Peek of the Week - January 6, 2012

What's Peek of the Week, you ask? It's our regular Friday feature and it's all about you! I want to hear (and share with my readers) what wowed you this week. It could be a cool finished project, a work in progress, a personal accomplishment, a cute kid moment, or something that surprised you.

If we could peek into your week - what would you want to show us?

Each week I'll share my own Peek of the Week to get the ball rolling, and invite you to link to your blog post about your Peek of the Week. I know y'all are up to cool stuff - we wanna see it! 

My Peek for today is a fun little oil cloth project I took on in a fit of 5 Minute Mania (what's that? See here.)

I've wanted to play around with oil cloth for years now. There are so many gorgeous oil cloths out there. So, when I was having a spree in Fabric Bliss a few days ago, I sprung for some oil cloth - two beautiful prints and some chalk cloth. 

Chalk cloth, incidentally, is genius. 

I also picked up a handy book full of oil and chalk cloth patterns which I haven't actually gotten to read yet. But in the shower I cooked up a grand plan for some pencil, scissor, and general utensil holders for my desk hutch area. I do my best cooking in the shower. 

That sounded dirty. 

So...a short tutorial. I totally winged it, but it worked. There's probably a real pattern for such a thing, but here's my winged way for what it's worth.

First, make sure you cure your chalk cloth before you begin. Lay a piece of chalk on the side and color all over then wipe off. Repeat. That way what you write first won't leave an eternal shadow.

Cut a circle for the bottom of you cylinder.

Here are the rest of the pieces. A rectangle of oil cloth about 6 inches tall by oh...18 inches or so. Winging it, remember? And a 2 inch wide strip of chalk cloth about 18 inches long.

 

I wanted to use a chalk cloth border so I could label the little cubbies! Clearly. 

Just fold it over the top edge of the oil cloth and zig zag the edge. 

 So then just sew the circle to the bottom edge of the rectangle right sides together. It takes some finagling because they don't really want to get sewn in a circle like that - but they can be convinced. 

Then stitch the two ends of the rectangle together where the meet. Trim off the excess and turn it right side out. 

And viola:

Ok! Your turn!

You could get peeking in three easy steps:
1. Blog about your Peek of the Week - whatever it is. Whatever happened that made you proud, laugh, smile, inspired, excited, or just plain happy - now that's worth sharing.
2. Include a link to this blog or put the Peek of the Week button (on the sidebar) in your post.
3. Link your blog post using the InLinkz button below.

If you don't get a chance to get here on Friday, feel free to link your post up later.
The InLinkz button will be active for 5 days.

Peek of the Week - December 2, 2011

 

Take a peek at that serious crafty concentration. Those dudes are hard core. 

What's Peek of the Week, you ask? It's our regular Friday feature and it's all about you! I want to hear (and share with my readers) what wowed you this week. It could be a cool finished project, a work in progress, a personal accomplishment, a cute kid moment, or something that surprised you.

If we could peek into your week - what would you want to show us?

Each week I'll share my own Peek of the Week to get the ball rolling, and invite you to link to your blog post about your Peek of the Week. I know y'all are up to cool stuff - we wanna see it!

So, for my peek this week I bring you the classic story of "Hey, I could make that."

You see, I saw these great felt and bead ornaments somewhere for like $5 bucks a pop. And I thought, "Hey, I could make that." 

Even better, the boys could make that. 

So for $10 bucks worth of felt and beads and pipe cleaners we got like an hour of fun crafty family time, and like 12 great ornaments for our 70's-tastic tree.

 It was such a great project for the kids. They went to town. 

 And look what we made!

Not even sure you need a tutorial on this but here's a quick one:

Supplies needed:

green sheets of felt

a pack of chunky wood beads (or whatever)

green sparkly pip cleaners (or whatever)

To prep for the project I cut circles out of the felt in 5 sizes from about .5" diameter to 4" diameter (or whatever). I also snipped a little slice in the center of each circle so the boys could string them on the pipe cleaners. 

And then it's just stringing. To make the quintessential tree shape you'll use smaller circles as you go up and a bead between each one. But the boys didn't stick to that model and their trees turned out great. Cater to your own OCD levels on this one. 

Loop your pipe cleaner at the top and viola...ornaments a go-go.

And...

I also carried on a Christmas tradition this week. This is where the photo I mentioned yesterday comes into play. See, a few years ago I came across a photo, circa 1981, where my Mom had crafted a beautiful and very detailed brick fireplace out of construction paper to hang our stockings on for Christmas. Apparently we didn't have a fireplace and she wanted to remedy that. 

That's how she is. She can make something special out of nothing and she did it all the time to fill our childhoods with whimsy and magic. I hope I'm doing the same for my kiddos. 

I'm so sad that I haven't found the picture (yet). But if I do, I'll definitely post it. 

But even without the photo, I whipped up our very own construction paper hearth:

 And it totally warms my heart. 

And Amos digs it too. 

So that's my peek. Now it's your turn.

You could get peeking in three easy steps:
1. Blog about your Peek of the Week - whatever it is. Whatever happened that made you proud, laugh, smile, inspired, excited, or just plain happy - now that's worth sharing.
2. Include a link to this blog or put the Peek of the Week button (on the sidebar) in your post.
3. Link your blog post using the InLinkz button below.

If you don't get a chance to get here on Friday, feel free to link your post up later.
The InLinkz button will be active for 5 days.

Thankful Tree

Bursting with gratitude?

Got a hefty stash of felt handy?

Well here's the tutorial for you.

I must give credit where it's due - I get (*cough* steal *cough*) lots of ideas from Pottery Barn Kids. Eli loves to play in there, and while he plays, I get inspired. That's where the idea for the Thankful Tree was planted, as well as the Paper Bird Mobile. I don't take photos (the fella scolded me for that one) I just look and let the ideas ruminate for a while until they bust their way out via my fingertips. To begin, sew four sheets of green felt together like so:
(That beige sheet should be green, but I only had three green sheets).

Then cut it into a bushy/tree shape por exemplo:
Now, because my sheets weren't all the same color, I decided to felt in some green roving to mask the different shades. You can skip this step if you have enough green sheets of felt.
Make some branches and a trunk out of brown felt:
Voila.

Then cut out a buncha leaves out of fall colored felt. Add numbers for the dates of the month. I sewed my numbers with a very tight wide zig zag stitch. But you could cut numbers of out felt and stitch them on by hand or machine (don't worry about the edges - felt doesn't fray - love the stuff!).
Then stitch the leaves on, leaving the center portion of the leaf, and the top wedge un-stitched, so that you'll have a little pocket into which you can tuck a note of thanks.
Because November's been a busy month, I just got this finished today, so the boys and I played Gratitude Catch-Up at dinner tonight. Dizzy totally gets it. Right out the gate - he's thankful for his family (melt). Then he's thankful for us one by one (including me, with a little goading - "How about the one who made the tree?")

Then he exclaimed, "The next one's for Luca and Inara!" - his besties. Heart...warmed.

We were thankful for his school, teacher and class buddies...our yummy food, especially when prepared by Daddy, and being so healthy. And now we're caught up.

The plan is to continue discussing gratitude and write something we're thankful for each of the remaining days in November. I even plan to take this with us on our travels.

Gratitude abounds...

White Rabbit

As a thank-you to a friend who brought dinner while I was laid up, I helped make a plain old white rabbit costume into the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. She provided the plain rabbit costume, and large clock (which, if this doesn't work out could come in handy. He could go as Flava Flave). I took care of the rest. Here's a little tutorial.

First I made his crazy collar by making to long strips of fabric folded in half. I stitched heavy/firm structural interfacing strips in about every two inches. Then I stitched them to a round base, accordion style.

Then I added another round piece on top, stitching the accordion to it, and cut out a neck hole.
I trimmed and trimmed until I got it small enough to fit comfortably around a kid's neck. Then added some velcro.

The playing card apron was easy peasy. Cut a large white rectangle. Finish the edges by folding under 3/8", then another 1/2" and stitch. Cut a head hole in the middle. Finish that with a quick zig zag. Applique a heart on the front and back.

And viola!
Poor Dizzle.
Now don't be late!

Paper Takes Over

Remember that sweet little bird mobile I made for sweet little Amos?Well his sweet little girlfriend, sweet little Elsa, needs one too.

I took all the bird mobile fixins to camp thinking, "Well, since I can't bring my sewing machine, maybe I'll FINALLY get to making that bird mobile."


So I set up craft camp one morning in the trunk. It worked pretty well, but other campy activities took over.

So I got back to it the last few days.

Here's a little, not-comprehensive tutorial.

So, you first need some fun papers and a little craft shape punch (or small die cutter). I went with birds, but you could do just about anything. I got my punch at Archivers, but they have them at Michael's and places like that.
Then you need something on which to hang your little birdies. I've gone through a few manifestations of this. I found the perfect thing when I was making Amos' - it was a charger target had during Easter and it could not have worked better.

This time around was a little trickier. I came across some sconces on clearance I thought would work. But they were square and that was bugging me, so I scrapped that idea.

So I kept looking and I found this handy wreath frame at Michael's.
I strung a few wires across the middle to give me more options for hanging.

And threw some green crafty paint on their to lighten things up a bit.
Next I had to find something to hold everything while I strung birdies. Enter Ikea drawers and big DSP bowl.
And I went to stringing. I use a needle and thread and put a knot each place I want a bird to sit.
Then I attach them randomly to the hanger.
And viola! It's really hard to get a good photograph without going through the trouble of hanging it, but you get the idea.

Hope Elsa likes it!