Sean & Shey: crafty

Flannel To Faux

Sunday, February 03, 2013

I saw this on pinterest and pinned it months ago. I just knew I had to try it as soon as I saw it! This quilt is so beautiful!

Source: aestheticnest.com via Sheyenne on Pinterest

When my brother in law and his wife announced they were having a baby, I couldn't wait to make it for them! The little guy is currenly almost 10 days overdue, and I just knew I had to finish it before he got here. I posted a couple of Instagram pics of my quilting in progres, so here they are:

This quilting took forever. But it was great practice for sewing a straight line!

I finally finished it last night, just in time to give it to my sister in law today at lunch. They're being induced later this weekend and we can't wait to meet the little guy! So here is the finished product (photo overload):

I love the way the bias-cut flannel curls up into this faux chenille look!

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I didn't do the binding exactly like the tutorial... by the time I got to the end of the sewing and cutting, ironing a bunch of silk binding didn't sound too appealing. So I just used it as it originally was intended to be used and did a regular blanket binding. The corners were a little wonky. They were hard to do with the binding. But you know, I learned a long time ago that perfection is overrated. Never mind that despite the fact that i pre-washed all the fabrics, one of the blues STILL leaked and turned the light yellow more of a green. (grrrrr) But I'm really happy with it. And most importantly, I think my little nephew will love rolling around on it and letting it keep him warm. And he'll know that I made it with love, praying for him and his parents as I sewed and cut lines for hours.

post signature

crafty

PinSpiration: Alphabet Bean Bags

Thursday, February 02, 2012

I saw these adorable bean bags on Pinterest a while back and pinned them to my "Gift Ideas" board, all the while having my two nieces in mind. They are 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old, so I thought these would be perfect for them!

The original blogger at The Crafty Cupboard who posted the bean bag project has a great tutorial on how she made them, and I pretty much did the same. I bought 6 fat quarters in different fabrics, then cut them with a rotary cutter into 5-inch squares. (The fat quarters were less than $3 each.) Then I cut the letter stencils out of freezer paper with my Cricut and painted them on the squares- upper and lower case! Then I sewed them all together, ironed them out, and filled them with beans. I got a huge bag of pinto beans at Sam's Club for less than $9. I still have a few beans left over. I top-stitched to make them look more finished and, voila! Hours of fun and learning!

This was a super fun project, and definitely helped me brush up on my sewing skills. Simple, straight lines, but lots of practice! There were a lot of steps involved, and I had to do everything 56 times (each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, upper and lower case, plus two extra letters so my nieces could each learn to spell their names with the bean bags = 56 letters), but like I said, all simple stuff. All in all, I estimate this took about a week's worth of nap times, which is roughly 10-14 hours. I didn't really keep track. A great, fun project that will hopefully make for hours of fun and learning for the girls!

crafty

Pretty Stuff

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

So, I read a lot of blogs. And the more I read, the more I realize how many insanely talented people there are in this world... and I'm not talking about the famous artsy ones, either. There are millions of crafty, gifted, beautiful artists who are just like you and me. And I LOVE seeing their work! I read about all different kinds of art... architecture, design, paper crafting, painting, photography... the list could go on.

Just look at the uh-mazing interior design of this Brookly Brownstone over on Design*Sponge... (Trust me, its worth the jump over there.) I've ALWAYS wanted to live in a brownstone. *sigh* Maybe some day!!! But the pictures of this one made my jaw drop to the floor. I could literally picture myself living here... walking up the front steps with my eco-friend recyclable bag of organic groceries (um, er... ok so maybe it'd still be Diet Coke and PopTarts).

(Photo: Design*Sponge)

Next, I saw this awesome site called 39 Sqaures. Here's the link to the blog. Basically, its kinda like the 365 project I'm doing. Every day they stitch a square... it can be anything. But the creativity of these women is endless!! You can browse a bunch of the women participating by clicking through the names on the right of the blog. I wish I'd known about this when I started maternity leave... 6 weeks times 7 days each week would come out to 42 squares... that would have been neat. Maybe I"ll still do it. Sometime. :-) Too much going on right now, but I do love the idea. Here's a picture of one lady's squares so far... (Make sure you click over to her blog to check it out closer!)