Puppet Theatre

When I was growing up, I had two wonderfully huge windows in my bedroom. My mom, being the awesome woman she is, saved three sets of window treatments that she and my grandma had made (she also saved the bedding grandma made). These window treatments have been sitting in storage, with the hopes that someday I might be able to use them for my daughter's room.

Since it appears that I will not be having a daughter, I decided it was time to think of a way to share my girly treatments with my boys. This is what I came up with:

A puppet theatre!

I used one set of the least girly treatments, which happened to come in 3 sections. The two side sections, I just put on a tension rod together.  Then I dug out some ticking that I had bought on sale years ago when the local Wal-Mart stupidly decided to get rid of their fabric department, cut it to the size I wanted/needed, and attached it to the middle section of the window treatment.  I put that on another tension rod, hung them in the hallway, and we have a puppet theatre!

The boys loved it, and have started writing scripts, and making lists of puppets they need to make.  To start with, though, we just grabbed a couple of the yarn octopi we made a while back, and stuck a stick in them.  I'll get a quick tutorial for those (and yarn dolls) up soon, too.

It's a great way to reuse old window treatments, fabric you don't know what to do with, and it keeps the kids busy using their imaginations!

Linking up to some of these parties!

Sew Up a Home Makeover

I love this book.  It's full of directions for those just beginning to sew, but is also great for those who have been sewing a little longer!

I was actually surprised that there are only 50 projects because author/designer Lexie Barnes covers every room in the house, and then some!  She shows how to make over your home without spending a fortune, and even includes before and after shots of many of the projects.

Sew Up a Home Makeover, if a wonderful and fun book that you'll turn to over and over again whenever you get the itch to switch things up a bit in your home.  Mark your calendars - it's due in stores August 24.

For now, I'm off to find myself a table cloth that would look awesome as a robe...yup, the book tells you how to do that, too!

Copy provided by publisher for review.

Fabric Pumpkin Tutorial

This tutorial tells you how to make easy fabric pumpkins that measure at around 2½” fat by around 2½” tall, not including the loose fabric at the top and the stem. Easily adaptable for larger pumpkins - just cut larger pieces!

Now available in my shop.  Since this is a PDF that I will email to you, there is an unlimited amount available.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a glitch, and I am unable to change the number of patterns in stock.  I'll keep trying to change it, but if you see the pattern is sold out, please check back, as I will make more available ASAP!  I would love to see any of the creations you have made using any of my tutorials, so please feel free to join my Flickr Group!

Repurposed Window & Hinges

Last fall, we headed out to my grandpa's farm where there is still a small, 2-room house (minus the windows and doors!), a second house that has fallen down, a barn that is kind of standing, and a couple of other out-buildings. I came across an old 8-pane window that I immediately fell in love with. At the time, I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I knew it had to come home with me. When I found it, all 8 panes were still intact, even though you couldn't see through all the caked on dirt! Unfortunatelly, we hadn't planned very well, and by the time we made it across many bumpy dirt roads and all the way back home, all but 2 were cracked. I broke out all the cracked glass, but couldn't bear to shatter the 2 panes that survived. There's just something about the waviness of old glass that I find enchanting.

A few months ago, I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my window - turn it into a bookcase! Then, I noticed how wobbly our then-current TV stand was, so I changed my mind, and this is what I came up with:

Here's a quick (I hope!) description of how I made it.  First, I measured the outside of the window so I could figure the measurements for cutting my wood.  Using 1 x 10's (remember that a 1 x 10 really measures in at about 3/4 x 9-1/4), I made 2 boxes that had a middle shelf, as well as top and bottom supports that I place about half-way down the length of the middle shelf to help support the weight of the TV.  I joined the two boxes together using 16" strips of a 1 x 2. 

After my wonderful dad cut my wood for me, but before I put the boxes together, I painted them Country White from Wal-Mart.  I sanded the edges, added some Early American stain that my mom had on hand, and wiped the excess off with a wet paper towel.

For the back, I found a 4' x 8' sheet of Luan on sale at Mendard's for just under $10, so I traced the outside of the window onto the luan, and cut it out.  Then, I used some beadboard wallpaper (shown below), painted it the same color (without the stain) as the boxes, and screwed it onto the back.

I wanted to have the option of lifting the window out of the way, if needed, so I used a couple of old hinges that I found when we were cleaning out my great-uncle's farmhouse and buildings.  They were uber rusty, and while I wanted to keep a little bit of rust, but not have to worry about getting it on everything, I cleaned some of it off.  I rubbed the hinges with some steel wool, then soaked them in white vinegar for about 20 minutes or so.  After scrubbing them again with the steel wool and letting them dry, I sprayed them with a matte finish sealer.

I love that there is plenty of room for the TV, game consoles, games, DVD's, and photos of the boys and our nieces and nephews!  I still need to play around with decorating it, but I'm happy with it for now!

Just a few notes about the entertainment center:

*The pumpkins that are on the bottom right shelf were made by my super talented sister-in-law, Kelly.

*The left side is devoted mostly to the video games and movies.  To keep the clutter under control, and hidden, I made a little basket from fabric and burlap for the PS2 games, bought a basket from Hobby Lobby to hold the PS3 games and extra controllers, & a matching basket (also from HL) for the memory cards and all the slips of paper with cheat codes written down on them.  The smaller basket also help elevate the PS2!  The boys' movies are kept in a brown, faux leather, CD case.  The movies that the boys aren't allowed to watch are kept in the TV stand in our bedroom.  There are a few movies that J is insisting on keeping in their cases, so I still need to find some storage for them.

*That gorgeous crate is one that my mom found for me on this year's Junk Jaunt (I wasn't able to go).  I have a large, upside-down can that I draped some burlap over, then put a big crock on top with flowers in it to help hide the plug in on that wall.  The crock is one of several that I brought home from Faye's farm.  This is also where we are storing some movies for now.

*If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

And last, but not least, see those little fabric pumpkins in my header?  I'm working on a pattern for them that I hope to get up soon.  Being sick and putting in new floors has put me behind on my to-do list, but I'm slowly making progress.

Linking to this party, so check out all the other fun finds and ideas!  Also linking to Twice Owned Tuesday Party here:

 

Keeping Busy!

Well, Hello! Long time, no see!  Like my hydrangeas?  I love 'em...just wish I could figure out how to keep the petal from turning brown.  I don't know if they're getting burned, or what.

We have been uber busy around here. Looking at my calendar, there were only 3 days in June that we had absolutely nothing going on. The weekdays in July are a little calmer, but our weekends have been pretty full so far. This coming weekend, the only thing I have planned is grocery shopping, then the boys and I are headed to Kansas City next weekend for a family reunion. About three weeks after that, we'll be headed up to the panhandle - still hoping to convince Jeremy to come, but he's not a traveler - for a few days. We'll come home one day, have the next day free, then the boys start school - I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

We've given a good chunk of our summer to baseball and softball. There are 3 baseball teams - A Team (ages 9-10), B Team (7-8), and Little League (11-14). In years past, the A & B teams have practiced on the same night. They've had the same coach, and since there are never enough boys for the A team, several of the older B team players play for both. They also always played on the same nights. Everything changed this year. Taylor was on the A team, and Landon was on B (they are also always short, so they let 6-year-olds play). They had 2 practices a week each, on different nights. Taylor had 2 games a week, and Landon had 1 (unless it was a home game where they played a double header), also on different nights. Although the practices dropped off once the games started, we were still at the field to watch my niece play softball!

This also seems to be the year for reading.  I had watched Emma when it was on PBS, and was inspired.  She made a list of 100 titles to read, so I did the same, although mine has grown since then.  I am always adding to it!  I've noticed from several other blogs and comments by many different friends on facebook, that there are a LOT of people who have decided to read 100 books this year.  I haven't given myself a specific number or timeline, but I did create a blog here with my list, and I write a little review over each book (I'm not the best writer, so please bear with me!  I've been working on getting the list into alphabetical order, but it's a work in progress.

Other things that have kept me from my blog?  Well, last weekend between 1:30pm Saturday and 4:30pm Sunday, I put together 2 poodle skirts from scratch, with no pattern (and my mom helped hem the underskirts, which was a HUGE help).  I was pretty impressed with us!  I've also been searching for a new dentist...ours walked into a propeller, and his replacement isn't comfortable with the tools, yet.  I've been making almost daily calls to my great-uncle's estate lawyer's office in Chadron (long, frustrating story there).  I'm getting things ready for a new grand opening of my shop, and am still trying to decide if I'm going to stay with Etsy, or go somewhere else.  I've repainted the living room and kitchen, and wallpapered the kitchen backsplash.  One of my new projects is going to be a Grandmother's Garden Quilt.  There's a pretty good post about them here.

And, yes, I did go see Eclipse, and even beyond the terrible acting, there were few parts of the movie I actually enjoyed.  Disappointing after all the hype.  The Bug and I are looking forward to November when the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out!

Havin' a Ball with Chocolate Cake!

I thought I was pretty busy last week, but I really don't have much to show! I made my mom a pillow similar to this one:

I forgot to take a picture of hers, but it's pretty much the same as the one above. I made it last year sometime, and my mom really liked it. I've been trying to use up some of my stash, so now she has a matching pillow!

The thing that took up most of my crafting time was this ball:


I much prefer machine stitching to hand stitching, so why I decided to make this ball, which is completely hand stitched, is beyond me! I'm hoping to get a tutorial put together for it in the next week or so. I didn't take pictures as I was working on this one, so I'll be making another one.

Things that were started, but not yet ready to show include:
scarf
notebook/composition book cover
Chore charts for the boys
organizing my fabric

I'm hoping to have more crafty things to show you soon!

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Now for that promised recipe, my Grandma's chocolate cake.

3/4 C soft shortening
1-3/4 C sugar
3 eggs
2-1/3 C sifted flour
2/3 C cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1-1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 C water
1-1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (2) 9x1-1/2 inch layer cake pans or (1) 9x13 pan. Blend shortening and sugar together in large bowl. Add eggs, beat at high speed until mixture is fluffy and light colored, about 5 minutes. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. With mixer at low speed, add dry ingredients alternately with water and vanilla. Pour batter into pans. Bake 30-35 minutes or until cake springs back. Cool 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Feedsack Fabric Love

I love fabrics from and inspired by the 1920's - 50's, so whenever I come across feedsack fabric reproductions I really have to take a deep breath and try to control myself! There's just something about these fabrics that make me happy. I've come to the conclusion that the reason for the prints used is that they must have been meant for bringing a little bit of happiness during the Depression. I love how frugal women were, making clothes, table cloths, and other items from empty feedsacks. I still have a table cloth my great-grandmother made. She took 4 white feedsacks and attached them together with ric rac. I'll have to remember to show you all a picture sometime!

Anyway...Landon and I made a trip into town yesterday and made a stop at one of the fabric stores downtown. Look what I found!



I already had the blue fabric, but it's too great not to share with you! I have 3 yards of it, some will be used for an apron, and some for a sewing basket. I'll still have plenty left over, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it! The green and floral fabrics are the two I picked up yesterday. I'm thinking they'll be used for sun hats. There's a great pattern in the newest Mary Jane's Farm magazine that I want to try out.

Speaking of Mary Jane's Farm...I signed up for a spring clothespin swap. There are 14 of us in the swap. We each made 24 pins, then sent them in to our swap host. Once she receives them all, we'll all get a variety of 24 pins back. These are the ones I made:



I like simple things, so I went simple with my clothespins, too. I painted them "Celery Green" (Americana brand acrylic paint I found at Hobby Lobby). I always water down my acrylics a little for 2 reasons - it makes the paint last longer, and it goes on a little smoother. Once the paint was dry, I roughed up the edges and top using #60 sandpaper, then smoothing it with #220 sandpaper. I went over it with a brown tinted sealer and added a rose. I found a box of 2 dozen bouquets (12 roses in each bouquet) for 10 cents at a clearance sale a while back. I wasn't sure what I'd do with them when I bought them, but I think they added just enough to my clothespins.

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This is the fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby a week or so ago. This will soon be turned into a laptop sleeve and a laptop bag. I just have to decide what fabric will be used where. There's 2 yards of each, so I'll have plenty!

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And last, but not least, here's the bench that was repainted last weekend. I love the color, but the bench needs something else to "ground" it a little more.

Look at all my Lilies of the Valley! There are sooo many bloomig this year. In the spring of 2006, I transplanted these from my grandpa's* house. They turned brown and wilted within a month, and I thought I had killed them. In 2007, a few came up, but no blooms. Last year, we had a few more come up and only 2 bloomed. This year, the bed is almost FULL, and there are soooo many blooms that I won't feel at all bad about cutting some for inside the house!

*The spring before my grandpa passed away, there was a hail storm (I think a tornado may have hit just outside of town, too) and the area around Hastings College got hit pretty hard. Grandpa's house was right across the street and had several windows broken out and a flooded basement. I went over to help him clean up all the glass and dry out the basement. As we were walking around the house, I found a patch of Lilies of the Valley that I had never known was there. Grandpa said to me, "Those are flowers? Huh. I thought they were weeds, but they're pretty so I left them. I always wondered why your grandma never yelled at me for not pulling them!"

Easy Patchwork Bathmat Tutorial

A while back, I had saved a picture of a bathmat Meg made. I finally got around to making my own. The one we had in our bathroom was soooo soft, and I love it, but it was just too big.

Step 1: The mat will be 11 squares long by 8 squares wide (finished, it will be approx. 22"x16"). Cut out (88) 2 1/2" squares from coordinating fabrics. You don't need the same number of each fabric. I just used what I had on hand, mostly scraps, and had more of the yellow cotton and white eyelet than anything else.

Step 2: Lay out all of your squares on the floor/table, 11 across and 8 down. Sew each row together using a 1/4" seam allowance and press the seams to one side. Then sew the rows together and press seams. I recommend stacking each row, then laying out the finished strips one at a time before sewing all the rows together.

Step 3: Add any embellishments now. I didn't on this mat, but plan to make more and add some embroidery.

Step 4: Cut terry towl to size (22 1/2" x 16 1/2") and place the patchwork face down on towel to pin. Using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew the patchwork and towel together, leaving a 3-4 inch opening on one side for turning.

Step 5: Turn righ-side out and press. If you've done any embroidery, you may want to "quilt" around it. Topstitch around the edges, closing the gap as you go. You're done!

Here's a close-up of the one I made:

And the whole thing in our bathroom.

I plan on making another, slightly larger, mat soon. A Charm Pack would be great for this project.

My Own Little Green Gables

I love the Anne of Green Gables series (last month - December 2008 - they even aired the 4th movie on Canadian TV, and I'm dying to see it)! I always have. Everytime she was on PBS, I was in control of the remote, no matter how young or how old I have been at the time! Luckily for me, my boys like watching the movies, too, although they don't get nearly as excited as I do. Taylor has told me several times that when he grows up, he's going to build me my own Green Gables. Until then, I now have my own little homemade version...


I threw this together yesterday after seeing this tutorial a few weeks ago. I need to redo the top of the roof line, though. Landon screamed and I jumped so my stitches aren't straight. It looks cuter in person, mainly because in the photos, you can't see the details in the white eyelet fabric I used for the outside.

I bought some little wooden people while in town on Saturday. Last night I dropped them off for my sister-in-law to paint for me. When she's done, I'll have Anne, Diana Berry, Gilbert, Matthew, and Marilla.

Now that I've made mine, and know what not to do, I plan to make two more for my youngest nieces for Christmas. (I'm trying to get back into my old habit of having 95% of my Christmas shopping done by the time school starts in August!)

Scary Pumpkin Tutorial

Supplies needed:

plastic bag (any size)

newspaper

Wire cutters

Scissors

Wire

String

Dowel/small block of wood

Cardboard egg carton

masking tape

Wallpaper paste (mix with water)

knife

pen/marker

Monster Mud (mix paper insulation with the wallpaper paste)

Glue Gun

cardboard (we used Pepsi and Mountain Dew cases, and they worked really well)

Paintbrush

Latex Paint

-black

-white

-orange

-yellow

-brown

-light brown/tan

Pumpkin light (NOT a candle)

Instructions:

1. Fill plastic bag with crumpled newspaper (we used a Wal-Mart sack for the little one, and 13-gallon trash bags for the larger pumpkins)

2. After tying & taping the bag shut, you will need to stick a piece of wire into the bottom and up through the top. Wind each end of the wire around a 2-3 inch length of a dowel (ours was about 1" thick and 2" long). Hold one dowel while continuing to wind the other one to form the indents in the top and bottom. Secure with tape.

3. With the string (cotton kitchen string works well), make 6-8 creases by just wrapping your string tightly around the bag, and secure both ends with tape. Then, cover all the string with tape. We found that we were able to make the creases deeper as we were taping.

4. If you want a stem, simply take a few separate cups from a cardboard egg carton and stuff eash with newspaper. Place and secure cups one at a time until you have the desired shape and size of your stem.

5. Rip a LOT of newspaper into strips. The bigger the pumpkin, the bigger the strips you can use. Just be sure to have some smaller ones to use on the stem.

6. Mache, mache, mache. Then paper mache some more. You'll need many layers (I think we put on between 8-12).

7. Cut a good sized hole in the bottom of your pumpkin, and pull the bag and all the stuffing out (it works best to put a hole in the bag, pull the newspaper stuffing out, then unstick the bag from the sides).

8. Draw your face on the pumpkin and carve it out.

9. Cut strips out of your cardboard and hot glue the strips to the pumpkin face to the strips stick out about an inch or more.

10. Make your monster mud by mixing the insulation with the wallpaper paste. Use the mud to build up the shape of your pumpkin and the pumkin's face. Be careful not to put too much mud on or your pumpkin will collapse (trust me on this one)!

11. Once it is all dry it needs to be painted. This is the order that worked best for us:

- Do the outside base coat in black

- Paint the inside of the pumpkin - we tried spray paint, but we couldn't bend our arms to get into all the places that needed covering, so we went back to regular paint. We also painted ours black, but I think if we had gone with orange or yellow, they would have been easier to light.

- Dry brush the outside white, then orange

- Use yellow to accent the "humps" on top and around the face.

- You can also dry brush brown or tan into the creases and to help blend the colors together.

- Paint your stem

12. Light up and display!

Workin' through it

About a month ago, I broke my hand by once again shutting it in the car door. Yeah, I'm a clutz! The bones didn't actually break, but 3 were severely cracked. I had a pity party for a few days, then figured out how to work through it and found that I could actually type, sew, take pictures, and kind of write despite my injury!

As busy as this weekend was, it's a good thing my hand is healing so well! We spent Friday evening, Saturday late afternoon & evening, and Sunday late afternoon & evening at my mother-in-laws house working on stuff for our upcoming Haunted House - it's less than 2 weeks away! Saturday morning, Taylor and I went to take some pictures of my nephew (and a few of Taylor) before picking my mom up to do some grocery shopping. On our way, we saw a garage sale sign that was just begging for our attention, so naturally we had to check it out. They had a LOT of antiques, but we were good and only bought 2 things. I bought a glass juicer, and my mom bought an adorable stuffed chenille bunny. We're still trying to figure out who's keeping it, but we just couldn't leave it at the sale!

Sunday, my parents and I took Taylor and Landon to the Prairie Loft's Harvest Festival. We had a lot of fun listening to Jim King sing, Rajean Luebs read her stories, painting, and making corn husk dolls (Landon made a corn husk squid). There was also a petting zoo, free watermelon, a farmer's market, and the boys were able to use an old apple press to make some delicious apple cider! Oh! I can't forget the tractors - they had at least a dozen John Deeres ranging from the 1920's through today, as well as an old Fordson, Farmall, and a new Case Combine.

Taylor's hard at work making his corn husk guy. They boys enjoyed it so much, I've had to add corn husks to my shopping list this week.

Landon cranking away at the press - with a little help from Grandpa.

The boys found a nice place to sit and relax for a few minutes.

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Below is a picture of a blanket that I finished a few weeks ago, but just got around to taking a picture of Friday night. Each square is 15 inches, so it's a nice big picnic blanket - we've already used it twice and picnic season is about over!

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I added a couple of new photos to my etsy store, and have a few new things I've been designing and I'm hoping to get them into the store by the end of the month, so check it out if you have a chance!

Plans for today:

Laundry

Work on Taylor's quilt (I'll have to take a picture of Landon's to post)

Work on new etsy items

Edit the boys' fall pictures

Take pictures of bench and chair
Figure out how to sell popcorn and go to the museum at the same time!

Cork -n- Tacks

So I was inspired by Jessica's thumbtacks at How About Orange and by Sweet Jessie's corkboard tutorial, and decided to combine the two - with a few changes!

I still have to make the thumbtacks for Landon's corkboard, and mine, but Taylor's is done, and here is how I did it:

Embroidery Hoop Corkboard Materials Needed:
Embroidery Hoop
Fabric (my hoops were 12" so I needed 14" square/circle of fabric)
Cork (I just bought a package of 4 squares at Wal-Mart)
Utility knife
Glue Gun
Ribbon or something to hang the hoop with


Step 1: Place the inner hoop on the cork and trace around the inside.

Step 2: Cut out your circle. I didn't push all the way through, but it worked fine to score the cork and then break of the edges.

Step 3: Place the cork inside the smaller hoop and hot glue all the way around.

Step 4: Cover the cork with your fabric and add the outer ring. Pull fabric tight. Cut off excess fabric, but leave about 1 inch around the outside. Then flip over, and either staple or glue the fabric to the back of the cork.

And you're done!

Jessica at How About Orange has a great tutorial on the fabric covered button tacks here. Instead of glueing the tack to the button, I stuck the tack through one of the holes the loop left.