It's a Witch!

Having a girl is so much FUN! As I was looking at Halloween costumes for her I noticed a theme. Almost all of them had tutus for the skirt. So I decided to just make my own. I found the purple witch hat and decided we'd have a purple witch instead of a black one. It helped that the jacket came in purple too. Then I made this easy tutu with black and orange tulle with purple ribbons and just added leggings underneath. She loved it!

Skirts!

Going along with quick, easy projects I've discovered a new sewing love- SKIRTS! Not for me, for my 18 month old. The first one I made was this easy wrap around skirt. I lined it with coordinating dots. Let's face it, she's not going to keep those chubby knees together so the inside is going to show.

Then I got on a roll. I discovered that I could make an easy skirt in about a half hour out of scraps I had from other projects.

How many skirts does an 18 month old need? I want to keep going but I should save some fabric for another size. I also made two coordinating skirts for my nieces with just the main color and the band fabric switched. I forgot to take a picture though.

I'm a Carpenter!

Ok so I only did the painting. Saws freak me out. I'd like to keep all my fingers. About a year ago my friend saw these shelves in a catalog. For a three foot shelf it cost $99. Each. She made some herself for her living room. A few weeks ago she wanted to make more for her kitchen and I joined her. She cut, I painted.

Here is a close up of one of mine. I made three and they cost about $60 for all three. Much better than $300. The most expensive part was the corbels.

Here are all three on the wall in my living room. I need to figure out a better way to decorate them and I need to put something behind them, especially the lowest one, but I'm happy with the way they turned out.

Remember when...

I used to quilt? Remember how I used to actually post? I feel like those days are getting few and far between. I haven't quilted since about June. It's not that I don't want to, it's that I have a super busy 18 month old. I feel like I need short projects because it may be awhile before I get back to them. I need projects I can finish in an afternoon.

Also, I'm to the place with quilting that I don't know what to do with the quilts I make. I've thought of making baby quilts (short and sweet and can easily be finished quickly). Do I really need a lot of baby quilts? I thought of selling them on etsy. Do people really pay that much for them though? Also, none of my quilts are perfect and I'd feel bad if people expected perfection and I had made a mistake... which is the rule and not the exception.

All that being said I have been working on several projects in the past month. Keep checking back this week as I will post them here. Most are craft things, but the biggest project that I've recently finished is not a craft item, but the longest and most important one.

Back in June my husband and I bought new couches for our family room. Our old ones were falling apart. I loved those couches when we bought them, but over the years my tastes have changed dramatically. I wanted something neutral that I could update through the years with colors and pillows. We went with boring beige. I'm in the process of making and buying pillows to brighten up the room.

Have you seen all the cute ruffly pillows out there? The ones that cost anywhere from $20-$60 each? Even when they are only made of felt? You have got to be kidding me! There is no way I can afford that. I need about 4 of them. Again, do people really pay those prices? So I did what I had to do. I made it myself.
This was my project yesterday afternoon. Notice the boring beige couch in the background. I plan to recover the pillows in the same boring beige fabric as the couch in a not so boring fabric soon. Anyway, this pillow cost about $4 for the felt at the most and the pillow insert cost maybe another $4. I'm not really sure since I had the felt from another project where I way overestimated the amount I needed. I bought the pillow insert a long time ago as well.

I found a similar pillow I loved for $45. I didn't have a pattern for this as I was just borrowing the basic idea, but here is my version. It took less than an hour to make. I'm not sure how long as I stopped to answer the phone, comfort a 7 year old who was worried about his French report today and stop my 4 year old from hugging my 18 month old too much (yes, that's a serious problem in our house.)

Anyway, check back over the next few days to see what else I've been working on!