Earth day recycle: doll couch

Happy Earth day!

Miss C. and I worked a little recycling magic,

thanks to this tutorial from American Girl Doll Play,

and made a couch for her dolls.

Yes, it did start as a clementine crate,

we just recovered it with foam, batting and fabric,

and it was ready to go.

And it goes so well with the mini Love pillow

I made last week for Miss C.!

The girls just love to hang out,

listening to some old records,

obviously from their mom!

The record player and records are from 

the Julie Color&Craft book,

I found it at Costco for $8.50,

and it has some nice activities,

there are a few different versions,

I also purchased the Kit one,

but I am keeping as a surprise...

Hopefully you are enjoy Earth day

and not seasonal allergies!

Happy day!

modern quilted LOVE pillow

Lately I have not been inspired about quilting.

I see a lot of beautiful quilts,

but I rarely fell like making one myself.
Well I was inspired by Oh, Fransson! and her SEW pillow.
(there is also a very interesting quilt with all the explanations)

Can you tell Miss C. enjoys her new pillow?!

I chose 4 different color groupings: aqua, purple, green, turquoise,
and made 4 little patchwork with various scraps
like in the instructions of the quilt.

Some of the fabric are Liberty of London, batik, other are regular quilting fabric from various projects,
I still had a tiny piece of the hedgehog fabric!

I drew large letters, and using wonder-under, ironed them on the back
of the patchwork, cut the letters out,
and ironed them on the white-on-white dragonfly background.

I sewed around the letters with a zigzag stitch (like in the directions)
and did some simple diagonal quilting.

I used some aqua/purple dragon fly fabric for the back and stuffed it.
Since the background is white, it probably would have been smarter to use
some kind of pillow form so that it could have been washed easily......Oh well!

I had some of the patchwork left, so I made a mini version for Miss C.'s dolls.
I used some rounder letters for the word, but the same color combination.

It looks like a total success for both of them!

Happy sewing!

storing baking pans

With the new lighting and the freshly painted cabinets,

the kitchen seems like a bright new room.

Now the eat-in area doesn't look good enough to be seen together!

We used to have a large metallic shelf in the corner, holding my bakery supplies

(and a collections of pans!)

While it had a great industrial look, it felt quite overwhelming for the space.

We also used to have a large TV armoire (from when TVs were not flat!).

We played a game of furniture moving:
the large armoire in the dining room,
the shelves from the dining room in the kitchen
and the metallic shelf in the basement (perfect for storage).
It made the room much lighter, with more space to move around.

As you might remember, I made a few boxes for the white cart
to store our lunch drinks (or how to make soda cans "sexy"!)

Here and here for the directions.

I really helped with our storage area of the cart,
 it is very practical and aesthetic.

Now I need to address these shelves,

they have replaced the metallic ones,
but need to store the similar baking pans.
I have already found a way to create a little baking center

in the little corner by the door.

Now I  want to store all of my baking pans in nice containers,

well just about anything is an improvement over the plastic milk crate,

the side of the wall for the cookie sheets (some were missing!)

and just plain pile of pans!

And Yes we need all of them,

I am a serious baker...!

Well I came up with a solution:

I think it is going to turn out great!

I am off to work on them.

Happy day!

lighting for the kitchen

While I was working on painting the cabinets, I realized the lighting was not up to par.

We have large windows in the room,

but at night the ceiling light did not illuminate the room well enough,

even after we installed lighting under the upper cabinets
(thanks to the addition of 1 X 2 and molding at the bottom of the cabinets).

We looked around for a while and decided on the

not-so-popular track lighting.

Why?

The electrical outlet was not above the island,

the pantry and my bakery corner were so dark.

With track lighting, we were able to address all of these problems.

Mon Cheri installed two 4 feet sections at a 90 degree angle,

allowing us to have 2 pendant lights just above the island.

Our island is at a 45 degree angle, which could seem odd,

but it actually works perfectly for the space:

good distance to the fridge and the stove.

Isn't the island so much prettier and interesting?

There are also 3 spots: one for the bakery corner,

one for the pantry and one more for the stove.

It is so much brighter.

The pendant lights look similar to the other 2 light fixtures

in the room, I believe it works nicely together.

 Light, finally!

Happy day!

spring break

This spring break was pretty good,

it started with snow:

 and sledding (for the first time since we moved here 2 years ago!)

The kids were so excited.

Then we really appreciated some really nice sunny days

where Miss C. fully enjoyed the outdoor,

nothing like little girls and trampoline

and flowers and puppies, of course!

Hope your spring break was as good as ours!

Happy day!

done with painting the cabinets!

I did it, I finished painting the kitchen cabinets,

and it is done before Easter!

(I had given myself this arbitrary deadline)

And it was done even with the crazy weather we have been having,

and yes, it matters as I have to sand the doors outside.

(as we do not have a garage, an attic

or any real place to work)

I did it in small sections as I am also limited by the surface of

my painting table: the dining table.

We have been eating in the kitchen for a while,

and each time I sat at the kitchen table,

I was reminded how much work I had left, 

but no more!

The room is so much lighter, it is amazing!

Here is where most of the work happened

(besides the painting)

My inspiration was this post from Remodelando La Casa.

Of course, as one project is near completion,

other things creep up,

like lighting, and annoying ugly pantry door....

Tomorrow is another day,

we came up such a long way from the time we purchased the house!

Happy day!

just a picture

I am working on designing a button,

following this tutorial

and I need a photo with an address.

So fell free to ignore this post!

Thanks.

I am off to enjoy the snow,

and some sewing!

Happy day.

present for K: baby doll diaper bag

With the bibs, bottle, diapers and wipes, I was clear I needed to
make a diaper bag to carry it all.
I followed this tutorial for a very cute bag:

I used some beautiful cherry fabric that I have been collecting over the years,
it is so the perfect time of the year to use it,
the cherry blossom will be at its peak at the end of March, here in DC.

And finally the last thing: a changing pad!
Once again I used the blog "Twelve Crafts Till Christmas" and followed this tutorial.

It goes perfectly with the baby wipes!

And here it is:

all in the bag.

Miss C agreed to pose for me with the bag and a baby

Happy Birthday K!

present for Toddler K: doll bib

Once I was done sewing doll diapers and wipes for Toddler K,

I felt more what needed.

So I sewed two cute little bibs, and purchased a bottle.

I used this pattern from The Crafty Cupboard for the bib.

Everybody needs a bib with doggies!

The bibs are lined with flannel and closed with velcro,

very forgiving for little fingers.

The baby dolls are usually hungry

and little girls love to shove bottle into their doll mouths...

as you can see on this old picture of Miss C.with the same baby,
it has been holding up pretty nicely!

Once the baby doll is fed, she needs a toy to keep her busy,

so I made this little square toy full of ribbons,

it might end up being used more by the little girl than the doll

but that's OK too.

I was inspired by this post by  Twelve Crafts Till Christmas.

Happy sewing!

present for Baby K: doll diaper

Baby K will be turning two pretty soon,

which means she is now Toddler K!

I do not see my niece very often,

(she is in NY, we are in DC)

but I know she likes to play with her doll

(and the play book I made her last year!).

So I decided to make her some diapers and wipes for her doll.

I had made similar diapers for Miss C. a few years ago

and she had loved playing with them.

I used this pattern from Skip to my Lou,

and like I did with Miss C.'s version,

I sewed a band of velcro at the top instead of the corners,

it can fit different baby sizes 

and it cut down on sewing (no need to close the top opening!).

So diapers are good, but one really wipes to do a good job,

some baby dolls can really be dirty sometimes!

I followed this super fast tutorial from Twelve Crafts Till Christmas,

I must admit it might be the fastest project ever,

but it is so cute!

I used fleece for the outside,

I cut it with a rotary cutter with a wavy blade 

(it is weirdly hard to cut straight with it!)

and flannel for the actual wipes.

I folded them inside neatly, and they come out one at a time,

it is just so cool. I am sure it will not remain this way,

but it is too much fun to resist!

Wanna see me my niece?

here she is with Miss C.:

Happy sewing!

sweet mini quilt

Last year I sewed a charming paper pieced sewing machine

 (that I made into a sewing machine cover).

I only did half of the pattern, I thought I would do the other part (dress form)

 to make it complete, but it never happened.

Well, I checked the blog  Charise Creates, where I saw the pattern originally

and found another version of the dress form,

but this time with an iron instead of a sewing machine.

There was no pattern for it, but I saw I could use the dress form
and the folded fabric from the sewing machine pattern,
and try to design my own iron pattern from the picture (good close-up).

It worked quite well and I was able to do a decent job.
I did not have fabric with scissors, so I added some
little scissors charm.

I also stamped the name of the place.

Because I was making it for my Mom as a BDay present,
I decided to use some Liberty of London fabric for the dress
and the fabric being ironed.

She likes Liberty of London probably even more than me!
My Mom has been doing a lot of sewing lately, making some skirts,
shirts and other wearable, so I hope
she will enjoy this mini quilt in her sewing room.

Bon anniversaire Maman.

Happy sewing!

PS I really enjoy making Liberty of London presents for my Mom,
here is some examples:

linen basket, tag, machine cover,
cup table runner, needle book.