Trooper Hat

Remember those lovely wool skirts I showed you a couple weeks ago? I made C some not so great pants out of a plain beige one. Remember this skirt?

I figured out the perfect thing to make, a trooper hat. You know the kind?

Yes, I did just use L's soccer ball as the head to showcase the hat I was talking about.

I loved the print and it was perfect for this hat. I used Mr. C's hat as a guide for little C's hat.

I made my pattern, sewed the outside together, then sewed the fleece lining. After that I sewed the lining and outside wool together.

This is with the front flap down, before I sewed on the buttons. C actually likes it like this because his head gets hot with it up.

Here it is with the buttons. C wants me to add elastic to the ear flaps so they are connected. Good idea.

From this view, it looks a little like a helmet. That's ok, it probably won't when he is wearing his big jacket in the snow. I think for the next one, I need to make the bottom piece a little longer and the ear flaps a little wider.

I made the plaid not match. I thought it would look a little better that way.

Now L wants one in pink. You may be seeing that soon with my little improvements.

Where I am linking...

Sewing for Dolls

For L's birthday she got a doll house that came with basic furniture. We also got her some extra furniture from a different doll house maker. The stuff that came from the other maker was so cute with little cushions and stuff that went with it.

My sister-in-law got her furniture form the other maker also. Isn't this little sewing machine so cute!

All the paint and glues they use is non-toxic, and the wood is all natural and untreated. It's the greenest toys you can buy. I forget what kind of wood, but it's made from a very renewable kind.

Now, here is the furniture that came with the doll house. It's cute and I love that it's all wood, of course. But it is lacking in style.

See, cute. Kind of like Ikea compared with high end quality green materials. Ikea is great and they are environmentally friendly, but they are a little basic. So, L wanted some linens and cushions. She picked some fabric out of my scraps. Scraps are perfect for doll house stuff, you need such a small amount.

This is what she picked.

I decided to make a quilt for the bed. I lined it with some fleece I had. I didn't want it too thick. I used home made bias tape I had for the edges. This is the back.

Here is the front. It came out too thick for such a small blanket. It doesn't really drape like I'd like it too and I made it a little too big. But it works for L.

She likes to put the dolls to sleep on it, like it's a bed.

The cushions for the couch and chairs turned out much better.

Don't they look so much more comfortable?

Window Trim Paint

We live in this old house that is pretty much in it's original state. It's been somewhat kept up, but not upgraded. We rent so there is only so much we can do to make it nice. Basically, we can paint. The original part of the house was built in the 50's as a maid's courters. The original house was a 1 bed room. A huge 900 sq ft living room was added on in the 70's. and sometime I think in the 80's a second bedroom was added on. The layout is actually very open and perfect for us. You would think it would be choppy because of the multiple add-ons, but it's not. Anyway the whole house has this 50's wood trim everywhere. Neutral colors don't go well with it at all. So, when I painted the family room and master bed room I had to pick colors. Eventually, I painted the kids room and I wanted to do a neutral since I have a boy and a girl sharing so I decided to pain the trim white. I loved it! It looked so much better. Trim is such a pain to paint, but it is so worth it.


Now I am setting out to finishing painting. I have moved to the master bedroom. It has blue walls with this ugly 50's yellow-brown wood.

The blinds are almost a perfect match. The trim and the blinds together make the house look old and dark.

The windows are original also. The trim has all kinds of paint on it from previous renters painting badly. And, yes, this window is looking out to the chimney outside the living room which is also our entryway. It's the room that wasn't originally there. But there are two other windows in our bedroom so this view doesn't really matter.


Well, here is the finished window.

Even the blinds look better.

It feels so clean and fresh. Now I have one double wide window and the bathroom cabinets to paint.

Baskets

I love baskets! 

They are perfect to store things in while looking nice, neat and cute. I could use them for everything. When Mr. C made my craft shelf, I wanted baskets to organize everything. But, since we are on a budge I couldn't just go out and buy them so I had to make them. Also, I do like everything in my craft area to be made or reused.

So here are a few pictures of what I did...

The newspaper basket I lined with fabric because I didn't want the newsprint to make the ribbon dirty.

Homemade baskets are perfect because you can make them the exact size you want. I think it's time to make a separate one for my homemade patterns. This basket is getting pretty full.

We have a 2 bedroom house, so my craft shelf is in our room and my sewing desk is in the living room. Up until a week ago, it was on the fire place and I sat right down there on the floor to sew using my knee on the presser foot. It worked for me, but it wasn't very sightly when people came over having all my sewing stuff on the hearth. I have a wonderful friend that was getting rid of a desk, so here is what I put inside my sewing desk shelves. It's the stuff I use most often when sewing, or projects I need to get to.

Here is my entryway basket, it was made from scraps of fabric. I love the way it turned out, it's imperfections and all.

For this basket, I just braided my strips of scraps, wound it and zig zagged sewed on the machine. When I get enough scraps again, I will do a tutorial for this. My sister actually wants one for her house. Usually people hand sew these together, but little old me hates hand sewing anything. I will avoid it at all costs. Well, almost all, I'm not actually going to ruin a project.

These two are just weaved with some ribbon added to make them cute. One is newspaper and the other is magazine. Magazines are cool cause if you want, you can pick out pictures with specific colors in them. It looks really nice like that.

This basket was made from some paper scraps we got from the bamboo shop we bought the bamboo at for my craft shelf. They gave it to us for free.

I used the wider pieces to weave the individual shelves on my craft shelf. That was a pain, tore my hands apart, but I love the way it turned out. Now you need a picture of this also. This view is from the bottom of the top shelf.

With the bottom paper stuff in the basket above, I made a trash can for the craft room. Very imperfect as well. So imperfect it's kind of sad looking.

Well, there are my baskets, I hope you are inspired to organize as green as you can. :-)

I am linking up with...

Blog following party

I am trying out this linky party on Home Maker on a Dime. 





I love her blog and all the inspiration I get from her finding old furniture and making it new. It makes me want to get up early on Saturday mornings finding all the best garage sales. Anyhow, I am following her blog now and another new one I found over there, the Junk House, I am very excited to see Sam's projects she will be doing in her very first home.


Another blog I love that I found from the "Swap Followings" is A Vintage Vine. She also has a knack for finding things thrifting and making them beautiful.


I hope you will check out her Swap Followings also.