A Few Old Friends, Part 4

What dollhouse would be complete without a few accessories? To go with the furniture, my mom also took the time to crochet and sew rugs and linens (though the linens didn't quite make it to today).

My mom sewed this using a little burlap as the base and embroidering the pattern with yarn. How awesomely 70's is this?!?

Not everything was handmade--here's the one remaining chair from a dining set that was in the kitchen. Again, fantastically retro.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the best two gifts ever--toys that made an imprint on my heart and a love for craft and DIY. I'm so glad to pass these on, figuratively and literally, to my little girls.

A Few Old Friends, Part 3

Here are some of my favorites from my childhood dollhouse--the bedroom furniture. These toys were so well loved, which explains why there are a couple of drawers missing. I played with the dollhouse and its furniture until it just about fell apart. Then my sister played with it just as much as I did.

My parents made a dresser and an armoire--my dad doing the mini-carpentry, and my mom doing all the finishing and decoration.

As I had explained in the last post, the draw pulls were made from sewing pins, and I love that my parents took the time to put in nice shelves into the armoire.

 But the piece that really stuck with me was the bed and the crib. My mom even sewed a little mattress to go on the bed, using scraps from her fabric stash.

More on some of the accessories, like the rug pictured above, in the next post!

A Few Old Friends, Part 2

When I try to get to know people, one of the questions I tend to ask is, "What is the best gift you've ever received?" Hearing the answer often gives me some insight into what's truly important to them. These next few posts are about the best gift I've ever received, a dollhouse filled with homemade furniture that I received from my parents for Christmas when I was 4 years old.

I recently went back to my childhood home and brought back a few of these treasures for my little girls. Here are a few of the gems from the living room.

 If you look closely at the drawer pulls on the furniture, you'll see that they're actually the heads of pins with the pointy side clipped off.

I still have vivid memories of watching my dad cut these pieces out and my mom staining the wood.

I'll show you the bedroom furniture in the next post.

A Few Old Friends, Part 1

I had the opportunity recently to go visit my dad back home.

While there, I saw a box in my old closet that contained a few old friends. These were some of the toys I played with when I was a little girl, and I decided to bring them back for my little girls to play with. 

Not only does the drawer come out of the cash register...

...but the crank actually turns the little record on the phonograph.

I used to play with these "old friends" with my Barbies and also in my dollhouse (more on that in the next post!)

Needless to say, A is fascinated by these little guys.

Ohhh, Ohhh, Godzilla!!

One of my favorite things that I picked up for A was an activity book of cardboard punch-outs that made all sorts of fun things--games, finger puppets and scenery. I found this book and A loved punching out all the little characters with me.

While my family was visiting over the holidays, we worked on one scene in particular--a cityscape, complete with skyscrapers, a roadway with little cars, a cute little mountain and lots of trees.

Of course, a certain uncle of A's got in on the action, and before we knew it, our fair city was being attacked, one cardboard building at a time. (Bob the Dinosaur, how could you?!?)

I'm not sure what was more fun--punching out the scenery with A, or watching her--I mean Bob--trample our fair city.

Back on the Creative Wagon

It's been some time since I last posted. To be honest, this has been a particularly tough holiday season. But with each end comes a new beginning, and I've started to feel creatively energized again.

A asked me to make a flower for Little Lammy, her stuffed animal. She was about to have her lunch and she needed a flower in a vase to set the table just so. It was just the request I needed.

I think it's going to feel good to get back in the creative saddle.

Laundry Detergent + Boxed Wine = LOVE.

I love interesting, smart packaging. I love to explore the reasoning behind it, the engineering to make it and the printing used to make it shine once it hits the shelves. I love it even more when it's coupled with something seemingly mundane like laundry detergent.

As I was walking through the grocery store this past weekend, I happened across the latest packaging from Seventh Generation for their laundry detergent and was fascinated. Have you seen this?

It has the same feel in your hand as a plastic jug, but it's actually a shell of pressed cardboard. 

Inside, there is a pouch, not unlike they do with boxed wine, so that there's less waste.

I LOVE this.

Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me?!

How come nobody told me my favorite magazine was packing it in? In particular, why didn't the publishers let their subscribers know?

http://www.readymade.com/blog/readymade/2011/06/16/farewell_readymakers

Gimme a hand (me down)!

We are in full-on hand-me-down mode here in "Madridia".

After Irene hit the area, we lost power for nearly 4 days, and I knew I'd have to do some serious cleaning around here before the kiddos could come back in--mainly in the bathrooms and kitchen. Everything in the fridge was thrown away, and because we use well water, we were not able to flush our toilets.

All that "Belated Spring Cleaning" motivation quickly spilled into the girls' bedrooms, and specifically, the closets. I took the opportunity to sift through A's outgrown clothes and package them up into different bins for V.

Take a look--each bin is for a different size, so that as she grows out of a size, I can simply dump the older (gently worn) clothes into the white basket, and take clothes out from the next bin. Finally--I have a system! And what's nicer is that V is set up for Fall--I know what she has already and what she needs (which is just about nothing). She has all sorts of warm, wooly footie pj's and a bin full of different shoes, long sleeved shorts, jackets, fleece pants and even a few sets of scarves and hats.

Then I looked through V's clothes, and all the items that were out of season or were too small got packaged up for the second hand store and Goodwill, along with her baby swing, Bumbo and a few other pieces of baby gear.

So yesterday A and I stopped in to the second hand store and dropped off a few bins for them to look through. The little one was so fascinated by all the tricycles, strollers and play yards they had outside for purchase. Inside, it was wall-to-wall clothes and toys. They had us sign in and leave out bins and then A and I ran a few more errands. After an hour, we returned and the store had selected a number of items to purchase and cut us a check on the spot. We took our bins, and the items they didn't purchase back with us, and will drop them at Goodwill another day.

Now, I'd love to be able to say that we made money on this whole Irene business, but sadly, no. Because of the electrical surges we've experienced throughout this whole ordeal, our range hood is now on the fritz--the exhaust fan won't shut off. But at least we won't have to pay to have it fixed completely out of pocket, right?

Why didn't I think of that sooner?

The other night, we grilled kabobs, and I had the brilliant idea to use some leftover tabbouli to dress the grilled veggies as they came off the grill.

This was a stroke of genius -- SO good!

Making Happiness Happen

I read an article that a friend posted to Facebook that really got me thinking and inspired me. (You can find it here.)

My take away from the article included a few simple ideas:

1. We are in charge of our happiness and we can choose to be happier people. 

2. Building a life out of quality relationships and life experiences can make your life richer than working crazy hours at your job.

3. Accumulating more "stuff" in our lives truly doesn't make us more happy. There will always be more "stuff" to buy, so maybe it makes more sense to simply appreciate what you've already got and refurbish when possible.

So, what the heck does all this have to do with crafting?!? In a word, simplification. I have a need to make things in my life more streamlined and and more simple.

To support this idea, I decided to try my hand at refashioning this weekend. I figured it would be a refurbish on something I already own, so I'm not buying anything new or throwing anything away--It's cost neutral, yet if all goes well, I'll have something else to wear in my closet. It's also something I could do inside since it's so dang hot out, and a cool, breezy dress will be just what the doctor ordered once I do need to head out to run errands on the weekend.

This time last year, while I was happily pregnant, I purchased a few items of clothing that were incredibly comfortable. In this batch of clothing that -- thankfully -- is now too roomy in the belly, I had two sundresses that I'd love to be able to put to use this summer. My idea was to blend something like this dress:

with this:

I wanted to better define a waistline and make the dress appropriate for my non-maternity self. So here's what I did:

I turned the outfit inside out and measured the length of elastic that was already sewn into the dress below the bustline. I then cut a few pieces of 1/4" elastic at the same length and pinned it into the dress about 1 1/4" below the original elastic.

Then, pulling the elastic taut as I sewed, I ran a zigzag stitch along the length of the elastic.

I did this twice more on the front and the back, each row about 1 1/4" below the previous row.

Now, I've got to get working on the other dress! I'll show you the end results in the next post.

Bathroom Update, Part 2

We are well on the way to having a functional guest bathroom again! And to be honest, I think it's a reasonable facsimile to what I had envisioned!

Just a little touching up here and there, but we can do that another weekend. I think the color on the cabinet is MUCH better than that lighter color.

This third photo shows the truest color compared to what I painted. It's a really cheery bathroom now, and looks like a fun place to take a tub for the girls! A helped me pick out a new shower curtain, and we also picked up some towels and new bathmats on sale this weekend. The mirror that we picked up this weekend will probably go in either tonight or tomorrow.

Many thanks to my dear husband for helping me with all the taping and for watching the girls while I painted!

Bathroom Update, Part 1

Am I insane for planning to go to the hardware store, the paint store AND Ikea this holiday weekend?

I want to be sure to have the bathroom done by the time our out-of-town guest arrives at the end of next week.

Through the Looking Glass, Part 2

So I think I've got a plan. 

We've gotta keep it inexpensive for now, so we'll paint the walls and the cabinet. This weekend, I'll pick up a plain mirror at Ikea, and if they have an interesting simple shelf to put below it, I might do that.

While I'd love to be able to switch out the light fixture and the countertop (and the cabinet for that matter), it's just not in the cards for now.

And I managed to pick a wall color that didn't make my husband nauseous. Check it out:

...ahhhhhh.

Through the Looking Glass

Tuesday morning around 5:30am, we were awoken by the most horrifying sound.

The mirror in our guest bathroom mysteriously fell off the wall and broke into a bazillion pieces.

After we (and by "we", I mean my husband) swept up the pieces, swiffered the floor and then mopped, we decided to throw away the bathmats for fear we'd never get all the little shards out. And on the way down, the mirror also took out the towel rod. Once the dust settled, my husband said the magical words that were music to my ears:

"Well, now that the mirror is down, if you want to repaint, now's the time."

Sadly, it was followed with a little general guidance, because I have a tendency to paint rooms a little more,... how shall I say it... more chromatic than he's usually comfortable with. We can usually find common ground in the end, but let's just say I think he's still not completely on board with V's bright orange accent wall. (Honestly, I'm not so sure about either sometimes).

So what say you, blogosphere--any color suggestions? Any websites I should check out for inspiration? Please drop me your two cents below!

Fun New Supplies to Try Out

So I stopped in at JoAnn since they had a big sale this past weekend and picked up a few new supplies that I want to try out. I'm curious to see how I can work these in to my repertoire.

First up, I bought a few different types of elastic. Dare I say, I'm getting precariously close to starting to sew with knit fabrics. I think I'd like to attempt to make a simple tank top for A with some of this stuff. I just need to figure out the best application.

(On a side note, I'm enjoying how writing and posting about different projects kind of commits me to trying new projects!)

And second up, I bought a ruffle foot for the sewing machine. Yes, I know that ruffles can be made without them, but I've been eager to give one of these a whirl. When I take this one for a test drive, I will be sure to document my progress and share with you.

Lastly, you'll notice some fancy schmancy plaid in the background. Thankfully, it's not a huge surprise for my hubby, but I'm going to give some grown-up sized pajama pants a try for Father's Day.

Any advice for me on the new gear? Drop me a line in the comments below.