Our Cozy Nest: January 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Meet Molly the Monkey

I saw her on Rachel B's blog Made with Love and Glue, and fell in love with her. I thought she would make the perfect Valentines present for my daughter.

I'm pretty happy with how she turned out except for the glue seeped through on her face, oh well! My husband said she was scary looking, I told him he was scary looking! Ya just don't say that to someone who's spent the last 2 days making a stinkin monkey! I thought I had trained him better than that :)!

I love her shoes! Maybe I should stick a cute little bow on them or something!

The best part about this monkey is that the pattern was free. You can find it HERE! If anyone is interested I have enough fabric left over to make another one. I thought I could put it all together into a kit and sell if for like $12.00 if anyone is interested!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

One CRAZY week!!!

Sorry for the lack of blogging or commenting or saying Thankyou for your sweet awards. It has been a crazy week, hopefully things are back to normal.

Thursday my four year old took a trip to the Emergency room, a breathing treatment and 75 dollars later we found out he has the croup. Later that day I had a doctors appointment and found out there was some sort of lump in my stomach that the doctor wanted me to get a ultrasound on. (My 7 year old daughter kept hoping it was a baby, a girl of course). Saturday morning my almost two year old took a trip to the emergency room. I was pretty sure it was the croup. We put him to bed about 10:00 and he sounded fine, and 1:00 in the morning he woke up coughing and could hardly breath. They gave him a breathing treatment and some medicine that he spits right out and makes gaging sounds for the next ten minutes. Monday I had my ultrasound, the technician could feel the lump but when she went to ultrasound it she couldn't find anything, the radiologist said it's most likely a fatty tumor. (Just what I need a little more fat in my body, especially belly area!) Then today I went in for my first colonoscopy. The good news is the colonoscopy came out good (no caner or anything) and hey, I probably lost 5 pounds. I love how doctors tell you they've found something in your stomach but not to worry until they know more. Yea Right, I immediately started thinking the worst!

Anyhow the boys are getting better, and I have some peace of mind! Luckily my mom and little sister have helped me out a ton watching the kids and driving me to the hospital!

I have been working on a project, I think it's pretty cute, but my husband says it's scary looking. I'm going to go finish it so I can post it tommorow and you all can tell me if it's cute or scary looking.

Here's a sneak peek.............

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Framed Fabric Letter Tutorial

I don't know about you guys, but I completely fell in love with this monogram S over at Tiffanys house. I knew I needed one and luckily there was a lot less sewing involved that I had originally thought!

The first thing you need to do is go into Word or Word Perfect and find yourself a letter with your initial that you really like and that is fat enough that you can use lots of pieces of fabric. Then print it off as big as you can. Then take it to your local print shop and have them blow it up to the size you would like! You may want to go look at frame sizes before you do this so you can just buy an already made frame and not have to pay to have it framed. I almost forgot if your initial is not a letter that is symmetrical (the same on both sides if you were to cut it in half) You will actually need the mirror image of the letter so that it's not flipped around when you iron your pieces on. (Does that make any sense whatsoever??? I wish I could explain it better, sorry!)

Now go to the fabric store and buy a bunch of small fabric pieces. (1/8 yard is perfect). You also need either Wonder Under or Heat and Bond. My opinion is that Heat and Bond is easier to work with (not so delicate), but Wonder Under is easier to sew through, so I used Wonder Under. Get enough that it will cover your letter. Place the Wonder Under over the letter (w/fusible webbing on the inside by your letter) and trace it! You also need to buy a piece of fabric that will be the background for your letter, don't make it too small or it will be hard to strech nicely and frame.

Now just draw lines where ever your want the different pieces of fabric to go. Be sure to number them so it will be easier to put together once their cut out. I numbered mine all on the bottom so I would know top from bottom. Now cut them out.

Iron them onto small pieces of fabric that have been cut a little larger then your Wonder Under piece.

Now cut them out.

Ok, from here on out, sorry, no pictures I got too excited and forgot. But it's pretty self explanatory. Iron your pieces on to the background fabric starting with number one. Iron them as close together as possible. Now choose a stitch that you like on your sewing machine, (zig zag or the blanket stitch works great, I don't know what the stitch I used is called but it worked really well also). Start with the stitching the areas where the two fabrics come together and then stitch around the outside! You can click on my picture for a better view!

Then I just went to the local craft store and bought a frame (I'm wishing I would have bought one with a thicker frame but oh, well). I also had them cut me a mat to the size of the frame and then I stretched the fabric around it at stapled it. And WA LA, you done!

Here is the one that my friend Mimi Sue made. By the way, she really deserves the credit for this since she is the one who taught both me and Tiffany how to make one.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment, I will answer them in the comment box too, because to be honest, I am to lazy to e-mail! One more thing, if you end up making this, e-mail me a picture, I would love to see it.

cardswappinmom@yahoo.com

Monday, January 19, 2009

Upcoming Tutorial

I'm working on a tutorial, I'm hoping to have it up tomorrow or Wednesday. Can you guess what it is??? Here is a little sneak peak (sorry it's a little blurry).

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The long overdue promised Home Tour

Before Christmas one of my favorite blogging friends Mimi Sue (and now I know her in real life too) set up a home tour of some of the old historic houses in our neighborhood. I was in heaven, I've wanted to sneak in to some of these house since we moved here four years ago. So today I'm going to show off one of my most favorite homes on this tour. The only bad thing, my cheap piece of hud camera would only take like 40 pictures, so I didn't get near as many pictures as I would have liked.

This is Tiffany's house. We refer to her as "cute Tiffany" hope she doesn't mind. But I've seen her house now, so were like good friends right? I'm pretty much in love with this house. I want this house, no wait I need this house.

This first few pictures are of her front room. Isn't it so cute and cozy! I love the framed S on the wall, I may need to try and copy that idea!

More cute S's! Her and her mom made these beautiful curtains and reupholstered all the furniture in this room.

Did I mention she has two year old twins and is expecting #3? How on earth does she have time to create all this cute stuff?

This is her adorable dining room! I am currently in the process of stealing an idea from this room and you can bet I'll be blogging about it. You can see her chandelier at night when you drive by, (I'm scaring myself, I sound like such a stalker) Anyhow, that's when I decided I needed one!