Easiest Curtains Ever & A Sneak Peek Into Liv's Nursery

The nursery is done except for one bit of art work I'm still waiting on. It wasn't quite as fun as designing Elle's nursery because Liv's nursery is in a room that should be an office or other common living space, so I didn't want to make the bones of the room too "nursery" and have to redo it all when we decide to move… but it was still fun to put together and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I'll post all the pics and a run down when I get that last bit of artwork on the wall.
My least favorite part of the project = deciding on a style of curtains and picking the fabric. We have wide plank white blinds on all the windows in the house except for Elle’s room, and that minimalist feel fits our uncluttered space well, so I’ve managed to steer clear of making the big design decision of window coverings for the most part. We wanted something that fit the shabby chic feel of Liv’s room but we didn’t change the paint color in there, so it needed to go with Restoration Hardware’s Silver Sage, which is a hard color to match! That room also gets a lot of light, so we needed something that would block that out during nap time. And, since one window in that room is on the front of the house, we didn’t want to replace the blinds so we could maintain the continuity of the look from the outside of the house. That was a lot of factors to take into consideration, Sooooo we decided to take a simple approach… an uncomplicated paneled drapery, lined with black out fabric, hung on cute rods, with tie backs trimmed in pom pom fringe. Behold the world’s easiest sewing project:


I have to tell you, the curtain rods were the deal of the century! They're cracked pink glass bulbs on the ends of silver rods. I found them at Target on clearance (I had to go 4 different Targets... thank goodness we live in a major metropolitan area... who has 4 Targets within 30 minutes of eachother?!). The small rod for $5 and the large one for $8... I couldn't believe it... we spent $40 each on the rods in Elle's room... crazy!

Applique Outfits

Since I’m not in love with making clothing, I’ve done several projects that partly consist of embellishing existing pieces. The latest are these three little outfits, 2 for Liv & 1 for a sweet little birthday boy.
I used the bloomers pattern that was part of the pattern from Liv’s bubble suit (once I had them finished I compared them to a pair of 0-3 month store bought bloomers and the waist and legs look like the right size, but the butt part looks huge… she may be super poofy in these, we’ll see) to make the bloomers from a Michael Miller fabric I adore, and then just appliquéd a piece of the design on the little orange American Apparel tank top.

This second outfit also started out with just an American Apparel pink top that I appliquéd another fabric that keeps popping up in my projects. I used my machine’s blanket stitch around the appliqué (you do know how much I loath hand sewing right?!), and made the matching elastic waist pants from the kimono pattern in Amy Butler’s Little Stitches for Little Ones book.

This last outfit was for a first birthday. I had some unique import fabric that was just waiting for the right project and this was it. I appliquéd the 1 on the top, used my machine’s blanket stitch again (this time set bigger) and modified Amy Butler’s kimono pants pattern for a bigger size.

You gotta love quick and cute projects!

We're Ready

My hospital bag is packed and my toenails are painted... we're ready!

Liv's Sweet Messenger Diaper Bag

I love how this bag turned out! I modified a really simple messenger bag pattern to incorporate some features that I think will make it especially useful as a diaper bag. There's a lot to go over, so I'll just get to the nitty gritty.

I embroidered the flap of the bag with an Urban Thread's scribble design. Robots aren't particularly girly, but I thought it was super cute in pink and went really well with the fabric I lined it in, which is Melissa Averinos' design from her Sugar Snap line.

The side of the bag has nylon straps the length of the bag with D rings attached at the top so that the double sided strap is removable and you can clip the bag to a stroller with two carribeaners or by wrapping the strap around the handle and then clipping it back into the D rings.

One of my favorite features of the bag is the removable changing pad/messenger bag flap. Four snaps on the back of the bag snap onto snaps sewn into the changing pad... if I ever feel particularly ambitious I may even make multiple flaps/changing pads so that I can go with a different design when I want.

The inside of the bag has two large pockets, they're the perfect size for a travel size wipes container and all the odds and ends you need for diaper changing. There's also a ribbon loop sewn into the top side seam that I can clip a wristlet to or my keys and it can hang on the outside or inside of the bag.

Also on the inside of the bag are these elastic straps that are sewn in front of the pockets and work great for hanging onto things that usually get wadded up in pockets, like diapers and burp clothes... I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of that one :)

So that's it. I packed it up as soon as it was finished and it's all ready to go to the hospital... now we just wait for Liv to be ready.

Handmade Holiday Bazaar - Call to Crafters

I've partnered with Kelli of Red Marionette and Karrie of Fiberologie to organize, promote, and host the 2nd year of the Handmade HolidayBazaar craft show in St. Pete at Fiberologie on Dec 5, 2009. We're looking for edgy, interesting, amusing crafts and crafters to be vendors at the show. If that's you, check out our blog for the nitty gritty details. Stuff like booth and table space sizes and fees, the vendor agreement, our plan for advertising the event, and pretty much everything we could think of that you may want to know about participating is in the Vendor Application.

We had a blast and got a ton of great feedback from the vendors at last year's show (I posted the wrap up on my blog here)! We're excited about bringing a handmade alternative to mass manufacturing and traditional craft shows back to the burg again this year!

CHECK!

In my life before sewing, I was a scrapbooker. It was one of my first creative hobbies and the 13 albums I have to show for it are among my most prized possessions. However, the creative challenge sewing presents and the vast array of projects to be made has kept me intrigued from the moment I brought my machine home. I hadn’t scrapbooked a page since. My poor 3 year old’s baby book only went up to 6 months. When I found out I was pregnant with our second daughter, I made a list of all the things I’d like to make for the new baby and forced myself to add “finish Elle’s baby album” to the list. I’m beyond happy to announce that I did it! Here are some of my favorite pages:
Now I have to remain committed to making an album for Liv’s first year and then I’ll allow myself to switch to the less time intensive, but still archival, electronic scrapbooks. I must keep in mind that I need to record what a wonderful time in our lives this is and that my children need to be able to look back at pictures from their childhood … how else will they remember how all those handmade goodies I sewed for them looked in their prime?!

Cutie Booties

I found a really versatile pattern for baby booties on Etsy and decided my first set (I’m already envisioning many more variations on these to come… a girl can never have too many shoes right?!) should be for Liv’s coming home from the hospital outfit. So, now her outfit is complete: bubble suit, bonnet, and booties. Cross your fingers with me that it all fits!

Soft Blocks

Yes I have an embroidery machine… no I haven’t used it for the majority of the projects I’ve made for Liv. I get “in the groove” of making something and having to stop, create the design on my computer, setup the embroidery arm & foot, hoop the stabilizer, stitch the design, and remove the embroidery arm and foot to continue the project breaks the “flow” of the process and I end up breaking it up into a two step and possibly 2 day project instead. I think that’s as much evidence as I need to justify buying a 2nd machine. I can have the embroidery function of my current machine set up all the time and I can sew on a 2nd machine so there’s no disruption. That makes perfect sense right?!

If you have more than one sewing machine, show me some love and leave a comment, it wouldn’t hurt to have supporting evidence should I decide to make the case to my Doug :) Okay so that was a bit of a tangent because I felt the need to explain why I went with appliqué letters for these blocks instead of embroidering them… back to the regularly scheduled post.

These are the soft blocks
from Amy Butler’s Little Stitches for Little Ones book. I added the appliqué letters, but other than that, they’re by the book. If you decide to do them my word of caution is to be sure you take heed to the note about starting and stopping ½ inch from each end when you’re constructing the sides of the blocks. As long as you do that, putting them together isn’t hard at all. If I make another set, I think next time I’ll cut out a bit of the foam they’re stuffed with and insert a bell or rattle of some kind. However, future sets aren’t terribly likely because I so DON’T love hand sewing! You have to hand sew two of the sides together, so it’s not a lot of hand sewing, but the perfectionist and instant gratification junkie in me complained the entire time… annoying girl!