Operation Make More Stuff

I like making stuff. And following lots of really great blogs and seeing different projects and ideas online from time to time gives me lots of ideas and inspiration for things I'd like to make. My problem is that the ideas tend to get emailed to myself, bookmarked in Chrome, favorited in Explorer, a shortcut added to the desktop on my work computer or my laptop, or a picture saved in any number of places. Or, I "save" the idea in my head which hasn't seemed to be working out too well for me. It isn't any surprise that a lot of the ideas never come to fruition. The links get deleted in a haste to clean up my desktop, and the disorganization of things doesn't lead to much inspiration. Last week I decided to sign up for a free Dropbox account and downloaded it to each computer I frequently use. Then I set out compiling all the photos and links and ideas I've saved here and there and put them in folders in my main Dropbox folder. Now when I add something on my laptop to that folder it will automatically sync with the folder on my work computer and vice versa. No more losing links and photos, or feeling overwhelmed by all my ideas. Haha. Couldn't help myself.

Despite my inspiration disorganization, I have recently finished up a few different projects that I set out to and haven't had the chance to share here.

First up was a magazine monogram à la Young House Love. This was one that I wanted to try for a long time and had originally planned to use an actual magazine, but after months of keeping my eye out never found a "C" I liked, so I whipped up my own in word and had it printed and stuck it in a frame. Not everyone's favorite but I really like it.

The next wave of inspiration that hit was a strange urge to do another cross stitch. I've never been a fan of the old fashioned patterns but I find needlework to be relaxing. I really like Subversive Cross Stitch so I decided to drop over to their website to see if there was a pattern I wanted. Instead I ended up finding one that read "Don't Make Horseplay Your Forte". I thought it was funny but not quite "me" enough so I decided to make my own pattern:

After I finished up the cross stitch, I ordered my fabric for my first quilt and was going a little crazy waiting so I decided to use a tutorial I'd found online to sew up a cute little box pouch since I'd never sewn a zipper into anything and thought it would be a fun little project to try and something to keep my sewing machine warm.

One each for my mom and me
(Kaffe Fasett fabric Mom found at a second hand shop)

And one I whipped up for a friend I was having lunch with the next day

So after I managed to get all of my links and ideas organized in Dropbox, I decided to make a list and try to at least work on, if not complete one little project a week. First up was a really cute gathered clutch tutorial I found on the blog Noodlehead.

The first one I made with a cute bird print from Ikea

The second one I made went much more quickly.
It's for my friend Lisa who is going to use it as a cash bag at work
(she was previously using a plain black pencil case.)

And the last one that I made with leftover canvas which made the ruffles more ruffle-y but was harder to sew through

Without further ado, the list (in no particular order):

• Gathered Clutch (tutorial here)
• Cushion for office chair
• Cover Nikon camera strap
• Fabric napkins
• Ruffle Tee
• Apron
• Washers Game
• Braided hex nut bracelet
• Meandering Path quilt
• Monkey bread with cream cheese glaze
• Scroll saw cut-out
• Log end table
• Hexagon patch
• Hoop art applique
• Dog bed

There now. That should keep me busy.

Sugar Pop

Almost makes me want to break out into a Justin Timberlake chorus that throws back to his 'N Sync days. Yeah you know the one. Lame! Anyway, onto the real sugar -- in keeping with my resolutions while still maintaining a pretty solid hibernation strategy until Winter packs up and takes a long walk off a short pier, I ordered my fabric for my first quilt. The books I ordered from Amazon came a couple days ago but I've decided that my first project is going to be made with some pre-cuts and a tutorial I've found online. I decided to order fabric online as I'm less than impressed with the prices and selection found locally (I'm talking to you Fabricville and Sewing World).

The line of fabric I picked is foolishly fun and most often used with projects for babies and small children. And yet somehow it said 28-year-old female to me. These fabrics make me smile.

Can't wait until they arrive!

DIY Calf Stretcher

Along with the meditation bench, my dad and I built an adjustable platform calf stretcher for my sister that folds for easy storage when you're not using it. She has had one on her wishlist for a few years now but they are hard to find and sometimes expensive. She describes her calves as stubbornly tight and although we built it because we knew she wanted one, I was skeptical of how useful a piece of equipment it would be. To my way of thinking there was really no difference between the old "prop your foot against a wall" method. From what I read while researching them, a platform stretcher is really useful because not only can you stretch both legs at once, it shows you instantly how tight your calves are and if one is consistently worse than the other. Once we got it together I stepped on to try it out and fell in love. It feels SO good. I may just have to whip one up for myself.

If you want more details on how we built it just leave a comment and ask!



Credenza Influenza

I don't know what it means but it sure has a ring to it, doesn't it? After the busy evening I had, and a couple of nights with lacklustre sleep, I'm feeling a little low energy. This resulted in the pick-up of my latest kijiji purchase being a tad painful. Ah well, I managed. With a compact car and a boyfriend out of town I had to rely on a commenting comrade for help (and a vehicle large enough to carry it). Thanks Bray! Behold my heavy heavenly friend in all her (former) glory. After photo to follow.

(photo via kijiji)

Meditation Bench and Zabuton

Dave has been starting to practice meditation some but found he was struggling with maintaining posture and that back pain was distracting him. I built him a meditation bench out of pine for Christmas and sewed a cushion (zabuton) out of grey canvas with blue piping.

I won't bother to write out a tutorial or directions but if you found this post while looking for a how-to for either of these items and are interested in measurements or how I made them, just leave a comment and I'll add more information.

(image from here)

Headboard

Last Summer when we moved I decided to remedy the fact that we were without headboard ever since we replaced our boxsping and mattress and got rid of our old bed. In our last place we had a ledge and window above our bed which made the floating bed look a little less displeasing. In our new shiny white bedroom though, it was pretty sad looking. I would post a before photo but due to computer issues including my laptop's hard-drive dying and our external hard-drive misbehaving I can't at the moment. I would also like to apologize for the quality of the after photos as I have also lost my ability to tweak, crop and straighten in photoshop which died along with my laptop.

With all that said, here is the headboard I built when we moved in using Ana White's plans although I made several small changes to the plans along the way.

Double Chocolate Biscotti

I usually do quite a bit of baking around the holiday season. I like giving out trays of sweets as gifts and just having lots of goodies on hand for guests. This year I hardly did any. And now that the holidays are over I feel like baking up a storm! I really wanted to get some biscotti whipped up before Christmas but it didn't happen. I managed to throw a batch together the other day and considering they were my first foray into biscotti-land, I'd say they turned out pretty darn good. I had shopped around for recipes online looking for the most popular/highest reviewed and had my eye on a couple. I ended up using this one though because pretty much all of the ingredients are things I generally have in my pantry. The recipe claims it yields three dozen cookies but I would say that even two is a stretch (I ended up with about 20). I used 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead of 2 following advice I found in comments and I used white chocolate chips instead of squares (4 squares equals out to about 2/3 cup) and because I was feeling a bit adventurous I decided to drizzle some melted chocolate over one side of them. My drizzling skills left much to be desired but the extra chocolate does make them that tiny bit more decadent.

Chalkboard Message Board

I had been wanting to put a chalkboard up somewhere central for us to write lists and notes, etc. on. At first I thought about the mudroom, and then thought maybe the fridge and then when I actually stood in the kitchen and thought about it I realized that the pantry door would be the perfect spot. It's right beside our main entrance, in a spot that you can't miss when you're heading out or coming in. I had been planning on buying some chalkboard vinyl from Winners or Chapters but wanted to wait until I got my hands on some chalkboard markers. I'm glad I did because as luck would have it, I found rolls of chalkboard vinyl at the dollarstore and in an even greater twist of fate the roll was exactly the same width as the door and an inch or two longer. When I saw something similar on this blog, I decided to do cut-outs on the bottom and sort of freehand copied her leaf version but you could easily draw any design on the paper backing and cut it out.

A before and after: 

Project Cost: $1.00

In a not-so-desirable twist of fate, I accidentally ordered waterproof chalkboard markers and have to use Windex to clean them off. I'm rather sure that Santa is planning on putting some water solubles in my stocking though so all will be well.

And just because I can:

Havin' a Ball

The other day I posted a photo of a Christmas project I had started. For some reason this year I have wreath fever and we just may end up with a house full by the end of the festive season. In fact, last week I kept doing google image searches for wreaths to get some ideas. I've seen them before but the photos of wreaths made with ball ornaments were calling out to me. I was going to wing it but decided to read some of the blog entries to get some tips. Almost every single one referenced me back to Eddie Ross' blog where he posted a tutorial. I won't bother with any directions because I followed the tutorial pretty closely. I will add that I wanted to be able to have the option to not cover the top with a ribbon and bow so I tried to hide the top of the hanger and where I twisted it closed as best I could. This was the only difficult part and I highly recommend needle-nose pliers. It can be hard to make the top look uniform like the rest of the wreath when you close it. I did a little frigging and it wasn't too bad. There was one slightly bare spot so I just took an extra ornament and hot-glued it to its surrounding ornaments (making sure the glued spots are hidden in the centre of the wreath.)

Even though it's hung on the inside of our sunroom door, through the glass it looks lovely and festive from the street too!

Let there be lamps.

I picked up this lamp for free on kijiji.

I taped off the fixture and cord using some very advanced techniques and spray-painted the base.

And then added an inexpensive new linen shade. Much better.