mega-score at the thrift store

As the kiddo starts stacking and building, I've been thinking about adding to our small collection of MegaBlocks and Duplo.

And then it happened: we were at St. Vinny's looking for a lamp shade on a day when all green tagged items were fifty percent off. High on a shelf in the toy aisle, a clear plastic bin was tucked back. The green tag on the top of the bin said "Leggo's $7.99".

The box includes a couple of horses, arches and turrets, several Megablocks cars, and about two dozen animal and people bricks.






I think after they're sanitized, some of them will need new faces due to sticker peeling.






Others might need new faces due to general creepiness.

new stuff for sale at night garden vintage

I recently listed some new items for sale at my Night Garden Vintage shop, including this sweet vintage red bowling bag that I rediscovered during the clean-out.




It was, soon after, added to someone's treasury list, but still remains for sale. Snap it up using the coupon code from one of my previous posts, and it can be yours for a steal!

burlap coffee pillow (designer diy)

I've been seeing some cool burlap projects (also called coffee sack, grain sack, or feed sack projects) in magazines (here), on blogs (here), and on Etsy (here).

These are just a few examples; you'll find tons of others with a quick on-line search, including about a ton of pillows, some in the $50 range and up. I've had a coffee sack hanging around the house for a few years now, and in fact, just dug it out of the spare room during the recent clean-out. It's possible I'm at the tail end of the New Depression trend on this one; I don't know. I still think it looks pretty graphic and cool. So I took an unattractive old cushion/pillow (also dredged up from the spare room) and stitched this nifty fitted cover for it.

Before:





After:





Instructions: Find a cushion and a burlap sack. My coffee sack came from a local coffee shop. You can also find burlap (about $2 per yard)and stencil your own designs (here's a recent tutorial that explains that process).

Wash and dry it.

Cut apart your sack so that you're working with a single layer of burlap at a time. Iron it flat.

Place your cushion over the part of the coffee sack you'd like to feature on your new cushion cover. Cut around the cushion, leaving an extra inch of seam allowance.

If your cushion has a defined side, measure it. Add two inches for seam allowance (one inch for top, one for bottom).

Using your cushion as a guide, pin and sew the two short ends of this piece to form the sides of your cushion. Leave seam on the outside.

Smooth the piece cut for the top face down on the cushion, and pin to the side, making sure the cover is taut.

Remove and sew.

With seam allowance still on the outside, put the cover back on your cushion, and pin the back piece most of the way around, leaving enough of the seam open to remove your pillow.

Remove and stitch.

Reinforce all seams with a row or two of zig-zag.

Turn inside-out, iron, and place on your cushion. Hand-stitch the opening closed.




Of course, simple, rectangular or square pillows are easier. Just cut two same-size pieces, stitch right-sides together, insert pillow, and stitch closed. I have some of the coffee sack leftover, so I'm thinking that, when this room finally gets done, I'll make another one.

wow. just, wow.

You like this? This is a cute little vintage "treat pedestal" available on BHLDN by maker E. Isabella Designs. It is an astounding $78.

This is an article from ReadyMade Magazine's MacGyver Challenge a year ago, telling you how to make the exact same thing. For $78, you could make more than a dozen, and have them on every table at your wedding. Things like this are why some people spend $20,000 on a wedding instead of on a downpayment for a house.

If you really need to buy something like this, because you don't like to use glue or have an aversion to DIY, you can buy a similar item on Etsy for between $12 and $20.

tabula rasa

I'll be posting more pictures of this soon, but this photo here represents about a hundred hours of work spread out over a month. More if you count the time I spent a few years back stripping the paint off that door and patching and sanding it. That was back when we'd intended to use it for a door.





So the reason for all the hours, for such a "before" looking image? This room, a few weeks ago, was packed to the brim with bins of art and craft supplies, childhood mementos, display items from my former bookstore, and theater leftovers. It's taken a monumental effort to get to this photograph: a clean slate, painted a soft, silvery gray, with the beginnings of a door-turned-headboard on the wall.

I've lost count of the trips to the charity store's donation drop-off. I've given a few things to friends. We held a one-day yard sale that paid for the bed frame and paint. And there's plenty stashed in the studio, and some stuff on my kitchen table ready to get the boot. The recycle and trash bins fill faster than Sanipac can haul it all away, so a friendly neighbor called the city to report us a couple of weeks ago. I frequently feel overwhelmed by the task at hand, which is essentially sifting through and getting rid of so much of my old self in order to have a clean, quiet space. One that we're intending for a guest room, but which the cats are pretty sure is really just for them.

Anyway, I'll go into more detail about the process later. That's all for tonight!

a tree grows in the nursery

I've been planning this project since before my sweet little bird was born, and finally decided to go ahead and finish it!




While I was pregnant, a friend who stayed in the room for a few months chose the sunny yellow wall color; I decided on a blue tree.




I first drew the tree on the wall in pencil, then filled it in with zero-VOC primer. I found some soy-based acrylic paints at the craft store, which have a matte finish and a lower environmental impact. Once cured, the paint seems to adhere really well to the wall.




The tree continues from the wall onto the ceiling.




The two little blue jays are guarding a little nest with a pretty speckled egg.




An assemblage on the facing wall.




Curtains, a chair slipcover, and a Boppy cover made from some fun origami-print fabric from Ikea, and a stripe from a woven tablecloth.

recycled mailers

I love Nikki McClure's work, so I've had a hard time getting rid of this beautiful calendar . . . from 2008. This week, cleaning out the back room, I found it again and decided to use it to make recycled mailers. Here's how:




This photo shows the fold lines. Basically, fold one side towards the center. Barely overlap by folding the other side.



Fold up a thin strip on the bottom, and a wider strip on the top.



Trim excess from flaps. Use double-sided tape to seal.

etsy treasury

I posted a new Etsy Treasury this week. Feel free to let me know what you think!

spring!

The kiwi vines are starting to sprout, and the grass is gaining height DAILY. We had a crazy storm the other afternoon, too. All the signs are pointing to spring!

Stop by one of my Etsy shops; use the coupon code COMEONSPRING for 25% off your purchase . . . which will help wonderfully with my attempts at spring cleaning. I'll be adding new items to each of the shops every day for the next week, so keep checking in! There are some really lovely things I've been meaning to list for awhile.

Night Garden Design (handmade modern + vintage)

Night Garden Supplies (fabric remnants + orignal prints + new-to-you craft surplus)

Night Garden Vintage (unique found objects)

design work

I threw together this interactive PDF portfolio of some of my graphic design work about a month ago. It includes cover and flier designs from my work at Wipf and Stock Publishers, where I still work part time from home. Enjoy!

Portfolio

some christmas things for baby

Here are a few things I put together for the bebe's first Christmas:


A flannel stocking, with his name cut from white wool and embroidered onto the cotton cuff. (The sea anemones poking out of the top were made by my artist friend Skylaar, and are available for sale in her Etsy shop.) The little fireman is from a re-release of vintage-style Fisher Price Little People I scored at Bi-Mart; they were released two years ago, and I bought the last package from the store's shelf right before Christmas.



Two tattooed sailor dolls I made from a Spoonflower fabric kit designed by artist Heidi Kenney. (I admit that the man wears a shirt most of the time; after the dolls were assembled and tossed in a pile together, they looked a little risque with his nipples showing. ;)



The vintage-style box from the red Radio Flyer wooden push wagon . . .



which only took about 45 minutes for Shawn and I to build on Christmas Eve thanks to well-written instructions. I lucked out and got a really, really good sale on-line right before Christmas, just when we were looking for a walker for the bebe.





And this, the BIG project. I thought I had a photo of the finished quilt, but it looks like I only have these three of the quilt top, before bebe's initial was appliqued, and before the backing, binding, and quilting were done. I'll have to edit this post when I get a chance to snap a photo of the finished project.

I'd been working on the quilt for awhile. I collected the fabrics from probably a half-dozen sources (the meadowlark and the douglas fir cone prints are my own designs, for sale on Spoonflower) over the course of several months while I was pregnant, then, last Valentine's day, cut the strips out. It turns out I was in labor the whole night, and gave birth the next morning. The quilt sat unfinished until the week before Christmas! He likes to point at things on the quilt and wait for me to tell him the words. I love that he's starting to communicate with something other than cries. It makes my day.

There were a few other incidentals; the pirate pajama pants I made for bebe and his dad, the handprint Christmas ornaments we made for the family, little odds and ends. It was a busy season, but I was really glad to be able to eke some time out to put together some projects to make the first Christmas a handmade one.

wonderland, part 6

One of a pair of hats made for the Children of Hearts by Peggy H. I had her make these from a vintage pattern, and asked that she improvise a heart ornament on the front.




I sent Phoebe G. home with a sackful of materials and this link to a tutorial from Threadbanger, and she returned a pair of ears for the March Hare and one for Mouse (she's currently at work on a pair for the White Rabbit, one for the Dormouse, and a set for Goat). Phoebe had to create her own pattern for the ear part of the Mouse hat, a first for her, and she accomplished it wonderfully. Phoebe and her grandmother also tackled Caterpillar's coat, which I'll save for a future post.





Brilliant work, everyone! Sewing party tomorrow, and I'm hoping we get through tons more stuff from our list . . . Show opens on the 12th of August! Whee!

Spoonflower Fabric Design Contest: Cut Paper Design Challenge

This week, when I needed a little "me" time, I made this to enter in the Spoonflower Fabric-of-the-Week contest. The theme this week is Cut Paper Collage.



You may remember that I won their open fabric design challenge one week a year ago; there are a ton of really excellent designs entered, so I'm really angling for the top ten this time around. Vote if you like it! Vote for other cuties too!

wonderland, part 5

After many revisions, I'm still pretty pleased with how it came out . . .



And here's a photo of the nifty, simple, fingerless fur gloves that Roxann P. and Autumn E. made from the pattern I created:



Simple Tutorial for Fingerless Fur Gloves:

1) Trace your hand and wrist onto paper. Add 1/2 inch seam allowance.

2) Draw lines across fingers and thumbs marking where you'd like the gloves to end. Cut out pattern.

3) From furry felt, cut two pieces for each glove.

4) Right sides together, stitch 1/4 inch from edge.

5) Turn inside out. No need to stitch edges as furry felt does not unravel.

6) DONE!

Wonderland, part 5

After many revisions, I'm still pretty pleased with how it came out . . .