Paint Chip Upcycle

Do you have as much of an obsession with paint chips as I do?

Do you gather them with no idea how you want to use them like I do? Hehehe... Yeah... 

Well, here's an easy way to use the paint ships to create something cute!

Supply list:

A jar and lid

Glue

Preferred paint chip colors

Cute stickers or pictures

For my jar I found this! For this project, we are only focusing on the lid.

If there are any stickers remove them and clean the top. 

Once that is done bring out your paint chip! I used the lid as my template to cut out this shape. 

Now we glue it down! I like to use superglue. :)

Lastly comes the stickers or images! This little piece of paper is left over from my mission in Japan two years ago!

Trim it down to fit the lid. Once you like how it looks, glue it down and you are done! :D

Now you can fill the jar with whatever you like! 

Here's the other two I made earlier! I like to use them as "Travel Temari Kits". 

Have fun making your own!

Signing off ~Thimblechaser

DIY Father's Day Tie

I'm working on a fun post about this last weekend that I got to spend with my mom! It was really fun, but in the meantime, I'd like to talk about an upcoming event. Father's Day! I don't know about all of you wonderful people out there, but buying gifts for this special day can be really tough! There's always the classic (and kind boring) tie gift. I propose, we take that boring tie, and turn it into awesomeness! ;D

Here's what you need. 

SUPPLIES

an old/ugly tie

Fun new fabric! This can be anything. We are working on the bias so we are going to need 1/2 a yard and that will be plenty!

Scissors

Iron

Hand sewing needle

Step one: find an old tie

You can get these cheep at any thrift shop!

Step 2: gut it!

Carefully unpick all of the seams. Don't do too much damage here, we are going to use the old tie as a pattern! With that said, unpick every single seam! We need each piece to be separate for the pattern. As a quick note, seam rippers work like this! The little red ball goes down into the seam! It seriously works like magic!

Once finished you should end up with a pile that looks like this. 

This tie had two main body pieces, two body linings, and one small triangle lining. Keep the linings for later!

Step 3: cut out the fabric

Now that we have our pattern, let's get snipping! Press the pattern pieces and fabric flat first, so you get an accurate shape. Remember, place the pattern at an angle! I'm using an old Hawaiian shirt for fabric. :)

Step 4: sew the body

First stitch the two body pieces together. 

Next up stitch the lining on the point. Make sure to put right sides together. 

Once you've pressed the seams open, lay the tie out on your ironing board. Then place the inner lining centered on the wrong side of the fabric. 

Step 5: pressing

Press the fabric around the lining. 

Once the fabric has been pressed over it will looks like a tie! Tuck one of the sides under to hide away the raw edge.

When you fold the edge under, make sure the points line up. 

Proceed along the length. Once complete, we are now at the point where you can put on a movie, and  hand stitch the tie closed!

Step 6: hand sew 

Hide the knot in the fold of fabric then proceed with a blind stitch or any kind of hand sewing technique .

Since this is a tie, it's not going to see a lot of heavy use. That means you don't have to go crazy on your stitches! Just enough to keep it from coming apart. =D 

It's done! Wrap it up, give it away, then watch their faces of delight! =D 

Or you can keep the tie to use on your stuffed animal collection! 

I think it looks great on Mr. Grouchy, don't you?

If you make one, post the pictures in the comments! 

New Headboard Cover

Remember the awesomely rejuvenated closet of ours from a few posts back? Well, we hated the doors so much before we even altered anything that we took them right off! Since then the doors from the closet have been stored in a super sneaky space! ;D

As  our headboards! You can see I tried covering them with some scrap fabric I had, but it kept falling down. :/  So I took some measurements and headed up to my Momma's sewing room. Just saying, she's a published quilter, so you should check out her tutorials and patterns here! 

--------------------->>  http://www.quiltscapesqs.com  <<------------------------

With her math skills and our combined tenacious spirit, we overcame some hiccups and had a fantastic finished product! 

So from her sewing room to our bedroom, I would like to present.....

The headboard cover!!!!!

Tadaa!!!!!!! I love it so much! It just fits so nicely over the top of the doors. 

Here it is with the canopy.

 Another angle.

Wait, are those boring empty walls on either side?! Unnaceptable!!!

Had these lying around after a class last semester. They fit so perfectly in the space! I call them, "Blue Lines" and "Geometric Maroon Fabric". So original.... Hehehe

Anyway...

More canopy~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ so fun!

I think it is safe to say I love my new headboard cover!!!

Did you notice that our lamps match the headboard? Yeah, totally planned that.... Hahaha, ok not really, but it was a wonderful coincidence!

Love it!!!!!!!

Side note, the bear and cat were gifts from The Husbyland during our courtship and subsequent marriage. :)

What have you done to make your room feel like a home? Leave a comment below!

NO SLEEP pt. 1

I don't know about many of you, but once school time comes around there is something I dread even more than loads of homework. This dreaded thing is falling asleep in class! Any lecture class, any desk or chair, within 15 minutes, I'm playing the stealthy headbob game. Sometimes I can fight it off, but usually it's a loosing battle.

This post is the first of many more to come about the crafts I do so I don't slumber when I should be learning numbers! (or whatever)

Here I have a simple case for my ipad that I bought during the bookstore sale here at school. It has fun colors and all, but I missed out on the chevron craze and am not too crazy about it myself. Just not my favorite. All in all, when I see this case and feel the material, I think "boring". Also, if I ever set my device on top, everything slides right of because of the very smooth texture. Blegh!

My vision? Something that says creative and classy while being romantic at the same time. Honestly the hardest part is choosing the fabric. With much deliberation and the realization that if I didn't like it, I could change it, I chose the fabric. 

Step 1: Choose the fabric. This came from my stash of upholstery fabrics. I just love the colors and pattern! Paisley=always gonna win.

Step 2: Measure and cut fabric leaving enough of a margin to fold under. This doesn't need to be a science, just something rough will do. You can also fussy cut it if you really love a design in the fabric.  Since this isn't a large case, every space counts. I needed two big pieces and I also cut an additional skinny strip to make into a strap thingy for my stylus to fit into. 

Step 3: Fold over edges and pin into place. *make sure to bring along enough pins* I only had a few so I had to rotate them around a bit. You can see that I didn't pin the fabric right to the edge, that is fixed with the next step!

Step 4: Hand sew! Since I'm no expert on this, I won't tell you how. All you have to do is make sure the fabric reaches the edge you need it to! Since it's been folded over already all you have to do is take time and stitch. 

There it is! I admit that I finished it after class was over, but it served its purpose.  Now I have a fun and unique case that I made while I combated sleep! There's no stylus holder for now, but that's just going to be a project for another day. :) This will work for now.

~Stitching out

          Lali