Tic Tac Toe Roll-Up

This is an idea that has been percolating in my head for awhile now. I have a son who LoVeS Tic Tac Toe. Yes, we can use a pencil and paper, but why not craft up a portable Tic Tac Toe board? I love the crayon roll-ups I've made and so a Tic Tac Toe Roll-Up seemed both easy and logical - my son is very, very happy! Want to make one too? Here's how it works:

Tic Tac Toe Roll-Up

Materials:

One 9 1/2" x 14" piece of fabric for the back

One 9 1/2" x 14" piece of fabric for the inside

One 5 1/2" x 6 1/2" piece of fabric for the inside pocket

One 2 3/4" x 6 1/2 " piece of iron-on interfacing

One square of black felt

Scraps of felt (two colors)

Heat and bond (a small piece will do - I prefer the heavy weight)

Button

Hair elastic

Instructions: 1. Cut your fabric pieces and interfacing as stated above . 2. From your square of black felt, cut four 1/2" strips the width of the square. On the paper side of your heat and bond, draw five "O"'s and five "X"'s. I cheated and used a large font I like and traced them. Iron all of the O's on one color of felt and the X's on the other color of felt. Cut the letters out on the lines. 3. Peel the paper off from the letters and now iron them on to the black felt. Cut them out leaving a 1/8" black edge on each letter. Set the letters aside for later.4. Iron your interfacing to the wrong side of half of your pocket piece. This is just to give it a little extra stability for all those little hands taking the pieces in and out of the pocket. 5. With right sides together, fold the pocket in half along the long sides (like a hot dog - teachers, you know what I mean :-)). Using a 1/4" seam, sew down one short side of the pocket and part way along the bottom. Backstitch and then with your needle up, move the pocket about 2" down and pick up sewing again along the rest of the bottom and up the remaining short side. Basically we're using the fold for the top of the pocket and sewing up the other three sides, leaving a small opening in the bottom for turning. Clip the two bottom corners and turn right side out. Press flat, being sure that the unsewn seam of your opening lines up evenly.

6. Top stitch along the top edge of the pocket.

7. Now sew the pocket on to the inside fabric along the shorts sides and bottom. Be careful to sew the opening down so that it catches the seam, in effect sewing that opening closed. I centered the pocket about 1 1/2" up from the bottom of the fabric.

8. Now place your black felt strips up on the top part of the inside fabric. Find the center and then move the strips around until you have the spacing you like. I centered my strips 1 1/4" in from each edge and left about a 1 1/4" space from the top of the pocket. Trim the felt strips as needed. Using black thread, sew the strips down along each of the four sides. Hint - pin your felt well and remove the pins as you sew so that the felt doesn't move or stretch or you sew.

9. This is what you should have now.

10. Pin your hair elastic at the center of the top - be sure that the big part of the loop lies toward the center of the fabric. With right sides together put the inside and outer fabrics together. Sew using 1/2" seam allowances along all outer edges leaving a 3" opening at the center bottom. Be sure to backstitch over the elastic (quite a few times).

11. Clip the corners off and turn right side out. Use chopsticks or another device to get your corners sharp. Iron flat and be sure your opening gets pinned closed so that the edges are even.

12. Top stitch all the way around, being sure to catch the opening and sew it closed. Just for good measure, I backstitched another couple of times over the elastic.

13. Roll up the game board and figure out where your button should be. Sew it on as you marked.

14. Add your "X"'s and "O"'s and off you go.

Shhhh - It's a Pirate Quiet Book

Well this little pattern has been on my list of projects to tackle for a long time - since the day I saw it. We have a nephew who's son was turning one this week and in addition to the car racetrack carrier that I made, I decided there was no better reason to make one (or two) of these little pirate quiet books.

I ordered the pattern from Everyday Celebrations. Then I started the task of cutting everything out - that is really the "hardest" part. So I present the finished Pirate Quite Book.

My goal was to use scraps. I only needed the red and brown ric rac to match.

Here is the pirate.And the cannon - Boom!And the treasure chest. The pattern called for little pieces of colored felt to represent the jewels. But I knew that I had seen colored jewels at the craft store so I hot-glued a nice variety inside the chest.The pirate ship.

The treasure map - I added the cute little palm tree. Every treasure map I've ever seen . . . and goodness knows I have seen a lot :-), has a palm tree on it.A parrot - a pirate's best friend.And the back of the book.So while I was making one, why not just make a second at the same time. Give one away - keep one for my boys. Here is our version. I ran out of pirate scraps so I did have to run out and find some cute pirate fabric for the front and back of ours. They really are very cute. Mostly touch and feel - the pages don't really "do" anything. But I love it - we will be testing it out at church tomorrow. Everyday Celebrations did a nice job creating this one. She has some holiday books and other themed small quiet books I'll be trying.

Another Anthro Necklace Knocked-Off

I had so much fun with the Pernilla necklace knock-off, I decided to poke around the Anthropologie website to see what else I liked. I came across their Sugarcane and Cocoa necklace. It is a full 30 inches long and I loved the colors. It took a few days of searching at my local bead stops to find some very large beads in similar colors. Here is the Anthro original.

Here is my version.And here it is in a full length shot. I was tempted to go shorter, but wanted to stick true to the length. It took quite a few beads, but it works. I really like it!

It's hard to get a feel for the large white beads - they look like little snowballs. My 2-year-old loved them at first sight - he went shopping with me to find the beads. They happen to be my favorite too. I also really love the color of the light blue beads. I wish I could have found a more oblong shape, but the choices out there aren't all that great. But it works - and I quite like it!

I did realize one thing as I was making this necklace . . . I have never done a continuous necklace (without a clasp). I googled it but the instructions I found all centered around using knots and I'm a crimp bead kind of girl. So this one does have a clasp. Maybe some day I'll figure that out.

Racetrack Car Carrier - version 2

A few months back I made a couple of racetrack car carriers for my boys using Creation Corner's great tutorial. We have a birthday party coming up soon for my husband's nephew's little boy. I've been trying to think of some of the cute boy things I could make for our little cousin. This was one of the first things that came to my mind. Of course I had to find just the perfect fabric - loving me some Riley Blake fabric lately!I added a new touch of the road lines using some crochet thread - wish I had thought of this addition for my boy's racetracks. I have another idea in mind to add to this one for the present. We'll see how the week goes but it's something I've had on my to-do-list for awhile. I'm excited to give it a whirl! Check back later this week.

Anthropologie Necklace Knock-Off

One of the blogs I read regularly (Flamingo Toes) is hosting an "Anthro Necklace Week" this week. My jewelry tastes tend to be fairly bland and very symmetrical. It's been fun to see her take on various necklaces from Anthropologie this week. Her first necklace on Monday was the Pernilla Necklace which runs $198. Here is the original from their website. Flamingo Toes posted an excellent knock-off tutorial and I decided to try it out. I LOVE it!
I decided to wander through the bead section of a few stores to gather some new beads - and I went cheap - not sterling silver which is my usual metal of choice. I found some really pretty turquoise colored stones with some matching U-shaped chips that I used in place of the flat shells (which I couldn't find anywhere for some reason). They worked out great - and I really like how it turned out. The hardest part was the lighting in my kitchen - I was making it really late the other night and my lighting is horrible in that room. I had everything laid out there and was too lazy to haul it downstairs where I have better lighting. The detail work on the silver beads and U-shaped cluster was very difficult in poor lighting, but overall it was very do-able!I really do LOVE it!
My total cost was $28 and I probably could have done it even cheaper using a few supplies that I already had on hand but bought anyway (just to make sure that I had what I needed). Fun project!

Toy Bags

I'm just a giant copycat . . . but I whole-heartedly believe in giving credit to those I copy . . . so does that make it ok?

I have been following the Celebration of Boys over at Made and they recently highlighted a great idea from Zaaberry for some toy bags. I finally sat down and made a few. Super easy and really cute. You can find her tutorial here.

I made a couple just for fun and then increased the size on number three to accommodate some dinosaur lacing cards that I brought home from a trip for the boys.

I like them because they are clear and you can see what is stored inside. I even made my own bias tape for the third one and think I will definitely do that from now on. Of course, my wonderful bias tape making tool is hiding somewhere is my extremely unorganized craft room. But it worked out anyway.

Ok - I'm off to copy another idea I saw out in blogland. Thank goodness very creative people create tutorials for me to learn from.

Baby Stuff

Have I mentioned how much I love looking at my new blog design?

I really do but aside from that, I've been busy making little gifts for little babies. I seem to know lots of families who are adding new little ones right now. So I've started back in on ric rac blankets and some new super cute, super easy burp clothes.

A friend of mine had sent me some burp cloths like these when son #2 was born and I finally came across a great tutorial over at Just Another Hang Up and whipped up a few of my own. These are for my cousin's twin girls that were born recently. I still have a few things to add in for the final gift but I still have a few weeks before I will see them.

Then I whipped up another set of burp cloths for another cousin's pending baby boy. I had this ric rac blanket setting around waiting for a boy to be born and luckily I was able to find some coordinating Riley Blake fabric at the store still for the burpies.

Here is the ric rac blanket made a few months back - it finally gets to come out of the quilt/blanket pile to be used. Here is the link from Sew Much Ado - just to keep it close to the top of current posts so I don't have to hunt back through to find it.