Monday, November 8, 2010

Crayon Rolls

I absolutely LOVE these adorable crayon rolls to hold the kiddos crayons.  I first discovered the idea over at my friend Kelly-Anne's blog, Crafty Teacher Lady.  She, as I, chose to use an alternative closure to the ribbon that I have seen on so many of these rolls.  I've tried a few different patterns and after pulling stitches and tweaking I think I finally have the perfect size crayon roll!

Here's my little trip down crayon-roll-lane and I hope you find it useful.....

You will need:
3 coordinating fabrics cut to 14.5' x 5'
One of these will need to have interfacing on the back.  This will be the piece you are using as your backdrop.
2.75' piece of stretchy elastic and 1 button
(or you can follow Kelly-Anne's lead and just go with the piece of 7.5' elastic, no button required!)
A ruler
A pencil in a coordinating color so you won't see your lines

First step is to choose which pieces will go where on the roll.  One piece will act as the entire back, one will be the backdrop which the 'pocket' will be sewn to.  The pocket will be one of the 14.5' x 5' pieces folded in half wrong sides together.



You'll want to go ahead and top-stitch across your pocket piece at this point.  Then starting from the middle working out measure and mark vertical lines every 3/4 of an inch.  



You should end up with 1.25' remaining on either end.  This is going to allow extra room for your seam and top-stiching if you choose.


Begin sewing along the lines you made being sure to back-stitch at the top of the pocket.  This is the part that takes the longest!  Just keep stitching.....


Next, on the right side of your front panel (the backdrop & pocket) you'll measure up 3.5' from the bottom.  This is where you will secure your looped piece of 2.75' elastic.  Lay your backing on top of your front panel, right side together, and stitch down the right side being sure to go back and forth over the elastic a few times to be sure it is secure.  Now open the seam and on the back panel measure out from your elastic 4.75' and up 3.5' from the bottom.  This is where you will sew on your button.  I cut a small piece of interfacing and ironed it onto the back panel before I attached my button.  



After your button is attached match the pieces right side together once again and sew around the remaining edges.  Leave a small opening (I left mine on the side w/o the elastic) for turning the roll right-side-out.  Snip your corners to reduce bulk. When you have your roll all turned and ready, sew up your opening - sometimes I even use fabric glue before I sew it just for extra hold.  

You are done!!!  This one doesn't have crayons in it yet but it will look great when it does!  I'm planning on making a couple more in a fireman pattern for my twin nephews for Christmas gifts.  I think I'll pair them w/some GIANT coloring books!  

Friday, November 5, 2010

The Den of Craftiness - pretty much everyone's favorite room in the house!

Thanks to my sister-in-law's unrelenting dog earring and scribbling amongst the pages of her magazines I discovered the absolutely, positively BEST idea for getting my cluttered little craft room...wait for it.....GASP....organized!  If the rest of you are even a little like me then you know how crazy things get trying to create the tiniest of projects!  The pins, needles, thread, scraps, cutting utensils, etc for a sewing project or the scissors, glue sticks, chip board letters, stickers and billions of scrapbooking paper options trying to put your memories on paper can be ridiculous.  And, who wants to clean everything up when your still in the middle of a project?  Nobody, that's who!  Thankfully, in our new home I have a cozy little crafting oasis that is all my own!

And the project begins...my half of a giant piece of peg board I picked up at Home Depot.  I cut it in half and gave Adam the other half for hanging his tools. I happened to have this fabulous limey spray paint hanging around which made the boring brown peg board definitely craft room worthy.


The finished peg board, which I needed to shorten in order to fit on the wall, worked out great as it gave me another small piece to mount over my sewing machine!  I also outfitted it with an all-in-one 60 piece peg board hardware set - it even came with cute little hanging jars for buttons and fasteners!


These boxes are my attempt at organizing my fabric....they are currently overflowing!


The amazing quilt I received as a bridal shower gift from a friend of my mom and the homemade chalk board (fiber board + chalkboard spray paint + my sisters unyielding creativity) Ad and I used for our 'candy store' at our wedding!


Ewww, I didn't notice until now how blurry this was.  Oh well!  I got baskets to organize all of my wrapping paraphernalia.


I hope everyone gets a chance to create their own 'Den of Craftiness' and that you love it as much as I love mine!  

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Dresser Project - my first blog post!



Well, during a major clean out of my in-laws house we discovered some fabulous things and luckily, my mother in law wanted to give them all to me and Adam!  My favorite item being a beautiful dresser which once belonged to Adam's grandparents who then gave it to his parents who are now giving it to us.  Maybe we will give it to our kids one day?!  Although I absolutely loved the dresser, I did decide it needed some sprucing up.  My sister-in-law embarked on a dresser-refinishing-project earlier in the summer and she happened to have leftover sandpaper, primer and paint.  How lucky am I that this project ended up being...FREE!  Here are some pics of my fun project and may I just say I LOVE LOVE LOVE the finished product!  







Isn't the pale pale yellow and the original hardware just gorgeous?!  Can't wait to get the matching chest out of storage and give it the same TLC!