We’re in the middle of converting our den into a baby’s room. We’re keeping it simple — borrowed our niece Madison’s crib, kept the room painted light gray — and have begun accenting with oodles of girly fabric.

This project focuses on how to make a dust ruffle bed skirt for a crib or toddler bed. Below is what the crib looked like before…

Voila! All the extra diapers, humidifier and accessories are now hidden under a wall of pink below…

The biggest challenge making this dust ruffle project is dealing with the volumes of fabric. But overall, it’s basically easy straight stitching to get a custom bedskirt in your fabric of choice at the right crib height.

Supplies:

• 6 yards pink fabric, 44 inches wide (NOTE: This is based on my crib’s measurements which I’m guessing is pretty standard but please refer to my step-by-step instructions below to measure your own crib or bed before buying your fabric)
• Pink thread
• Quilting pins
• Gridded self-healing rotary mat, clear fabric ruler and rotary fabric cutter
• Good Rowenta iron and ironing board
• Sewing machine

Cut your base piece

Your base piece is the fabric that will go under your mattress; eventually you’ll be attaching your ruffles to all four sides of this piece. Usually store-bought brands use a thin white material for the base piece but I used pink to avoid instances where the white creeps out on the edges …I think that’s sloppy-looking and it bugs me so I say make a colored base piece.

For size, measure the metal crib base underneath the mattress and add 2” to each. For instance, our crib base was 50.5” x 26.5”, so I cut a base piece that was 52.5” x 28.5”.

Cut your ruffle pieces

Cut two side ruffle pieces and two front/back pieces. Again, you’ll be dealing with a lot of fabric here so I recommend measuring twice and cutting once.

For the two left/right side pieces: Measure the width of the metal crib base underneath the mattress, multiply by 2x and add 2 inches. Measure the height of the metal crib base to the floor and add 4”. For instance, our crib width was 26.5” and 18” to the floor, so I cut two 55” x 22” pieces.

For the two front/back pieces: Measure the length of the metal crib base underneath the mattress multiply by 2x and add 2 inches. Measure the height of the metal crib base to the floor and add 4”. For instance, our crib length was 50.5” and 18” to the floor, so I cut two 103” x 22” pieces.

Because I bought 44″ wide fabric and was making an 18″ high bed skirt, I was able to just slice the fabric down the middle to make the two ruffles (they are both 22″ high).

Continue reading “Gathered Dust Ruffle Bed Skirt for Cribs and Toddler Beds” »

Happy Fall! I love this time of year …changing leaves, football, pumpkins, cider, late-afternoon sunshine, scarves. And fun fall crafting, of course.

This paper wreath took me all of about 15 minutes to make because I started with the fabric wreath base I made last year for the Polaroid urban photo wreath. Below I’ve included full instructions but it’s worth bearing in mind that once you make the fabric base you can just switch out elements year after year to make a totally new wreath.

Alternatively, you can buy a kit that contains leaves and a wire wreath, but I like the look of torn fabric and paper together.

Supplies:

• 1 package small die-cut paper leaves (or if you’ve got time, print and cut these leaves in PDF, 19MB)
• Styrofoam wreath 12 x 2-1/4 x 2 with flat front and back
• Burnt orange lightweight denim fabric
• Straight pins
• Piece of twine
• Wreath hanger for doors

Measure 3 inches from the edge of the orange denim fabric and cut a small slit. Holding on each side of the slit, rip the fabric into a strip …just like they do at the fabric store. Repeat until you have three strips. The raw edges are intentional.

Take one strip and pin it to the styrofoam. Wrap the strips around, overlapping as you go around. Secure the ends of the strips with straight pins. Tie your twine to the top as a hanger.

Spread out your leaves on a flat surface.

Arrange your leaves in layers on the wreath front, alternating colors and shapes.

Secure leaves with straight pins. You actually need to use very few …one pin can secure several leaves at one time.

Hang your wreath on your door hook. Happy Fall, everyone!

Here’s an easy, fun and practical gift for new arrivals: Planes, Trains and Automobiles burp cloths. Friends Tamara and Jon recently welcomed Lucas, little brother to adorable Sienna, and I made these especially for him.

Now while this craft has little to do with the classic movie, the idea of using it as a theme made me smile anyway. I reused my airplane shape for this project and drew two new shapes for the car and train. One sewn, I rolled each burp cloth and wrapped with an orange satin ribbon.

Del Griffith would be proud.

Supplies:

• Kathy’s free planes, trains and automobiles printable template (PDF, 136K)
• White cloth diapers for your burp cloth base (wash in Dreft to preshrink and iron before using)
• Blue fabric (you’ll need less than 1/8th yard – wash in Dreft to preshrink and iron before using)
• Fusible interfacing (you’ll need less than 1/8th yard)
• Orange thread
• Paper scissors
• Good fabric scissors
• Pen
• Good Rowenta iron and ironing board
• Sewing machine with a good zigzag stitch
• Planes, Trains and Automobiles DVD – optional good inspiration ;)

First print and cut out my free planes, trains and automobiles template.

Cut a piece of fusible interfacing slightly larger than the cut shape and iron to the wrong side of your blue fabric.

Put the shape face down on top of the interfacing and trace with a pen.

Cut out your shape using good fabric scissors.

Fold the diaper in half. Center your shape about 2-3 inches from the cloth bottom.

Using a tight zigzag stitch, sew around your shape. Remember to backstitch. Repeat for the all three shapes.

Officer: “Do you feel this vehicle is safe for the highways?”
Del: “Yes. Yes sir I do.”

It’s been 10 years now since I lived in Sydney, Australia. Recently we received a gift box (yay!) filled with heaps of Australian beer and food – including my favorite biscuits, Arnott’s shortbreads – as well as a box of Weet-Bix, self-proclaimed “Australia’s favourite cereal.”

Never a huge milk and Weet-Bix breakfast fan, I thought I’d try to make a recipe using Weet-Bix as a primary ingredient instead. This muffin recipe adaptation is based on an Artarmon Public School original and subsequent comments at Taste.com.au.

It’s a rainy day in Chicago, the perfect type to spend inside messing around with recipes. One thing I liked about living in Sydney was that its climate was so nice most of the time that forecasters would simply say the weather was going to be ‘fine.’ Not ‘sunny’ but ‘fine’ …not ‘partly cloudy’ but ‘mostly fine.’ Always got a kick out of that.

So here’s an other-side-of-the-globe toast to ‘mostly fine.’ Now if I can just figure out what to do with our unopened jar of Vegemite?

Ingredients:

• 3 ripe medium-sized bananas, smashed
• 4 Weet-Bix (aka Weetabix when sold outside Australia)
• 1 cup almond milk (I used soy milk because I was out of almond milk; you can also use regular milk)
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
• 2 tablespoons flax seeds (optional)
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chocolate pieces (I broke up dark chocolate espresso Ghirardelli individually-wrapped chocolate that I had in the cupboard)

Other Supplies:

• Glass bowl
• Muffin tin (or Nut cups)
• Potato masher or wooden spoon

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mash bananas in a bowl and crumble in Weet-Bix. No need for an electric or stand mixer …I used a potato masher the whole time.

Stir in the soy milk. Set aside for 10 minutes so it soaks up the milk.

Meanwhile, break up your chocolate bar into chunks and set aside.

Beat together the eggs and oil in a small bowl, then pour into the Weet-Bix banana combination and stir. Sprinkle baking soda, brown sugar and salt and gently mix in. Add flax seeds and flour and stir until just combined.

If your batter seems too thick, you can add a bit more milk; mine was OK but it could fluctuate based on the banana sizes. Gently fold in chocolate pieces.

Spoon into nut cups or a lightly greased muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. I prefer nut cups to muffin tins but only had a few left. When using muffin tins, be sure to take cooked muffins out of the pan as soon as you can to cool on a rack or dishtowel avoiding overbaking. Good on ya!

Recently I took part in the first inaugural Chicago Craft Social hosted by Amanda Edwards, Megan Hall, Megan Heep, and Jessica Jones.

In addition to meeting tons of super cool crafty Chicago ladies, I made these fun retro Paris notecards out of old time-y black-and-white France vacation photos. Table leader Lisa Haskin of Faux Transformations said that her sister-in-law had inherited stacks of old photo albums stashed in a neglected corner of her new home’s attic.

My guess is that the photos are probably from the 1950s. Check out Notre Dame on the left. When I visited Paris, the front area was a landscaped pedestrian walkway but here it looks like people used to be able to drive right up to it.

Lisa also was generous enough to provide her envelope template to create matching A2 size envelopes from lime green pieces of paper. Not only nifty and economical but also nicely coordinated!

I like these photo notecards so much that I scanned in all the original Paris vacation photographs so you can make your own retro Paris notecards.

Supplies:

• 1950s-ish Paris vacation photos from an old family album (PDF, 9.6MB, 300DPI)
• Glossy 8 1/2″ x 11″ photo paper or 8 1/2″ x 11″ 210g white text paper or other heavy paper (for printing photos)
• A2 size (4 1/4″x 5 1/2″) folded notecards in light gray
• Lime green 8 1/2″ x 11″ colored paper (for envelopes and trim)
• Lisa’s A2 size envelope template (PDF, 176KB, print on letter or legal sized paper)
• Cardboard or posterboard large enough to fit the A2 size envelope template (optional)
• Pencil
• Rubber cement or glue stick
• Remoistenable envelope glue (this stuff is cool)
• Rotary paper trimmer OR Xacto knife (this is my kit) and metal edge ruler and gridded self-healing rotary mat OR good paper scissors

Make your cards

Print my free 1950s-ish Paris vacation photos template ideally on glossy photo paper to mimic the “photo” look, or on heavy white paper. I included two photos per template of Notre Dame because it’s just such a great shot. Cut them out using your Xacto knife, metal ruler and self-healing mat.

Next, cut squares of colored paper about 1/8″ larger than each photo. Please note that I kept the photos the same sizes as the originals, so the close-up Eiffel Tower photos are slightly larger than the other two.

Affix one photo onto one colored square using rubber cement or a glue stick; then glue in the center of your light gray folded notecard.

Make your envelopes

Print out Lisa’s free A2 size envelope template and cut out (note: if you’d like, you can trace it onto cardboard or posterboard for a more sturdy template). Place your cut-out template onto a piece of 8 1/2″ x 11″ colored paper. Lightly trace around the template and put it to the side.

Cut out just inside your pencil markings using either an Xacto knife, ruler and self-healing mat or scissors.

(Tip: If you’re pretty good with an Xacto knife, you can cut out a stack of envelopes at one time. Simply stack 5 sheets of paper, use your knife/ruler/mat and to slice through all five layers).

Fold the two sides in. Fold the bottom up. Use rubber cement or glue stick to affix the bottom to the sides.

Fold the top flap down. Here’s a cool trick from Lisa: Spread a line of remoistenable envelope glue on the bottom edge of the top flap. Once it dries, you can lick it to close. Très cool, no?