#honestcraftroom

It's been brought to my attention several times ((thank you husband)) that my sewing space is not what you would call the neatest space in the house.  Yes yes, I am perfectly 100% aware of this fact and did not need reminding in the slightest, but here's the thing, when my free time/sewing time is already reduced to almost nothing, the absolute last idea that pops into my mind is "lets clean this sewing room up!" when a free moment arises.  Yes, I can gaurantee that phrase is never ever uttered.  I simply put my blinders on and get stitching.  Sure, while I'm stealing a few moments to sew here and there the inner dialog is going "we really need to get this space under control" but it is quickly pushed aside and forgotten about until next time.  

So anyways, after a few months now of wearing those blinders, I can't ignore it anymore, and I'm resigned to the fact that a major overhaul is necessary.  I can't believe I'm going to post this on the inter-webs for all to see, but here's what I'm working with:

Ok so this view isn't that terrible, just needs a little bit of organizing and decluttering.  Oh but wait.  There is definitely more:



Yikes!!  Just looking at this I'm honestly surprised I haven't broken an ankle maneuvering down here yet.  Ok now that I've shared my dirty secret and you're all thinking "what a slob, I can't believe she works like this," let me share a few in my defenses.

In my defense my sewing area is in our finished basement and it is right off of the garage, where we come in and out of on a daily basis, so my sewing space has a tendency to become the "dumping ground" for all things that don't  yet have a home in our home.  Like that diaper box that is filled with party decorations from Nora's first birthday party. In October.  Um, yeah.  And then there's the fact....Oh I could go on and on, but point of the matter is I let it get to be a disaster zone, and am ready to face facts that something needs to be done.  like now.

I'll be honest, I've been thinking about writing this #craftroomorganization post for some time now, and just got overwhelmed at the thought of what exactly to do to first.  So I didn't do anything at all.  Last week I decided to just take a step, any step towards a cleaner more organized sewing and crafting space, and decided to start with cleaning house in the fabric scrap department!



I dug through each and every scrap bin under my ironing board and cleaned house.  Like got rid of it all by means of a destash on Instagram.  If you don't follow me already, I can be found here and my destash account can be found here at SewCraftyJessDestash.  I can't believe the amount of scraps I was hoarding, to the tune of over 35 yards of scraps by weight.  Whaaaat???  Insane I know.  Anyways, my sewing room is 35 yards of fabric lighter and I feel great!  Definitely stay tuned to SewCraftyJessDestash, I have a whole bunch of FQs and actual yardage I'm looking to purge in the near future.

So what to do next?  Good thing Pinterest is around to show me the craft room organizing way.  Here's what I have so far:

Follow Jessica Kelly's board craft room on Pinterest.

I'm thinking I need more open shelving storage.  I'll have to take some measurements, but I'm hoping one or two Ikea Kallax book shelves will help, and I can't resist adding one of these Raskog carts, definitely in blue.   I also need to take advantage of wall space, so I'm thinking a big DIY peg board would be great, with some of these hanging buckets.  The wheels are turnings so stay tuned for more to come!

Any craft room organization tips you swear by??  Have any pins I need to check out??  Please send them my way, I would love to know!

Look mom, no pants!

So before Nora was born, and we found out we were having a girl, its sad to say but one of my first thoughts (after immediately starting to plan her nursery) were all the fun clothes and outfits we I would be able to dress her up in.  I really am impressed at my self control, as I didn't buy much myself, but boy, did our amazing family and friends!  She is now in a size 3-6 months, and we have newborn outfits and 0-3 month outfits that I am packing away with tags on!  

We received so many "outfits" that I was overjoyed at the cuteness factor of at the time, but I quickly learned that about 98% of the time we spent our days in nice and easy to wear cotton or fleece footed sleepers (preferably ones with zippers to make things even easier) and about 2% of the time in complicated "outfits," that while off the charts in the cuteness factor were just not practical for every day wear.

We quickly learned a short list of things that we liked to put her in, and most of those items were ones that made diaper changes as quick as possible, and ones we could quickly change for spit ups and diaper blow outs.  We learned this list did not include: outfits with hoods, outfits that had plain shirts and not onesies, socks weren't high on the list, as I realized I spent half my day putting the socks she kicked off back on her feet, just to name a few.  So again, sleepers (with zippers) were high on the desirable list!



Enter Baby Legs.  Have you heard of these things??  Baby legwarmers.  Need I say more??  The cuteness factor is too much.  I  I had seen a few tutorials while I was scouring Pinterest for things to make before Nora was born, but didn't feel the need to make any.  While we were in Target one day I found the section of womens knee high socks and these legwarmers popped in to mind.  I grabbed a few cute patterns, and when I got home started cutting them up.  There seem to be a gazillion tutorials, I followed this one and actually might make my next batch more like these ones so they are a little more snug in the ankle.



They took about 10 minutes to stitch up the set, and I love them!  Not only are they adorable, she now has "pants" to wear with the 1000 random onesies we have in her dresser!  The hubs is even a fan of these, as he says its "easy access" for diaper changes.  And again, we are all about easy.  I can't tell you the amount of times we've put her pants back on before snapping the onesie closed.  #diaperchangefail.  This just means one less thing to fuss with.  And did I mention the cuteness factor??



We've also worn them under skirts and dresses, because have you tried to wrestle a 3 month old into a pair of tights?  Its for the birds.  I'm now constantly on the lookout for cute cheap knee high socks, if you've seen any, let me know where!

I promise eventually it won't be all baby, all the time around here, but for the meantime, I agree Nora, there is "Snowbody cuter than you!"

Nora by the numbers

I know she's only 3 months old, but this weekend Nora made her first DIY project!  Ok, she may have had a little help with it, but I'm thinking if I start her young she'll be my DIY/sewing buddy for years to come.  I'm already eyeing this Hello Kitty sewing machine, although getting it for her first birthday may be jumping the gun a little bit!



From before she was born, I knew I wanted to make something like this, and had saved a spot on the wall in her nursery for our first joint Pinterest project.  I had pinned this footprint artwork for reference and used it as inspiration for creating Nora's.



As for the how-to's, I used PicMonkey, which I use to edit my blog photos to create the text.  I selected the "design" tab, and selected an 8 x 10 canvas and played around with different fonts and colors until I had a layout I was happy with. Then I saved it as a jpeg file and was able to print my finished page on white cardstock.  I really couldn't be happier with how it turned out, it looks quite professional if I do say so myself!



As for Nora's part, I purchased a pink washable inkpad from Michaels and we went to town covering the bottom of her foot in pink ink and then stamping her footprint onto the cardstock.  I did print a few copies so we had a couple chances to get a good set of prints.  It took about three tries, daddy had the job of holding Nora, and I would guide her foot into place on the cardstock.  Even after three tries we still could only get 4 toes to show up on the right foot, that fifth toe apparently wasn't in an arts and crafts sort of mood.



I am so happy I put this little project together, it looks so nice framed and hanging on her wall, and when the little lady gets older and decides she doesn't want it displayed anymore, it will make a great addition to her baby book to remind us of how tiny those toes were once upon a time.  

let the sunshine in

Or I guess I should say "keep the sunshine out."  I promise I think this will be the last nursery DIY post that I will overrun you with, and then we will return to our regularly scheduled quilty programming.  But I'm pretty darn proud of myself that I sewed my first set of curtains, black out curtains to be exact AND they ended up just about the same length as one another!!  I had anxiety throughout this entire project that my panels were going to end up wildly off in length but luckily I think they are off by just about a half an inch (don't look too closely!), which I can totally live with.



After muttering quite a few curse words while measuring yards and yards of fabric on the kitchen floor and cutting without the safety net of my quilting rulers and fabric that measures a nice 22" when folded and fits nice and perfectly on my cutting mat, you can believe I did the happiest of happy dances after putting in that last grommet and getting these bad boys hung.  I am so so incredibly pleased with how they turned out that I don't even remember those muttered curse words and stress now that its over (that's how childbirth works, right???)

I used the Premiere Prints Zippy Chevron in Storm (which I see is now on sale!) and it was the perfect weight for curtains.  Definitely a home dec weight fabric, but not too heavy.  I backed these with Ron-Loc white blackout fabric that I picked up at Joann's and also grabbed two sets of 8 plastic grommets for hanging on the curtain rod.  This was my first time using grommets period, and it was so so incredibly easy.  I spent quite some time looking at different tutorials for lined curtains, and ultimately settled on this tutorial, as it didn't require using my blind hem stitch (I'm a quilter and have no idea what that is!) and was relatively easy to follow along with, definitely recommend it and will use it again if I ever get the urge to sew more curtains.



These guys really do a great job and blocking out light, after my husband saw these, he requested a set for our bedroom as well.  Of course I have a few other things on my mind at the present moment, but perhaps after things settle down, I'll tackle a second set.  This might just about do it for nursery projects, we have an electrician coming to install an overhead light for the room, and yes I'm grumbling that none of our bedrooms have overhead lights, and a few more storage type bins to pick up and the nursery should be in  the books!

This weeks goal is to get the hospital bags packed and be ready to go, I cannot believe how quickly time has gone, I feel like we were just telling people about being pregnant and here we are (hopefully) 4 weeks away from D-Day!!

now I know my ABC's

Baby girls nursery is starting to come together, and actually resemble a place where baby can sleep and eventually play.  Way back when we first found out I was pregnant, I think one of the first things I did was start scouring Pinterest for nursery inspiration.  I came across this framed wooden letter alphabet snapshot and knew that whether boy or girl, no matter what color scheme we decided on, I had to make something like it.



I really could not be more thrilled with how this turned out!  After finding a whole slew of alphabet wooden letter options on both Etsy and Ebay, I settled on this set, and was really pleased with what I received.  Their customer service was also top notch, as Amanda was super sweet when I contacted her concerned that I was missing letters, and had duplicates of others, when in fact I had the "y" upside down as an "h", the "q" upside down as a "b", and was convinced my Q was missing.  Needless to say she very nicely sorted out my mess of letters.  I blame pregnancy brain :-)

I went back and forth deciding how to finish the letters, and ultimately settled on modge podge and scrapbook paper.  This tutorial explains the process perfectly and was so incredibly easy, I covered all the letters in one weekend.  Instead of using an Exacto knife, I found scissors worked just fine, and I skipped the sanding step, as I was mounting them on the wall, it seemed a little overkill.  As for the scrapbook paper, I was less than thrilled with my local craft store's selection in yellows and greys, so I nabbed a few digital packs from mooandpuppy on Etsy and had them printed on cardstock at my local Office Max.



As for finishing off the frame and display, I bought a sheet of bead board from Lowes and had them cut it for me in the store to my desired dimensions, and then bought 2 strips of prefinished baseboard trim, that I took over to my parents and had my dad miter cut into a frame.  A little Elmers wood glue worked perfectly to affix the letters to the board, as well as to attach the outer frame.  I did use a few clamps when attaching the frame portion to make sure it really stuck together.

Again, I am so so incredibly pleased with how this turned out.  It is very large, measuring about 3 1/2" feet x 3 1/2" feet when all was said and done, but I'm ok with that as its sort of the piece de resistance of the nursery, centered over the dresser/changing table.



There's a whole smorgasbord of DIY happening in this little area of the nursery...who am I kidding, there's a whole lot of DIY throughout the entire nursery!  But for this little portion, I did make a cover for the changing pad, one of Noodlehead's divider baskets and a fun little hombre paint chip elephant display.



I couldn't find a changing pad cover that I really loved in grey and yellow, so I decided to make one myself.  This was incredibly easy, only requiring me to buy a yard of Minky and elastic, and using a half yard cut of Riley Blake yellow chevrons I had on hand.  Within an hour I had finished the cover and am pleased with the finished product.  I followed this tutorial, and the Minky was much easier to work  with than I had originally envisioned!  I actually grabbed another yard of Minky in yellow and paired it with a grey accent cotton piece to have as a backup.



I also decided I needed a divider basket to have diapers and changing essentials within arms reach, and of course it had to be cute :-)  Enter Noodhead's divided basket pattern.  Best $6.50 I have ever spent.  This basket came together quickly and easily in about 2 1/2 hours one evening, and easily half of that time was spent cutting out pattern pieces.  I see a few more of these baskets in my future, as baby can never have to many cute baskets to hold all of her cute things.

I am digging this nursery so so much, and am glad we went with a more neutral color palate with bits of pink here and there.  Lord knows this child has enough pink clothing to stock a boutique, so I figured we could do pink-lite in the nursery.  I'll be back with a few more projects, and hopefully a full nursery reveal soon!

a skirt for baby's crib

As promised, I'm back (less than three weeks later) with more baby stitchings!  This time up is a skirt for baby's crib.  Things started to get really real when I came home from work last Friday and the hubs had assembled baby girl's crib!  It actually made me tear up a little, seeing the crib we'll bring our little one home to, and eventually she'll be sleeping in.

As soon as the crib was assembled, I immediately took to making a skirt to give a little added flair.  I had pinned this tutorial, as I knew I didn't want anything with lots of frills or ruffles, and this simple single pleat skirt fit the bill.



I am super pleased with how it turned out.  Definitely recommend Oleander and Palm's tutorial if your in the market for a handmade crib skirt.  I even cheated a little and didn't make the second long panel, as I knew our crib would be against the wall, and that side of the crib would never be seen.  I will say I am a little bummed that by some stroke of misfortune, each and every one of my elephants seems to fall right behind one of the slats on the crib!  I don't think I could do that again if  I tried.  I'm still chalking this up as a success though, I'd rather have a hand made crib skirt that cost about $12 in materials to make and about 2.5 hours of my time, than a purchased $50 skirt that no one can see.

Crib Skirt Fabric:  Premiere Prints Elephant Slub White/Yellow



I even remembered to dig out my granny squares quilt that I made about a year and half ago and tucked away  for our maybe-one-day baby and it fits right in with baby girls bright and cheery nursery.  It needs a tumble through the washer and dryer still, but I'm certain this quilt (with the three others that are in the works) will definitely get lots of love in the coming years.

I'll be back next week with baby girls DIY curtains that I'm in love with, and hopefully another project I've been fiddling with using wooden letters, some scrapbook paper and modge podge.  Here's a sneaky peek:



Have a great weekend!

Drona gets a makeover

Hello bloggy friends!  I am ashamed that its been almost three weeks since we've met!  I can assure you that its certainly not because I've been sitting with my feet up watching bad reality TV...well, ok there has been some of that going on, but it's mostly because we are in full on baby mode at casa Kelly, and working on things like organizing the linen closet, painting walls, painting trim, and painting things we didn't even know needed pained (with low VOC paint in well ventilated areas, I assure you!) with other not-so-fun baby/house prep tasks thrown in here and there that just don't make for good blogging.  

I wish I had taken a before and after pic of the now nursery, as up until about 2 months ago the room was being used as a spare guest room, complete with a full size bed, extra furniture and lots of random crap (for lack of a better word) that there was no room for anywhere else in the house.  

I did find this Instagram picture I snapped of the baby's closet before it was cleaned out, so imagine this, times about a thousand for the amount of stuff that needed a new home in order to make room for baby.

Thankfully the end is near, and what was an old mis-mosh random spare room full of junk, is now a bright and airy cleaned out nursery, ready for all baby's things, and in a few short weeks, baby herself!

This weekend I made the trek out to our local Ikea, about 45 minutes away, as I knew I wanted an Expedit bookshelf for extra storage, with fabric bins to fit.  Of course while I was there I found about a hundred dollars worth of things I had no idea I needed, but clearly needed to come home with me, but that's neither here nor there.



I knew I wanted the white 8 compartment Expedit, and was torn on the bin color.  I liked the price of these fabric Drona bins, but the color selection left much to be desired.  While they did have a yellow option, the "yellow" bin that was available was more of a mustard yellow, and that really didn't fit in with the yellow and grey color scheme we have going on in the little lady's nursery.  I thought about getting pricier wicker ones, or plastic ones they had available, but wasn't sold on those options either.  I settled on the white Drona bins, thinking that even though they were white, and were destined to be destroyed, they were only $5.99 a bin, so it wouldn't be a huge investment to replace them when that time came.

Once I finally made it home, I immediately put the book case together, and while I was immensely pleased with it,  I couldn't get past the boring hum-drum white bins that were doing nothing for me.  So I started Googling "bins to fit Expedit bookcase" to look for other options, and then inspiration struck!  Silly me, with yards and yards of fabric downstairs, and a sewing machine to sew with, why not make covers for them!



In no time at all my boring white Drona fabric bins were transformed into fun grey and yellow bins that match the colors in the nursery perfectly.  I could not be more pleased with how these turned out, and for how easy and inexpensive they were to make, it will be a cinch to change them out on a whim.



Fabrics Used:
Premier Prints Ele Slub White/Yellow
Premier Prints Zig Zag Slub Yellow/White
Premier Prints ZigZag Twill Storm
Premier Prints Gotcha Twill Storm

In case you are interested in covering old bins you may be itching to change out, here's how I did it: (forgive my lack of pictures of the process)

1.  Measure the circumference of the bin you are covering, this will be your length measurement (for the Drona bins, this was about 55.5") I chose not to add any seam allowance to this measurement, as  I wanted a snug fit.

2.  Measure the height of the bin (for the Drona bins the height was 12.5") and add 2" (total height was 14.5").

3.  Cut fabric using measurement #1 as length and measurement #3 as height.

4.  Along both long edges fold raw edges up .5" and press.  Fold another .5" to enclose raw edges, press and top stitch both long edges in place.

5.  Now we will attach the short edges to each other to make a continuous fabric tube.  With right sides together, fold in half lengthwise (folded measurement should be 27.75" x 12.5" using Drona measurements).  Pin short raw edges (12.5" edges) together and stitch using 1/2" seam allowance.  Press seam open.

6.  Turn the fabric "tube" right side facing out and slide your bin into the fabric tube, covering all four exposed sides of the bin.

Really its as simple as that, you don't even need pictures of the process!  I promise it won't be 3 more weeks until my next post, but I can assure you it will likely be baby central in these parts, as were down to the last 8 weeks before our little lady is due to make her appearance!  Stay tuned for more nursery themed posts to come :-)