Hedgehog Redecorations

Remember the Heidi the Hedgehog? Well after I found her shivering one morning and remembered reading about how hedgehogs have to be kept at a certain temperature to keep from going into hibernation during the winter, I moved her back to my house (from my boyfriend's) and set to crafting right away!

First I made her a hedgie bag. I just took fleece I had left over from the inside of an old sweatshirt to make the lining of the bag, and the pink shiny material left over from the horrible skirt-making disaster at Halloween for the outside. I then used an extra piece of the fleece to make a little bow for the top.

Heidi loves her little hedgie bag. Anytime I put it in her little cage, she runs right in there and sleeps all day.

I also had to find a solution for her cage. We have her in a big plastic tub from target, but never seal the lid so that she has air. Somehow, when we leave the lid off, she happens to find a way out and a place to hide that requires saving immediately. While thinking about poking holes or cutting squares, I realized that I could just cut out a square and add screen (porch screen) to the inside. It worked out perfectly! Now I don't have to worry about her escaping OR not getting enough air.

(I put ribbon on the inside where I glued it to cover the ugly glue and fortify).

Next up... as soon as I get her litter box trained (YES it's possible...) then I am going to replace the wood chips with felt bottoms that fit the cage.

Heidi after a bath :)

Baby Adorableness

So, about five months ago I received an invitation to a baby shower for my friend. The first thing I thought was: "What can I make????" It was my first baby shower. Ever. I had to go all out. So I spent hours, and hours, and hours making the following gifts:

Pacifier Clips Using Ribbon, Chip Clips, and Hair ties.

A newborn beanie using this pattern (which I later recreated for my dad's Bronco/Gator Beanie).

The flower is a rolled flower from a tshirt.

A bouquet of baby washcloths and socks using this tutorial.

A silk and cotton hand-embroidered baby blanket using this tutorial.

And washcloths and burp cloths to match using this tutorial!

I couldn't have asked for a better reaction at the baby shower... it definitely made me feel that the time I put in to the gifts was worth it.

So, now the baby's born and I just couldn't resist doing a few more things for her. I'm going to put it together in a baby package and maybe add this adorable baby Diaper Carriage and some gifts for the mommy. So here's what I made!!!

A "Little Black Dress" Onesie inspired by pinterest of course. All I did was add tulle ruffles very close together to the bottom of a onesie then use paint and gems. Oh, and I had to dye the onesie, which was fun to experiment with. Apparently they don't sell black onesies.

And even better and which I like FAR more... the pearl necklace onesie! I think it's just too adorable... and SO easy to make! Just fabric paint in circles. Inspired by more pinterest and this blog. I made the flower out of lace with a pearl in the middle.

Here are both of the onesies together.

The dying turned into an extravaganza where I wanted to see what else I could dye. I ended up dying three more shirts before I finally gave up.

This was a plain white tank that I was going to throw out anyways, so I thought I would try this out instead. I just wrapped a few rubber bands around it and put it halfway in the dye bucket. The dye just crept up through the fabric and gave it this look.

This was my favorite shirt ever, it was a gorgeous white flowy shirt that just happened to get soap stains on it from the laundry that wouldn't come out. Now it's... blue? (It was black dye... hmmm...) The only problem is I can't wear it with jeans any more! :(

And this was a light pink shirt with stains on it.

Braided Scarf

Here is the braided scarf I was working on earlier. I was excited that I would get to wear the glorious pink shiny fabric I attempted to make a skirt out of for Halloween... not only did I get to put pink in the scarf, I also got to feel like buying that fabric wasn't for nothing. The fabric wasn't cotton, so it doesn't fall as nicely as the shirt I used. I think I'll try again with two shirts next time. It was a really quick project (if it weren't for my distractions of other projects and pinterest).

Owl Bookends

Dear All,

I'm so sorry I have been boring you with such bland fonts! I promise to work a little harder to make my words a little more interesting with beautiful colors and large words. You're welcome.

*After posting this, it sends it right back to boring black. Fail.*

So today I finished my Owl Bookends that I'm not quite sure where I'm going to put yet. A classroom maybe? They are pretty freakin' cute!

So this is how I did it... I completely 'winged' it (Get it??? :)) and just looked at the picture to make them. Based on this, I'm happy for the way they turned out... as in not a complete disaster.

1. Buy your fabric. I ended up using about 1/4 yard of the main fabric (green polka dot) but I had bought over a yard... so look forward to seeing this fabric in lots of future posts! 1 sheet of felt in all the other colors. I followed the picture as close as possible because I was worried about straying too far and using my mind, but you can use whatever colors you want. Base it on this:

1/2 yard of main color (to be safe)

1 sheet felt contrasting color (for wings and nose... I used light pink)

1 sheet felt dark color (for pupils and feathers... I used dark brown)

1 sheet felt light color (for tummy and outside of eyes)

1 sheet felt complimentary color (for 2nd layer of eyes)

2. Draw the outline of your owl. I just drew mine on a piece of paper, cut it out, and traced it on the back of the fabric to cut out. You can use templates that are easy to find online. Here's an example. Make sure that your owl gets wider as you go towards the bottom so that it can wrap around to make it 3D. You might have to alter your template a little. Also make sure the bottom is flat, otherwise it won't stand straight.

3. Cut out 4 identical owls and set aside.

4. Cut out the rest of your pieces. You will need 8 wing pieces, 4 large circles, 4 medium circles, and 4 small circles (for layers of eyes), 2 triangle/ kite shapes for the noses, 2 tummy pieces, and however many feather pieces you want.

5. Construct your owls. Lay your face pieces on the owl the way you want them and pin.

6. Construct your wings: Sew along the outside of two wings, leaving the bottom open. Stuff with polyfil and set aside (don't sew up bottom!)

7. Sew on face pieces. I used a straight stitch and just carefully followed everything. Make sure you have your order right. Here's a suggested order of sewing:

Tummy, feathers, eye layer 1 (large), eye layer 2 (medium), eye layer 3 (small), nose. Make sure you're doing the same thing on both owls. Be careful and go slowly, this will take awhile.

8. Sew on the wings. If you do it right, you can sew up the bottom of the wings onto the edge of the face so that you get two birds with one stone. If you are worried about doing this, you can sew up the wings first and then sew them on along the same line.

9. Sew the front and back of the owls together. Remember... you are sewing a face piece to a plain piece on each owls... DO NOT SEW THE FACES TOGETHER. You will end up with a two-faced owl. I sewed them by putting the right sides together and the wrong sides out... pillowcase style. DO NOT SEW UP THE BOTTOM. If you do it right, you should have a dress-looking owl. Turn rightside out.

10. Fill with polyfil. If I were to do this over, I would have made sure I got lots of polyfil in the ears so they weren't so floppy and I would have made the animal more firm. Leave about 2" (wings down) at the bottom of the owl free of stuffing. This is where you will put your weights.

11. Make your weights. I filled sandwich baggies with rice about halfway full, folded the unused bag over on itself and taped with duct tape. This way, if I had to unsew it I wouldn't have to deal with rice flying everywhere. If you have a different way to weigh it down you can use that.

12. Put the weights inside the owls at the bottom. If you need to add more stuffing, you can take them out easily and add more. Play around until you have it right.

13. Add the bottom piece. This is the tricky part. All I did to make the bottom was cut out a rectangle a little bigger than the hole, put it inside, and fold down and sew the remaining body. It was a little tricky and I had to play around with it. I'm sure there is an easier way to do this, but what you want is a flat bottom so that the owls will stand up straight. Please let me know if you know how to do this more easily. I had to hand sew the fabric together. I then added ribbon around the seam lines with hot glue to hide my mess.

14. Enjoy your owl bookends!

Sorry my instructions weren't very clear and I didn't have pictures... I thought I should tell you how I did it since there aren't any tutorials for these cute things already made. If you make any, please let me know how they turn out, I would love to see pictures!!!

Here's both my guys together:

And here they are doing their job:

So what else have I been up to? Today I took on dying clothes... I needed to dye some white onsies black (If anyone can tell me where I can buy black onesies please let me know) to make some gifts for a friend. I had this whole bucket of dye I didn't want to waste, so I tried out dying an old shirt I was going to throw out anyways, a tank top I wanted to try fading, and a wonderful white blouse that I loved but somehow got something on that won't come off, no matter what I try. The worst part is, it looks like it's soap or something... like the laundry detergent got poured straight on the shirt and stained it, ugh. I just changed everything over to the dryer and it looks like the onesies and the tank turned black, but everything else is just kind of a navy blue. Looks like I need to soak them longer next time.

DON'T RUSH WITH CRAFTS!!!

I'm also in the middle of a braided scarf I wanted to try out while the onesies were drying. More updates soon!!!

Christmas Crafts Continued...

Next I have the Book Page Letter for my friend Melissa. This is actually for her birthday which just passed and I missed because I was in Savannah :( I feel like I miss everything of hers!!!

Anyways, Melissa loves to read, so I thought this would be the perfect gift for her! I know she has a little reading nook in her apartment, and this might be the perfect addition to it. I was a little weary because Melissa got married last year and I don't know the procedure for hanging up letters of names in a shared space (should I have made a J for Juan too?) but I figured Melissa loves to read, Juan doesn't, get over it.

I really think the flower adds so much to it... I saw it in the picture when I went to make the letter but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I finally found this tutorial for making fabric flowers and I love it! It was a lot more work than my usually twisty fabric flowers, but IT'S SO FLUFFY! (Movie reference...).

Total cost for that... $4 for the letter. I just used the book pages from an old cheesy romance novel I was about to donate and scrap fabric from my overflowing craft bins. Yay!! It did take about an hour and a half to make though.

Next I have a really exciting one that I am very confident about. I made this bucket list picture frame for my brother. He used to have this bucket list written on a whiteboard in his apartment of all the things he wanted to do before he left Gainesville. Now he's in Boston and keeps saying 'that's on my bucket list... that's on my bucket list'. So I nonchalantly texted him asking him what things he hasn't done in Boston that he wants to, then I made up a few more of my own. The great part is that mine are just starters, and he can add his own when he thinks of them. I think it's a really cute decoration and I can't wait to give it to him!

This is the first thing that I believe mine turned out better than the picture I was inspired by... I guess that's what happens when I find hurdles in trying to copy something else, I get creative!! When I went to Home Depot (ugh) to try to find chicken wire, I found that they only sell it in huge rolls that cost like $30!! Instead of taking the risk of asking someone if they could cut a little piece of chicken wire for me and looking like my usually foolish self in such a place, my introvert personality got the better of me and I decided I would figure it out. And I did. I marched right over to Joanns, where I feel SO much more comfortable, and I bought this pretty blue ribbon. I hot-glued it to the back of the frame (which Meredith found for me BRAND NEW WITH JOANNS TAG ATTACHED at Goodwill for $0.99) , and hot-glued each of the places where the ribbons overlapped. I printed the words out on card stock and cut them out and hot-glued them to the frame too. (I love hot glue). I like that my words are actually on the frame and not hanging over it like in the inspiration. This way you can put it anywhere.

Finally, I printed out little bucket list slips (go sledding, go to New York City, pee on the statue of John Harvard at Harvard University) and pinned them to the ribbon with clothes pins. At first I used regular sized clothes pins like the one holding up the bucket, but I realized it looked way too bulky so I downgraded to mini clothespins to make it all look much more sleek. It's all color-coordinated and beautiful! If you're looking for the little buckets, they're at Joanns too. Of course.

Total cost for this project: $0.99 for the frame, $4 for the ribbon (I ran out right before my last 2 rows and had to go get more), $3 for the bucket = $8.

Beautiful!!! This is going on my top 10 crafts list for sure! (Yes, I have decided to make such a list)

Let's see... What haven't I shared??

Oh! I don't think I ever shared a picture of my brother's keyboard wallet I made a few weeks ago... here it is!!

Really simple, but totally him. He'll really get a kick out of it.

I also made a Christmas gift for myself. I saw this adorable ribbon and pearl necklace from etsy on pinterest and thought "I could make that!" (my catch-phrase lately). Okay, mine isn't nearly as classy, but with some finagling and classier ribbon I could TOTALLY make that.

In other news, a recent craft failure includes the following: Recycled glass bottles to glasses.

Okay, it wasn't a complete failure, but it was disappointing. I FINALLY got Logan to try something with me, and we were SHOCKED at how easy and cleanly the first glass broke. I was so excited that I scrambled around the house looking for more glass bottles, and ended up bringing a full beer to my friend's house for her to drink (I wasn't THAT desperate) and I grabbed 5 more bottles from her while I was at it. When we attemtped to to the same magic to the rest of the bottles, none of them would break anymore!

We tried all the different variables, including amount of string used, how long we kept the fire burning, I even added ice to the water thinking it wasn't cold enough. I was low on nail polish remover and it was late, so we eventually gave up. The next day, I bought more nail polish remover and tried it again, and it worked on a beer bottle and a wine bottle! Again, hopeful. I realized that maybe I can't reuse the nail polish remover. So I went for the next beer bottle. Fail. Wouldn't work. Next one, wouldn't work. Once again, I gave up. Does anyone have any help? A set of Sam Adam's beer glasses would be a great Christmas or birthday gift for my brother!!!

Well, that is all for now. Check back for some upcoming projects including:

Owl bookends

Office Stockings

Adorable onesies

and a Tshirt Vest

Chalkboard Wine Glasses

I know I've already told you about the chalkboard wine glasses I was planning to make. Here's how they turned out!

The painter's tape did a great job of making a nice straight line, and the homemade chalkboard paint held up really nicely! I know, I'm boring and stuck with black, but I figured that was the best color to use chalk on (why else would chalkboards be black?). I made four for my parents and two for my friends... Each little set came with a bag of chalk to write on them with (because nobody I know has chalk laying around the house). After I thought about it, I realized I should have decorated them with the chalk pens I have leftover from Starbucks... I'll have to remember to go back and do that before I give them away as presents.

Here's the tutorial for the chalkboard wine glasses... I just realized that maybe I should write one, but I don't have pictures to go along with it. Oh well, it's pretty easy!

1. Buy wine glasses. I got mine for $1 each at Goodwill with the stickers still on. Give them a good scrub to get all the goodwill dirt off.

2. Make the chalkboard paint. To make your own chalkboard paint, buy a box of white dry non-sanded grout from Home Depot. No, I don't know if that's the only kind that will work. No, I don't know what all those words mean. But this was the cheapest grout at $6. To make the paint, add 1 cup of whatever paint is lying around the house (house paint, acrylic paint, etc) to 2 tbsp of grout. Yes, you will have a whole box minus 2 tbsp left over. Hope you want to paint a lot. Stir stir stir!!!! (This will make more than enough for your glasses... I had enough to fill my acrylic paint container back up and save it).

3. Put painter's tape on your wine glasses to mark where you want the paint to stop.

4. Some tutorials say to dip the glass in the paint, but I tried this and it didn't work very well. In the end I just used a paintbrush and made sure to get everything.

5. Allow to try upside down and decorate!!!

While I was at it (and with all the leftover paint), I grabbed a boring mug from the pantry and painted that as well.

Now I'm spending my evenings brainstorming and ransacking my house for what else I can paint! Muahahahaha!

Knitting Galore

Since Halloween, I've made plenty of progress on my Christmas gifts! I want to share them all, but this blog is incredibly irritating in adding pictures, so I'm breaking it up into a few posts... the first one being my knit gifts!!

We'll start with the hedgehog. Ohhh the hedgehog. Long story short, I got my boyfriend a hedgehog. Like, a real one. Instead of a loving and adoring pet, it has kind of turned into a big inside joke. It's a really sweet animal, he just doesn't understand why I got him a hedgehog.

So I found this knitting pattern on etsy to make a hedgehog. My first etsy purchase! It was actually really easy, it only took a few hours, but turned out close to nothing like the picture in the shop.

I was still proud because I made progress in knitting something that wasn't a straight line, but I believe I could have improved with smaller needles (bought some at Joanns last week... check!) and more stuffing... maybe different yarn for the face. Anyways, here's the knit hedgehog!!

I do like that I used the fuzzy yarn for the body... it reminds me more of the spikes of Heidi the Hedgehog. And (bonus!) I went through an obsession with making scarves out of this kind of yarn when I first learned to knit, so I have tons left over. I don't know, it's kinda cute and cuddly right?

Total cost of hedgehog: Less than $2 for pattern (already had yarn, need

les, and stuffing)!!

Next I have the hat. I'm actually very proud of the hat. I was trying to decide what to make my dad for Christmas. I decided that since I can knit a baby beanie, I can just double the pattern and make a beanie that will fit my dad. Although this seemed way to logical to work, it actually ended up being okay! The top is a little bulkier than the baby beanie because of the mass amounts of yarn and the size, but it looks fine when worn on the back of the head. It was originally supposed to be a hat to wear to our Bronco's game on

New Year's Day, but it was just too great that the colors ended up being the same as the Gator's. When I finished the hat and realized that 1) It needed to be folded up to have a lip for it to fit and 2) it could be reversible, I had this great idea to make a reversible Gator/Bronco's hat. So I painted the two mascots on some spare fabric and hot glued them to each side of the hat. It worked out great! I'm excited to see if he likes it (and if he will actually wear it!)

So I got crap for not looking at the camera when I took this picture. Logan said I looked like I was taking myspace pics, and my friend said I was modeling. I just wanted you to focus on the hat, not my beautiful eyes ;)

Total cost of this project: About $6 (for yarn)

Aaaand finally... I have the tea cozy. (Ps. How are you supposed to spell the word?). I found the really cute idea from pinterest of course! The only problem was I was too untalented to follow any pattern and too lazy to go downstairs to actually measure a tea cup, so it ended up being larger than I thought. I went out and bought a bigger mug for it to fit around, but it stretches really easily. It turned out alright... another gift for the father.

My favorite part of this cozy over others I saw was the little tea bag hanging down.

Total cost of this project: $3 for the mug.

So those are all my knit christmas projects for now... I'm planning on making an ear warmer for my mom but I'm not sure if it will be knitted or sewn. Check back soon for more of my adventures!