Of Black Tees and Roses

This past week I’ve had two major tests, two major assignments due, plus a quiz, but I still found the time to make three of my projects.  Word of warning, I am still stuck using my webcam instead of a decent camera.:(

I acquired this rather large t-shirt for free along with a large pile of other castaways.  As many of you know, I just adore taking these old tees and making them cute and wearable.  So here’s the before…

…and after.  Ugh, that webcam, you can barely tell how much cuter it is now.  First I chopped off the sleeves and cut the shirt down the size before sewing new seams.  I cut down the sleeves a little before adding lace and some elastic.  Most of the time with these t-shirts I just sew the elastic straight on the fabric, but for this one I used the hem as a casing and threaded the elastic through.  It takes a little more time, but it makes the shirt more comfortable to wear.  I re-attached the sleeves, redid the neckline with some lace, then finished up by attaching two tiny black bows along the neckline.  Now it’s a comfy and pretty t-shirt that actually fits me.  Yay!

Next, I saw these black roses at SAS over a year ago.  At the time I didn’t buy them, but they were on my mind.  A few months later I thought of an idea for a headband using them, but when I went to the store they were all out of them.  Fast forward to now.  I spotted them on my last trip to SAS and immediately grabbed a couple.  After a bit of maneuvering with the wire and some black ribbon (and a couple glue gun burns), I fashioned this lovely headband as modeled by my niece.  The photo doesn’t do it justice, it is beautiful.  So much so that I am thinking of buying more roses to stock my shoppe with some lovely hair accessories.  Good idea?

I found this tutorial for glass head sewing pins and thought it was a fantastic idea since I have tons of plain straight pins lying around and I tend to avoid using them because it’s so easy for them to fall out or get lost.  A few minutes of fiddling with glue and beads, and now I have a handful of custom pearl head pins.  I used faux pearls because I still have tons of them to use up, plus they look so pretty.
Here’s the updated list:

• Pins
• Altered top
• Rose headband
• Doll
• Bracelets
• White dress
• Gift

Three down, four more to go.  And only a little over two weeks to finish.

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Story Time: Of Boys and Stuff Toys

This is a story about a little boy who loves stuff animals.  Really loves them.  He has a special shelf in his room built by his grandpa where his entire collection lives.  All except his favorite, a stuff bunny his grandma made for him when he was two years old.  This bunny has long floppy ears and a soft huggable body, perfect to cuddle with when the boy goes to bed.  When he sleeps, the boy dreams wonderful dreams of going on adventures with his bunny.  He had one where he was the captain on a ship and his bunny was his first mate.  They sailed all around the world together.  In another dream, the boy was a brave knight and his bunny was his faithful squire.  The little boy liked to take his bunny along with him during the daytime too.  Grocery shopping with his parents, the swings at the park, the doctor’s office, his bunny went everywhere with him.  Everywhere except one place, to school.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t allowed to bring his bunny to school, other kids brought toys to school all the time.  It was because the boy next door once told him that boys aren’t supposed to play with stuffed animals, they’re for girls and babies.  The boy next door is 4 months older so he knows better, at least that’s what the little boy thought.  So the little boy was afraid that the kids would laugh at him and call him a baby if he brought the bunny to school.  And so, everyday before he left for school he would sadly wave bye-bye to his bunny, wishing he could take him with him. 

There was another boy who recently moved in across the street.  He was much older than the boy next store, and went to a bigger school too.  One day, the little boy’s mother asked the older boy to walk him to school since she had something important to do that morning.  This made the little boy very happy, the older boy was so cool.  The little boy did still feel sad though when he waved to his bunny, still wishing he could take him with him.  “Well, why don’t you?” said the older boy.  The little boy was surprised to hear that.  He told the older boy everything he had been told about stuffed animals.  Then the older boy surprised him again.  “I have a stuffed bear,” he said.  He pulled it out of his backpack and showed it to the little boy.  It was light brown with a blue ribbon around its neck and was small enough to fit in the older boy’s hand, such a cute little bear.  He told the little boy that he took it to school everyday because it was good luck, especially during practice (he is on the basketball team).  “Do you think that makes me a baby?” asked the older boy.  The little boy shook his head, and immediately ran to grab his bunny.  So when they got to the little boy’s classroom, he and his bunny waved bye-bye to the older boy and his bear.  That day only one kid laugh at the little boy, but he didn’t mind.  He was too busy playing with his bunny and the other kids to even notice.

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Halloween On Pinterest

I think I may have mentioned that I am on Pinterest once or twice.  Well, probably only once.  One of the things I do there is set up boards for upcoming holidays (i.e. this Halloween).  I just thought “why the heck don’t I post these here?”  Why indeed?  So here we have:

My Halloween 2012 Pin Board

A few of my favorites include:

• Felt Halloween Decorations
• Magnetic Spiders
• House O' Lantern
• No-sew Iridescent Fairy Wings

And so you know, I will continue to add more pins as I find them through Halloween, in fact through until the New Year. 


Update: You can check out the latest version of my Halloween Pinterest board here.

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Up to Thirty-One

Back from the month-long hiatus, it’s my project lists.  The latest is a little short, but only because I am actually trying to be realistic and think about other priorities, like school and stuff.  That and also I want to put a little extra effort in a couple of the projects.
Project List #31:

• Pins
• Altered top
• Rose headband
• Doll
• Bracelets
• White dress
• Gift

Technically only two projects are specifically for Halloween.  We already have more than enough pumpkins, faux spider web, etc. to cover our little neck of the woods for multiples years.

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Kitty Blankie and Another One

Been a little busy lately with class and stuff, but I have made at least a couple of things.

First off, some of you may be aware that last Sunday was my cat’s birthday.  Yay!  Midnight is now eight years old.  Is it really a problem?  Well, I have seen bags of cat food in stores formulated for “senior” cats that say “for ages 8 and up”.  They think my cat is a senior.  But she still acts like she’s two!  Anyway, for her birthday I made her a cat sized fleece blanket.  It’s one of those knotted ones.  Pretty easy and she actually likes it.

Next up is this dress, you can tell it’s a dress right?  It’s photos like this that make me really miss my camera.  Yep, still haven’t found it and still using the web cam instead.  Anyway, I’ve had the fabric in my stash since last spring.  For some reason I never got around to making a dress with it until now.  I had trouble deciding what to do with it exactly, in terms of patterns and such.  I finally sat down and started drawing a design.  I put a little extra effort in this one.  I used three different kinds of lace and plenty of ribbon.  In fact a lot of the lace and ribbon was sewn by hand.  Mostly while watching anime videos.  The problems I had with it was making the bodice fit, that’s always the problem. 

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Finally Complete

So despite looking everywhere around my house, I still have not found my lost camera.  However, after weeks of being unable to post the last two projects on my list due to this problem I realized something.  My netbook has a built in web camera.  It has been there this entire time and I just forgot.  So they may look a little fuzzy, but here are the last two projects, finally.

First, the scarf.  I have tons of different kinds of lace thanks to a certain friend of mine and my lace hoarding habit.  I especially have ton of this particular lace.  One day while thinking about what I could do to use a bunch of it up I just happen to glance at my Knifty Knitter.  I hadn’t used it in a while I thought a lace scarf would be really pretty.  And I was right.  It wasn’t exactly the easiest knit project for me, I had to start over twice.  But considering I am still such a beginner and I haven’t touched the loom for such a long time, that is to be expected.

Next, the doll house.  I took the old doll house kit I bought (see Good Day for a (Yard) Sale) and turned it into this cute blue cottage.  Not bad for my first one.  There were a few problem of course.  When the instructions say to read them all before starting, they really mean all.  I didn’t and missed a very important step, one that effects the alignment of all the parts.  Meaning if you look really closely at my house, there are just a few pieces that are a little skewed looking.  Another problem I had was the door.  It would not fit.  I’m not sure if it was due to anything on my part or possibly to the age of the wood.  This was an old kit, the company isn’t around anymore.  Anyway, with a little help from some sandpaper (more like a lot of help), I got it to work.
Here’s the updated list:

• Pens
• Binder
• Lunch bag
• Backpack
• Button
• Scarf
• Doll house 

Seven down and out.  I won’t be posting the next list until October.  I technically only have a couple of things I need to make for this month.  It would seem kind of strange to make list for them.

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