Fabric bolts from cereal boxes

My name is Jen and I have a problem. This is my fabric stash.

Ok, well it's part of my fabric stash. It's a giant mess. Pieces of fabric are everywhere, and I hope you're not expecting me to have everything in alphabetical order by designer, color, and pattern because that's pretty much never happening.

I feel like a crafting failure sometimes when I see pictures of peoples' gorgeous sewing rooms. Everything is in its proper, labeled place, and heaven forbid there be anything in the room that doesn't match the color scheme. There's no mess, no half-finished projects laying on the ground. And definitely no toys scattered on the floor.

I'm convinced these people don't have children. They borrow neighbor kids for photo shoots.

There's a reason I didn't show you the rest of my sewing space. I share it with a bin of toys that belong to my kids, and the bin stays organized for about 5.4 seconds before it looks like a hurricane hit the room. I love having the toys in the room because I can still craft and play with the kids simultaneously, but my pieces of fabric everywhere doesn't help the mess.

But I wanted to do what I can to organize the room because, let's admit it, I can't pin the blame for that messy fabric pile above on my kids. I saw this tip on The Little Green Bean for using foam board to make mini fabric bolts. It's a great idea, but I wanted to use something I had on hand.  Then it came to me - cereal boxes! Cereal is something I eat a LOT of, so why not re-purpose the boxes rather than throwing them away?

First, cut your cereal boxes so you have a pile of just the front and backs of your boxes.

Next, use hot glue around the perimeter of one of the front sides of your panels.

Place the other panel on top of it and voila, instant mini bolt! It may not look like anything special, but just wrap your fabric around that baby, and your stash will stay organized!

Ahhh, much better.

So much better than the messy pile right? Too bad I have 4 times more fabric in the drawers below. I have a lot of cereal to eat.

Note: Since cereal boxes are small, you may need to fold your fabric in half length-wise (possibly more than once) to be able to fit them around your cereal box bolt. 

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Mother's Day idea: DIY photo canvas

Mother's Day is coming up this weekend, and I have 0 Mother's Day projects for you. A big, whopping 0. Probably because all I want for Mother's Day is to be served breakfast in bed while I sit around all day watching DVR'd shows and my husband cares for my angelic children and fetches me anything I want.

That's all.

Just kidding, while I know my husband is going to let me relax as much as possible, I realize that I have 2 kids under the age of 4 whose main goal in life is to destroy everything of value, and that means both parents are on Child Watch 24/7. 15 minutes of silence means that somebody probably found the Closet of Forbidden Toys (yes we have one of those) and is currently decorating the hallway with markers. In fact, just 5 minutes ago as I was writing this post I caught my son sucking on the rubber tip from one our door stops. On the plus side, he's probably immune to most sicknesses with all the stuff he's put in his mouth.
 
Even though I'm off the hook, I still wanted to make something for my Mom and Mother-in-Law for Mother's Day. Luckily, Pinterest came through for me again with this awesome idea for a DIY canvas at Sarah's Never Ending Projects. Her brilliant tutorial teaches you how you can make your own photo canvas using your printer, tissue paper and Mod Podge - perfect for Mother's Day.

I got out my supplies while the kids were running around the house like maniacs and whipped this baby out under 30 minutes (minus drying time.)

 

I used an 8x10 canvas, which left enough room to overlap the canvas on the side with the tissue paper so it looks more like the real deal. I'm super happy with the project, it really looks like I bought it online - minus the couple of spots I rubbed the tissue paper off accidentally. The colors came out a little funky, but that was my printer's fault. I probably should have played with the color a little more before printing. Oh, and if you're wondering why I didn't make one of BOTH of my kids, it's because my son can't sit still for 1 minute so I can get a decent picture of him.

So Mom or MIL if you're reading this, I didn't get you breakfast in bed, but I did get you a picture of one of my angelic children minus the destruction. And if any of your are looking for a great project for Mother's Day, I definitely suggest making a DIY Canvas. I'll be making many more of these for my house once I can get Connor to sit still one of these days.

Week in Pictures

1. a trip to the car wash 2. sushi with friends 3. amazing cupcakes with the BEST peanut butter frosting 4. decorating with sidewalk chalk 5. trying a new beer (I think I'll stick to the original thanks)

Happy Friday everyone! This week, I've done a lot of eating (if you couldn't tell from the picture above :) I got to have sushi TWICE this week, which is a really rare treat. A friend of mine introduced me to squid salad a few years ago and ever since then, I just have to have one each time I go to get sushi. I can't get enough of the stuff. In fact, when I was pregnant and on bed rest with Connor, I craved it so much that my friend brought some to the hospital for me. The idea of squid salad may sound a little weird but try it. Trust me.

I also tried some amazing cupcakes with mile high-frosting that tastes exactly like my mother-in-law's peanut butter fudge. And luckily, it's right across the street from my house. Which is dangerous. One of these days I'll write up a post for the peanut butter fudge. I am not a fan of fudge usually, but this stuff is life changing.

Aside from that, we've had a pretty routine week with a trip to the carwash (which both kids thought was pretty terrifying) and decorating the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk. We're still trying to sell our house, so fingers crossed for that!

Hope your week has been great (and full of yummy food) too!

Photo layout c/o Katrina of Pugly Pixel

Wooden bead necklace

I'm always on the lookout for easy projects that I can do with supplies I have on hand. You know, the kind that you can do in between dinner when you have a toddler attached to your leg and a 3-year-old begging to watch Barbie Mermaid Tale for the 30th time that day? Yup, that was me yesterday.

Recently, I've been finding a lot of really great new blogs that I keep adding to my ever-expanding list. Like I need another blog to read. Sometimes I wish blog stalking was a vocation, but then I think about how if that happened, I would probably live solely off of coffee and NutriGrain bars while my body slowly became one with my computer chair. Probably not the best way to go.

While doing my usual blog reading, I came across this awesome tutorial for a simple beaded necklace from Fine and Feathered that fit my criteria exactly. I love the simplicity of it, so I decided to make one for myself.

Oh, and did I mention that it involves only wooden beads and suede cord? I felt like I was at craft camp. Except for at my house. And macaroni art wasn't involved.

I followed her basic idea for how to make the necklace, but I used different beads and made the necklace in one piece rather than making a separate loop with the beads. What do you think? I'm really loving it. I'm really into the whole southwestern kick right now, and I feel like this necklace will be the perfect accessory for my outfits that fit that theme.

I'm kicking myself for throwing away the giant bag of wooden beads I tossed several years ago. When I was 18, I had this elaborate plan to make a bead curtain in my room (and yes, I realize that we're no longer in the 70's, I don't know what I was thinking.) Now I'm just wishing I had more wooden beads to make several hundred more bead necklaces.

A jersey skirt

I spent this weekend picking stitches. It was funny really (well not at the time) but it became my unofficial motto.

It all started with the idea to make a maxi dress out of 3 different shirts. Maxi dresses are really in right now, and I had this grand idea for a really cute striped version. I started Friday night and I clipped and sewed and measured and got my pieces ready to piece the next day. Saturday, I started piecing my maxi dress. It became increasingly obvious that the dress was going to be skin tight, but I pushed on because I refused to let my hard work go to waste. My husband stood in the hallway and said, "how are you going to squeeze into that??" Sigh.

Unpick unpick unpick.

Part of the pieced dress became a top, the other part would be a skirt. I tried on the top. The pieced parts just didn't look right.

Unpick unpick unpick.

I salvaged the parts I could and went to work making the bottom part into a skirt for myself. I tried it on. Too tight.

Unpick unpick unpick.

So, many hours, and many tries later, my maxi dress-shirt-skirt became a jersey dress for Haley. Here's Ms. Cheesypants modeling it.

You'd think one of these days I'd learn my lesson, or learn to buy a pattern. Stubborn me. It really is a cute skirt though, I'm thinking I might have to make a tutorial for this one soon. I'm definitely staying away from maxi dresses for awhile though :)

Haley pranced and twirled around outside in her new skirt as I snapped pictures with promises of coloring with sidewalk chalk.

   

Connor joined in too, but he had other ideas for the chalk. Everything automatically goes into this boy's mouth.

Even with all the stitch picking, it was still a nice relaxing weekend with no big plans It's nice to have those once in awhile.

Week In Pictures

1. lemon face! 2. enjoying the wonderful weather 3. fried pickles at Gus's Fried Chicken 4. cloud watching with my favorite girl

I've decided to start a new regular series on the ol' blog called "Week in Pictures" where I give you a little peek into my life each week and what I've been up to through the pictures I take on my iPhone. I love taking pictures with my Rebel, but most of the time it doesn't make sense for me to lug the giant thing around with me all the time. Like I mentioned recently, I discovered my absolute new favorite app, Pixlr-o-Matic, through my sister-in-law, and now I can't stop taking pictures with my iPhone.

My poor phone battery is pretty much dead by noon. No joke.
 
I'm going to try to keep up with it each week and make a goal to post each Friday if possible. Oh and by the way, in case you're looking for some AWESOME free Photoshop tutorials and downloads, go check out Pugly Pixel. I don't know what took me so long to find the site, but I stumbled over it last Friday night and then sat glued to my computer as I downloaded every available free Photoshop goodie that Katrina offers. It is chock FULL of amazingness, including the photo layout that I used above. She has tons of clipart, photo layouts, free brushes, you name it. And then, as if all of that wasn't great enough, you can become a 30-day member for only $5 and get a ton more amazing stuff.

Drop everything and go there now.

So, this past week was spent enjoying the amazing spring weather here in Tennessee. I'm loving all of these mild temperatures we get before the blazing hot of summer, so we're spending as much time outside as we can. We also got to go visit a great restaurant where they make pretty tasty fried chicken (I have a weakness for the stuff.) While we had the chicken, Connor decided to try his first lemon which resulted in some pretty hilarious faces :)

Here's to another fantastic weekend!

No-sew framed fabric honeycomb

In my continuous (and extremely slow) effort to re-do my craft room, I wanted to make another picture to keep my Bee Inspired print company :) This is a really quick, no-sew project that is perfect for getting rid of those pesky scraps you may have sitting around. It's also really great for showcasing some of your favorite fabrics that you can't bring yourself to make into a piece of clothing that your child will grow out of in 2 days.

If you're not into the whole honeycomb thing, try different shapes! Triangles? Circles? Heck, go crazy with some octagons. Whatever floats your boat.

Supplies:

• A bunch of scrap fabric
• Interfacing, like Heat N Bond
• Burlap
• Picture frame
• Iron

Step 1: Iron on your interfacing.

First, decide how big you want your hexagons to be. This will determine how much of your fabric you'll need. My picture frame size was 11x13 1/2, so I decided on 4 rows of hexagons for a total of 16 hexagons that were 2 1/2 inches tall and 3 inches wide. I cut 6 each from 2 different colors and 4 from another. The white fabric was used to accent, and I cut 6 smaller hexagons that were 1 3/4"x2" each.

Follow the instructions on the back of your interfacing to iron some interfacing to the back of your fabrics.

Step 2: Cut your hexagons out.

You should now have several strips of fabric with interfacing on the back of them.

To get your hexagon shape, Google or find some clipart of a hexagon and use Word to size it to whatever size you need. Cut out and trace the hexagon to the paper backing of your interfacing. Cut out your shapes, and remove the paper backing.

Step 3: Attach your shapes on the burlap.

Cut out a piece of burlap big enough for your frame. Be sure to cut it a tiny bit larger than needed, I cut mine a little too small so you can see the frame a little on the bottom.

Arrange your hexagons on the burlap until you're happy with the placement.

With a hot iron, carefully iron on your large hexagons first by lifting and placing the iron on a couple hexagons at a time (no dragging the iron across). After your large hexagons have been ironed on, layer your smaller accent hexagons on top and iron those on in the same way.

Now, just insert your finished piece in your frame and hang!

Enjoy your art!

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