Fitted Tablecloth for a Play Table

I am having a hard time trying to blog about all my projects.  I have so many I am working on and more on the list to get done before Christmas!  I'm sure I'll get caught up eventually and fill you in on everything that's been going on around here.  In the meantime, here's a quick little something I made a couple of weeks ago.

My little one was being hard on the table top of her play table.  I know that the purpose of the table is for her to be able to do puzzles and what not on it, but the beautiful wood finish would be ruined forever if I didn't do something.  After thinking about different options, I decided to make a tablecloth out of laminated cotton (great for cleaning) and make it fitted so it wouldn't shift and fall off every time she played on it.  Here it is:

AND, in case you were wondering, here is how I made it:

I cut the fabric so there would be an equal amount of overhang on all four sides of the table. My table is square, so it was easy to do.

I put the tablecloth on the table (right side down) and pinned the corners so a triangle flap was sticking out on all four sides. Basically, I was "fitting" the tablecloth so, when finished, the corners wouldn't have any flaps and the fabric would extend straight down from each corner of the table. 

Taking my ruler, I drew a line straight down from the corner where I had pinned to the bottom edge of the table cloth using my disappearing ink pen.  I made sure to leave a little room for my seam allowance and cut off the material about 3/8" to the outside of the line.
I sewed a straight line over my ink pen line.

I repeated this process on the other corner of the same side.

Next, I went and tried it on the table and made sure the other two sides didn't need any adjustment.  Mine didn't.

Back at the sewing machine, I repeated the process twice more until all four corners were finished.
Next, I turned the cloth inside out and tried it on the table!  Perfection!

I felt like it needed a little something extra, so I attached a pom pom trim to the bottom edge all the way around.  It's a fun little addition.  Also, it has been three weeks now and every single pom pom is still hanging from the tablecloth.  I am hoping that it will stay that way, but you never know with toddlers!

I love that the tablecloth stays in place, and the cute pattern makes it a bright and fun covering for a play table. The little one calls the matryoshka dolls "babies."  So cute. As an added bonus, spills and art projects are easy to clean up since it's laminated cotton. Win! Win!

Easier Than I Thought!

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Mon.: Skip to My Lou Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: Classy Clutter,  It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Party Hat Headband

I hope you were able to enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family.  We had a wonderful time with friends and family.  I'm a little sad it's over, but we have other big plans to execute.  For instance, it's the week of my little one's 2nd birthday party!  I know I've been talking about it forever, but it is this weekend.  Ahhhhh!!

I wanted to share with you a quick project that helped finish off her outfit.  After finding a sparkly pink cardigan at H&M that matched both the round and round skirt and the pink shoes, I knew I couldn't stop there.  I couldn't find just any hair bow or hair thing. It had to be special.  A girl only turns 2 once! A party hat with elastic around her chin wasn't going to work either.  I decided to make a party hat sans elastic.  After some material research and planning, I came up with a party hat headband.

Not only is this great for a party, but I think it would be an awesome idea for a photo prop!  If you want to make one of your own, here is what you will need:

Materials:

• scissors
• styrofoam cone
• scrap of fabric large enough to cover styrofoam
• medium weight iron on interfacing (size of fabric)
• glue gun
• small pieces trim or other decorations
• small sheet of felt or felt scraps
• headband

First, create a template for the cone.  The process for this is very similar to the one I used for the jack-o-lantern shades seen here.

Once you have created your template, try it out on the cone to make sure it fits.  Then, cut your fabric.  Leave about a half inch on the top and bottom extra for you to fold the fabric over the edge of the cone.  Also, leave a little extra fabric round ways so you can create a nice folded seam.

 Use the template to cut a piece of interfacing and iron the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric.  Make sure that you iron the sticky side of the interfacing to the fabric.  This step is necessary to make the fabric appear smooth.  If you glued the fabric straight to the cone, the glue would make ridges and ripples in the fabric.

You can see the interfacing sticking out on under the fabric on the right side.

Then, starting with one edge of the fabric, center the cone on the fabric and begin gluing.  Apply the glue to the interfacing (the wrong side of the fabric) and not the cone. I started by applying a long line of glue and pressing it to the cone. Once I had gone all the way around, I folded the raw edge of the fabric and glued the folded edge down.  This created a nice seam on what will be the back side of the hat.

Trim off any major excess and glue the top and bottom edges to the cone.  On the bottom, I just tried to make it as flat as possible.

Then, apply any trim or decorations to the top and bottom.  I used some of the tulle trim I had left over from the shoe redeux. I also used some matching tulle to create a pom pom that I secured to the top of the hat with glue and by piercing a paper clip through it and into the cone top.

Finally, glue a felt circle to the bottom of the cone. Then, glue a strip on top of the circle and sandwich the headband in between the circle and the additional felt piece.  

Here she was wearing her headband on her big day:

Easier Than I Thought! 

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Mon.: Skip to My Lou Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: Classy Clutter,  It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Round and Round Skirt

The whole reason for the party shoe redeux I showed you last week was because I knew that those sparkly pink shoes would look adorable with this circle skirt I made.

Even though it is a Christmas print, I love the Alexander Henry 2D Zoo in Yuletide.  It was the perfect fabric for our zoo themed party.  Once I saw the adorable animals dressed in scarves and the wrapped presents interspersed, I knew I wanted to use this fabric to make an outfit for my little one's special day.

After much thought, I decided to make a circle skirt.  My little girl calls it her round and round birthday skirt. There's something about that poodle skirt styling that screams PARTAY!

All of the circle skirt tutorials I looked at out there have the elastic waist band showing.  This wasn't the look I was going for.  I wanted the skirt to look tailored and dressy. I also wanted the skirt to be nice and full (to increase the twirling factor), so I added the white layer underneath. Paired with her matching party hat headband and a sparkly pink sweater from H&M, it turned out to be a darling outfit as evidenced in the picture below.   

Want to make a double layer circle skirt with an encased waistband for yourself or someone you love? Here's how I did it:

First, I had to figure out the measurements. This took a little math.   Nothing that an old English teacher couldn't handle though.  I used Dana's tutorial @ Made to determine my initial measurements and create my templates for the two different layers.

Once I had made my two templates, I folded the fabric so I could cut all four layers at once and cut the white underskirt into one circular piece.  I made this template an inch and a half longer than the printed fabric so the white would stick out on the bottom. 

Also, since I was working with a directional print for the top layer, I could not fold the fabric and simply cut the pieces at once like the white fabric.  I ended up adding 3/8" seam allowance to either side of the template so I could cut each panel separately (a total of four panels).  This is only necessary to do if you have a didrectional fabric like this one.

Once my pieces were cut, I sewed the four panels of the printed fabric together and serged the edges.

Then, I sewed the two layers together right sides facing one another around the inside circle. Here is what it looked like at this point:

Next, I turned the skirt inside out and pressed it.  It gave it a very crisp circular edge in the center like this:

Once it was pressed, I used my purple erasable fabric marker to mark  1 1/4" all around the waist.
Using the dots as a guide, I topstitched all the way around, leaving a  2" space in the topstitching to insert my elastic in between the two layers.

A safety pin helped me guide the one inch elastic into the casing once it was cut to my daughter's waist measurement.  I always subtract an inch from the waist measurement to make sure it is snug but not too tight. Once the elastic was in place and both ends sewn together,  I topstitched the remaining hole in the casing closed.

Finally, I decided to play around with my serger to create a rolled hem.  I was able to make the fabric ruffle a little as well.  I think it adds a fun and flirty detail to the skirt.  If you don't have a serger, you can fold over the fabric twice and create a small hem on each layer.

It's a fun skirt to go round and round in:)

Easier Than I Thought!

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Mon.: Skip to My Lou Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: Classy Clutter,  It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Precious Moments Frozen in Time

My mother-in-law is an amazing artist.  For my husband's birthday this past weekend, she presented him with a painted portrait of him with my daughter on our front porch swing.

 Isn't it stunning?

Here is the painting that she did of me holding our little one two summers ago:

My favorite part of the pictures is that the faces aren't full on.  You definitely can recognize the faces, but they blend in to the scene and tell the story of our love for our daughter.  We are so blessed to have such precious reminders of her childhood frozen in time. Thank you, Claire!

After I hung the picture the other day, I had to laugh to myself.  Our little one always tells us that she's Mama's baby and Dada's girl.  That's exactly what these paintings say to me. 

As part of the gift, she had them both professionally framed,  and they look just gorgeous on either side of our dining room windows which was hard to capture in a photograph.  They are destined to be family treasures for many years to come.

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Party Shoe Redeux

I mentioned last week that my little girl's birthday is quickly approaching.  While my sister and I were out shopping at the Gap outlet, I stumbled upon these sparkly pink slip on shoes that I thought would be perfect for her upcoming birthday celebration.  The only problem was one of the gems was discolored and not secured to the shoe.  Some of the pink color had also been stripped off the shoe surrounding the gem.

However, once I found out they were 49 cents, I was sold.  I knew I could fix them somehow!  If not, I was only out 49 cents!

First, I carefully removed the gems from each of the shoes. The damaged one had been glued on crooked while the other one was sewn on.

Then, I painted each of the gems with red sparkle nail polish I already had.  This is a great idea to change the color of any faux gem.  You could repaint an old rhinestone necklace or earrings! Anyway, that solved the issue of the gems.  They both match!

After that, I found some cute tulle trim at Joann's and used my glue gun to attach it around the back of the gem.  This solved the issue of hiding the part where the pink color had been torn off by the glued on gem.

Finally, I re-attached the gems to the shoes using some Goo glue.

A beautiful pair of shoes for under $2.00 in under 10 minutes!  Aren't they going to be cute birthday shoes? Wait until you see the skirt I made that goes with them!!

Before

Ready to PARTY!

Next time you see a pair of shoes in disrepair, think about how you might be able to fix them up!

Easier Than I Thought!  

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Taste of Toffee Dessert Dip

It's that time of year again.  I'm sure you have plenty of gatherings and parties for family and friends where you are expected to bring a "little something."  This recipe was born for one such occasion by randomly combining ingredients I already had because going to the grocery store with a toddler is not so fun.  I was really nervous about how it was going to turn out, but everyone kept asking me where I got the recipe.  I'd say that, combined with the fact that I brought home an empty dish, is proof that my experiment was a success!

As usual, it's an easy recipe if you'd like to give it a try.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 of packed brown sugar
• 8 oz. lite cool whip
• 8 oz. softened lite cream cheese
• 1 package of Heath chips (available in the baking aisle)
• pretzels or graham crackers for dipping

Combine all ingredients (I used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer).  Spread in pie plate or glass dish and surround with pretzels or graham crackers for dipping.

The crunchy toffee bits mixed with the creamy texture is a great combo with the salty pretzels.  I love the salty and sweet tastes together, but I included graham crackers too for the people that are sweet lovers. 

As the dip sat out for a little bit, the toffee bits melted and started to look like a toffee drizzle.   MMMM!!

Easier Than I Thought!

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  A Bowl Full of Lemons,   Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Let's Party with Paint!

While you may be busy planning your Thanksgiving, I am busy planning a zoo themed birthday party for my little girl.  There will be more on that in the weeks to come, but I'd like to share with you a simple party decorating idea that I used last year and will use again and again.  Painting a mirror for a party is an inexpensive party decoration and is much easier to do than you think:)

A lot of you may be like me and use mirrors as decorative pieces in your home.   Dress up your existing mirror by painting a message on the mirror using acrylic craft paint.  Here, I used painter's tape to create a number one, filled it in with paint, and removed the tape.  Coupled with text and other decorations, it created a cute birthday message our guests saw as they walked in the door.  When the party was over, the mirror wiped clean with glass cleaner.

*Yes, that knitted cupcake in the foreground was made by me for this special occasion:)

No need for expensive banners.  Acrylic craft paint can be found at any craft store for $1 or less! This would be a fun idea to use to decorate for the holidays as well.  Consider using your mirror to help convey your message or theme.

 Easier Than I Thought!
Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  A Bowl Full of Lemons,   Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,

Heirloom Quality Play Kitchen

Since my mind has been racing about Christmas lately, I wanted to back up and show you the play kitchen I made for the little one last year out of two kitchen cabinets.  She has played with this kitchen a ton over the past year.  I know you have seen play kitchens made from nightstands and entertainment centers, but I think ours turned out pretty darn cute.  Here it is:

It started out as two cabinets left over from when we built the house.  They messed up on our kitchen cabinet measurements, so we ended up with several extra cabinets.

 *the black piece on the top cabinet is the start of the stove top

If you're interested, this is how we did it:

• screwed the two cabinets together
• used the jigsaw to create a hole for the sink to sit in
• installed a divider between the oven and the sink
• drilled a hole for the faucet
• screwed the feet to the bottom
• screwed the oven door on the front
• screwed the oven knobs on the front

Also, here is the list of materials:

The top:
faucet- Menard's 
sink bowl- stainless mixing bowl from my kitchen
black "ceramic" stove top- sheet of duct tape from Target
burners- painted wood plaques from Hobby Lobby 

Backsplash:
peel and stick tile- Menard's
utensil hook- key hook from Target

Front:
curtain- made from leftover fabric from my kitchen window treatments and tension rod I already had
oven door- made by my neighbor out of MDF and plexiglass for FREE
oven handle- cabinet pull from Lowe's
oven knobs- replacement knob kit from Menard's (see first picture)
feet: Ikea

I love that the kitchen isn't plastic.   It matches my kitchen cabinets!  It functions well, and I hope it is something that she will want to keep for her children. Overall, I spent about $60 for everything needed.  That's still about half of what the low end of the plastic kitchens cost!

This Christmas, Santa is bringing more play food so we can have more proper dinner parties.

Easier Than I Thought! 

Linked to:  Thrifty Decor Chic Tues:  Tip Junkie,   Sugar Bee Crafts,  A Bowl Full of Lemons,   Today's Creative Blog,   Homestories AtoZ , Homemade Ginger, Wed:  Gingersnap Crafts,   Sew Much Ado,  Between U & Me, Thurs: 36th Avenue,  52 Mantels,   House of Hepworths, Friday:Tatertots and Jello,  Serenity Now,  Whipperberry,  Sat: It's Overflowing  Sun.: I Heart Naptime,