A Tiny Forest

Are you familiar with the meme about wanting to make all your loved ones homemade Christmas presents, and come Christmas, it turns out you love two people? That's usually me. But last year, I made holiday sweater pins for all my co-workers, and this year the muse showed up again. With a recycled project to be fair, but still, every one of my colleagues received a homemade Christmas pillow.

I freehanded a Christmas tree shape on paper, 20" high and 20" wide at its widest point, and cut out the trees. I can get three double-sided trees out of a yard and a half of fleece. Sew the two sides together leaving a 3" opening, turn the tree inside out, stuff with poly-fil, and sew the tree closed by hand. Behold, a tiny forest of Christmas cheer. 

Merry Christmas!

National Craft Month Project: Square Pouf

While it is still very cold where I live and large parts of my state remain covered in snow, spring fever is slowly setting in. I have put away all the winter decorations and my six year old and I are starting to bring out the spring and Easter paraphernalia.

Naturally I feel compelled to craft new things, especially since March is National Craft Month. This year’s spring trends, as I learned from Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores, have nautical, geometric, floral, and radiant orchid (Pantone Color of the Year) elements. And to make spring crafting easy during National Craft Month, Jo-Ann offers a $5 off $25 or more purchase coupon and a spring crafting inspiration website.

After some much needed spring cleaning and organizing in my daughter’s room, it was decided she lacked seating. She told me she wanted a pouf. Since we have something of a woodlands theme going in her room, and because it’s her favorite color, we looked for mostly green in the home décor fabric aisles at Jo-Ann. We found some lovely floral and geometric patterned fabric and paired that with a beautiful solid green.

A pouf, or a large floor pillow, is really easy to put together. For a 14” square pouf, which is bigger than you think, this is what you’ll need:

• One and a half yards of fabric in three different prints, half a yard of each. I used home décor fabric because it’s sturdier.
• Matching thread
• Matching zipper (optional)
• Stuffing material
• Sewing tools (machine, pins, scissors, seam ripper, ruler)

To make a 14” square pouf, measure and cut six 15” squares, including a 1/2” seam allowance, if you plan to sew the pouf closed by hand. If you want to include a zipper panel, add an extra inch to one square and make it 15” by 16” (technically no longer a square). Cut your zipper panel in half (15” by 8”) and pin the two halves lengthwise together, right sides facing each other.

Sew the zipper in your panel, following this fabulous tutorial on Design Sponge. I use it every time and could not do a better job showing you how to do it. Upon finishing your zipper panel, you will have six 15” squares.

I chose to alternate my fabric prints and have the solid green panels as the top and bottom of my pouf. After I created the zipper panel, I pinned and sewed two print panels together, right sides facing. Repeat with the other panels and then sew them all together.

Once all the side panels were sewn into a big square tube, I sewed in the top, followed by the bottom.

The corners are a bit tricky but if you go nice and slow, you should end up with a beautiful and consistent 1/2” seam.

When you sew the bottom, remember to open the zipper slightly or, if you don’t use a zipper and plan to close the pouf by hand, leave a large enough opening for turning the fabric and stuffing the pouf.

Trim your threads, iron your seams and turn your pouf inside out. Stuff it with whatever you have available, I used an old king size duvet. It’s amazing how much stuffing a 14” pouf takes. Like I said, it’s bigger than you think.

That’s all there is to it. I am very happy with my spring pouf and I am sure Lola will love it as well. The girl is so easy to please.

If you too would like to craft your way into spring, be sure to take a look at the Jo-Ann inspiration website. And don’t forget the coupon!

This post is sponsored by Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores as part of the National Craft Month campaign. I received a gift card to purchase materials and write this post. The opinions are my own.

Bag It Up

I have a pile of vintage and not so vintage blankets in my house.

Some are in boxes in my craft room, others in my bedroom closet.

There are baby blankets, army blankets, striped blankets, and reversible blankets.

Blankets in pink, blue, green, brown, yellow, and white.

I also have lots of lovely cotton fabric, in assorted colors and prints.

Fabric to line bags with, and bag pockets.

The pile of blankets has shrunk somewhat.

In its place is a growing pile of messenger bags.

You can find them in my Etsy shop.

Custom Covers And Slick Sleeves

My Kindle Fire passed away. While it was not an unexpected passing, it was a very sad moment for me because I used it daily. For some time it had had trouble charging. Unfortunately the problem was not with the charger, that would have been an easy fix. No, it was the charger receiver thingy. For a while I was able to wiggle a charge, but at some point last month that stopped working, too.

I called Amazon Kindle Support, lovely people by the way, but they could not help me and time of death was quickly called. Since my Kindle was two years old, it was no longer under any sort of warranty but the good folks at Amazon made me a rather generous replacement offer. After waiting to see if Santa had anything up his sleeve – alas, he didn’t, I took them up on their offer this weekend.

My first Kindle Fire had a 7” screen. To protect it, I created a sturdy felt owl cover for it. It was made with 3 mm thick gray and white wool felt and a pair of black buttons for its eyes.

My new Kindle is the bigger 8.9” screen version and the owl no longer fits. Time for something new. While I loved my owl, I wanted something a little snazzier for my new cover.

Felt will always be my first love, especially thick wool felt, but I am on a self proclaimed craft materials purchasing stop and wanted to use what I had on hand for my prototype. I also wanted to try and incorporate elastic in my design.

I share a love of maps with my mother-in-law and when she wanted to get rid of an old Rand McNally road atlas, I was happy to take it off her hands. Since this first cover was an experiment, I did not want to use the map of Wisconsin, my current home state. I intended to save that one for the real thing. Instead I used Washington State, my previous home state, for the outside.

I fused the paper map to the wool felt lining, couldn’t forgo on felt entirely, with Heat ‘n Bond Lite (the kind you can sew through) and finished it off with Pellon’s Vinyl-Fuse to make it water repellant. Then I attached the elastic and sewed the two pieces together.

All that’s left is wait for the Kindle to arrive and see if it fits. What do you think?

Spooky Space

Lola and I were tickled orange when Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores asked us to participate in the Celebrate The Season Campaign by creating a #spookyspace for Halloween. Our original plan was to turn Lola’s woodlands bedroom into a spooky forest, but our stairwell is painted in such a lovely pumpkin orange, I couldn’t possibly pass that up as a back drop to my spooky space.



Since I could not use the tree in Lola’s room, my first order of business was to find a nicely sized dead tree. There happened to be one available on the roof deck, but any large branch would have done just as well. After cleaning the smaller branches up a bit, I brought it inside. I considered spray painting it, but rather liked the gray so I left it as it was.

Spooky spaces always have spider webs. I created one with 16 and 22 gauge wire. I started by cutting four 12” lengths of the heavier wire. To prevent poking anyone’s eyes out, and because I like the look, I curled the ends of the spokes before I weaved the thinner wire around them. To make it easier to work with, I cut the 22 gauge wire into roughly 3’ lengths. I needed about four of those.



Again, I thought about spray painting the spider web, but felt it looked perfect as it was. Some might consider this laziness, but I am all about aesthetics, honestly. After attaching the spider web to the branches with wire, I hung five cute little fleece crows, found at Jo-Ann, in our spooky tree, along with some cheese cloth ghosts from Halloweens past.



One of my favorite things to do, is make garlands with felt cut-outs. For this I use my trusted Cuttlebug® die cutting machine and Sizzix Bigz dies. I love these dies because they cut though fabric as though it were butter. The Cuttlebug® works with every brand die, so if you’re thinking about buying one, that is the one I would recommend.

I found some lovely suiting fabric in the remnant bin at Jo-Ann’s which I paired up with black wool felt. I affixed them to each other with Heat’n Bond Lite. It bonds really well while still allowing for sewing. By ironing the two fabrics together, it also takes care of any fraying edges. After creating my double layer, I cut the fabric into smaller pieces and ran them through the Cuttlebug®.



For this particular garland I used Tim Holtz’s tattered leaves die. From the pile of leaves I cut, I was able to sew two 6’ garlands. Nothing special, just line up the leaves and sew them together with a straight stitch, leaving about an inch of thread in between.

Once the garlands were finished, it was time to stage our #spookyspace. I found two beauty school heads at a thrift store a long time ago, and wrapped one in gauze. Though it’s not new, my Halloween Wreath was brought out as well since it is still one my all time favorite decorations. It looks really good against the metal door.



Lastly, I threw in a pumpkin or two, some rubber mice, a few horse chestnut spiders, and our spooky space was complete. I hope the neighbors like it, too.



If you’re feeling crafty and are looking for inspiration, take a look at Jo-Ann’s Celebrate The Season and Simply Spooktacular websites. What’s more, here is a 50% off coupon for you. Enjoy!

I was compensated by Jo-Ann for writing this post. However, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Fabric Flower Pots

My husband suggested we make flower pots out of fabric not too long ago. To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first but I have to admit I was wrong. The first pot we made turned out awesome. You’ll have to take my word for it because sadly, there are no pictures and the pot in question was a gift. We used different patterned blue fabric scraps and a piece of matching vinyl as a liner. An idea was born, begging for a repeat.

To give the pots a little more body, I wanted to use a fabric that is a little heavier than the quilting cotton we used on our prototype, such as an upholstery fabric. JoAnn’s carries the new HGTV line of home décor fabrics, which has some beautiful prints. Now I am more of a summer colors girl for flower pots, and I love the combination of hot pink and bright orange. The Urban Blossoms and Checkered Past in Berry fit the bill perfectly.

I have to stop here for a minute and tell you that JoAnn’s and HGTV sent me generous samples of the new HGTV home décor fabric line to play with. But I was genuinely thrilled to see which prints had been sent my way. I mean, look at those pots, how could I not be? It is gorgeous fabric.



I used a simple pattern for a lined bucket to make my pots. Out of each print I cut a 19.5” by 10.5” rectangle and a 6.25” circle. Because I was making flower pots I used Pellon Vinyl Fuse on the liner fabric to make it somewhat waterproof and protect it from the dirt. Great stuff, easy to work with. It makes the fabric very stiff but I had no difficulty at all sewing through it.



First you make a tube by sewing the short sides of the rectangle together with the right sides facing. Iron open the seam. A word of advice: use the protective paper backing from the vinyl fuse when ironing the seam of the fabric fused with vinyl. Use it not only on top of the fabric, but also on the inside. Your tube will otherwise melt together. Trust me on this one.



Then you pin the bottom to the tube you just made and sew it in place. Go slow.







Do not turn the inner layer inside out. Repeat these steps with the outer layer and turn that one with the right side facing out.



Place the outer layer inside the inner layer. Line up the tops and pin in place. Sew together, leaving about a 4” opening.





Pull the fabric through the opening and turn the bucket inside out. Push the inner layer into the outer layer and topstitch along the top edge to close the opening. If you like, you can fold over the inside a little, or a lot.



That’s all there is to it. Lovely and vibrantly colored flower pots. Of course you don’t have to put a plant in them, you can use them to hold whatever you want.





If you too would  like to try the new HGTV home décor fabric line, there is a 10% off coupon valid through May 4. (And if you can wait a little bit longer, the HGTV line is available at 50% off starting April 14.) Enjoy!

I am sharing my pots at:
The Humble Brag at One Project Closer
Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions
Creative Friday at Natural Suburbia