CRAFT SPACE

I've never had a craft area or room before. I'm so excited to finally have space that I don't have to tidy up in order to eat dinner! Half of our kitchen was just open space with no cabinets, probably an eat-in kitchen with room for a table (or two). We occupied part of it with our desk and computer and now with the addition of the island we refinished, I now have a fully functioning craft space and it's soooo nice. It's nice to have a place for everything and all in one place.

I was even more excited to re-purpose these Ikea spice racks once turned into bookshelves in Aubrey's room and now transformed once again as storage. I had so many jars but no where to display them that was functional - this works so well. I drilled some holes in the sides of the bottom one to slide a piece of dowling to hold the ribbons in.

I just finished cleaning out and organizing all my supplies, so hopefully now I can get started on a few projects.

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

This week I've had a few projects on the go besides the dolls.

First is an Easter banner for the store I sell my shoes in, for their window.

I made a Valentine's Day banner already for them which is still in their window so I was happy when they asked me to make another one!

I made this simple fabric holder that sits under the machine so I have somewhere to quickly discard threads. It also holds scissors and pins. The spot on the far right is suppose to be for a detachable pin cushion with velcro. I haven't made it yet because I use the wrist pin cushion right now.

I've been drafting up all kinds of cloth doll ideas which include:

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

Fox

3 Little Pigs + Wolf

Hansel + Gretel

Goldie Locks and the 3 Bears

I'm really excited to start making the patterns and getting some made soon!

I'll have them for sell in my new etsy shop!
(Even though they are not shoes, but they come with accessories!)

ETSY

I have finally opened my own etsy shop for Aubrey's Closet Shoes + Accessories!

(Click on ETSY link to the right)

I'm excited to start creating some new shoes for spring soon as well as some other kids items!

BLACK APPLE DOLLS

Have you visited the original black apple blog?

She makes the cutest dolls. I just loved the little cat and so did Aubrey so I tried my best at making one. She also wanted a bandit mask that came with some of the other dolls so I did that too.

That was so fun so I thought it would be cute to make a little Red Riding Hood and a wolf. I actually saw a really cute fox and that thought the similar shapes might work as a wolf and it did!

The base of all the dolls was using this pattern which is actually by the creator of the black apple dolls in collaboration with Martha Stewart - You can download and print it from MS site.

 Miss cat by herself | With her jacket and cat purse | With the bandit mask!

 Little Red Ridding Hood before and after costume.

The sneaky wolf as himself and disguised as grandma!

 The three of them fit nicely in this little suitcase. I had wanted to make some different sets that fit inside the case but it's just too small for the dolls. I'll have to find a new suitcase. 

(Visit this blog as a sample of what I mean).

MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM

Thanks to friends who lent us some guest passes, we were able to drive down to Monterey and see the aquarium yesterday. It was a really cute town and I wish we had more time to explore it but the aquarium took up most of our time - that and the stops we made along the way in Santa Cruz and at some produce stands. 10 grapefruit for $1! And they are so sweet, I'll even eat them!

 I think most of my photos were of jelly fish because I love them and they had a lot of them!

 This glass ceiling had waves crashing over it and scared Aubrey at first but she quickly began to enjoy it.

 What should we see next?

 Isn't this an awesome seahorse??

 I thought this was cool - you draw your jelly fish (or in Aubrey's case - anything) and hit a button and it moves up your screen and onto a huge screen on the wall and starts swimming along with everyone else's drawings.

Not to far away was the Dennis the Menace Park

 Have you ever gone down this kind of slide? It's all rollers - it really hurts us adults who go a lot faster than the kids!!

 Then we went to the Fisherman's Wharf for some dinner - seafood of course.

 The best part - we were home by 8pm bedtime!

WORKBENCH INTO KITCHEN ISLAND

I really wanted a kitchen island in our very open kitchen, not only for more storage space but for counter space too (especially sewing) so I was on the hunt for the right piece. It had to be the right height (counter height) and dimension as well as had shelving or drawers for storage. I found a work bench for free on craigslist and they delivered it for us too!

Here's the before. It's really sturdy, solid and well built - all wood.

Jared removed the top piece to expose the plywood.

The plan was to paint the whole thing but once he sanded down the top and it didn't look so bad we chose to varnish it instead. The next plan was to paint the whole bottom section but I started paint parts of it at time as I really liked the wood once it was sanded. I decided to leave parts of the wood exposed.

The work on it was the easy part - getting it into the house was not.

 It took a lot of troubleshooting to get it through the front door, but after some twisting and turning and measuring we finally got it in. Now for the even harder part - the kitchen door!

Jared had to take some of it apart after trying multiple ways to get it through.

 We had to remove the shelf that goes across the bottom so that it could turn through the door. 

This was not easy to do without wrecking it! But he did it and it went through!

 Jared put the shelf back on and it was finally complete!

Then we both just stared at it thinking - this thing is huge!

There's no turning back, we will make it work!

There were too places we could put it. Our original thought is as shown but I'm not liking it against our computer table. It needs to go straight back against the wall beside the stove - but where do we put our computer? Ugh.

 Jared doesn't like the drawers left wood, but I kinda do. I'm not sure weather to put back the hardware (it needs to be cleaned up) or find something new.

We still have to get a piece of paneling to cover the back of the drawers if we decided to keep it where it is, if we push it against the wall, I guess it will be covered by the stove.

THE ROOM

Yesterday I (almost) finished Aubrey's room.

Aubrey and I did a lot of running around from store to store picking up a few last minute things.

 Those little 3m removable hooks to hang the hot hot air balloons.

 I also picked up a a drop cloth from Home Depot, cut it in half lengthwise, hemmed it and hung them as curtains. As I didn't need them to be functional, I was able to just use one. I would like to edge the inside edges with aqua pom pom fringe, but that's for another day!

The hedgehog clock is just hung where a nail was - what should I do on this wall??

 I found this coverlet at Homegoods and I love it. It's so soft and pretty.

I'm just working on the last pillow for her bed. It's a lot of embroidery so it might take a while!

I was going to paint the bed Aqua, which I think would be cute, but I also think I don't need to paint it all. I'm just picturing all the hand sanding and painting...ugh!

Lastly I hung a little string on her bed to hang up her doll clothing (Thanks Aunt Shelli!)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Hope you've had a sweet day!

 

These are definitely not the cutest cookies I've ever made, but after the crafty day I had yesterday, I didn't feel like doing much when I made them last night!

 I've been working on Aubrey's room (once again). It seems like I've revamped it a couple times in the past year or two but moving has been a good excuse to change things up. 

It's nice to be able to remove some of the excess items from her room as they were photography props - and put them out in the garage. I'm slowly trying to create a less cluttered space, but being small it's really hard. Here's my sad attempt at a cushion for the bench - it will have to be redone when I can get an appropriate cushion!

 I had a little too much fun at the fabric store! I made the two patterned pillow cases and this kite one out of felt scraps.

 This one is my favorite. I found this adorable embroidery pattern here and it only took me an evening to do. I'm a big fan of quick projects!

 I also made 3 hot air balloons to hang from her ceiling. They are all done but I haven't figured out a great way to hang them yet. I found these really pretty lanterns at the thrift shop, and just added scraps of fabric left over from the pillows, ribbon, string and little felt baskets.

More photos to come when they are hanging!

Next project is to paint her bed. I've picked an ocean blue. I really wanted to paint her dresser too but it's easier to take the bed headboard/foot board out of the house than the dresser so I compromised with just painting the handles. I wanted to get knew handles as well, but this is a much more economical choice. I painted the handles green and they are drying as we speak - I hope they look good!
UPDATE: I just put the handles on the dresser and I love it:

It's a terrible photo, but I'm too lazy to take my camera out again!

 

Lastly - I made one more pair of felt shoes. I'm loving the bright colors, they are just in time for spring!

T-STRAP SHOES

I got a new pattern this week (not my own - you can buy it here).

I also made some labels for the inside of the shoes. I couldn't believe how easy it was!

I used this tutorial for printing onto fabric using freezer paper.

BABY MOCCASINS

I'm so happy with how these have turned out. I went on a fabric search trying to find something that was not only the right color but the right durability. When you use regular craft felt for a fringe, when cut into little pieces, it become very week and can pull off so easily. I didn't want little hands pulling at the fringe and ending up with a handful! Of course there is the option of using leather or suede but its expensive and I wanted to keep it affordable. Faux leather or vinyl isn't soft enough. I tried some fleece but they were a little too soft and not as cute. Finally I bought some 30% wool felt, but it pulled too easily as well. I was discouraged as I thought I wasn't going to be able to solve this problem. Then I had an idea - spray starch! I starched just the fringe to make it stronger and it worked! They didn't pull off and they laid flat - perfect!