So Excited for this Pattern Sale!

Coming next week!

From February 4th- February 11th...

the first ever

For one week only, ten pattern designers will be joining together to combine 18 of their best PDF sewing patterns (valued together at over $139.00) and selling them to you for the incredible price of $24.95! That's over 80% off of the combined retail value! That wasn't a typo! For less than $25.00 you will have the chance to purchase a library of resources to get you started on several great projects that you can sew over and over again.

The designers that are joining this sale are experts at their craft. They have been sewing for a very long time and are well known in blog land as well as in children's and women's sewing pattern design circles. Each designer has contributed one or two of their favorite sewing patterns to create a bundle that is sure to please! Whether you are sewing for your own family or making gifts for others, these are patterns that you will love to use.

Figgy's Patterns, Go To Patterns, peek-a-boo pattern shop, Seamingly Smitten, One Girl Circus, Sew Much Ado, luvinthemommyhood, Gingercake, Sew Fearless, Me Sew Crazy... this is the lineup! But you have to wait until Monday to find out exactly which sewing patterns are included in the pattern bundle. I can tell you that you won't be disappointed!

We are offering an affiliate program for this amazing sale too! If you think your blog readers, Facebook friends, or Twitter pals would be interested in buying this bundle of sewing patterns, why not sign up as an affiliate? As a Sew Fab Sale affiliate you can sell the pattern bundle on your blog and earn 40% of all of your sales! Contact Jenny at thesoutherninstitute@gmail.com for more details.

Oh! And there will be a giveaway! The Sew Fab Giveaway is amazing! One lucky winner will win a bunch of amazing prizes from some of your favorite companies and online shops! I can't wait to reveal the giveaway package next week!

Don't miss the Sew Fab e-Pattern Bundle Sale

starting Monday, February 4th!

Sponsored by

The Southern Institute and Fat Quarter Shop

 

We'll see you back here on Monday!

The Sew Fab e-Pattern Bundle is only available from 8 am EST February 4th through 8 am EST February 11th. Due to the nature of the sale there will be no late sales or refunds.

Easy Valentine Canvas Art

I just love having Valentine decorations around the house!  It is so fun to have little Love reminders everywhere.  Especially when those little reminders were totally inexpensive and fast to make!

For this heart canvas art, I used some glittery foam hearts from the Dollar store.  They are for “table scatter” but we all know they have much greater potential than just that.  Anyway, I had a couple canvases sitting around my craft room that I discovered while cleaning up (it was like Christmas!) that I knew would work great for this project.  And the final ingredient: glue.  I used regular white glue, but hot glue would be faster.  I wanted the ease of possibly moving the hearts after they had glue on them, though, so that is why I opted for white glue.

This is so easy, but the trick to it is getting the hearts to make a heart shape.  Start with the bottom point and the top “valley”, and work out from there.

wanted a more random look, so I tried as hard as I could to not make this heart completely symmetrical.  I think that was the hardest part for me!  It was like going against all my instincts.  Still, I am really glad I did.

When you are all done gluing the hearts into the heart shape, let it dry for a few hours before hanging.

My red chicken wire frame was still up on the wall (hello, Valentine’s Day = Red, how fortuitous) so I hung the canvas onto the chicken wire.  I think it has great dimension!   

For this project, feel free to think outside the box.  If you don’t have a canvas, simply glue hearts to a cute piece of scrapbook paper and frame it without the glass in place.  Or, use a scrap piece of wood.  You can even cut out a heart shape from white foam core, glue the hearts on, and then hang it like a wreath!  Enjoy, and be creative!

Working Hard… or Hardly Working?

I tell ya, things have been crazy around here.

It isn’t just the fact that the outside birthday party on Saturday had to suddenly be an inside party because of the rain, and I have about 120 usable square feet for 12 little birthday party girls.  Nor just the fact that the laundry room decided to flood because of the rain on the same day as that birthday party.  And I haven’t done laundry for a week because of worries about the laundry room.  And it isn’t just because half of us have colds and are cranky because of it. 

Things are crazy because I’m moving the girls into a room all together and making a sewing/crafting space just for me!  Floods? Psh!  I’ve got a sewing room to worry about!

This idea has been around for a while, but I was afraid to put all the girls in together because my middle girl just doesn’t go to bed!!  It takes a good 2 hours for her to stop opening up her door or bothering her sister.  I knew it would be trouble if they were all together.  And so far, it has been!  She tosses toys into the baby’s crib and tries poking her with Barbies, pulls her older sister’s hair when she starts falling asleep so that she’ll keep playing, and on and on.  It has been hard!  The sad thing is, she is the most tired of them all come bedtime!!!  I think I’ve lost a lot of hair recently… but we make progress every night, little by little. 

The reason for this room change is that I was going absolutely NUTS having all my sewing stuff in three different places.  My machine was in my bedroom, my fabric in the baby’s room, and notions and my craft supplies split between the baby’s room and my dining room.  I was a very unhappy person, constantly trying to remember where I put my elastic or whatnot (I still can’t find 3 huge spools of baker’s twine, it is like they evaporated into thin air).  So one day after Mike took off for school, I personally moved two rooms all by myself.  Then it took a day for my muscles to forgive me.

Anyway, things are going great so far, I haven’t actually crafted much in the sewing space because it isn’t all put together yet.  I have a ways to go, but at least I found the floor in there now.  My fabric is all folded up nice in the cupboard, but I am thinking I ought to get some organizers to hold them upright, like this from The Girl Inspired :

I also love how her trim is in a jar, I think that is perfectly adorable. 

I also need a way to organize my little odds and ends, like safety pins, metal snaps, etc. and I think this baby food jar storage by Craftiness is Not Optional is awesome:

We’ve already joked around about this on instagram, but if I had a button collection, I’d love to store them in spice jars out on display, like The Crafty Mummy:

After hauling everything out of the baby’s closet that was craft related, I realized I had a lot more vinyl colors than I previously thought!  I had planned on putting them on a dowel system on my wall, but I love how they are framed out with a cute color here, from Honeybear Lane.

I have some dorky, cheap plastic shelving in my room and stuff stashed away in $1 plastic shoe tubs.  I like how I can see into the tubs, but when I see how these containers from Olabelhe are so beautifully labeled, I think I ought to go with something that looks more clean and un-cluttery:

And finally, I’ve been looking for a cute chair.  Preferrably vintage, definitely armless, and I’d love to have a fun color on it.  Alas, my thrift store trips have proved fruitless so far, so in the meantime, I might just spray paint my folding chair to make me happy, like Design for Mankind did:

So there you have it.  I have a goal to have the room completely functional and up to speed on Friday.  Think I can do it?  Now that I’m not in the Project Run and Play running anymore, I think it might be possible!  I need your encouragement though, or I’ll just sit here looking at craft rooms on Pinterest all day ;)

See you soon!

(oh, and my website got a new address!  www.craftycupboard.net.  Yep, we’ve moved on from a plain ‘ol Blogspot address.  Hooray!)

PR&P: Dean’s List

Even the brilliant minds among us need to be stylishly dressed for school!  My nephew is sporting this week’s Boy Clothes theme for me (mother of 3 girls, remember?), so I thought about his little personality as I was coming up with a design.  We joke that he is a future scientist, the way he studies the cause and effect of things, i.e.,  What happens when I throw this toy truck at someone’s head?  What color marker looks best on walls?  If I lock my mom out of the car, will she get mad? 

In keeping with his “studious” nature, I created a look of a smart, savvy student or hip professor, but kept a little bit of spunk in it too!  The coat is lined with ultra soft and warm minky sherpa fabric (although it suddenly jumped into the 70’s and 80’s here for this photo shoot- doh!) and the exterior is a masculine navy twill fabric.  The faux leather details put a little scholarly sophistication on the jacket. 

The sweater is upcycled from a huge old man button-up sweater from the thrift store; I chopped it up and made it a v-neck pullover instead.

I adapted the same Simplicity pattern as last week for this jacket and made it much more masculine (I love how you can change patterns easily to get the look you want!)  The hood I drafted myself, and is also fully lined, and the sleeves have a great leather cuff detail with contrasting blue buttons.  The coat front buttons up above the pockets with leather loops cut on the bias so they loop nicely, and leather-looking buttons to coordinate with the loops. 

The pants are micro corduroy and have leather chevron details on the back pockets and on the side, over the leg seam. I really liked adding the leather details to the pants and coat to tie them together, even if it did take a while!

The pants have an elastic waistband so my nephew could put them on by himself, and the front pockets are lined in a fun navy and white print as a little surprise! 

Here’s hoping he makes Dean’s List instead of the Naughty List!

Now, I’d really appreciate you popping over to Project Run and Play to vote! Why yes, I’d love it if you voted for mine ;) but head on over to see what the other ladies have come up with too!

Getting Valentine-y

Slowly but surely, my little home is reflecting a little L-O-V-E.  First, we pulled out this Heart Specimen Art my daughter and I made last year.  I swapped the black frame for white, and I love it so much more!

I bought this round felt placemat last year at a store… Target?  Dollar store?  I can’t remember.  Anyway, this year I stuck it on top of our bookshelf on a piece of MDF for a pop of wall art!  It is times like this I really wish my walls had color, so you could actually see the white accents…

Also, I took this Kohl’s clearance owl…

and ended up with this adorable little number:

I think he’s so cute.  It is a He.  I bought some books at the thrift shop, and I was so excited to see that underneath the Shakespeare book’s dust cover it had a nice, bright Valentine-red hardback cover.  Serendipity.

My owl canvas is up from last year (and is so happy it has another owl friend), and I put a glass jar of foam hearts (dollar store) on top of a candlestick (thrifted).

My printable is on the shelf too; little by little, this holiday is going to be fully celebrated here!

PR&P: Stripe a Cord

My inspiration for this “Stripe a Cord” (short for corduroy!) outfit stemmed from necessity!  My daughter has very particular taste when it comes to clothes, especially the material and the fit.  I had to carefully pick every item, but now this little drama queen is ready for an evening out with her daddy, looking fashionable in her jeggings, cowl-neck dolman tunic, and stylish corduroy jacket.  Comfort is key for this outfit, and the stretchy jeggings (made using an existing pair of leggings as a pattern) are her current favorite, especially since she can put her boots on without worrying about her pants bunching in the boot!

The sweet striped dolman top is made out of lightweight jersey knit.  It had the perfect drape for adding a cowl neck, so with a few alterations to a pattern made from an existing shirt, the shirt hangs maturely at the front in a little cowl while keeping the stripes horizontal.  A band at the bottom of the shirt and at each sleeve opening finished it off, making it much more than a regular t-shirt!

I finished the neckline using my serger, and then hemmed using a double needle.  The cowl neckline hem is bound to show at some point, so I wanted to make sure it looked nice and clean.

The material is super soft (VERY important to the little fashionista!) and such a cheerful yellow. Because a cowl neck dips lower than a regular t-shirt neckline, I made a spaghetti-strap undershirt from her dad’s old t-shirt to keep it modest and inexpensive.

The crème de la crème of this outfit is the cute and comfy corduroy jacket.  Based off of Simplicity 2526, I altered the pattern to create a more full (almost “skirted”) bottom with pleated front panels, and a pleated back panel.

I completed the look with a row of yellow and white polka-dot fabric-covered buttons down the front. She loved this jacket so much and insisted on wearing it everywhere, including napping on the way to the photo shoot and adding her own touch of wrinkles and drool to the ensemble ;)

I also added a polka-dot pleated lining to the jacket, polka-dot side pockets, and the front faux pockets have the same polka-dot fabric on the underside. The original pattern only had facing; otherwise, it was exposed seams on the inside which is not very professional or finished looking. I basically had to make a second jacket to tuck inside the corduroy shell.

That’s the Stripe a Cord outfit!  Stripes and Corduroy with polka-dot accents. My little girl has worn each piece of the outfit several times now; that means it is a winner!  I am so glad!

Take a minute and head over to Project Run and Play to see all the other fabulous entries, and vote for your favorite!

Yes, Another Pinwheel Quilt

You would think that after making three of these (The First, and The Second), I’d be burnt out.  Well, I kind of am, and probably won’t do another one for a long while yet! This time around, it was a custom order.  Big enough to fit big-girlishly over a toddler bed, and in soft, shabby-chic colors and again in a scrappy piecing way.

The back is this super pretty damask.  I had to piece it together to be big enough, so I had to be really careful on where I seamed it together so the pattern wouldn’t be interrupted.  It’s the little things that make a difference!

The person who wanted this quilt wanted a binding that wouldn’t battle with the front pinwheel pattern and would compliment her dark wood furniture, so I picked out a really light tan, almost taupe, to complete the whole look.  It was really calming, working with all these soft colors, since my fabric of choice is always just happy happy fun fun.

I didn’t even really check what fabrics I grabbed, but I know there is some California Girl in there (a line that I had wanted, it was so pretty and girly!!) and some Marguerite.  There are some Kona solids thrown in too, to mix it up.  The back is a Love Live Vintage print, and I hurried to get this off so fast I didn’t even check the manufacturers.  Sorry! :)

Have a happy Wednesday!