I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Between these three tutorials, I think I can make my son some lap tees:

Made's 90 Minute Tee

Indietute's Lap Tee Pattern

Patchyapple's instructions for how to sew a lap tee neckline

P.S. My serger arrived today! I ended up getting a Brother rather than the Singer I was looking at. Now how in the heck do I use the thing?! Tips or pointers, anyone?

Update: Do you remember the book where the little train thought he could, but really he couldn't? Because that was the case with my lap tee. It was a Big. Fat. Fail. Oh well. You win some, and you lose some!

The Best Day. EVER.

Ok, so let me begin by saying how rad I think this 90 minute boy's shirt is! (What do you mean no one says "rad" anymore?) But once again, to finish out the raw edges, you need a serger. Boo hiss.

But alas! I checked craigslist, found a Singer serger, still new with the books and everything, originally 300 but being sold for 175! I am so on it! She said it's still available so hopefully I can make the 45 minute trek tomorrow to go get it. I don't suppose this counts as an "emergency day" at work, does it? I'm a teacher, so I'm not allowed to take days off unless I'm sick or have an emergency. Emergencies really are in the eye of the beholder, right?

So then I get another piece of great news! Robyn, over at Our Homeschool Home sent me an email letting me know that I won her giveaway! Woot, woot! I will be winning a very lovely Valentine's Day onesie, which is so fitting since my son will be turning one year old this Valentine's Day. Thank you Robyn; you've made my day!!

It's Boy Month at "Made"

Woot, woot! I just wanted to share with everyone how sweet the month of February will be, now that it is boy month over at Made: A Creative Collection. There will boy tutes, clothes, giveaways, crafts, guest blogging... you name it, she'll have it! Yippee!

Awesome Felt Castle

I really should be sleeping since it's after midnight. When I woke up this morning to go to work, I already had massive bags under my eyes... but it's so much more fun to catch up on some much needed blog reading! I stumbled across two toy posts that I wanted to share since it's the holiday season, and we all have toys on the brain!

The first is a tutorial on how to make a castle out of felt. It definitely is the bomb diggety.

The second one is about how people these days tend to go to their local Walmart and stock up on plastic toys that leave nothing to imagination. This is not what I want for my child! For example, I want (and have been purchasing) real vintage enamleware for my son when he plays "kitchen." And she does too! This post is amazing... check it out!

Stuff That Makes Me Drool

I've been surfing the web tonight since Joel fell asleep, and I found some more stuff that I totally have to make.

• Bunny Bowling
  
  
• A Growth Chart
  
  
• Office Chair, recovered
  
  
• Fabric Piggy Bank

I wish there were more hours in the day!

Ouch

I think I broke my toe. It really hurts :( Yes, I would like some cheese with my whine. And it's my right foot; my foot I use when sewing! That's going to put a damper on my plans this evening. I was in a sewing frenzy.

I guess I'll just post some links to things I want to make.

• Cloth baby rings
  
• Fort table cover
  
• Selvedge chair and dress (Ok I won't actually make this but I thought it was the bomb diggety. Maybe I'll make something small with selvedge. Like a potholder or something.
  
• Trash bag for the car
  
• A skirt from Jason's never-to-be-worn-again Hawaiian shirt
  
• Clothespin people that are adorable as wedding cake toppers. Hubby won't agree to a second wedding, so I could make some little super heroes instead
  
• Reusable sandwich wrapper
  
• Handmade Father's Day cards even though Jason didn't get me anything for Mother's Day. My first Mother's Day. Not even a card.
  

If Only I Could Knit...

then I would totally make my brother this hat for his birthday:

Thank you Extreme Craft for bringing this awesome hat to our attention. I don't know how I've been on this planet for 3 decades without ever having seen or heard of a beer hat. I now feel complete.

I think I would have picked yarn to match the can. Don't you think it would look just smashing with red and blue yarn?

And then of course there's always the crocheted beer clothing at stitchymcyarnpants.com.


Too bad my brother's girlfriend just had her birthday. I think they'd love to go clubbing together decked out in this apparel, don't you?

Chickening out

I'm worried that if I were to paint my kitchen cabinets blue, I would turn off potential buyers when we put our house on the market in a few years. I would hate to paint them blue for my taste, but then turn around and paint them white a few years later so that the house would sell easier. *Sigh* I think I'll just go with white cabinets. Not that that's a bad thing of course! I absolutely love white painted furniture. I'm quite shabby chic :)

Here's some inspiration.

Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

My mom hates painted wood. We've gone round and round through the past decade about it, since I love white furniture. She loves oak.

I hate oak.

If I have to have the real wood finish showing through, I like cherry or maple pretty well, and even a rustic pine is nice. But oak is just fugly.

I have wanted to paint my kitchen cupboards since moving into this house seven years ago, but was worried that if I did, I would never hear the end of it. The other day, she gave me the green light. She said that my house is twenty years old, and so I could paint the cabinets to give them a bit of an update. Woot, woot! I am so excited.

I am thinking of having a painting party, and y'all are invited. And by that I mean, how about you come over and clean and paint my cabinets?

Here's some pictures of kitchens I like. I always assumed I would go with a creamy white, but lately I've been thinking I'd like blue cabinets. My appliances are white, and the walls are faux finished with a tuscan plaster effect. I just can't decide on the paint color. What do you think?

Things I Want!

The weather sucks here! I guess I shouldn't complain because at least I live in Ohio where the wind chill is only supposed to reach negative twenty or thirty... some places it's negative forty or fifty! Hubby's two-year-old car wouldn't even start this morning; luckily I have a four day weekend and so I didn't need my car. I won't be going anywhere anyway since the temp is currently -11, and that's not even taking into account the windchill! I do need to go to the grocery because we need chicken, however I think that can wait!

Anyway, I'm holed up crafting, sewing, and reading blogs for inspiration. So here are some things that I absolutely have to either have or make:
Joel would absolutely love this.

Upcycle your magazines and turn them into gift bows: ingenius! Unfortunately, I don't have any of the brads on hand that you need to make them, and I also have a plethora of gift bows already because I scavenge for them at Christmas and save them all.


I think I'll make these bows when I need a color of bow that I don't already have tons of... I could make some teal and purple ones to go with a wrapping paper I have :)


So what do you do with all those floppy disks so common in the 1990s? Make a handy dandy place to keep your pencils, paper clips, rubber bands, or whatever!


Hey, I have this mirror! It came from Ikea years ago.


Unfortunately, I just redid mine a few weeks ago for the nursery. I painted it green and decoupaged it with rabbit pictures from a thrifted children's book. It turned out cool, but now I have to wait to make this awesome mosaic mirror! Well that's okay because I am sure I don't have enough cards yet to make it anyway. I'll save up and then make it when Joel is too old for cutesy bunny mirrors.


Here's a great way to upcycle vintage yardsticks!



Ok, so Christmas is over. And actually, I'm usually not all that into CD crafts. I liked the idea a colleague of mine had when she hung them around the perimeter of a bulletin board in her classroom. Since I'm a music teacher, that would be a good one for me to do! However, I really like this idea that she came up with! I could totally see many of them strung together to hang over the fireplace.