Condensed Milk Painting

I found this idea on Pinterest awhile back while looking for ideas for entertaining the kids.

The older Little Man likes to paint.  A lot.

He would paint everyday if I would let him.

This is a super easy thing to do, however, if you don't want condensed milk everywhere, 

I suggest towels on the floor and close supervision. 

It didn't take long before we were painting on our bellies.

That is usually the best way to paint, according the the younger Little Man.

Bath time immediately afterwards is necessary, at least at our house,

but that just means that you can start painting

faux goatees and temporary tattoos, courtesy of Daddy.

They had a blast, so we'll most likely do it again.

Outside sounds like a grand idea.

Anyway, just mix food coloring into condensed milk.  The mini muffin pan worked great.

It takes rather a long time to dry, but it dries thick and glossy. 

It stays sticky for awhile, though, so you can't really stack them up afterwards.

Don't leave them on the floor, or your dog will try to lick the paint off.  Ha ha. 

It sort of crystallized a bit after awhile too, so I scanned these in order to save them.

I am thinking I'll put a selection of our paintings into the annual photo album,

Then I won't have to feel guilty about tossing them at some point.

As you can see from the last photo, there was plenty of paint left, 

so one can is more than enough.

Striped Pixie Hat In Use

Hello again.

I still don't really have any time to get very much done outside the basics, but we're doing well. Little brother is sleeping wonderfully - love that kid! - and eating constantly. Big brother is a crazy little monkey and he makes lots of work for his Mama cleaning things up.

Work is a bugger from December through January, so I'm running behind on everything right now. Here's hoping that we'll sorta catch up soon.

The whole new year thing motivates me to get lots of things accomplished, and it's frustrating as all get out that I never seem to get any of them done. But I have big plans! I intend to clean/purge/organize this house from top to bottom. I doubt that will happen, but I guess we'll see how far I get. I also need to get reacquainted with my treadmill and finish getting rid of the baby weight.

But I thought I'd show you a few more pictures of my little monkey. Here's the little striped pixie hat that I showed you awhile back. I can't get big brother to cooperate for semi-posed photos for the life of me - he's two after all! - so here's little brother wearing his. These are from back when he was brand new, of course. He's grown a little bit since then!


I could eat him up! I'd forgotten just how much I love baby smells. The soft warm fuzzy head and yummy milk breath kill me.

Here's another freezer paper stenciled t-shirt that I made for the Little Man a while back. Its a stylized version of the Pittsburgh skyline found here.

African Violet Pincushions

How to make an African Violet Pincushion tutorial here.

Tea Poster

Saw this poster a couple months ago at the Keep Calm Gallery and it made me think of Mom. She is a tea person. If you visit her, you will probably end up with a tea cup in your hand.

I thought I'd try to recreate this poster myself and it turned out great. I printed it and framed it for Mom's birthday. I forgot to take a picture of it after I framed it, but here's the poster.


I think perhaps I need one for myself. Then I could add it to the collection of pictures that I love, but haven't actually hung yet. Yup. I have one. You're not surprised, are you?

Salad Tables and Boxes

The other day on Martha, there was a Jon Traunfeld from the University of Maryland talking about making salad tables and he demonstrated building the table and showed a smaller salad box. What a great idea!

I've been thinking about how/where we can put some sort of raised bed in our backyard. The deer are terrible pests. It never occurred to me that I'd have deer trouble in the city, but what did I know? They've already eaten my budding tulips for this year.

Anyway, you can check out the segment and the instructions at Martha's website here, or for more detailed instructions and information, including the smaller salad boxes, download here from the Maryland Cooperative Extension.

Photos from University of Maryland's instruction sheet

More Onesies

I finally bought some transfer paper ($10 for a 7-pack at WalM*rt) and tried my hand at making my own. Easy enough. I didn't realize that the blank spaces would also transfer, so next time I will be a bit neater about cutting them out straighter. But still. I like these. I will have to think of more designs and maybe do these in more colors.

All you have to do is make a design, flip it, and print it out. Wait 30 minutes for the ink to dry and iron it on for about 15-20 seconds. I recommend using a piece of fabric on top of the shirt, because I think I scorched the first one a tad. Either that or its leftover starch, but a piece of cotton in between solves that problem.

Onesies

I dragged The Man into JoAnns with me the other day for something (can't quite remember what) and when we were in there, we stopped in the aisle with their iron-on transfers and found these. He decided that we needed them.

Aren't they so tiny?


I'm tempted to buy some transfer paper that you can run through your printer and make some more. Wonder how well they hold up? These say that they should be handwashed.

Collar Two

I made up another collar for Dutch the other day. I decided to try white to blend in a little better. Okay, so it kinda makes his fur look dirty, but whatever.

The thing that bugs me is that it makes his fur stick up. If I make it any looser, though, it wouldn't be safe to hook a leash to. I've tried that. Bad, bad idea. Chihuahua run fast.

Scraps

I screwed up the size on my iPod cover the first time - again with the not being able to concentrate long enough to add properly - and I made it a bit too small. Voila! Its a card case!

iPod cover and card case. Aww, how sweet. They match......

iPod Cover

I actually finished something else! Its a small miracle! Its an iPod cover. I used the leftover fabrics from my botched bag attempts the other day and some polka dot fabric that I had leftover from something else.

I sewed a long rectangle with interfacing and turned it right side out, sewed the bottom half up with a ribbon sandwiched in between for a flap and voila!


I decided to get all smart and put a long buttonhole on the bottom so that I could plug in the USB cord, but honestly, that doesn't work all that well. I had a hard time getting it plugged in and then cable stayed loose. Egh. I also tried putting an eyelet stitch thing up top for plugging in the headphones for the bag and that worked well enough.

But a cover it is.

Look! I Made Something!

I don't seem to be making anything these days. I have actually finished another 3 doilies (I've got something bordering on obsession with those at the moment) but haven't blocked them, so there's nothing to show there yet.

I had an inspiration the other day, though, and bought a bunch of shirt patterns and Amy Butler's Weekend Travel Bag and Birdie Sling patterns to try. Hopefully those will actually happen. I'm working on a shirt at the moment.

I did, however, finally make a bag that I've been thinking about. Its a very simple bag, but that's just the way I like it. I was having a terrible time using my brain that night and I managed to cut it out 3 times before I got it the right size. I know. I'm reasonably intelligent, but sometimes, I can't think worth a darn. I'll chalk it up to starting way too late and spending too much time home alone with the dog the past couple weeks.

The first time I cut it out, I cut it the size I wanted it, which doesn't take into account the size of the bottom. I wanted a somewhat fat bottom to it. So I added 2 1/2" to the height and recut. Yeah, I'm that dumb. I neglected to add that amount to the sides as well. I sewed the whole thing together (lining and pockets and all) before I realized that. Sheesh.

Third time was a charm. Although I still had one oversight. I wanted the pockets up towards the top of the bag, so that I didn't have to dig through the bag for my cellphone or credit cards or lip gloss or whatever. I failed to consider that putting things in pockets in the top of the bag would make it collapse. Screw it. I did interface and put a strip of plastic in the bottom so that it has some structure. Good enough for me. I'll know better next time, right?? In my defense, it was 2 AM before I quit and crawled into bed.

Anyway. I like it. I'm having a gray phase. I have more ideas up my sleeve and I hope that I can make them without wasting all that fabric again. Well, not wasted. I'm thinking iPod covers with the excess from the bag. That is, if I can measure the iPod all by myself. Perhaps if I start earlier in the day . . .

Doily Part One

I got it in my head the other day that I'd like to try making some doilies. Awhile back, I saw Moonstitches blog with doilies here and here and I've been thinking about them since. I think its the photos that make them look so darn artistic.

If you can get past the whole old lady aspect to them, they're really very pretty, though. I thought about framing some of them and hanging them up. We'll see. For now, I'm just enjoying making something that I can take with me.

There are a ton of free patterns out there - just Google 'em. This one is Autumn Reflections.

Here a Pillow, There a Pillow

I made another pillow today. This one I've been thinking about for awhile too and haven't gotten around to making it. I'm not sure why I do that, but The Man says that I'm afraid to cut my fabric because I don't want to waste it. I think he's right. I have issues. It is just white cotton for goodness' sake.

Photo from CB2.com

This one was inspired by this bedding at CB2. I bought the pintuck foot awhile ago (ack, was it a whole year ago?), and haven't hardly used it, but I did get it out today and tried it out. It turned out really rather well.



I cut the front a few inches larger, because I wasn't sure how much the pintucking might shrink it up. I thought I'd give myself more room and just square up when I was finished, but really probably wasn't necessary. Maybe 1/2" extra would have been sufficient.

A long time coming

I have been contemplating making this pillow for awhile, and for some reason, just haven't done it. After all, how long does it take to make a pillow?

Today I decided I was going to do it. It is made out of Egyptian cotton and shell buttons. I hand sewed each of the buttons in place, because I couldn't quite figure out the button-sewing function on my machine. Any idea how that works? I put the button foot on and put it down on the button with the feed dogs lowered and found the right spacing for the holes and I started sewing. It stitched a few times back and forth and then a few reinforcing stitches on the left. I pulled it off and it was sorta loose and messy looking. Any idea what I did wrong?

I sewed the buttons on by hand instead. I sort of enjoy the hand sewing anyway, although I wasted waaaay too many hours of the day on this, when I really should have been doing other things. But I can't put things down in the middle. Must finish. I have a touch of OCD, I think.

I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I think I like it. I'm having a little bit of an obsession with lace and doilies at the moment. I'm thinking of making a white pillow with a doily sewn on it. Actually, I'm thinking of making a bunch of white-on-white pillows. We'll see if I get around to doing any of it.

Some of the inspiration for the lace & doilies in my head right now comes from Matthew Mead Style and some from these photos from Brocade Design etc.

From Brocade Design etc.

Photo by Paul Lowe.

From Brocade Design etc.
Photo by Paul Lowe.

Ruflle Pots

I went over to Lowes yesterday, because I needed a flower "fix." They had some nice ferns out, so I grabbed a couple to hang on my porch. I also found some ruffled pots that I liked, but they were mustard yellow and purple, so I got some white enamel spray paint and painted them. They're so cute! Yay! I'm so excited to plant flowers. Bring it on!

Dog Collars

I found a link the other day at another blog for Pattern & Paw, who has ribbon leashes, collars and harnesses for dogs & cats. Very cute. I am tempted to buy. I love this collar, but its too big for my tiny dog.

So I decided to play around and see if I couldn't make my own collar. I had to look around to find a clip for it, but Joanns had little parachute clips that I figured would work. I used 5/8" ribbon and backed it with twill tape from Martha's crafts line. I slipped in a small D ring and ta-da!

Its a bit big and I haven't fixed that yet. I was having a hard time measuring Dutch's neck, since he really hates collars and harnesses and leashes. Yeah. He's 8 months old and we never make him wear one. Gonna have to break him of that, aren't we? But its cute.

**edited to note that he's already chewed and broken the parachute clip. As I said before, it was loose and he got his mouth around it and took it off all by himself today - the first day I decided to make him wear a collar.

Paper ornaments

I like playing with paper and making snowflakes and stars and the like. I haven't done much this year because it seems like there has been no time, but this post over at HowaboutOrange had lots worth exploring, I think.

Fluffy girly ruffly apron

Okay, so I decided the other day to use some of my "scrap" pile from the yo yo quilt to make myself a ruffled apron, a la Morgan Moore at One More Moore. Sorta. I didn't make all the ruffles the same size, because my fabric strips were not the same size. So they are graduated with the largest on the bottom.

I think it turned out cute. Its rather girly for me. I like it though. I'm thinking about posting this one up on Etsy and see if anyone bites. I bought more black and white fabric to feed my ongoing black and white obsession and I may tweak it a bit to make more. I don't know why. Because I can.

In keeping with the black and white theme of the post, here's some more. This is my baby. Ain't he growin up too fast?! He's a whopping 3.7 pounds now! In this first one, he was 1.7 pounds.

Doggie Vest

I made my little man a vest the other day. I think its cute, but I don't think he likes it. When he is forced to put it on to go outside, he comes back in the house and rubs his shoulders on the ground, trying to bite the collar. When I take it off for him, he shakes it and chews on it a bit. "Take that, you stupid vest!"

I sent the picture to my parents and the next morning, Dad called me and wanted to know why I was dressing up his dog in girly clothes. Poor Dutch. I guess he has a mean Mom [snicker]. Maybe I should make my parents dog one so he can feel stupid too!

The pattern is here. I love that little red plaid vest on the little guy there. I'd have used something like that if I had seen it. I made mine with prequilted fabric and finished the edges with purchased binding and added a collar.