TeePee

I have wanted to make a teepee for years.  I finally got really excited about it in December (I think I was hoping to put off other responsibilities by getting sucked into a project.)  But I only bought some fabric in December and didn't really get going until January.  LOVED this project.  I saw several great ideas on pinterest and settled on stripes, even though I knew that would be more expensive and lots more work. 

Browsing through fabric was half the fun.  I found some beautiful prints at JoAnns and several great geometric designs at Hobby Lobby. 

I made a paper template and kept laying down fabric in different combinations until I found one I liked.  I decided to sew a 5 sided teepee because I like the look of a more rounded structure. 

And done!

I don't have a serger so sewing all the seams and then going over the raw edges in a zigzag took some extra time but it wasn't too bad actually. 

I knew I had to embellish with real feathers and LOVE the ones I found at Hobby Lobby.  I decided to use PVC instead of real wooden dowel because it was so much cheaper ($10 instead of $60 total) and I painted the PVC gold and used a little washi tape for decoration. 

I used bias tape for the door.  Happy to report that Lucy loves it and in fact she slept in there for the first 3 weeks!  It's a fun addition to our playroom and will hopefully last for a long time. 

Chair re-do

We have been looking for a chair for the corner of our living room for about 4 years. Stupid right? But I didn't want to spend ridiculous money and I refused to busy something affordable that I didn't love. Then when we were in Canada last summer I came across a picture of a reupholstered couch in a magazine. I was instantly in love with the fabric. I tried searching for it online but came up empty handed. A few days later I pulled out the magazine again and realized that the fabric name was included in the article!!! ya-hoo.

So I found a super creepy chair on Craigslist for $35, stripped it down to the bone, scrubbed it with bleach and vinegar AND let it sit in the sun for several days, refinished the wood (with Curt's help) and recushioned/covered the chair. The stripping was fun, everything else was pretty much torture.



I think recovering is a lot easier when you can keep the orignal padding. Making it all fit and look smooth proved to be pretty much impossible. I still havne't finished the nail heads that are supposed to line the borders. I'll get around to it.

I still adore the fabric and mostly I'm glad I did it but just don't look too closely. :)

Valentine's Crayon

It's a well know fact that I have a lot of trouble throwing things away. It pains me. So the crayon collection has been seriously out of control for years. I have bags and school boxes of crayons. Wait- had. Because Isaac has been asking to make a giant crayon for a few months now. So I finally bought one of those silicone mold baking pans and...

We now have a non sugary Valentine's gift for the school exchange. Isaac and I worked on them for hours yesterday. Turns out that de-papering crayons is no small task. We did discover that a sharp knife really expedites the process (and of course my boys love any project that involves a sharp knife). One of the neighbors even came over to help.

In truth I have a lot of anxiety around Valentine's Day. And no, it's not because Curtis refuses to acknowledge the holiday (I made the mistake in college of telling him I thought it was pointless and only continued b/c candy/card and flower makers guilted us all into it- he still holds me to that.) Actually though, my trauma is from nightmarish episodes of forcing my boys to write out all those names on the Valentine's. The problem is threefold:

1) Until recently, my kiddos didn't love writing and 20 cards proved to be pretty stressful for them

2) I procrastinate and so usually we're whipping out Valentine's the night before or gasp!-morning of

3) Storebought Valentine's are printing on strangely waxy paper- that CANNOT be written on (easily anyway)

So this year I kept thinking I would like to print our own out. Then I saw these from I am Mama, Hear Me Roar. When I first looked at them they seemed over-the-top but I couldn't get them out of my mind and... they actually came together quite quickly. I guess it helps that my kids are older now and can do most of the work. I had the snack bags and card stock for printing and of course the crayons. So all I bought was the candy and silicone mold. We'll be doing more this weekend- it was actually a lot of fun to work on together. Love to see links or hear other ideas!

Thanks Designmom

I love the idea of homemade Christmas gifts but really haven't done much in the past b/c the boys were young and it seemed like I was just doing most of the work. But they're getting older now and I've been inspired by lots of great ideas online. Since Jonah has been home from school we decided to spend some time working on his gifts. Found a great tutorial here from Designmom and had a lot of fun today making a few shirts. I sent Jonah out for a bit and made one for him too. Shhhh...

Curtis totally belives in Sasquatch (or bigfoot as us yanks say) but he'll try to play this shirt off likes it a joke.

Jonah's a huge Percy Jackson fan so I think he will love this one.

Isaac's really into smiley faces (mostly because Jonah was recently really into smiley faces) so this one should make him happy!

Explosion with noises- yep, this one's up Dan's ally.

These were really simple. I found the shirts at Old Navy for $5 each and bought some letter stickers at Hobby Lobby for $2. We used contact paper for the cutouts. One thing I noticed is that old, dark shirts work so much faster than newer, lighter shirts. If I do it again I'll try to find some shirts at Goodwill.