Rehab'd Green Army Trunk

Trunk is selectively lined with designer fabric.
Measurements:
12" tall
16" deep
30" long
In addition to original leather front handle,
there are two metal handles on side of trunk. 

 

Valentine's Wreath

Tutus are not in my future wardrobe options, but I needed to use tulle on SOMEthing. Plus, I had this really cute pink fabric in my stash that could be paired with white to make something really cute. So....I created this wreath. It is most certainly a Valentine's Day wreath, but would also be amazing hanging in a little girl's room.

The flowers are made out of tulle and pink fabric, and there are two green fabric leaves tucked under the tulle.

Love it?

Tie Quilt Experiement

I haven't had a permanent place for my sewing machine in ... ever ... and I finally set up a sweet little craft room in an extra bedroom upstairs. My sewing machine is now accessible and can be used without clearing off the kitchen table and hauling it downstairs! Yay! It's the little things, right?

So I went to the fabric store. It had been awhile since I bought fabric, and honestly, I didn't really have anything specific in mind. After browsing a little bit and choosing some fun colors & patterns, I managed to leave having spent ... a lot... on varying yards of 10 different fabrics.

My grandma used to make quilts that were scrap fabric—typically old shirts—just pieced together and tied to a backing and batting. She literally made hundreds of them. They are amazing, and I love that we have three of them. I haven't ever tied a quilt, so I thought I'd give one a shot. 

I had enough yardage for a quilt using the teal, red and aqua color palate that I bought, and so I started cutting 6" squares for the quilt top.

 I laid it out on the floor and made sure that no two alike were side by side.

I sewed the squares into long strips and pinned them to my wall so I could  keep better track of my place. I then sewed the long strips together to make the complete quilt top. In between all the sewing, I pressed the seams open. I'm not entirely sure that's what you're supposed to do, but it made it look better. Or maybe it was my imagination?

I used 88 squares for the quilt top, which ended up being about 42"x59". It's not quite big enough to be a twin size, but makes a good sized lap quilt.

1-5/8 yards of red fabric made up the the backing and I bought 1-3/4 yards for the batting.  It was 44" wide. I did cut off some batting off the sides and ends, but am glad I had too much.

Seam binding (is that what it's even called?) scares me so bad,  so I just folded over an inch of the backing fabric onto itself and sewed it all together from the top. The corners were....interesting, but they work.

The last step was to tie the quilt. I used three inch pieces of thin crochet yarn + a tapestry needle to sew a small knot in the middle of each square of the top, making sure I went through all three layers of the quilt. I snipped off the extra, so about one inch of string was left on the top.

This quilt took me about 8 hours spread out over three days.

Things I learned for next time?

• I need to get better at iPhone pics. Seriously. Or I need to keep my better camera in my craft room. Yes. Probably that.
• I hate pinning the fabric together, but it really is crucial to keeping lines straight and other important things like that. I'm just lazy.
• I need to change the blade on my rotary cutter. 
• Folding tables shake too much when you sew too fast.

Fabric-Covered Metal Tray

Todays project inspiration also came from something that showed up on Pinterest. It is a Martha Stewart project from the craft section of her website.

Finding the right sized metal tray was proving to be a bit of a challenge on other shopping days, and there was NO way I was going to purchase a brand new cookie sheet for this purpose. 

Enter: the Lafayette Indoor Flea Market. 

Ali & I met at the flea market, and she showed me around the place. Glorious. It was full of treasures like this:

"Clouds of Cabbage" (Hopefully for a...leaky.... Cabbage Patch doll? Gack.)

Who doesn't need about 5 alien plush faces?

Size 50 knitting needles

Amazing art work.

But lucky for us, we also found these treasures for $1 a piece:

14x9" metal trays

And after a trip to Hobby Lobby to pick out some fabric (we purchased about 1/2 a yard for each tray), we got right to work.

Here's what we used:

• Metal tray of your choice
• Fabric (about 1/2 yard, depending on the size of the tray)
• Spray adhesive
• Enough felt to fit the back of the tray

Here's what we did:

Our first step was to iron creases out of the fabric. I know... I hate ironing, too, but it was worth it.

Cut the fabric leaving enough to wrap around the edges of the tray.

Following the instructions on the can, cover the top of the tray with spray adhesive.

 Working from the middle out, press the fabric down and into the corners and smooth any wrinkles/bubbles.

 Flip tray over, spray the back with the adhesive, and pull the fabric tightly over to the backside.

You'll get a kind of bunchy situation like this:

We were temporarily stumped, wondering how we were supposed to make this bunch of fabric both adhere AND lay flat. So, after some brainstorming we figured to run the edge of the scissors along the lip of the tray, which resulted in a very clean line along the edge. (A box cutter would work well here, too).

Since we had already sprayed and wrapped, the fabric still stuck to the lip after we ran the blade along the edge. The excess fabric just pulls right off. The tray was sticky where that fabric was, but it was nothing a little Goo Gone or fingernail polish remover didn't tackle.

 I had to double-wrap mine, since my fabric was light enough to let the printed picture on the tray show through. This was very much a pain-in-the-rear. I would recommend painting over any pattern on the tray or covering the main image with a thick, neutral paper so that you can do a single wrap with the fabric.

Finally, cut-to-fit the felt and adhere it to the back of the tray.

And Presto Change-o!
Lovely new custom tray to hold remotes, coasters, vases, knick-knacks, whatever.

I would give this project 4.5 out of 5 stars. After we gathered all of our supplies, it took about 45-60 minutes to complete. It was easy, and the finished project was very well worth it. A lot of bang for your buck, if you will. The downsides were using the spray adhesive, which got EVERYTHING very sticky, almost to the point where I couldn't use my fingers any longer. But, like I mentioned, it cleaned up pretty easily. Overall it was really fun!