Upcycled T-shirt Throw Pillows

A little more than two weeks ago, my husband says to me "we need to buy some throw pillows for the couch." I say, "Bump that-- I'll just make some. I have some old t-shirts I want to use for a project, so I don't even have to buy fabric. This will be easy."

And it started off easy. I went through the t-shirts and picked out a few colors that would look nice in our living room (left). Initially, my plan was just to cut, stuff and sew. But then, I decided that making covers would be better so they could be easily washed. After I made that change, I got to looking at the one shirt with a design on it, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be neat if I could make the other pillows coordinate with this design?" The wheels of creativity were set in motion, and my project got considerably cooler-- and a heck of a lot more involved.

Materials:

- T-shirts (at least one for each pillow you plan to make... avoid spandex blends as much as possible)

- double-sided fusible interfacing for appliquéd pieces

- single-sided fusible interfacing for backing the base fabric

- Velcro (if you want to make removable casings... I used iron-on but sew on would work just fine)

- fabric for inner pillows (amount varies based on number of pillows)

- stuffing (I prefer the silky Poly-fil)

- an iron

- sewing machine

- thread and notions 

I began by cutting the shirts off under the armpit to create roughly rectangular shapes with one raw, open side and one finished, open side. I designed my appliqué patterns using the scraps left from cutting the t-shirts (right). I know from experience that sewing with t-shirt material would be kind of a pain. It's stretchy, so it tends to bunch and move when sewing appliqué. Stitched t-shirt to t-shirt doubles the bunchy factor. So, I ended up breaking down and trying some fusible interfacing. By accident, I only got one-sided fusible, but even that helped the stretching on my designs tremendously. If were ever to do this again, I would also get some interfacing for the back of my base fabric to get some more stability there as well. You live and you learn, right?

 Here I am sewing on my appliqué designs (left). As you can see, I normally straight stitch around the edges before finishing with my zig-zag stitch. Had I gotten double-sided fusible interfacing, I probably could have avoided that. This is normally how I do all of my appliqué since I am too lazy (cheap? set in my ways?) to buy interfacing. Although the appliqué was the most time consuming part of this project, it also gives a lot of character to the pillows. If you don't have the patience to do this, it is very optional-- do what works for you!



Next, I sewed up the raw edges on the pillow casing from where I cut the shirt under the armpits. On the finished edges, I ironed on some Velcro designed for bonding to fabric (right). This creates an outer, washable casing for the pillows.

With the casing all ready to go, it was time to work on the stuffing. I cut the fabric for lining materials to match the casing, thinking that this would leave enough seam allowance (below, left). In reality, I should've cut the lining with an extra half inch around the edges. This would've helped to fill out the final product more.

 

 With the lining sewn and stuffed (above, right) I was able to finally complete my throw pillows. Here are the final products in all their glory (left)! My 3 year old has already claimed them for herself. They are comfy and super soft because of the t-shirt fabric. You can more easily see here where I tried to play off the one t-shirt design with my appliqué.

Overall, I am really happy with my final product, but as always, there are things I would change if I were to do it all over again. I hope this helps you find some inspiration in your closet now!

A Pink and Yellow Dinosaur Party (Part 3)

After months of planning and crafting, we finally had my daughters' birthday party last weekend. We have been crazy busy, so it has taken me awhile to post the decoration pictures-- but better late than never, right?

 To the left is a picture of the birthday banner I made for the girls. The letters were colored and printed with the computer. Then I cut the letters out and pasted them onto some cardstock (I  probably have 3-4 fat stacks on hand at all times). I added some dinosaurs and glittery gem stickers for embellishment. They are hard to see in the picture, but in person, the banner was appropriately sparkly. I bunched holes in the corners and strung the letters up for a fun, FREE, custom birthday banner.



To the right is a look at the table decorations, including the tablecloth that I made. Our table is just the right size for me to make super easy fabric tablecloths. Basically, I just pick out 2 yards of fabric from the bargain bin, sew up the edges and presto! Since we don't use a tablecloth any other time of the year, I usually keep them for drop-cloths to use under my daughters' chairs.

Also note the placemats I made. I colored designs of different dinosaurs (T-rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Pteranodon, and Apatosaurus), glued them to colorful paper, and laminated them. The lamination is neat because now the girls can color on them with any washable or dry erase marker, similar to one of Emily Green's Imagination Mats (e.g. Emily Green Hootie Do You Love Placemat). Unfortunately, my laminator tops out at legal-sized paper, but I am pretty sure I could get a bigger design done at Staples for a reasonable price.


This last picture shows the cakes laid out on the table as a center piece. I cannot claim credit for these beauties-- it's all Nana! And really, with talent like this in the family, I have zero desire to work on my own cake-decorating skills. I will stick to crafting, thanks!

So anyhow, this is the final post in a series that began two whole months ago. It's hard to believe that my babies are already 3 and 1. The party was fun, and all of the work was totally worth my 3 year old's excitement when she saw the decorations. She is already asking for next year's party!

A Pink and Yellow Dinosaur Party (Part 2)

The time draws near for my daughters' birthdays and their Pink and Yellow Dinosaur Party. Since their birthdays are exactly a week apart, we will have the family party on the Saturday between their birthdays. I'm not sure when we'll have the childcare party, but it will be somewhere in that week time frame as well.

Earlier, I decided that I would be making the following party items:

- Appliquéd pink dinosaur shirts for the birthday girls (done!)

- Big stuffed dinosaurs for their birthday presents (done!)

- A "Happy Birthday" banner 

- Placemats for the family party (done!)

- Dinosaur cupcake toppers (for the childcare party-- done!)

- Little stuffed dinosaurs for gift bags (for the childcare part-- done!)

- A tablecloth for the party (done!)

- Dinosaur-shaped crayons (done!)

So, I feel pretty happy that in the next two weeks, all I have left to do is make the party banner, food for the family dinner, and the cupcakes. I will post the table decorations (tablecloth/ place mats / party banner/ cupcake toppers) at a later date. Tonight, I mainly want to share the stuffed animals I made and show the finished treat bags for the childcare party. 

To the left, you can see how the plushies came out. I made the pattern myself, and there was definitely a learning curve. However, I was pretty happy with the results... I just hope the birthday girls like them! Both of the dinos were made from upcycled receiving blankets and fabric scraps I had lying around. I had to buy the ribbon and buttons (which are both sewn and hot-glued for added security), but the cost was pretty minimal compared to buying stuffed animals.

To the right, you can see an image of the completed treat bags. I just used some white, paper bags and ribbon (nothing fancy) since there was so much goodness inside. I really wanted the treat bags to be special since I am combining the parties and ultimately saving myself a fair amount of work. Each treat bag (these are for 2-4 year olds) has a dinosaur activity pad, a dinosaur crayon, a mini-brontosaur plushie, and a noise maker. The activity pad and the noisemaker are store bought, but I already had a lot of crafty stuff on my plate and though that these would be a little challenging to do on my own.

I am getting really excited for the parties, and I look forward to posting more soon!

Attempting Oreo-stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Say What?!? I know I primarily blog about books and crafting, but I made sure to include "and things of interest" for precisely this type of situation.

Chocolate definitely qualifies as a thing of interest, and chocolate chip cookies, doubly so.

I originally caught this post over at Craft blog. I followed the link to Amandeleine for the recipe, and I had to try it. I am not going to repost the recipe here, but I do want to add a few notes for those of you who may want to try this for yourself. I am not the best baker in the world, so I have plenty of little mistakes you can learn from. But fear not-- the cookies are delicious if not perfectly beautiful morsels!

1. I have my ingredients ready to go.

2. Wet ingredients and dry ingredients are mixed.

3. Cookies are formed! But here's where I goofed, folks. My first mistake was using too much dough to encase the Oreos. Easy does it! Also, space your cookies out for heaven's sake. No more than 6 per tray, I would say. However, it is entirely possible that fixing problem number one would also make problem number two a non-issue.

4. Here you can see where the cookies were too close. My first batch was undercooked by a minute or two, which made them very soft-- good for taste, but messy on the transfer to cooling racks.

5. Batch two did much better with the longer baking time. Here's a close-up of that golden brown exterior.

6. This is what the final product looks like. They may not be pretty, but yummmmmmmm! I could only eat one, which is saying something.

And remember: milk does an Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie good.

Upcycled Dinosaur Crayons

In addition to crafting some plush brontosaurs for my daughters' pink and yellow dinosaur party, I decided to make some dinosaur shaped crayons for the goodie bags. Since the other children at their childcare are all between 2 and 4, I figured the chunky crayons shapes would be perfect for them to color. Also, this craft gave me the excuse to upcycle all of the old, broken crayons I have sitting around the house. When I decided that I was going to do this, I also started saving all of the crayons that my kids get from restaurants (my husband deserves credit for that idea). Why let them go waste?

Materials:

- crayon pieces, labels peeled off

- 1 or 2 cooking pans (depending on how many colors you are using)

- tin cans or aluminum cans (1 for each color)

- popsicle sticks or wooden skewers for stirring

- a candy mold (I used this one)

- wax paper (to cover the workspace)

- lots of paper towels (for quick clean up)

1. After peeling the labels off the crayons and sorting them by color, I put each color into a metal can. Tins cans work especially well because the edges aren't as sharp, but a cut aluminum can does just fine. I would recommend breaking the crayons up into little chunks-- they will melt faster. (I forgot to do that and it was a pain.)

2. Heat the cans in your pans on the stove. A low heat (2-3 on my stove) was sufficient. If you turn it up much higher, you start to get a funky odor and stress out your pans. Use the popsicle sticks to stir as needed. If you mix different shades of the same color, the stirring will help blend everything together.

3. Pour heated wax into the mold. The cans don't get super hot, so you could do this with bare fingers, but I thought it was easier to use a pot holder once I got the can out of the pan. Since the shapes in my mold were pretty big, each child is only going to get one crayon. I wanted each crayon to have different colors to give it a neat effect. On the first batch, I stuck the mold in the freezer between each layer of colors. This allowed each layer to be very distinct, but it took a lot of patience. On the second batch, I pour the colors into the mold without allowing cooling time in between. The result was more of a tie-dye effect, which is visible in this picture.

4. Once the crayons cool completely (again, the freezer helps speed this up), they pop right out of the mold. These are some of the crayons from my first batch to show the distinct layers. The whole process took about 45 minutes and was pretty fun. Be sure to wear clothes that can get dirty... I ended up with quiet a few splatters.

Happy crafting!

A Pink and Yellow Dinosaur Party (Part 1)

My daughters will be turning 1 and 3 in March, which means it is time to start planning a birthday party. We let our 3 year old do a lot of decision making, so she was pretty gung-ho about the discussion on what sort of party to have this year. At first she weighed heavily toward a Dora and Diego deal, but when I threw out the idea of dinosaurs, she got really excited. Once we had a theme, we started looking at colors. As usual, my 3 year old picked pink. My 1 year old picked yellow (by pointing, grabbing, and trying to eat the yellow plates at the store). Now I am planning a pink and yellow dinosaur party.

For those of you with daughters who like dinosaurs, you are probably well aware that dinosaurs are generally relegated to the realms of boy-dom. It seems weird to me because I loved dinosaurs as a kid, but every dinosaur search turned up blues and greens and reds. No pink dinos. In an effort to focus my search a little, I Googled "pink dinosaur party" and found these awesome ideas from the Serving Pink Lemonade Blog. Between that and my new Handmade Pledge, I decided that this birthday was the perfect opportunity for me to get a lil crafty.

Since my daughters are small, we are only going to have two little parties. One party will be at the home-based care where my daughters go during the days I work. The other will be a family party at home. I still have a bunch of pink plastic utensils and pink cups from last year's birthday party, so I will use those and just get some yellow plates and napkins to make the table colorful. We generally decorate with crepe paper and balloons as well. Nana is in charge of the big cake for the family party.

Here's what I will be making:

- Appliquéd pink dinosaur shirts for the birthday girls

- Big stuffed dinosaurs for their birthday presents

- A "Happy Birthday" banner

- Placemats for the family party

- Dinosaur cupcake toppers (for the childcare party)

- Little stuffed dinosaurs for gift bags (for the childcare party)

I am also thinking about maybe making a tablecloth for the party and some dinosaur-shaped crayons if I can find the right mold. I will know more after I poke around in a few stores next week. So far I have worked on the appliquéd shirts and one of the small party-favor dinosaurs.

These are the stencils for the appliqué (top) and the stuffed dinos (bottom). I sketched both designs and cut them out of a manila file-folder:

For the party favors, I cut two pieces out of scrap fabric I had lying around. I machine-sewed the outer edges, leaving enough of a gap to flip the fabric right-side out. I stuffed it with scraps from a fleece tie blanket that were cut into tiny 1/2 inch chunks. Once stuffed, I hand-sewed the bottom seam. I still have 5 more to make, but here is what the first one looks like:

For the appliqué, I raided my daughters dresser drawers and came up with two plain, pink, long-sleeved shirts. They were solid basics from The Children's Place-- just right for jazzing up. I used the stencil to cut the dinosaurs from a flannel fabric to give it a little extra weight. I am too cheap to buy fusible interface, so I machine-sewed a straight stitch around the edge to hold it in place. Then I went right over it with the zig-zag stitch to keep the edges from fraying. It's probably not the best method for appliqué, but I have an ancient sewing machine and little patience for hand sewing. I am open to suggestions! Anyhow, here's how they came out:

I sort of wish that I had picked two different fabrics for the dinosaur since it really blends on the darker shirt, but c'est la vie. I was trying hard to use materials I already had in my scrap drawer. As I get more goodies done for this party, I will post.

Peace, love, and pink dinosaurs.

Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo, fishie in the sea...

So my not quite 3-year-old daughter has taken quite a fancy to the movie Ponyo. She walked around the house all day proclaiming "Ponyo is my favorite. I love Ponyo. I love Sosuke." She also started pretending that her various stuffed animals were Ponyo and re-enacting scenes from the movie. Cuteness abounds.

I caught myself wondering if there were any Ponyo dolls available, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make one. You see, aside from being a fly-by-night book reviewer, I am also a crafter.

And here is my creation. Now, it is very obviously homemade and decidedly rough around the edges. But it definitely resembles goldfish Ponyo! For not having a pattern or anything fancy, it's not half bad. Of course, now it has to pass the test with my little one...

If she can pretend a pterodactyl is Ponyo (and she did), then this little gal should do the trick.