Moses Basket Makeover

This is not a tutorial exactly (as I was too lazy to take photos while I was doing it), but I thought I'd give you a bit of a rundown of how I revamped this basket to help out if you are thinking of doing a similar project.

So with little S I had borrowed a bassinet from my cousin, but I can't for this one as said cousin is also expecting soon!  Of course what I love are moses baskets.  Particularly the really nice modern organic designer moses baskets.  Oh look, that one is $350.  Plus shipping.  To Canada.  Not going to happen!

So I picked this one up for $30 from a lovely lady on our local facebook swap group.  It's a jolly jumper basket on a rocking stand.  It's from 2003 and is obviously not terribly gender neutral.  Also, all the bedding and the rocker seemed a bit big for the basket itself.  Not sure why.  Also it has ruffles.  I don't really do ruffles.  But $30 is pretty awesome.

For this project I used:
- 1 yard cute flannel fabric (it was barely enough)
- 1 metre (yes I buy my fabric in the US and Canada) brown flannel
- 1 metre(ish) unbleached factory cotton (you could use anything, it doesn't show)
- 1 metre nice quilt batting
- 2 things of green ribbon
- wrapping paper

I stripped off all the bedding and the hood and made a pattern for the basket with the wrapping paper.  I made a piece for the bottom of the basket, and one for the sides.  The side piece was half the basket on the inside, I then reused it for the other half and the outside.

Prewash everything.  You don't want it to shrink after you spend all this time fitting it.

Mattresses:
- Using my bottom pattern piece, I cut enough flannel and batting to make 2 mattresses.  So 2 pieces of the brown flannel and 6 of the batting per mattress.  I cut them all with a lot of seam allowance, I should have done even more.

- I layered the mattresses with 3 pieces batting, two of flannel then three pieces batting (think, right sides together).  Then sewed all the layers together around the edge, leaving a hole for turning.  I flipped it right-side-out and ran a few seams across the top to quilt it (so that it would hold together better in the wash) and then hand sewed the hole shut.  I broke a normal machine needle doing the top stitching, and a serger needle when cleaning up the edges. C'est la vie.  Be careful, it's a lot of work for the machines.

Basket Cover


I wanted to have it be soft and comfy but not poofy or sloppy, there are a lot of tutorials for big fat fluffy bumpers for these baskets and that just doesn't strike me as terribly safe.

- I cut one piece of the factory cotton for the bottom.

- For the inner sides I cut 2 pieces of cotton, two of flannel, and two of quilt batting.  One layer of batting was enough to make it soft (so you can't feel the basket through the sides) without being poofy.

- I then layered one each of the cotton, batting and flannel.  I measured where the hole for the handles would be and sewed the edges there first to have a finished hole.  Then I ran some quilting lines up them.  So I had two quilted sides and a one layer bottom.

- I then did a lot of pinning and trimming and sewing together until I had it perfectly fitted to the inside of the basket.  Thus the seam allowance.  I am no expert in these things, so it was good to have some wiggle room.  Because of the shape of my basket, I was very careful to line up the curve where it slopes up at the head when pinning.

- For the outside, I used my side pieces again and cut two pieces of the cute flannel.  These were shorter because I was running out of fabric (plus, they would be shorter anyway), but the important thing was the shape of the top of the piece.  Especially with the way my basket is taller at the head.  I again measured where the hole needed to be for the handles and finished that bit of edge.

- I sewed the outer pieces first to the inner pieces (right sides together) at the top, leaving the hole open for the handles.  Then the two outer pieces together.  These weren't as tightly fitted or I wouldn't have been able to get the cover on and off with the shape of the basket.

-  Then I pinned the bottom edge all the way around the basket to attempt to make it a straight line (it totally was, until I added the elastic later.  Curses) and hemmed the edge.  This was getting a bit awkward to do with the sewing machine...but it worked.

- Once everything fit nicely I finished all the raw edges from the back of the cover, so that it will wash up nicer.  I used the serger till I broke the needle and then used a zig-zag stitch.  Either way is fine, just finish the edges and trim off the excess bulk.

- To make the cover tight while still possible to get on and off, I added a bit of elastic to the seam at each end.

The Base

- The base has a white plastic band around it to hold the basket.  You couldn't see it before because it was covered by gingham ruffles.  It wasn't put together quite right and thus was too big for the basket.  I didn't want the basket sliding around when it was being rocked so I got Craig to unscrew it and make it tighter.

- Then I wrapped the whole band with some pretty green ribbon (I hot glued the ends) to cover the plastic.

So there you go!  Tadah!  I totally think this is as cute as the designer versions.  And I only had to buy the basket, batting,and the ribbon as I had everything else kicking around the sewing room already.  So probably spent about $40 total, although it could probably cost up to $100 depending on your fabric choices.

I'm super happy with it, and glad to make something new just for baby #2!

Sorry Dora

So I've been looking for a chair for little S for a bit now. I was thinking of finding one of those foam chairs to recover, but when I found this one at the consignment store I thought it was way cuter. Except for Dora. No offense to Dora (well a bit of offense, her eyes are super creepy!) but she doesn't get to live in my living room.



So the padding comes completely off this chair, and has these zippers so that you can take out the foam to wash it. This seemed like a great idea to me, but I was way to lazy to deal with sewing three zippers and two pockets and whatever all else. Therefore, I took the easy was out and simply seam ripped the front section off, used it to make a pattern for a new front, and sewed it onto the existing back. Took me a total of...maybe two hours? Less than her afternoon nap yesterday.



What does little miss Bed Head think?



She loves it of course! Well, she loved it before too...but now I love it too! And I'm pretty proud of myself for not letting it sit around for months or years like I usually do with furniture that I say I will refinish. Maybe if that living room chair had Dora on it, it would be done already?

Printing on Fabric with your Computer - Part 2

You can view Part One HERE

9) Get the washing machine ready to go. Use a mild detergent or Bubble Jet Set Rinse. Use cold water and a lot of it. I haven't had the guts to try this in a front load.


10) Rinse the fabric quickly in a bowl of cold water with a little detergent to get the worst of the excess ink off. Hold the top corners and pull through the water towards you. You don't want the fabric to fold over on itself, this can lead to colour leaking onto a different part of the image.



11) Put the fabric face down in the washer. Try not to let them lay on top of each other. Wash (short delicate cycle).



12) Run them through the dryer. You don't have to be paranoid about leaking dye anymore, the colour should have set. Tadah! Custom printed machine washable fabric! Now go sew something with it!

Printing on Fabric with your Computer - Part 1

So I'm doing some printing this week as Craft Fair prep. A lot of people have asked me about the fabric printing so here's a step by step as to how I do it. There are directions on the bottle, but I didn't find them to be specific enough and did some research after my first failed project.

Here's what you need:
Fabric - %100 Cotton
Bubble Jet Set
Mild Detergent
A clean cake pan
Full sheet labels
Iron
Scissors
Ink jet printer
Large bowl
Washing machine


1) Cut your fabric to a bit bigger than what you want (in my case bigger than 8.5x11). It will shrink some (you don't need to pre-wash) and you need trimming room. Use 100% cotton. I've also heard that you can use silk, but I haven't tried.



2) I pre-treat with Bubble Jet Set 2000. You can order it online. This makes the print washable.



3) Get a clean dish or tub and pour a little BJS in. Then lay a piece of fabric in, add just enough more BJS to saturate it. Lay the next piece of fabric in a press it down (wearing gloves) to soak up as much liquid as you can, then add more to saturate. This method is less wasteful and less clean up then what the bottle says (which is to pour the whole bottle out and soak the fabric, then pour it back in the bottle).



4) Let it sit for 5 minutes, then hang to dry.


5) Iron the treated fabric onto a full page label. I've tried freezer paper and found that it doesn't work nearly as well, not heavy enough for the printer. It could just be cheap freezer paper though. Make sure that the label is fully adhered with no bubbles. Bubbles will snag in the printer leaving you with a white streak.




6) Trim the excess fabric. Be neat about it so that the printer will be happy.


7) Print your image, hand feeding the paper backed fabric to make sure it doesn't jam. Mine likes to jam, kind of guide it in so that it doesn't curl funny. If you want the colours to be vibrant you will need to start with an overly bright image, as it doesn't show up as bright on the fabric.


8) Wait ten minutes (I don't, but you should) then peel the backing off. Put the fabric somewhere safe to set for 24 hours.


Go to Part Two!

How to prettify your ugly cupboards

This is Jen. Jen is sad. Why is Jen sad? Probably because her kitchen is soooo ugly. Actually her whole basement suite is rather tragic. Thus begins our mission to make Jen's kitchen cute! (please note that Jen is not sad because of the cookie. I made that cookie and it is awesome). Our first project was to liven up her sad little cupboards.

For this project you will need the following:
- White mactac
- coloured mactac
- a good craft knife (you can use scissors, but the knife is easier)
- a pen
- a ruler
- a cutting surface (I used a cardboard box)


First off cut a strip of white mactac that is slightly wider than your cupboard. On the back, draw a fun design. Yes I'm an artist but you too can draw a design like this. Just draw some bumps like a preschooler's cloud. Or leaves.




Cut out the design. Keep the outline piece, not the cutout piece.


Slowly and carefully apply the white design to your coloured mactac. Use the ruler to push it flat as you go. It's best to unpeel it a bit at a time to avoid a mess. Mactac does not peel happily off of mactac, believe me.


When you are done, it should look something like this. You might be thinking that it would be easier to just cut the design out of the coloured mactac and stick the white behind it. It is not easier. It is death. It made me want to stab things with my craft knife.


Now, cutting through both layers of mactac, trim the top so that you have an outline of about a centimetre. It's hard to explain...so look at the picture.


Okay, so your cupboard decal is created. Look at it for a moment and enjoy. Now stick it on the cupboard. Make sure you line it up carefully, then apply it a little bit at a time, again using the ruler to press it down as you go. If you screw up, just peel it off a bit and then try again, it should peel off really easily.

Then trim the edges by holding the ruler along the edge of the cupboard and running the knife down the ruler. This is much easier then trying to measure it ahead of time and line it up.


Repeat for remaining cupboards! I also did some circles. For fun.


And there you go. It's not going to turn your kitchen into solid cherry and chrome, but it sure brightens things up. And doesn't harm the cupboards if you're renting.

We also got some new tea towels. Hung a mirror on the opposite wall and replaced the box of salt with a cute salt bowl. Oh and we bought tins by buying really gross cookies at chinatown so that we could put utensils in them. Jen is much happier in her kitchen now.

DIY Window Fun

Tools Needed
-Contact Paper (like MacTac). I used a frosted glass look. My design used 3/4m.
-Pencil
-Measuring Tape
-Scissors or Craft Knife
-Window Cleaner
-Credit Card

1) Find a boring window. Look how boring my window is. And it's a townhouse, which makes it all the more tragic. I like to stand out a bit.


2) Spread the Contact Paper out on a table, backing side up. Use the pencil to draw the design you want. I chose bamboo because it's just a really easy set of shapes. If you aren't the artsy fartsy type, you could trace a design or use a stencil. A stencil would work really well. Use the measuring tape naturally to make sure that your amazing design will fit well.


3) Cut the shapes out. If you are afraid that you'll get them mixed up you can number them, or stick them up as you go. I used scissors, but next time I'm going to try harder to find my pretty craft knife. Hard on the hand with all the cutting.


4) Clean the window, we will be sticking them on the inside of the window, but I cleaned both sides because the outside was nasty. Please ignore the streaks in the photos, geez, flash makes them look a lot worse.


5) Unpeel the bottom of the first shape and carefully stick it to the window. Then use the credit card to smooth the rest of it down to avoid bubbles. The backing will push off as you go. Repeat with the remaining shapes.


6) Enjoy your pretty window! Boring no more!


Oh hey look, it's me :) Hiiii. And I actually did one stalk on the other window too, but it didn't photograph well through the screen.