August 20, 2014 by Stephanie

Fabric Covered Boxes

I showed our lovely shelves yesterday. Once they were made, I realized we didn’t have enough boxes to make it look how I wanted pattern wise. Our Walmart didn’t sell orange ones, and I didn’t want to wait to purchase them on Amazon.

So after consulting Pinterest, I got the idea to just make my own fabric box.

We had so much of the elephant print left over, so I figured it would tie everything around the room together a little more. And diaper boxes make the perfect cubbies.

So really, I didn’t feel like I spent any money on these since the funds were allotted initially elsewhere. Plus these diapers were a gift, so really it’s even better!

Also this was a project to keep my bed rest behind preoccupied but still sitting.

Here is how I made them.

Supplies: box, fabric of choice, hot glue gun

2014-08-17 16.44.25

First you need a box. Diaper boxes are the perfect size, but I am sure we all have gotten packages that hold equally perfect status.

I did not cut off the top flaps which others may do. We decided that it would make it a little sturdier to just fold and glue the flaps down inside the box. It’s not like they can be seen anyway.

2014-08-17 16.43.54

Then you want to cut out 4 squares of your fabric that fit the sides of the boxes. You will want to leave a little overlap on all sides so make them slightly bigger than each side you are measuring.

2014-08-17 16.46.20

I started with gluing the bottom first. See how the fabric hangs over the sides?

2014-08-17 16.47.06

Once the glue on the bottom is set, you flip the box and pull the fabric tight to glue it over the inside of the box. Be careful to make sure that the fabric is smooth before you start gluing, so it is really important to work fast with the hot glue gun.

2014-08-17 16.48.45

Then you will glue the overlap on the sides. I cut the fabric diagonally at the corners so it would lay more flat and you don’t have a lot of extra bunching happening. You will do this on the inside flaps as well. Basically just make sure all the edges of this square is glued down before you move to the next square.

You want to do the two parallel sides in a row: example front and back first.

Once you have those two sides done, the next two are a little different.

2014-08-17 17.15.40

You will fold the extra fabric over first before you glue it on the box. This make it have smooth lines and make sure everything is covered neatly. It just makes for more even seams instead of jagged cut fabric, because we all know you can’t cut fabric perfectly straight or without frays. I just lined it up to the box and then glued anything that was extra over.

Once you do this, you will start from gluing the bottom down and then pulling it over the top just like the first two sides.

I then hot glued down the seams to make sure they stayed down.

2014-08-17 17.32.11

Hopefully you can see what I mean about the seams being flat. Since these are the sides, I wasn’t too anal about making the fabric line up perfectly pattern wise. I did try to make them as close as possible. Knowing that they will not be seen as much, it was not much of a priority.

One other thing to note, you could see the Pampers logo through the fabric where the elephants were. So I first glued down some off-white card-stock to cover the logos so it wouldn’t show through the completed project. You may want to check for this before you start gluing things down to make sure you don’t have the same problem with your fabric of choice.

Let me know if you have questions. Because you have to work fast with the hot glue, some of these pictures aren’t the best with explaining. Sorry!

It is a really easy project, and I finished two boxes in a half hour.

No thanks to the dogs enthusiasm…

2014-08-17 16.54.57

While doing my research on how to make these, I saw that other people added straps, bows, and whatnots to theirs. I wasn’t going to go that in depth on it. But now that I know how easy this is to do, I may just save diaper boxes that have yet to be opened to try more elaborate coverings.

For now, I think they are perfect for the nursery!

Have you tried covering boxes like this? How much do you use Pinterest to decorate your house?

August 12, 2014 by Stephanie

Cribs: Baby Edition

So this might be somewhat different than a spotlight on MTV. No crazy lighting, trick doorways or indoor pools here…Darn.

The nursery is finally in a place where I feel like I can share things without showing our messy storage woes.

I am going to show you all it in pieces, because well, let’s be honest, it’s still not all together.

And we have 5 weeks to go, no big deal.

First up on the baby room show and tell: Crib bedding.

I don’t think Tom and I ever really discussed having elephants as the “nursery” theme. I think it went down something like me showing him a picture from Pinterest, and he said ok. And then here we are.

I have always loved elephants, and luckily Tom is fine with being on that train. We have them all over our living room, and our spare bathroom also has elephants stamped all over it.

It seemed like a great nursery theme, and people have been kind of running with it.

I can’t blame them. Elephants are the greatest.

When my mom was here in June, we made the crib skirt, blanket, and a small pillow.

I found some gray fabric online for sale, and it matches the curtains we already had in the second bedroom. Then we picked up solid orange and blue fabric here in town.

I showed my mom a picture, and she worked her magic with making it happen. She used a pattern from a different bedding set, and we (I mean Mom) tweaked it as we went to fit my idea.

It was my first time using patterns, so it was definitely a learning experience.

I did help! But most of it was all Mom.

Here is the layout of the blanket.

We made the bed skirt so it just lays on the springs/crib bottom.

So there is a white middle with the skirt on the sides.

You can’t see the blue all the way around because of the current height we have the crib and how it lays with the rails. Once we move the crib up or down to fit George’s demands, you will be able to see the blue more.

For the blanket we made two identical sides and put thin batting in between to make it thicker. We sewed the eyes of the elephants to add some strength to the middle parts and so the batting wouldn’t move around.

The pillow was just made out of scrap pieces and then stuffed to my heart’s content. I might make more pillows here soon if I get inspired before he is delivered.

I know the pillow and blanket won’t be in there when he is sleeping, but it will be nice to have for other things.

I wasn’t sure how I would like the brown against the gray, but I actually am digging it. We knew we weren’t going to paint the rocking chair we already had, so brown was here to stay, and I just hoped that the gray fit in!

We have lots of fabric still left over, so there are some other projects I have in mind, like huge floor pillows. That will come later though, possibly after a move.

It is super simple, but I love that. Babies don’t need crazy elaborate. Plus it was an experience making it. I am also pretty proud of us knowing that my mom and I did that instead of just going and buying it.

Although, we did buy the fitted sheet. Ain’t nobody got time for that elastic sewing…

Huge shout out to my mom for bearing with me as I struggled to understand patterns, freaked out about sewing machines not working, and feeling like I had the touch of death. She really made all of this come together. My mom is the best!

And in honor of elephants, today is World Elephant Day!

Here are some awesome elephant things for you to enjoy.

Elephant and Mirror

Eye Opening Facts About Elephants

Seriously the Most Adorable Clips of Baby Elephants

June 25, 2014 by Stephanie

To Infinity and Beyond

While we had the sewing machine out for the baby bedding, I figured I would work on a quick project that I have set aside since winter.

I have a handful of scarves that are an awkward length scarf-wise. I don’t get all fancy with my scarf tying, but the few ways I finagled these scarves they always looked awkward because they were too short.

So in the middle of this winter, I started using safety pins to make them infinity scarves. Doing so made them just perfect!

2014-06-10 14.52.51

Grace is an apathetic model.

2014-06-10 14.56.33

I had four scarves that I wanted to turn into infinity scarves. I just put the two ends together and sewed a straight line down the ends. It was a a little trickier than I had imagined to keep the fabric still for a straight line. I ended up having to use a lot of pins to keep them together so it wasn’t a complete zig-zag hem once I was done with it.

2014-06-10 15.20.57

So there you have it. An easy upcycle to transform normal scarves into infinity scarves. Now these four scarves that I hardly ever wore will probably see a lot more than the inside of my closet.

Have you been doing any fun projects lately? Any ways to turn around a piece of clothing that may have otherwise been dead to you?

January 28, 2014 by Stephanie

For the Birds

My in-laws love birds and really pride themselves on having a fantastic yard of nature.

They have bird houses and feeders everywhere, and they manage to get some of the coolest birds around their house because of it.

I sat on their deck for probably a half hour waiting for this humming bird. I am pretty satisfied with myself!

They even had dozens of birds come through during the Christmas ice storm.

So when I saw this idea, I knew that it was going to be a great gift. They give them food and shelter, so why not add comfort in there too!

supplies

You need a suet basket which you can find at any store that sells bird seed. They come in various sizes. Since, I didn’t want to get in over my head, I just stuck with a medium to small sized one.

You will also need scraps of yarn. Since I crochet (a LOT), I was able to save tons of scraps for this. I am sure you can just cut yarn too if you don’t use yarn on a regular basis. (You can definitely tell which colors I use most often on my projects-yellow, white, purple, and red.)

You just stuff the scraps into the suet basket. You will need a lot of scraps because they will squish together. I saved over the last year for this. I ended up with two bags, one of which went in the basket initially. I gave the second bag as well as filler once this one is hopefully picked clean.

The end result is an offering basically for the birds to make their nests with this string.

It will be fun to see if this actually worked in the spring by seeing if the nests are now colorful.

Pretty sweet gift!

December 31, 2013 by Stephanie

Bath Paints

My nieces are 3 and 4 years old, and I was trying to find something fun and easy to do for them for Christmas.

Enter Bath Paints!

This is pretty easy to do, and serves many roles. I highly encourage anyone who has kids on their shopping lists, to add this activity!

It is fun for the kids, gets them clean, AND gets the tub clean! I may have to use these myself…

I did change the instructions from the woman’s post. They seem to work either way.

Supplies Needed

Baking Soda
Corn Starch
Food Coloring
Kid’s Shampoo
Traveling Shampoo cases

Instructions

I started off with the corn starch and baking soda separate, then decided to combine them when I was adding them to the bottle. The cornstarch by itself will yield a smoother mixture, and the baking soda will have a grainy jello consistency.
You add the shampoo, cornstarch, baking soda, and food coloring in a bowl.
We put the mixture in a Ziploc bag and cut the corner out to squeeze them into the travel tubes.
And then you let the kids play!

All the supplies.

This is when I had them separate. I love watching food coloring do it’s thing.

All my colors.

I made quite a bit. My eyeballing didn’t go over so well. I just put any extra back into the empty shampoo bottles for the rainbow effect. We did only use 2 of the 3 shampoos we bought. The one on the left is still just plain shampoo.We put the corresponding colors in the tubes to make it fun for the girls to “paint” with.

Both of my nieces love to draw so hopefully this goes over well!