see how I did that)

Step 2 was EDIT: I started with unloading the whole thing.  I put up signs in the hallway to sort into piles “Keep”, “Recycle”, “Garbage”, etc.  The most valuable pile for me was the “Somewhere Else” pile.  This was so useful because I am quite easily distracted when cleaning.  So instead of taking these things to their new location and then getting caught up in other activities, I just made a pile and stayed in the laundry room zone.

Step 3 was CLEAN: After emptying it all I scrubbed the place down: machines, walls, shelves, floors…  Let’s just say I did some climbing that a lady as pregnant as myself probably shouldn’t do.  Shhh.  Don’t tell anyone.  But that place looked good!

At this point I taped signs to the shelves to assign space for the different things I deemed suitable for storage in this space.  I tried to ensure accessibility for frequently used items, and less used items were stored higher, lower, or deeper.

Step Four was ORGANIZE: I re-loaded the room mostly according to plan.  Some of those storage bins are actually empty, and it’s nice to know (especially with a new Little One on the way) that there’s space to spare!  But in my brain this is not the official “after” photo. There’s one more step left:

PRETTIFY!

So early this week I sewed a few items for the room.  I sewed a plastic bag organizer based on this tutorial from Martha.  I also created a new ironing board cover - partially to match the new scheme, and partially to fit the board better.  I based it on this tutorial, and I’m super pleased with it.  Finally, I sewed a pretty curtain to cover up the exposed pipes and such.

I still have a ways to go with finishing touches: Sean needs to sort through some stuff, I may want to figure out some different (coordinated) storage containers, I want to hang some hooks, and even find/create some art to cover the electrical panel.  So there you go.  There’s my real-life laundry room organization. :)

I happened to inherit a free ottoman.  My husband loves it when he’s rocking with the little boy in the nursery, and Little M loves to roll around on it and pretend to sleep on it.  Problem?  It’s ugly!  Solution?  Slip cover!  This is a ridiculously easy project with big impact.  Of course you could complicate it by using a storage ottoman, or adding piping, but I wanted a quick “cross off your to-do list” projet du jour.

So… Start with one ugly ottoman:

Then drape your much nicer fabric over the ottoman, fabric right-side-in:

Then pin the corners:

I drew a line along the edge to help guide me when sewing:

Then sew along your line:

You should put your slipcover back onto your ottoman to make sure it fits properly.  At this point your son may announce “ALL DONE!” and try to climb up on top.  However, he would be mistaken: you may need to re-pin, stitch rip, or re-sew the sides to make the fit snug.  I am not very fussy though, and I declared it good enough.

Then you can remove the slipcover and trim off the corner pieces (I’m saving mine… possibly for pillows?)

Now you can hem up the bottom for a nice edge:

Now you can turn your slipcover right-side-out and voila!  A fun little ottoman slip cover!

I made mine a little loose, since I think it’ll be taken off and washed frequently, given its location in the kids’ bedroom.  (Which, by the way, I pre-washed the fabric to avoid future shrinkage fiascos).  I may go back and tighten up the corners a little, but I’m perfectly happy for now!