Have Beer, Will Travel: Bike Six-Pack Holder Tutorial

Hello, hello, hello!  I know it’s been a little while…but I’m back with the long-ago-promised tutorial for a bike-safe six-pack holder (I know you’ve been waiting with bated breath, and quite frankly I can’t imagine how you’ve gotten along thus far without it!  My most sincere apologies from keeping you from this vital information.)  But hey! Enough chat.  Let’s get to it!

This 6-pack carrier has strips of Velcro on the inside, so that in addition to being a regular carrier, it opens flat so that it can be draped over a bicycle bar for easy transport. 

Hello, remember me?

Hey remember the time that I posted a bunch of new years resolutions (including one to post often and regularly) and then disappeared for three months? Me neither. Actually, the past few months have been a blur of finishing up my Master’s degree once and for all, making plans for the future, and hanging out with these guys.

 But the important thing is that I’m here now, and I’m chock-full of ideas that I can’t wait to put into action! First things first, though: I’ve got to get caught up on the past few months, starting with the Valentine’s Day gift I made for Sean this year. Since Valentine’s Day is right around the time that his all-time favorite beer comes out and he quite likes to ride his bike all over his sunny little town, I decided that the thing he needed for Valentine’s Day was a six-pack holder that he could strap right to his bike, and then take off and carry around if his little heart desired to do so. I did some poking around online and just couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I decided to make one of my own! I made it out of canvas and printed cotton, using some elastic to keep the bottles in their little cubbies, and velcro to fasten the undersides together.

 I’m working on a tutorial for this little beauty, so stay tuned! And oh, have I missed you. Glad to be back.

Fabric Storage Bins Tutorial

Today, the temperature in Cleveland is somewhere in the -20's, and everything is covered in the grey slush of poorly plowed snow (which I'm sure is thoroughly frozen by now.)  So, I whipped up a little fabric bins tutorial for your sewing pleasure.  Please let me know if you have questions or run into any problems while making this project, and enjoy!

Click on the link below, and find the full tutorial after the jump.

Bins and Baking

Today was grey and snowy outside, so it was filled with baking and sewing inside.  Since it's only January and I'm still trying to stay true to my resolutions (just give it a few more weeks!) I finally finished a project that had been collecting dust on my ironing board (...and then on my bookshelf...and then on the floor of my closet...) since September.  I've been meaning to amp up my bathroom storage for a while (read: come up with some kind of storage system at all) and these little fabric bins were just the ticket.  They were pretty simple to put together, and certainly helped tidy up my bathroom shelves a bit.  I'm working on a start-to-finish tutorial, which will be posted soon, but here are my lovely new bins, in all of their organizational glory...

The rest of the day was spent baking bread and my favorite lavender cookies.  Not bad for a Monday, I say!

*The tutorial is now up!  Click here to see it and make a bin of your very own!

DIY Washi Tape Planner

Call me old-fashioned, but I just can't seem to function without a real, I-can-write-things-down-with-a-pencil-and-flip-through-the-pages, paper planner.  I'm not sure if it's the technologies' fault or my own (I swear, sometimes my tech devices have minds of their own) but whenever I try to use electronic calendars I just end up missing Oliver's beauty appointments or showing up to my cello lessons on the wrong day or having some other catastrophic scheduling meltdown.  It's just such a comfort to be able to physically flip through my schedule and see everything laid out in front of me, and I can't seem to do it any other way.  

So this brings up the real dilemma: it's really, really hard to find a passably cute day planner that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  Most of the time when I need one I scour store after store, searching for the perfect planner (it's a bit like looking for the Holy Grail, if you ask me) and I end up having to pick one up at the last minute for much more than I wanted to pay just because it's becoming unacceptable for me to be missing so many appointments.  In order to preemptively avoid this with the start of the coming scholastic year, I just DIY'ed a little solution for myself, with a plain black day planner (it cost less than $4!) and some Washi tape that I picked up for about a dollar a roll.  Simplest solution ever.  Makes you wonder what else could be vastly improved by slapping on a couple of strips of Washi tape…Hope you enjoy this little project!

Zippered pouch tutorial!

As promised, I worked up a little tutorial, filling y'all in on how I make my little zippered pouches (I knew you were just dying to know!)  Check out the full tutorial after the jump!  As always, I would love to see any projects you come up with, so I hope to hear from you soon!

Adventures in Dip-Dyeing

Hello, there!  I've spent the last few days trying my hand at some dip-dyeing, and I'm so excited to share what I came up with!  This recent dyeing experiment came out of a valiant, if vastly unsuccessful attempt to right a pair of my sister's pants that had been quite wronged by some hand sanitizer.  By that, of course, I mean that she tried to remove some tree sap from her pants with hand sanitizer.  While it took out the sap brilliantly, it also seeped through to the front of the pants and caused some massive bleach stains (oopsies!)  Of course, my first response was "don't even worry about it, we can dye them" only to realize that bleach stains don't really want to be any color than white (or really, some gross yellowish variation of actual white.)  After employing many creative (read: ridiculous and very messy, even for an outside project) dyeing techniques, I threw in the towel (or pants: I literally threw the whole pair of pants in my dyeing bucket in an effort to unify the color, to no avail) and moved on to Plan B, which was dying some lace to match the pants, cutting the stains out of the pants, and adding the lace behind the holes.  We'll just have to see what happens with hair-brained scheme #2.

However, the real up-side to this dyeing disaster was that the pants in question are a great coral color, which I matched by mixing two boxes of Rit dye: magenta and orange.  It seemed such a shame to make a whole batch of dye for just a little bitty stain, so I planned a few projects, picked up come unbleached cotton, and had a blast experimenting with dip-dyeing.  For the most part, I just dipped parts of the pieces into the dye, leaving the other portions white.  For a few pieces (once I had some confidence in my dipping skills, really) I folded the fabric to make stripes, which I'm pretty proud to say actually look like stripes.  I've been making my way through the dyed pieces, cutting lining pieces to match and sewing them into little pouches, wallets, and bags, and I have just a few to share with you today.  

These four pouches were the simplest of my planned dip-dyed projects, so I started with them.  I interfaced all of the dyed pieces, cut linings from some great metallic prints I found at JoAnn Fabrics, and just added a 9-inch zipper to each to make some simple pouches.  I have been meaning to try a half-circle pouch for a while, and I love how they came out!  The only thing missing from these little pouches is a great zipper pull.  I'm thinking…tassels?  Maybe a little pull made out of lace?  So many possibilities!

In other news, I'm working up a simple photo tutorial on how to make your very own zippered pouches.  They've really become one of my go-to projects…they're simple, quite quick to whip up, and leave lots of room for customization (the world is your oyster with this kind of simple project template.)  I hope to have that up tomorrow, so stay tuned!

I spent the rest of the weekend doing lots of running, practicing, spending time with my sister, and of course, with this guy.

  I hope your weekends were as lovely and relaxing as mine was.  

DIY pom pom headboard

Aside from the usual busyness of the semester, I've still had my nest (also known as my apartment) on my mind.  Whether it's because of the cold weather, my lack of free time, or because I am a self-proclaimed homebody, all I want to do these days is decorate my apartment.  One project that's been on my to-do list for a good long while is a DIY headboard.  There's just something about a headboard that screams "I make your bedroom look warm and inviting and pulled together!" 

Since I live on the third story of an old house, my bedroom has some charmingly slanted ceilings that make a large, traditionally-shaped headboard completely impossible.  I also wanted to do something somewhat temporary (since I am only renting) and cheap (since I am not only a poor student, but also somewhat of a starving artist after all.)  Enter my brilliant idea: tissue paper pom poms.  They're inexpensive, simple to make, easy to install, and the perfect project to work on while watching the Bachelor (did you really think I'd forgotten about that show?)  There are probably an infinite number of hanging arrangements to play around with, which made it an ideal headboard option for my space.  Once I had made all of my pom poms, I just arranged them how I wanted (which was apparently in the shape of a triangle) and hung them with thumbtacks, and admired my handiwork.

To see how I made my pom poms, continue after the jump...

Nesting

Goodness, it has been cold in Cleveland this week.  With the wind chill in the teens and the blustery wind rattling the windows, all I feel like doing these days is nesting.  Nothing beats the chill like a cozy spot to call home.  What this really means is a whole lot of baking and decorating, and a fair amount of spontaneous craft projects.  One such random project was inspired by this tutorial and a bathroom with open shelving.  I took a couple cheap glass containers (each about $1 at Wal-Mart) and treated them to my heart's content (and my family's discontent, as the lovely scents of spray paint and vinegar wafted through the house.)  Here are some before and after shots:

It was seemingly impossible to get an "after" shot without my camera-clad self reflected in the shot, although I suppose that's to be expected, when using a spray-on product called "looking glass."  At any rate, this project was quick, easy, and left me with a burning desire to use up the rest of my can of "looking glass" paint on random household objects.  I held off for now, but I'm sure this project will have a reprise sometime soon.

In other news, our (read: Ollie's) new futon arrived yesterday, and my roommate and I dragged it up the barely-lit-and-also-disintegrating staircase to our third-floor apartment.  With only one legitimate near-catastrophe, and considerably tired forearms, we got it up into the apartment and set it all up.  Needless to say, we were pretty proud of ourselves.  Now that our living room is finally furnished, let the pillow-making commence!  My return to Cleveland has been pretty chilly, but it sure is great to be back in the land of productivity (and cannoli.)  Happy Saturday!

Moving ahead

As intended, I sewed my recent embroidery project into a little clutch.  I used some navy corduroy for the back, and some pretty white cotton for the lining.  So now all that's left are some final decisions: pom-pom zipper pull? Strap?  For now, my little clutch is just that, and I love it.

My plan for now is to avoid these last earth-shattering clutch-related decisions and forge ahead with more projects!  There's nothing like the creative boost that comes with New Year's resolutions and a little (but actually quite long) break from school. 

The rest of my day was spent getting a little work done, sipping coffee, and making pattern pieces for my next project, (drumroll, please...) a dress from the BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook.  I got this book for my birthday last August and have since been lusting after the projects within and plucking up the courage to try one.  Since the book is designed to be used with handmade patterns, I have been gradually working up the courage to tackle this seemingly insurmountable task.  I can't say why pattern-making frightened me so, but I came up with one excuse after another to avoid it.  So in light of the recent New-Year momentum, I jumped right in last night, and began drafting the pattern pieces for my dress.  (I had a little help...see below.)  Today I finished them up, cut them out, and went ahead and cut out my fabric pieces.  I'm ready to start sewing tomorrow!  This project will also mark my first invisible zipper, and my first fully-lined dress.  Can't wait to get started!

Happy Monday!

Happy New Year!

Have you ever had a crafting emergency?  In the Carey household, they're not so unusual and come in many varieties (everything from "I-can't-believe-we're-out-of-glitter" to "I-just-can't-believe-I-spilled-all-of-that-paint!")  This most recent emergency involved a brand new needlepoint book and an incoming snowstorm.  Despite the impending snowy disaster, my mom and I packed ourselves into my little car and made our way to a local craft haven to load up on a few projects to keep busy with while snowed in.  (You might be wondering why we weren't heading out for actual emergency supplies-like food.  But I can assure you, we had plenty of coffee and Christmas cookies leftover...what else could we need?)  Since we were in quite a hurry, we were faced with such snap decisions as "Michael's or Ben Franklin Crafts?" and "Will navy Aida cloth work, since they don't carry black?" and "Oh my goodness, they don't have any crewel yarn, what are we to do?!"  Suffice it to say, I had to make quite a few compromises, and spent a few minutes running between the aisles muttering to myself while tossing a strange assortment of craft goodies into my basket.  Admittedly, I felt a little like MacGyver.  I ended up going ahead with my intended project, and just made a few tweaks based on the supplies I was able to find.

I made a piece for a clutch from Anna Maria Horner's new book; she calls this project the "star-crossed clutch."  While she uses many more colors, black Aida cloth, and crewel yarn, I decided to keep with a mostly blue color scheme (partially due to the fact that I didn't want it to be too busy with the blue background, which was all that was available to me.)  Since we couldn't find any crewel wool, I picked up some standard embroidery floss and just made do.  The finished product isn't quite as filled-in as the original (since the embroidery floss was much thinner than wool) but I like it just the same.  I went ahead and added the gold stitching that is called for in the original pattern, and it really brought the design to life...it's definitely my favorite part!

As embroidery projects go, this one was pretty darn speedy.  Considering I started it the day after Christmas and am finished just about one week into the new year, it's definitely a new personal needlepoint record.  Considering my track record, it's a miracle I finished it before next Christmas!  All that's left for this project is to sew it up into a little clutch, and take it out on the town!  Happy New Year!

Table fancy

Dearest blog world: I promise I haven't forgotten about you. I know you've heard it all before, but I've just been so busy at school. Not only have I been doing lots of musical things, but I'm officially working my post at the library, as well. That's right, folks, I'm a real, honest-to-goodness reference librarian, complete with thick-framed glasses and a wheeled chair in which to pretend I'm doing actual work.  Life is good!

On the home front, I've been dealing with some minor behavioral "incidents" with Oliver. These have mostly involved raucous trash parties, and some presents of the #2 variety in the living room. I usually call them "incidents" or "on-purposes," because I just know they're not "accidents." But who can stay mad at that face?

I also finally got around to re-upholstering the folding table and chairs in our living room.  This card table and chairs was a wedding present to my parents thirty-something years ago.  I took it with me to Boston when I lived there a few years ago, and my mom helped me re-upholster it then.  While I still love the funky prints we found, they were looking a little worse for wear:

 
I took all of the seats and seat-backs out of the chair frames, and spray painted them gold. This part of the process did not go quite as I had planned, largely because of the plummeting temperatures and blustering winds on my back balcony in Cleveland. I wound up almost completely covered in gold spray paint (as did the back balcony) while the chairs are spotty, at best.  As luck would have it, the set was a golden-beige color to begin with, so I'm hoping I can get away with a shoddy paint job.  Fingers crossed! 

For the upholstery, I used navy blue cotton ($2/yard at Wal-mart) and a sheer pink polyester blend ($1.50/yard at Wal-mart.)  I covered all of the chair pads, as well as the table top, in the navy blue cotton.  For the chairs, I covered the navy with the pink, and I left the table navy.  Cutting out the fabric was simple enough (and I used the previous upholstery pieces as general patterns) but getting the new pieces attached with the staple gun was a battle.  Thank goodness for reliable (and strong-armed) help...I just knew Sean wanted to help me with a project when he visited!  I love the combination of the dark navy, this peachy pink, and the gold frames.  It was just what I had in mind!  Overall, this project was pretty simple: just dissemble the table and chairs, cut out the pieces of fabric to cover the pads, staple them on, and re-assemble!   My favorite part of the new setup is this lacy vinyl overlay that my mom found for me at a local craft store in Pennsylvania.  My original intention was to cut it so that it fit on the table top, but I have yet to do so.  I sort of like the way it looks as a table cloth, so I may try this out for a bit before I snip off the ends.  It sits just under the glass top, and the white lace patterns contrast with the navy table top perfectly.  Since it's vinyl, it wipes clean easily when I (inevitably, and quite often) spill food and/or coffee on it.

Happy Holiday Season, everyone!  I hope you're feeling better than I am today (I'm suffering from my annual "the-semester-ended-so-I'm-immediately-sick" cold.)  But this is giving me some much-needed time to do a little bit of catching up, and Ollie is certainly an adorable sick buddy.  Happy Monday, and thanks for stopping by!

Tablecloth curtains

In keeping with my last couple of projects, I finally finished the curtains that I started a few weeks ago.  I had gotten rather used to them sitting in a semi-folded pile on top of Oliver's crate, but I do think they look better hanging!  They were just so simple, and I'm glad I finished them before the weather really turned to winter here in Cleveland.  Curtains just make everything seem a bit cozier, don't they?

I made them out of some white cotton lining fabric I'd been holding onto for a couple of months, and a teal tablecloth that I found in the clearance section of TJMaxx.  I'm not quite sure what the the tablecloth is made of (it was shelved sans packaging or tags) but I just loved the embroidered detailing...and for around fifteen bucks, it was quite a steal!  Since it was a large rectangular shape, I simply cut it into four pieces (two panels per window) and hemmed the unfinished edges.  To make up the difference in length (since the tablecloth wasn't quite long enough to cover the window) I cut four rectangles of the lining fabric that were about the length of the windows, but with some width to spare (as you can probably tell, I'm not exactly nit-picky with measurements.)  I hemmed the edges, and folded the top edge over two inches to make a casing for the curtain rod.  I picked up some double curtain rods, and that was it!

I just can't get enough blue these days, so I'm loving the added color in my bedroom.  I'm slowly but surely working through my list of home projects...so on to the next!  Happy Friday!

La maison

Greetings from Cleveland!  My oh my, grad school is busy.  Between practicing, lessons, rehearsals, classes, and homework (what's that again?) I haven't had a lot of time for projects.  But I have been trying to come up with some ways to spruce up the apartment a little bit, and I popped in today to share one.  We don't have much on the walls as of yet, so I hopped onto Google the other day, and sought out some vintage images that I could print and stick on the walls.  Lo and behold, I came across an arsenal of copyright-free vintage advertisements.  (Jackpot!)  I picked out my favorite food-related ads, printed them at the drugstore, and bought some basic black frames at Wal-Mart.  I staggered them diagonally on the wall, along the slope up to the ceiling.

Once all was said and done, each picture cost about $1.25, and the whole set cost about $11.00 Can't beat that!  It was cheap, quick, and easy (right up my alley!) and it really brightened up our little kitchen.

Other than general scholastic busyness, I've been enjoying the beautiful (albeit few and far between) sunny fall days, and finding time to spend with my favorite little buddy, Oliver.  Here is one my favorite photos from this week: Oliver (of course) with two of my favorite fall treats (roasted sweet potatos with cinnamon, and a strong cup of coffee.)

 
It certainly looks like Ollie has an idea about those sweet potatoes!  I've got some more projects up my sleeve for the coming weeks (I'm just itching to get behind my sewing machine again!)  so I hope to be back with more soon!  Thanks for stopping by!

Yard sale goodies

Since we moved into our house in May, we've been meaning to pick up a couple of stools for the little breakfast area off of the kitchen.  We struck gold this Saturday when we found two wooden stools at a yard sale for $5 each!  What a steal!  Since the fabric on top was a little worse for wear (and plain white, which just wouldn't do) we made a pit stop at Hobby Lobby and picked up a staple gun and some Ikat-printed canvas.  These days, I'll use any excuse to make a run to Hobby Lobby (I can't believe I had never been to one before this summer!)  It's my new favorite place.

All we did was pop off the seats, staple the new fabric onto the bottom, and they were done!  (I didn't even do any sewing.)  They're just what we needed!

We sure lucked out with this canvas...I love the print!  I certainly haven't gotten the Ikat bug out of my system yet.  Other than a few projects here and there, I've been enjoying my last few weeks of summer before I make the move back to school in August.  But for now...back to a lazy Sunday!
  

(Pink) Covered Couches

Hi friends!  I know I've been a little absent lately, but the past couple of weeks have been crazy busy for me!  Aside from a busy work schedule, I spent some time working on covering the couches in our living room.  We bought them from a nice woman in Orlando who wanted to upgrade her living room set.  While they were in pretty good shape (and we got them for a great price!) I had been dying to cover them since we picked them up.  So without further ado...allow me to introduce our couches!

Since couch covers are so very expensive, I decided to cover the couches with sets of sheets that I found on sale.  Since I wanted to buy the sale sheets (which meant I had to mix and match brands, sizes and colors) I decided to get all white sheets and dye them myself.  Sean and I decided on red, since we have a red fireplace on the opposite end of the room.  Here is where the project got a little complicated: it turns out that it's almost impossible to dye such a large amount of fabric red.  After many runs through the washing machine with boxes and bottles of red dye, my sheets turned out a lovely shade of cotton candy pink.  Oops!  So in an effort to minimize the pink (because it's a whole lot of pink) I added some strips of blue fabric across the arm rests and seat cushions, and I covered the back cushions and pillows in contrasting blue fabrics.  Since I mixed so many fabrics, it distracts from the pink, and it looks so fun and festive!  While the pink is still taking some getting used to, we love our new couches!  

Happy Wednesday!  I hope to be back with more to share soon!

Literature lamp

Happy Monday!  I've been spending all of my spare time trying to get our house put together, and I have a pretty long (and perhaps overly-ambitious) list of things left to do.  First on the list was "living room lamp makeover: take two"  We got these lamps as part of a living room set, and they were a little too "beach hotel" for my taste.

Now that's a lamp, right?  So for my first attempt at a lamp makeover, I tried to do some color-blocking, by dividing the lamp into three sections, and painting one grey, one yellow, and one shiny gold.  I thought this was a genius idea!  Until I realized that the beachy hieroglyphics underneath were really highlighted by the colors, and the finished products lovingly became known as the "cheese lamps."

So my second (and hopefully final) attempt at a lamp makeover involved a book, some scissors, and some Mod Podge.  I wanted to choose a classic book, so I hit the local Good Will, and found the perfect book: James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl (one of my all-time-favorites!)  I cut a bunch of pages into strips, and stuck them on with Mod Podge.

So after this super-easy (and perfect for sitting in front of the tv) project, we have our new "literature lamps!"

I love catching glimpses of this classic book on my end-table, and I just had to include some snippets of the illustrations.  I love our new lamps!

I've been working on some other home projects, which aren't quite ready to be shared yet.  But I had to share this photo of my favorite buddy, and it's a little sneak peek at another project to look out for this week!

Isn't that just the sweetest little face?  Happy Monday and thanks for stopping by!