DIY Bean Bag Chair

Last week I found a tutorial on how to make a kid's bean bag chair on Pinterest, which you can find by clicking here. It looked like a super easy and quick project to make--and it was!

I bought some cute fabric at JoAnn's that was in clearance for $4 a yard. I bought 1 5/8 yards--which was just enough with a tiny bit extra to make this (I used regular quilting weight cotton, which was 43" wide. If you use home dec fabric, like the tutorial suggests, you won't need as much yardage since it's wider).

I also found the bean bag filling at JoAnn's, which came in a giant bag full of small foam balls. This stuff isn't cheap, I discovered, and I needed two bags (one bag was 2 cubic feet and the chair requires 3.5). Thankfully I had coupons, otherwise I wouldn't have made this project since the cost for the bean bag filling would have been quite a bit more than just buying a finished bean bag chair somewhere.

I also only used a 12" zipper instead of a 22" since that was all I had on hand and I forgot to buy one at the store. This was fine, other than making filling the bag a bit of a challenge. A messy challenge.

Behold.

Filling the chair is the most difficult part of this project, and really it isn't that bad--it took about 10 minutes to get the chair full. In total, this was a 30 minute project--seriously. I made it while Elise was napping and Charlotte was eating lunch. Those are my favorite kinds of projects!

Charlotte has quickly become a huge fan of her new bean bag chair. Since it's filled with foam balls it's super light, so she carries it from room to room as she pleases. It has also been outside and used as a landing pad off the deck--which I vetoed after several dozen jumps, fearing that the seams would just burst apart and I'd have to refill the thing completely. So now the rule is that the bean bag chair must remain indoors and not get jumped on from a height greater than two feet. Sigh.

I tried it out myself as well--and it really is quite comfy!

Happy Sewing.

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Flower Pot Bubblegum Machine

It's been forever since I've done a Project Pinterest post. I've made plenty of things from Pinterest in the past few months but just about all of them have been recipes. I'm usually too wrapped up in making sure what I'm cooking or baking is edible to remember to take any pictures. So I'll just stick to crafty things :)

This project was one that caught my eye just because it was cute and fun.  I pinned it and didn't really think I'd ever do anything with it until one day when Charlotte was sitting with me looking at all the pretty pictures on Pinterest. We were looking at my Projects board and I told her to pick what she wanted to make and we would go to the craft store and get whatever we needed. So she picked this. It isn't very functional and definitely not a problem solver but whatever. The whole thing cost me about $2.50 and now I have a candy dish.

The project? A bubblegum machine made out of a terra cotta flower pot and a glass vase. The original pin can be found here and the site it originated from is here.

I bought the flower pot and vase but everything else I already had. It took three coats of spray paint to get it evenly covered and shiny, and after painting I left it outside for 48 hours to make sure it was completely set and the paint smell was gone. I planned on putting M&Ms in mine and didn't want any residual paint odors.

Here's the paint I used, leftover from a past project:

This brand and type of spray paint is great. I love that there's no extra step of priming involved and even if the first (and second) coats look like a hot mess it all comes together at the end and I get a smooth, shiny finish. My spray painting technique is appalling, so the fact that I can make something look presentable is amazing.

A certain someone ended up in the background on this photo when she heard the M&Ms hitting the glass:

After just one day the M&M level is noticeably smaller...

Happy pinning!

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Simple Bow Tie Top

I'm finally entering the land of making clothes for myself. Up until now, I've only made clothes for Charlotte and was afraid to try anything beyond that out of fear of A) getting frustrated to the point of throwing fabric in the trash; or B) ending up with something unwearable and wasting time and money. One of my new year's resolutions was to expand my sewing repertoire, so I started with a few projects that seemed simple enough and didn't have any zippers, buttons, ruffles, or anything else that could potentially trip me up.

One of my first attempts was the Simple Bow Tie Top. I found it on Pinterest several months ago, but I am also a follower of the blog it came from: Sweet Verbena. This is a great sewing/crafting blog with lots of tutorials and ideas, especially for cute clothes and dresses. The tutorial for the top I made is here.

I followed the instructions for the top as written, though I made a few adjustments to the measurements once I cut it out. The tutorial says to cut two pieces of knit fabric, each 30"X30". I started out with this measurement and then cut off several inches on the sides and about 6" from the bottom. It's a matter of your size and personal preference, but for me (5'6" and typically a small or medium in tops) the starting size was way too big. I wanted a looser fitting top, but had I not made these adjustments it would've looked sloppy on me. No matter what fit you end up going with, don't make any changes until you've tried it on. Once the neckline is gathered it will take away a lot of width and some length, so test it out as best you can before doing something irreversible!

Another change I made was to my bow tie. The tutorial gives really great instructions for a tie, but I had a certain fabric I wanted to use and didn't have enough of it if I'd used the measurements given. So I improvised and made mine about half the width and 10" shorter than the one in the original. Again, it's a matter of preference and what kind of material you have on hand. If you plan on using a silkier, drape-y fabric then I'd recommend following the tutorial as is. If you want to use a cotton quilting weight fabric, you might be better off reducing the width like I did to make sure you have enough room to run it through the casing and so it lays nicely when finished and doesn't look too bulky or stiff.

It was so encouraging to make something that I'll actually be able to wear. Since then I've made two other knit tunic tops and am about to start on a new pattern that's a little more complicated. So far so good!

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Fabric Lunch Bag

I've actually made a few things from Pinterest lately, but unfortunately they've ended up scarfed down in a fit of dessert eating frenzy before I could get a good picture. For the record, you should definitely try the Confetti Cake Batter Cookies and the Oreo White Chocolate Pudding Cookies :)

Several months ago I pinned this:

Click to see the original pin

The site that this pin came from is a wonderful sewing blog called Bee in My Bonnet. It has lots of great pictures, ideas, tutorials and fantastic sewing patterns--check it out! The tutorial I used for the lunch bag was found on another fabulous sewing blog called Pink Penguin. Click here to go straight to her step-by-step tutorial!

I started with some fabric that may look familiar:

I can't believe I still have scraps of this fabric left--it's been used on Charlotte's bedroom decor, a pillowcase dress I made her last summer, her rocking chair cover, a sewing machine cover, and now this. And I still have enough scraps left over to make one more pillowcase dress and something else small...maybe doll clothes?

Anyhow, I cut all of my pieces according to the measurements given in the tutorial. The only thing I did differently here was to make each piece of the lining, cover, and outer bag different fabrics so that there's a different color/pattern from every viewpoint.

Here are a few pictures of how it looked as it was coming together:

Here's where I altered my bag a bit...though it wasn't my intention to do so. According to the original pattern, the finished bag has a smaller bag within it with a drawstring. This bag is connected to the bottom of the outer bag so the whole thing is still one unit. I messed mine up at some point and made it impossible to attach the smaller drawstring bag to the outer cover, so I ended up just keeping them separate to avoid having to rip everything out and basically start all over again. No big deal, and I kind of prefer it that way after all since the drawstring bag is quite a bit smaller. Happy accident.

The finished outer bag measures about 10" wide, 7" tall and 4.5" deep. It's a cute size and perfect for storing small toy pieces (which is my plan for it, even though its original intention was a lunch bag). I have it on good authority that Charlotte might be getting a Little People Zoo for Christmas. Now she'll have a place to keep all the animals and zookeepers when not in use, which will keep them from getting lost in her toy box, under the couch, in Howard's bed, etc.

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: You Win Some, You Lose Some

If you have spent any time on Pinterest, you know that not all pins are created equal. I spend a lot of my Pinterest time in the "DIY & Crafts" section, searching for new ideas on sewing or crafting projects that are useful, cute/colorful/pretty/some other adjective that means visually appealing, and at least relatively simple and inexpensive to make. Some DIY/crafty ideas can go a little overboard, in my opinion. How many hand-knitted wrist warmers does one need, exactly? Correct answer = none. But sometimes a pin can seem like a good idea and when you try to replicate it you end up making something of a mess.

Enter my latest effort--homemade lip gloss.

This idea didn't come from any specific pin. I searched for "homemade lip gloss" and a bunch of results came up, many of which had this basic recipe:

1/2 cup Vaseline
1-2 packets of Crystal Light (or Kool-Aid mix, whatever)
A container to put it in

Directions: mix it all together and put it in the container.

That sounds incredibly simple, yes? Why yes, I thought, it does! Even better, I already had a small container of Vaseline that I could scoop out, mix with some Crystal Light I had, and put back in the same container. Free, woohoo!

I especially liked this idea because it used plain and simple Vaseline. I carry a little container of this around with me at all times and use it as lip gloss, constantly. I have really sensitive skin and for some reason I get chapped lips or even cracks if I wear any other kind of chapstick, lipstick, lip gloss, you name it. If I do wear some sort of colored lipstick I have to apply Vaseline first as a base. I like having a little color so the idea of having a light tint of pink/red mixed in with the stuff I already wear was appealing.

So I grabbed my ingredients and got to work.

My first sign that this was not going to end well was the difficulty I had stirring. The glob of Vaseline just wanted to hang out on the spoon the whole time, so I kept having to use my fingers to push it off but then it would get stuck to my fingers. So then when I tried cleaning it off my fingers I made a mess and ended up just cleaning it off with dry paper towels, leaving a slick residue on my hands that made stirring a slippery and frustrating task.

I emptied one packet of drink mix into the bowl and stirred. Hmm. It colored it, but it was kind of a really pale mauve color. Not the look I was going for. One more packet. Now it was still mauve, just more richly hued. It was also gritty, so I pressed the spoon into the mixture to dry to mix it better and get a smoother texture. It stuck to the spoon in between each press and what didn't stick to the spoon stuck to the side of the bowl. Now I had a mess of a bowl plus cherry stained, Vaseline covered hands.

After some more mixing I decided to try it out and see how the color looked once applied.

It felt like I was smearing sand onto my mouth. The texture was still really gritty, plus the tang of the flavor made my lips tingle. I could taste the drink mix, which wasn't bad, but definitely intense.

I checked the color out in the mirror. It wasn't awful, but then I realized that it had stained my tongue as well. I'd had to lick the colored sugar mix off my lips or I would've looked like the top of a salted margarita glass. Added bonus: my teeth were also tinged a slight red color.

I scooped the batch back into the Vaseline jar, though I'd lost a good portion of it in the stirring/cleaning debacle. Once it was back in the container, I wiped the bowl out with a dry paper towel and promptly dropped it on the floor, leaving a glob of pink Vaseline behind and rendering that tile stained and incredibly slippery. I then threw away the container of lip gloss in a fit of frustration and disgust.

Moral of this story: buy some damn lip gloss. It costs about a dollar, seriously. The money you save in drink mix, paper towels, and cleaner for your hands and kitchen can be saved and put toward another DIY project. You know, like yard for those wrist warmers.

Can't win 'em all :)



~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Felt Christmas Tree

I got this idea a few months ago after seeing this pin on Pinterest--a felt Christmas tree attached to a wall with removable ornaments that kids can decorate (and un-decorate) to their heart's content. It seemed like an easy project and one that might have a chance at keeping my child entertained for at least 10 minutes. I am happy to say that it was successful on both counts!

I bought a yard of green felt for the tree but did not end up needing that much--3/4 yard would have been plenty. I wanted a tree big enough for her to stand up and decorate but not so big that she couldn't reach the top. Obviously the size of your tree depends on the age/height of your child, and in my case it did not need to be very tall :) The finished height of my tree is 21" and is just about 24" at its widest part. I drew an outline of the tree on poster board first, cut it out, then used that as a template.

I attached some white felt to the back so that there'd be more felt at the bottom to attach the presents to. I went with white so it would look like snow (yeah, I know, an indoor tree with snow on the bottom? The whole thing requires imagination!). I used Heat & Bond and an iron to fuse the different colored felt pieces together.

Instead of using nails or tacks to hang the tree on the wall, I went with these adhesive picture hanging strips. So far so good--the tree has stayed securely attached to the wall despite some tugging by little hands.

I used lots of different colored felt pieces to make ornaments:

I kept this project hidden while I was working on it and brought it all out and hung the tree in the morning before she woke up so she'd be surprised when she came downstairs and saw it. I think she likes it.

As you can see from the picture progression, her favorite part was un-decorating.

Happy Monday (ugh, is it really Monday already?) to you all!

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Toddler Activities

With the colder weather coming and fewer warm and sunny days, I knew I needed to start thinking of things to occupy Little Miss indoors. She's at a challenging age in terms of toys--so many of them are made for young babies in the 6-12 month range while the rest seem more suited for 24 months and up. That, coupled with a very short attention span, can make it difficult to find things for her to play with for longer than 45 seconds. Books hold her attention the longest, but sometimes I need her to play for a little while by herself so I can get things done. Enter Pinterest.

Pinterest is loaded with ideas of things to entertain children and you can find dozens of pins with the same ideas that I based this Project Pinterest on. I just searched under the "Kids" category for toddler activities and hundreds of ideas popped up. Since there are so many versions of the same idea I'm not including any specific pin. Here are the two projects I started with:

Sensory Bin
If you search for "Sensory Bin" on Pinterest the results are overwhelming, but the basic idea is the same: fill a container with a bunch of different sized objects with different textures and let your kid play with it. Done.

I bought a shallow plastic box with an attached cover and filled it with a few bags of dry pinto beans, some acorns we collected, a few seashells, a small storage container and a measuring cup and spoon. Charlotte got a kick out of it (and not surprisingly, so did Howard. I learned today that Howard likes pinto beans.) It kept her occupied for a surprising amount of time and the whole project cost about $5. I might add some more things to it, like pinecones or large pebbles, to keep it interesting. Also, it doesn't make noise or play an irritating song over and over again so I consider it a win all around.

Just look at him licking his lips, itching to eat another bean:

Pom Pom Sorter
This is probably the simplest project Pinterest has to offer: buy a package of colored pom poms in various sizes and put them in a muffin tin. I can handle that!

The actual purpose of this activity is to learn how to sort according to shape or color. That's a little beyond Charlotte at this point, but she still has fun taking the pom poms out and putting them back in the little cups. She also likes to put them other places:

And there's also the matter of Howard not being able to control himself around these. If you look closely in the first picture, the section of red pom poms is noticeably smaller than the other colors. Howard has a fondness for the red ones and we've lost a few already.

And that's that. Happy November!

~Stacy