i got a bamboo tablet!

I'm seriously considering pursuing a career in graphic design and so I caved in and got a Wacom Bamboo Create tablet for the (hopefully) future projects that will require it.  I've only doodled on it so far with the Bamboo Paper app that it came with.  Here's the drawings, most original and a couple inspired by other artists:

Thanks for reading!  -Caitlin

home care # 4: make french press cozy

#4 Make French Press Cozy

Week four and another check in the box. Check out my progress here. We'd been wrapping a towel around the french press to keep coffee hot, but there's nothing cute about that.  So, I made a cozy for our french press.  This counts as home improvement, right?

Supplies to make cozy:

• 1/3 yard insulated batting
• 1/3 yard lightweight cotton fabric (I used a simple natural color for the inside, but you can use another fun print and make it reversible)
• two cute buttons (four if you want it reversible)
• two coordinating hair bands
• coordinating thread
• sewing machine
• iron and ironing board
• need and thread

Making the cozy:

1. To make the cozy, I started by measuring the height and width of the area that I wanted my cozy to cover.  I came up with 5.5" x 12".  
2. To allow for a  3/4" seam allowance, I cut two pieces of the cotton fabric and one piece of the batting to 6.25"x12.75".  
3. For the rest I copied the tutorial for making coffee cozies for takeout cups here.  I just didn't use any ironing board fabric and left the opening when stitching around the first time a little bigger, maybe 2.5 or 3 inches.  I also added a rubber band making them two inches each from the top and bottom.  You can definitely make this a reversible thing or not.
4. Voila, it's done. 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo Caitlin

home care # 1-3

Here's the first installation of my new year's resolution to fix and polish things around the house one thing and one week at a time.  You can see the list here.  I'm excited to say that we are ahead of schedule on the list.  Here are one through three for the first three weeks of January.

#1 Reorganize Spices

Since I'm majorly obsessive with organization and I hated that all my spices were in different containers and not that easy to find in the cupboard, I took these two spice racks and got to work.  I already had one of the racks and a friend happened to be getting rid of one that was just like ours.  Lucky!

I took off all the existing labels that came on the spice rack containers and relabeled with better looking labels. I tossed old spices and transferred over the ones that we like to use.  I also organized each spice in the racks alphabetically.  Much better on the eyes and much easier to find what you want when cooking.

#2 Build a Kitchen Cart

Most of the credit for this one goes to my lovely husband Ryan who's learning to be a little more handy around the house. We got the tutorial from one of my favorite blogs here. We made our cart different dimensions to fit our kitchen space.  Ryan went over to a friend's house and cut the wood, came home and treated it with a food safe wood oil and we assembled it together. 

 It has been magical having this in the kitchen, because while our kitchen is large, it didn't come with enough counter space.  Now we have a ton more with this little guy.  It kind of juts out like a kitchen peninsula.

See, it even houses our spice racks.  And you can't see it, but, having the spice racks here clears space up in the cupboards that they were in.  Win-win-win.

#3 DVD and CD Makeover

It's pretty common to not see displays of DVD and CD collections in designer home magazines and books, so I thought it was time for us to get up-to-date with this since I'm really into that kind of stuff.  

We (mostly Ryan) ditched all of the cases and put them into large scrapbooks.  Rest assured, we were able to recycle every part of the cases, we just separated all plastic from paper as we went.  We have two binders for TV on DVD, one for movies, and two for CDs.

We purchased these D-ring (fits standard scrapbooks) DVD sleeve pages in bulk and they hold 8 discs each.  So much prettier than a bunch of cases.  But it opens up a job for me to decorate the now empty shelves that housed these DVDs. 

Thanks for reading!  -Caitlin

homemade laundry detergent

Here's an awesome, easy, frugal and eco-conscious project for you to try.  I love making things and saving money, so this project was great for me.  I got it originally from this lovely blog here. 

To make, here's your shopping list (everything can be picked up in the laundry and baking aisles of your grocery store): 

• 1 - 4 lb 12 oz Borax
• 1 - 55 oz box washing soda
• 2 - 1 lb box baking soda
• 2 - bars Fels-Naptha

Supplies you need from home:

• large bowl to mix in
• measuring cup
• grater
• containers to store detergent in
• label-making supplies (if you want to pretty it up!)

Once you have everything lined up, you just mix together the following proportions and put in an apothecary jar, a mason jar, or any air-tight container:

• 6 cups Borax
• 4 cups baking soda
• 4 cups washing soda
• 4 cups grated Fels-Naptha bar soap 

Then I made it cute with my label-making skills.

You will need about two tablespoons per load.  You can also add a little vinegar to the fabric softener dispenser to make clothes softer and it acts as an antibacterial agent.

Enjoy!

missing tacoma

With so much going on back at home (friends getting engaged, friends getting pregnant, friends starting careers, in-laws buying a new house), I'm starting to feel really nostalgic for the Northwest.  I may have made my homesickness worse by going through some photos I took around Tacoma with my husband before we left for Southern Illinois.  Thought I would share some.  Enjoy!

handmade pillows

I thought I would share one of my old projects.  I made these pillowcases shortly after getting my sewing machine last year.  I wanted to test it out with a relatively easy shape, but added some difficulty with the appliques that I created and sewed on around the edges. I wish I had more pictures of the process to make this post more of a tutorial. 

On the pillows with appliques, I had to do all the applique work before sewing the actually pillow pieces together.  On this birds-on-telephone-wire pillow, I started by hand sewing or embroidering the telephone lines.  On the wrong side of the front piece of fabric I drew straight lines across the pillow and embroidered across those lines using the stem stitch, a basic embroidery technique. 

After that I created all the little bird appliques using felt.  I strengthened the felt with interfacing on each piece.  Then I glued the birds in place with fabric glue.  Once the glue dried, I used my sewing machine to sew along the edges of each applique. They're not coming off, to say the least.

 To finalize the pillow, I sewed the front piece to the back pieces.  This has an envelope pocket.

 These chess-piece/silhouette pillows were very simple to make since I didn't make any appliques for them.  They were so easy, I made two!

 They also were made with an envelope closure.

This octopus pillow used the same technique as the bird pillow. I just had to carefully cut out the eyes after attaching the interfacing and before gluing and sewing the the pillow.  I chose a more complementary/visible thread to border this one. 

Surprise, surprise...I made this one an envelope pocket as well.  I just orientated it differently.  Not necessarily on purpose. 

Hopefully, I will get these guys on Etsy sometime soon.  I just want to get more of an arsenal of goods before I list anything.

easy & free craft: paper flowers

Have to say that I love Pinterest.  I get so many crafting ideas that lead to more crafting ideas.  These paper flowers were super easy.  And free.  I got the tutorial here.  For the vase and branches I just grabbed what I had, searching the backyard for the branches.  I just picked them up from the ground in about a minute.  The entire craft took about 10 minutes and that's with the dog interrupting me to snuggle.

 It makes for a really inexpensive way to bring seasonal color into the house.  I love it in the entry way.