Easter Candy Jars

Sat, 7 Apr 2012 20:10:08 -0700

My daughter, TC, asked to do another guest blog...so here’s what she’s up to.

Easter Candy Jars

I’m baaaaaaacak!!!

I know it’s been a while, but my crafting cannot be stifled, and with Easter approaching I was itching to do something fun. But what would it be? My BF has four young nieces and nephews that are age appropriate for Easter candy/presents. I was thinking of them when I came upon this.

Are these cute or what?

Of course, in typical me fashion, I decided to make these the morning before Easter. Although I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the little bunnies on short notice, I did have one (for the niece) and I found some very strange dinosaur/mythical-winged animals that would work for the three boys.

Now all I needed was jars, candy, spray paint, and crinkly paper. Easy peasy.

So you already know I went to the 99 cent store for the jars, because that’s how I roll. And in typical 99 cent store fashion, the jars were 1.99 each. But they were still a good buy and the perfect size.

The good part about buying Easter stuff the day before Easter? It’s all on sale. Kmart obliged by offering 25% off everything. I really wanted colored chocolate eggs, but all the candy was colored tin-foil, which was fine. I made sure to get a good color selection to match the pink, green and blue crinkly paper I picked up for the bottom of the jars.

Just like the website says, I super-glued the “animals” to the top of the jar lids after washing them well.

While they dried, I stuffed the jars. Obviously the more fun task. Pink for the girl, and blue and green for the boys. We also picked up some colored M&M’s, but it seemed weird to put them loose in the jar and I couldn’t seem to locate the tiny cellophane bags I know I have somewhere.

BF helped me with what I am now calling The Spray Paint Fiasco of 2012. I am sure there is a method to this. But you try and get an even coast on a winged lion, whose belly is black, while not making the paint pool on the lid. You try it and let me know. Also there was wind. And we were doing this in front of our apartment, crouched down, wind blowing, paint everywhere. What a mess!

We did manage to get it done and on the elevator ride back up a guy said to me, ‘Whatchoo got there?” And I said, “Easter gift.” And then he’s all “Amazing,” and I was like, yes I am. Thank you for noticing. But maybe he meant my craftiness. It was hard to tell.

Here’s a view of the painted tops drying in the tub:

With the exception of a few bad spots here and there, I think they look pretty kick-ass.

How to Make a Pillow Case from a Dish Towel

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:57:40 -0800

We went to New York City last week to visit our daughter, T.C., and of course she had a list of craft projects she wanted help with. This usually translates to “please do these projects for me”, but that’s OK because I admire her decorative style and it’s fun to spend the time working with her. Her first project was an easy one, she wanted to make some pillow cases from these Marimekko dish towels.

The first step in making a pillow from a dish towel is to be sure that you have the correct size pillow. The pillow should be small enough to allow you to sew a least a 1/2” seam on the ends.

You also want to be sure that you have at least a 3” overlap when you fold the towel over the pillow. This towel overlapped part of the design so I’m going to hem it a little to prevent that. Just like with the dish towel kitchen curtains that I made, start by ironing the towel. Your measurements will be more accurate with a smooth towel.

I folded under the edge that overlapped the pattern, ironed it in place and sewed it along the edge.

Fold and pin the towel to your determined measurements with the pattern (the right side of the fabric) on the inside, and the fold is centered on one side. Note that the newly hemmed outside edge is on the inside.

Now you need to determine where to sew the side seams. Put the pillow on the fabric note how much of an end seam you need to make. It should be the same on both ends.

Using a straight edge, mark the seams so you have a guide for where you’ll want to sew. You can use a “washout cloth marker” to do this, or a pencil. Since the marker that my daughter had was white, it wasn’t going to show up on the white fabric, so I used a pencil. Don’t use a pen, the ink will bleed into the fabric and show up on your finished pillow.

Mark both ends and then sew on your marked lines, backstitching over the overlapped pieces for extra strength.

Remove the pins and if you have more than an inch seam, you’ll want to trim it down to no less than a half inch. This will allow the corners to be sharp when you turn the pillow right side out.

There you have it. Two adorable little pillows that only took about an hour to make and really help to brighten up her bedroom chair.

I’m A Giant Challenge Guest Post: The Final Reveal - The Kitchen

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:37:24 -0800

My daughter, TC, will be participating in Emily Henderson’s I’m A Giant doll house decorating challenge. Since TC doesn’t have a blog of her own, I’m letting her guest blog in My Craft Closet.

The Final Reveal - The Kitchen

For the final post I am going to reveal the kitchen and do a little wrap up of all the rooms with a special surprise guest.

Last week I went to the 99 cent store (where nothing is ever 99 cents) and picked up some alphabet letters.
I love this kitchen, and wanted big letters like this on my wall:

Sorry, I’m not sure where I found this picture....if anyone knows, please leave me a note in the comments.

So I bought some alphabet letters for $5 and used the chalkboard paint to make them black. The best part is that they include one piece of punctuation. Can you see it in the pic below?

Is it a question mark? Or an exclamation point? No, it’s a semicolon. Supposedly the most useless punctuation. But I love a semicolon; I find them useful. I also painted the window frame black, after previously painting it white. I wanted to make it POP more. For the floor, I cut up a cork place mat I had lying around. I actually used the backside of it, I liked the chunky looking texture of it better than the front.

And now for the reveal:

The outside picture is from an actual photo of the East Village, and I think it makes the room. Just so you know, no New York apartments actually have windows that big though. At least not in my neighborhood. Or in my price range. But it looks nice here.

The cereal boxes on the fridge are Printies, all the kitchen cupcakes and baking items are Re-ment.

And now for the special guest appearance:

Oh, NO! She is not quite ready yet. Okay let’s see some more appropriate photos. Blythe loves to bake. Today it’s cupcakes:

She also loves to read with her cat...

...and lounging in the living room.

Also, I fixed up a little patio scene. Sometimes Blythe and her sister like to climb out the window and hang out on the roof. Illegally. They are such rebels.

They also have their old fashioned TV plugged in up there and like to watch re-runs.

The chairs are old ornaments from West Elm, and are obviously not the right scale (but neither is mini Blythe).

I hope you all enjoyed following along on the dollhouse challenge with me! Be sure to leave some comments and hopefully mommy will invite me back for more guest posting.

Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year!

I’m A Giant Challenge Guest Post: The Living Room

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:13:06 -0800

My daughter, TC, will be participating in Emily Henderson’s I’m A Giant doll house decorating challenge. Since TC doesn’t have a blog of her own, I’m letting her guest blog in My Craft Closet.

The Living Room

Let’s talk about BF. He is one tricky boy. Although he claims to not be into this dollhouse thing, like, “I don’t care, dollhouses are dumb,” and other things like, “that’s weird and freaky,” he does care a lot about me. Look what he bought me:

It wasn’t a surprise, more like “you should order that.” So I did. Don’t have to tell me twice! The package arrived yesterday and it’s AH-MAZING. The kitchen is the last room I’m working on and the one I had the least stuff for. I will unveil that room last. He also went a little nuts and bought me 4, yes that’s right 4 mini Blythe dolls. One of them has a scooter and a cat with goggles and a helmet. Don’t believe me, here’s the picture. I’m not kidding, he picked this out on his own.

Did her eyes freak you out a little? Me too. Don’t look directly at her, best to look at the cat. In the goggles. And the sidecar.

In other news, I’m kind of a hoarder. I like to call myself a collector though. It sounds better. Also, I’m super organized and clean, so you won’t have to dig me out of a massive pile of National Geographic’s from the 1970’s, or worry that you’ll find my dead body - half eaten by cats - under a stack of fallen Madame Alexander Judy Garland dolls. My hoarding, er collections, will be organized alphabetically in Tupperware from the Container Store, labeled, photographed with Polaroids and P-Touched. If this sounds like way too much work for you, you should hire me. I’m super good at organizing...just see Mom’s sewing closet post.

Anyway, I collected a few Kaleidoscope by Bozart dollhouse furniture sets awhile back. They were being sold on Fab.com for an insanely low price. It was way before this dollhouse challenge, and when I saw them I was only thinking about saving them for “some day”. In other words, a collector’s excuse. Admitting it is half the battle, right?

If you don’t know about the Kaleidoscope dollhouse you can learn about it here.

If anyone ever finds one of these at a yard sale, buy it for me. I might organize your closets for free! Isn’t it dreamy?

So, I bought four sets from the online sale. I paid under $20 for each, and now I see them on eBay for about $60 a piece. Who loves a bargain? I do! Also, a wise investment. I bought the sofa set (Jasper Morrion), one of the arts sets, an accessories set (looks like Jonathan Adler) and one creepy family set (are there any normal looking dollhouse dolls?). I’m currently watching three of the dollhouses on eBay right now, but who am I kidding. I don’t have $500 to even place an opening bid.

Back to the task at hand. Living room. the Jasper Morrison sofa is a hug L-shape white leather beauty that barely fits in my living room, so I could only use the long part. I spent an entire day painting this room dark blue (it needed four coats to cover everything), and laying the hard wood floors. I also made a window frame.

It’s not exactly perfect. Cutting a 45 degree angle was surprisingly difficult, until we figured out how easy it was. Then, I felt like a total idiot and refuse to explain any of it further. I forgot to add the window film so it looks unfinished, but I actually don’t mind it for now. As a side note, please ignore my crappy baseboard painting; the blue paint was warring with the white paint. It was ugly. In the end it will be covered, so I’m not too worried.

Here is the finished, empty room.

Another minor issue was that I should have painted the living room floor brown before laying the flooring, because the floor boards are not perfect, you can see the white peeking through a bit. Guess what? I covered it with my Flor carpet sample. Solved.

Here is the finished room, all decorated and accessorized:

The art work on the wall is from the set I mentioned above, as is the coffee table. Here is a close-up of the
accessories:

The bookcase is Re-ment, as are the items on the shelves. The vases on top of the bookcase and the pillows on the sofa are also Bozart. All in all, I really like how this room came out. I’m bummed I didn’t get to use the Hallmark TV ornament BF brought me home a few weeks ago. It was an old fashioned TV/furniture unit with an image of The Andy Griffith show on it. So cool, right? I am considering an outdoor space...maybe I will use it there.

I can’t wait to show you the whole house together when I’m done. Only three days left!

I’ll reveal the kitchen later this week. Stay tuned.