Star Wars Party

Now, this wasn't my party.  I just attended it.  My sister-in-law threw this going-away party for a co-worker.  But she worked her butt off, and it turned out so great I wanted to share the details.

First, here's my sister-in-law.  Great costume, right?  I think she bought some parts for it, and then made the rest.  Not sure which parts though.

Here's a jedi making drinks.

My wookie husband and his brother.  His brother made a lot of his costume out of pvc pipe using a heat gun.

She went all-out with the details, they were great.  A lot of them were store-bought (which is fine, but I just love hand-made things.  There are a couple of clever things that she did that I'll show you).

She had these wanted posters printed out and posted on the inside of the door.  She burned the edges to give it a nice effect.

This was a cool idea.  Two whole walls of her living room are windows, so she covered them with "outer space".... I'm not sure what they were.  Maybe plastic table cloths?  Some kind of vinyl.  It blocked out most of the light, but it shined through where the stars were, looked very cool.  it was hard to get a good picture of it.

This was one of my favorite details.  Not sure if you can see these too well in this picture, but she took star wars pictures and replaced her family pictures with them! Funny and clever, right?  I just loved that.  Going to use that idea for my next party.

Last picture, just for fun:

Han Solo Vest

One of my husband's co-workers is going on to a new career, so we had a going away party for him... a Star Wars themed going away party.

I decided to go as Han Solo.  Just because.  I assembled as much as I could.  Got some pants and a shirt from a thrift store (and ribbon, to glue on the sides of the pant legs) (by the way, it was hard to find a shirt with the right kind of collar.  What I got was a button-down and a bit too small, but it would do).  Bought a blaster and spray-painted it black.  Got a holster.  The only thing I absolutely could not find was a suitable vest.

So I had to make one.  It's significant that I point out here that I've never sewn any clothing in my life.  But, I got some assistance from my mother-in-law, and the vest turned out pretty great.  I actually really love it.

I used an old t-shirt to draw a pattern on, cut it out, and traced the parts in paper.  My mistake was using a somewhat form-fitting shirt to do this with, and the first time the vest was way too small.  So I added an extra inch or two to the side seams, and a good two inches on either side of the vest opening, and yay! I had a vest that fit.  (Sorry the vest is black on black.  Hard to see the details.)

The only detail I didn't put on from Han Solo's vest was a bit on the upper back.  It would've taken more time, and I was kind of burned out by that point--all the adding on and adding on to make the vest fit right.  So I just did the pockets and left it at that.

There's me in my costume (minus the holster).  Not bad for my first vest.  Not really a great picture, but not a bad vest. (In my defense, I just had a baby three months ago.  I'll lose the weight eventually.  Probably.  Maybe.)

Next week I'll show you pictures from the party.  I wasn't the hostess (my sister-in-law was), but it was pretty awesome and I wanted to share.

Memory Book Alternative

I told you in the last post how my husband's grandmother had me make a memory book for each of her grandchildren to hold all their letters, artwork, and pictures from over the years.  But one granddaughter had only sent her two things: a postcard and a small drawing.  Not enough to make a book.  So we had to come up with another idea for her.

Ta-da!

We decided to frame them, and I taped pictures of her all around the matte.  Grandma's personal letter is written on the bottom edge of the matte.  And, of course, there are a few stickers.

We used a frame that I already had (bought on clearance) that came with a matte.  I trimmed all the pictures to the right size and used double-sided tape to stick everything on.  This was way easier than making the covers for the memory books!

Memory Books

Recently, my husband's grandmother approached me to ask for help with an interesting project.  Over the years, she'd saved every letter, drawing, and card that her grandchildren had ever given her.  Included in the pile were some first-time whittling sticks and a harmonica.  She told me that when she was a girl, she had written her own grandmother a letter.  Years later, her grandmother had given it back to her, and she'd been so touched that her grandmother had kept it all those years, that she decided she wanted to do the same for her grandchildren.

She had kept all these treasures in file folders over the years, to be given to her grandchildren when she died.  But then she realized that she wasn't sure she wanted to wait that long, and that there had to be something nicer than a plain file folder to put them in.

This is where I came in.  She wanted me to come up with a couple of ideas of how to... return the letters in a nice way.  I came up with a few, from decorative boxes, to scrapbooks, to display boards.  We eventually settled on a more economic option:  a handmade memory book.

Each grandchild would receive a book.  I made all of them using an inexpensive, white one-inch binder and covered them in fabric.  Then we put all the work from that grandchild--and some pictures--into sheet protectors and put them in the book.

Did I mention she has twelve grandchildren?

A few are missing, but here's most of them finished:

 I'll focus on my husband's book to show you how I did it.

The covers were fabric that I already had, his grandmother picked out which ones she wanted to use.  The names are made with fabric markers.  At first I was printing out the names in the size and font I wanted to use, then cutting them out and tracing around them.  But finally we switched to stencils and it was a whole lot faster.

To hide the edges of the fabric, I glued some decorative paper on the inside covers.  (I hot glued the whole cover).  Here is also where I glued the odds and ends, like the whittling sticks (my husband's) and the harmonica and a button.

His grandmother wrote a personalized note to each grandchild, that we included in the beginning of each book as the first page.

We included pictures, and had fun stickers on most of the pages (not many on this one though...)

Artwork and letters that were one-sided we mounted on decorative paper (unless it took up the whole sleeve, then we didn't bother).  I made to sure mount any envelopes used (they included the child's handwriting, and the date sent on the postmark) and any cards I mounted on top of the sheet protector instead of inside, so you could still open it.  Forgot to include a picture of that.  I mounted everything using double-sided tape.

The nice thing about the sheet protectors is that artwork and letters that use both sides of the paper is easy to display.  Also, it's easy to add to the book, because all you have to do is put in another sheet protector.

For my husband we had to make an "Unfold Me" page.  He was the only one we had to do this for, because he sent his grandmother some huge drawings that we couldn't show in the book, except to keep them folded up and in a sheet protector.

Back inside cover.

His grandmother was very happy with how the whole project turned out.  And so am I.

But, there was one grandchild who had only sent two letters to her grandmother.  That's not really enough to make a book from.  Next week I'll show you what we did for her.

Pocket Kitchen Organizer

So I saw a picture of this somewhere, and thought, "That's what I need!"  I have a pile of lists, coupons, pens, etc. always cluttering my counter, so I found this to be the perfect solution.

I used a piece of cardboard and some fabric that I already had, and hot glued the whole thing together.  Four strips of fabric and a line of glue down the center made a total of six pockets.

New Quilt

This is a quilt that I finished last summer as a 30-year wedding anniversary gift for my parents.  It probably took me a year to finish (it was originally a housewarming gift when they got their new house...).  And it still isn't as large as I intended--I just got burned out and couldn't make any more squares, even though I had cut out all the pieces.  I'll keep them though, and maybe I'll use the same pattern for something small later.

Quiet Book, Part 2

Here are the last five pages of the Quiet Book I made for my son to keep him busy during a long flight.

I took this idea directly from a Pintrest post I saw.  The bees move back and forth, and the flowers move up and down (like they're growing! Isn't it cute?).  The bees and the flowers are made out of felt.  How did I never realize before how easy felt is to work with?  It's amazing!

Ok, the phone handle is a little small and wonky, but I love that it's velcroed down so he can pick it up and play phone.  The numbers are foam.  And on every page of the phone book I have a picture of someone in his life (mom, dad, grandpa, grandma) along with their phone numbers.

This page was my favorite, and the one I'm most proud of.  My son loves trucks (what little boy doesn't?), so I made this page especially for him.  The clouds are velcro, the tires held on by buttons, and the guy and the dog are finger puppets that you can take out of the truck!  I felt so clever.  Speaking of felt, all the elements of this page are felt.

Except for the last page, I'm not taking any credit for the page ideas I've made.

Quiet Book, Part 1

Inspired by a few ideas on Pintrest and motivated by an impending airplane flight with a two-year-old, I made a Quiet Book.  I think this is the first major creative project I undertook since my kids were born.

This is the cover.  My son's name is obviously Max.  When I first set out to do this, I planned to sew EVERYTHING.  I quickly realized that a hot glue gun and fabric markers was much, much easier.  I did sew all the pages, though I realized later that felt would have been easier.  And using fabric from old t-shirts for some of the pages...while nice for texture and color, is a real pain to sew.  It's all stretchy and gets all weird while sewing.  Eh, live and learn.

I originally made a hard cover for this book, but besides the fact that I couldn't gromit it with the materials I already had, I realized it wouldn't travel well.  The cloth cover worked much better.  And I held the whole thing together with binder rings.

This is the first page.  I actually used the star from an old bib for this, and put some velcro on the back so my son could tear it off and stick it back on again.  Everyone online said that two-year-olds love to do this and it keeps them busy for quite a while.  Mine was not interested.  At all.

This was the page my son spent the most time on.  It's just beads on string.  I didn't like how it turned out (because I kept messing up with the fabric markers), but he really liked playing with the beads.

Last page for today.  Simple little number flaps.  Pretty much explains itself.

Check back next week for the rest of the quiet book.  The pages I'm most proud of are yet to come!

It's been a while...

So...

Yeah, it's been a couple of years since I posted anything.  Sorry.  Had a few life-changing events happen, which set off a creativity dry spell (curse you pregnancy hormones!).

But, now I'm back, and I have lots in store for you!

I already have a quiet book to show you, a new quilt, and a couple of themed parties.  So come back next week to see what's new!

Already Bungled Up the Next Project

This may not look like much, but I probably spent a few hours just on this little bit.

And then last night I realized that I messed up.  Big time.  Let's see how!

Notice below the lovely horizontal format of what the finished piece will look like.

Now compare that to mine!

Yup, I'm a genius.  I think it took an hour to take all the stitches back out.  Now I'm a little worried about running out of thread.  That's the worst thing about kits, the "specially dyed" colors that you can't just buy more of if you run out.  You have to call the company.  It's nice that they send you more free of charge, but it's still a hassle.