House Rules Subway Art on a Recycled Cabinet Door

This is something I have pinned and been meaning to do for awhile now.  All it took to get me motivated was a little bit of nesting! I'm hoping the nesting phase will see me complete many to do list projects...so is my husband. ha! To make a project like this of your own you need a board, cabinet door, canvas or other choice material to affix your "rules" to. I spray painted my cabinet door and then measured how much space I had to fill so I knew how many lines of text I could cut on the Silhouette Cameo. I opted to add an image at the bottom rather than have it be all text, but you can do what you like! If you don't have a machine capable of cutting vinyl, you could do a freehand version with paints and brushes or scour etsy and find someone to create a custom set of house rules for you. The tedious part of this project was weeding out the vinyl around the letters...otherwise this project would have taken me about an hour and half less time. I used the 3M velcro hangers to hang this today since there is a return air vent in this wall. I'll let you know if it doesn't do the job!

Peg Doll Overload!

This started out as one more thing on my Handmade Christmas Ideas pinterest board. You now see where this is going? First, I made a set of Disney princesses complete with a castle for my daughter. Then, I decided they were so fun I should make her Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters....and then, for my son Scooby Doo and the gang with a haunted mansion and the mystery machine. Ok...I promise that is where I stopped. The princesses debuted for E's birthday, which is roughly 3 weeks before Christmas. I loved them more than she did. Perhaps two is a bit too young for me to have given them to her. When they saw no loving from her I decided to etsy the other sets I had made her. My son had so many dinosaur presents under the tree that Scooby Doo and the gang are hiding in my closet for his birthday! Why am I telling you all of this? These dolls are such fun to create. You take a plain little peg doll from the craft store or you can get all fancy and purchase unfinished family sets on etsy or other online shops and turn them into whatever your imagination can fathom. I drew on mine with pencil and then purchased soy paints and sealer at JoAnn to ensure they would be non-toxic should my two year old decide that Ariel looks tasty. Below are the Mickey and Scooby Doo sets. I will get pictures of the others asap. They really are a treat since they have playsets that go with them. So run out and buy some peg people and create your own or you can check out the sets I have for sale or message me and I can create a custom set for you or give you pointers are creating your own.

Tied lampshade

This project is a great way to reuse something and be low impact on the environment. Scraps for the ties and you can even use the original fabric from the shade to make some flowers for something else! It may take a very long time for you to complete but the finished product is well worth it. Just pop in a movie or two and cut a LOT of strips and tie, tie, tie. Or you could order one from my etsy shop! I have one available and will gladly make custom orders to match your room.

Every Little Girl "Needs" Lipstick

 We've probably all heard it if we have a little girl. "Emma is in your purse. She dumped out your wallet." A minute later my son says, "She's also playing with your lipstick." That one got me up and running to see how much of her face she had painted. This has been going on for a couple of months so I thought to myself I will try to find her the toy lipstick I had as a kid. It rotated like real lipstick and was made by Fisher Price. No such luck. Next best thing was to make her one. I dug in my freebies from purchasing Clinique makeup and *gasp* took a brand new lipstick and threw the lipstick part out and did my best to clean out the rest. Next, I found a dowel rod that fit perfectly into the tube cut a piece at an angle to fit the tube. Then, I painted the dowel rod with some red fingernail polish I had laying around. Had the dowel rod been unfinished I might have colored it with blackberries so that it was less "toxic" should she chew it. Next time.... Final step is to E6000 the dowel into the tube and let it dry. Emma is so excited about her lipstick.

Food Face Plate Tutorial

 This is my first tutorial with photos! If I left out something feel free to send me a message. You'll need the following supplies:Edit HTML

1. plate (I chose white but you could do a color if you want to get funky!)
2. pebeo ink for glass (I purchased mine at Michael's)
3. paint brush
4. image to transfer
5. paper
6. tape
7. pencil
8. sharpie or marker

  First pick you image. I chose this one and stretched it to fit my plate. Then print it out. You can also you a photo of a family member if you want to personalize it.

 Then flip your image over and trace it with sharpie on the back side of the paper.

 Next, scribble over your sharpie lines with a pencil making sure to cover well. This does not have to be pretty.

 Trim around your image and tape it to your plate with the right side up. (Pencil scribbles touching the plate.)

 This is a boy and girl version. You are now going to trace the image with a pencil. This will transfer your scribbles to the plate leaving a template for you to paint over.

 Remove your taped on image and you'll have the following. Notice the plate on the right is darker. I did a better job with my scribbling here.

 Paint over your lines with Pebeo Vitrea 160. You could try the Pebeo pen, but I haven't had much luck with those. If you mess up a little bit you can use a toothpick to scratch away little imperfections. Allow paint to dry 24 hours and then bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes. Ink is dishwasher safe. I wouldn't use a knife or heavy duty scouring pad on this plate just in case, but otherwise you should be fine.

It's time for the annual post, right?

Seriously...I am a good blog reader, but not a dedicated blogger. Perhaps if I took the time to document all of my creations I would feel that my posts would benefit other crafters. This next creation was a fluke. I had visions of this being a cute skirt and then making a fabric flower and attaching it to a pre-made shirt. What the skirt turned into is so cute! If only I had finished this hours ago, you would see pictures of a cute little girl wearing it. Maybe in days to come I'll add some! No promises. I am after all turning into an annual poster.

So if you're thinking...I could make that. You are right, you can! This was a skirt with an elastic waist that was entirely too long for my little monkey. I didn't want to cut the waistband and re-iron to make a new band. What I did took longer...lol, but the results are cute! I took the  too long skirt cut a black rectangle of knit turned the sides in and pressed, though if you look at the inside I did not measure before I turned and it isn't "pretty." It is just knit and it's just for my little monkey so I just went with it. I decided to ruffle the top of the black panel so that it wasn't too wide. You can do this by setting your stitch length as long as it will go and your tension as high as it will go. This is an amazing little trick my dear friend taught me. I use it to ruffle everything. I have a ruffler, but don't know how to use the thing. The straps of this dress have non-roll elastic underneath red strips of knit. I wanted to keep that ruffle theme going. The straps cross in the back. The flower is a scrap ruffle left over from the bottom of the skirt. I made the red ruffle with the same technique mentioned above. So while this isn't a clear cut tutorial, the project itself is not to complicated.  Enjoy!

SIMPLE nursing cover

This is such a simple project and yet it makes a great baby shower gift or use it yourself. The size of this really depends on what you want. Some of the tutorials I read said you could make 2 from one yard of fabric. Personally I like them a little bid wider just in case. At a mom's sale I saw one of these with terry cloth sewn into one corner to wipe dribbles while baby is nursing. I thought why not have one on both sides. You don't always nurse baby on one side. The light yellow material is a square of yellow terry cloth folded in half and sewn in with the hem of the cover. There is an 11" piece of boning in the middle of the top of the cover so that you can peek at baby while he or she nurses. This gift needed to be versatile so I made a strap with suspender clips and a piece of ribbon. The strap can be used on a blanket in the event this cover is in the wash. The only thing I don't like about the ribbon is it isn't adjustable. I don't know if there is a standard link that will work well for all. For myself I just kept sizing it down until I got it where I wanted it. I've seen the clips with ribbon sold alone before with much wider ribbon. I guess some moms prefer being able to use whichever blanket they prefer. I wanted to have the option and give the receivers of this that option as well.