DIY Eco-friendly Duster Refills for Only 50 Cents Each!

The last year or so, I've been in a serious funk.  I stopped doing a lot of the stuff I loved, had record amounts of insomnia, and totally backslid on all of my cooking and cleaning efforts, let alone cooking healthy and cleaning green.

Didn't nobody have time for that!

But I'm on a new medication, and it's a new year, and I can feel the fog lifting again.  What I'm realizing?  I am fat and my house is a MESS.  Time to get back to business.  First order of business - dusting.

I have come to realize that if I don't dust, no one will.  It's so freaking gross, you guys.  Let's not forget to add in that I live in the desert, so things are naturally pretty dusty as it is.  You add in only the most basic of housecleaning for almost a year and well... it's nasty.  I'm just keeping it real here.

I personally have a teensy Swiffer Duster addiction.  The problem is, when your house is really dusty, you go through them pretty fast.  They are not cheap, and they definitely are not good for the environment.  I needed to come up with an alternative, and fast!  I know that a lot of people swear by feather dusters, but I've tried several different kinds and just don't care for them.  I prefer knowing I'm tossing out the dust when I'm done cleaning.  Sure I could use a cleaning rag, but then I have to actually touch the dirt (ick, gag) more than I'd like.

Solution?

I picked up some microfiber cleaning towels in the automotive section of my local Dollar Tree.  They are a pretty good size, and you get two to a package. They came in neon green and blue.  I opted for the more obnoxious color, seeing as that's how I roll.

You're also going to need the handle from your Swiffer Duster.

Take one of the towels and cut it into quarters, keeping the finished seams on the bottom.

Cut the finished seams from the sides, but leave the one at the bottom. That will make it easier to put the finished duster on the handle. Stack all of the pieces together.

Lay the handle in the middle of the stacked and with a fine tipped marker (I used a green Sharpie to coordinate with my cloths) make a dotted line around the handle.  Pin the layers together.

Starting at the top of the "u" shape, stitch straight down the center line.  Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end to secure.  Then, sew the "u" shape, also being sure to backstitch at the beginning and end.

Pull out your pins and even up the sides.  I trimmed about an inch off the end and rounded the corners too.

Make cuts along the sides, about 3/4" apart and stopping 1/2" from your stitching.

Slide the handle into the layers and give it a good shake to separate the layers.  I'm going to warn you though - this step is MESSY.  You will have little balls of whatever color you chose fluff all over the place!

But think of how much money you're going to save on refills, and how many little fluffy bits of paper and fibers you're going to keep out of the landfill, and give yourself a pat on the back.

These took about five minutes each, from start to finish, and I made six, for a grand total of $3.00 and some thread. Not too shabby!

Quick and Simple Baby Bibs

A couple of weeks ago, this girl started to drool.  At first it was just a little here and there, but eventually it became enough that her clothes were getting pretty wet.  Then, last week she had a couple of really cranky days.  She was constantly gnawing on her hands and had a slight temperature of 99.3 when I checked.  The drool situation got worse too.

Could she be teething already?  Bubba started the drooling about the same age, but he drooled like a machine for months before any teeth came in.  I checked her mouth and didn't see or feel anything.  Either way, the drooling needed to be addressed.

Did I mention she also learned how to blow raspberries this week with all that drool?

Time for mama to make some bibs.

I sketched out a basic bib shape.  I used one we already had to be sure the neck was going to be the right size.  I didn't want it to be so big that it covered her cute outfits.  I scanned the pattern and put it on Scribd so you can make one (or a dozen) for yourself if you like!  All you need is a piece of regular cotton, a piece of cotton flannel, and some Velcro.

Print and cut out the pattern, pin it to some cotton quilting fabric that is folded in half, and cut it out.  I repeated the process with a piece of flannel too, so I ended up with two pieces.

Next, I pinned the right sides together.

Then I sewed all the way around 1/4 inch from the edge, going slowly on the curves and leaving a two inch opening on one side.  I made sure to backstitch at the beginning and end too.

Next I clipped my curves so it would lie flat when I turned it inside out...

Then turned it inside out and pressed it flat.

I then topstiched around the edges.  This closed the opening where I turned the bib and also makes it look more finished.  I just lined up the edge of the fabric with the edge of my presser foot and put my needle to the far right position.  I did NOT backstitch at the beginning and end here.

Instead, I pulled my thread to one side and secured it with a square knot.  After you snip off the extra thread you can barely tell it's there!

Finally, I cut a one inch length of 5/8" Velcro and sewed it to the top.  Piece of cake!  These are done so fast and with so little fabric.  I spent $25 on fabric and Velcro yesterday.  I ended up making 11 bibs in the past 24 hours, so that's roughly $2 per bib, AND I have a ton of fabric left over.  Seriously, I could make another 20 bibs I think.  Whoops.

So much cuter than anything I can buy!  If I had been feeling fancier, I could have embroidered something on there or put some shape using Steam A Seam, but I'm lazy.  Bonus though - this one coordinates with the baby leg warmers I made her last week from a pair of socks!  She likes to sit and admire them. I found the tutorial here, via Pinterest.  So easy, and they come out really cute too.

When you consider that baby leg warmers can run up to $12 a pair, how can you resist making your own?

40 Weeks

Yup.  People say you're pregnant for nine months, but since there are approximately four weeks in a month, couldn't you argue that you're really pregnant for ten?  It sure feels like I've been pregnant forever, especially since I'm one of those lucky women who shows really early.  Here's my 40 week belly photo:

I've resorted to wearing dresses because most of my tops, even the maternity tee shirt that I bought in an XXL specifically because it was long, are too short to cover my belly now.  Seriously, it's like I'm Porky Pig wandering around here with my gut hanging out the bottom of my shirts.

You are welcome for that visual, btw.

Here's the list of things I should be doing:

1. Deep cleaning my house and checking things off the FIVE pages of lists that I made last week so we would not miss anything that needed to be done.

Here's the list of what I actually have been doing:

1.  Shopping.
2.  Eating.
3.  Sleeping
4.  Crafting.

Yeah.  It's like, I'm busy (ish) but busy with the wrong things.  For instance, yesterday was Sunday.  We could have knocked out a lot of my lists.  Instead, we slept in until noon, hung out doing nothing for a couple hours, went to Michael's to look at ribbon (they have FALL stuff out already!!!), went to Starbucks and hung out for an hour, dropped off some stuff at the Goodwill and decided to look around since we were there already, went to the Mongolian Grill for dinner, and then finally headed home at about seven.  My husband managed to weed whack the front yard before it got dark.  That's all that was accomplished.

Whoops!

For my part, I came home and got out the sewing machine.

I decided not to go the big wooden letters route for the baby's name over her crib, since it's temporarily in our room.  I was not about to go buy a Pack and Play for our room and have a crib in the kid's room when our house is so small.  That's silly and a waste of money!  So, we put the crib in our room, and when I am ready, we'll scoot it back across the house.  No biggie.

I wanted to put something on the wall above it though, and decided to do a little bunting with her name from some of the leftover fabric from burp cloth making.  The bedskirt on the crib is yellow and the sheets are green gingham (both from Pottery Barn Kids) so I picked all pink and green fabrics, tying them together with yellow bias tape at the top.  I used Steam A Seam to adhere the letters and then outlined them in Platinum Stickles.  It's simple and cute and most importantly, easy to move!

I put the pettiskirt up there because it's so dang pretty and it makes me happy every time I see it.

The other thing I made last night was binky clips.

It didn't take many times of Bubba launching his pacifier like a rocket from his mouth for me to realize how handy these things were!  No worrying about them falling on the floor and getting stuck without one with these.  I made them a bit differently than I did for Bubba. I think these came out a lot better.  Of course, I had to hand embroider them with her monogram too.  LOVE THEM, even though the stitching on my first one came out way wonky.

As for the sleeping part...

The past few days I've woken up with contractions.  I know that sounds exciting (contractions mean the baby will be here soon!  yay!)  but it's not.  They're strong enough to keep me from going back to sleep, but not strong enough that I can't walk or talk through them.  Also, they're between 10 to 30 minutes apart, which is nothing.  They have to be less than five minutes apart and hurt so bad that you can't walk or talk through them to count.  So, basically all they are is annoying.  They are robbing me of my morning sleep!

As a result, I'm tired ALL DAY.  I don't sleep at night, and now sleep is getting cut off from the other end as well.  I think I'm averaging 5 hours or so, which is totally lame.  Thankfully I have a child who can entertain himself quite well and doesn't take the first opportunity where I'm not being 100% vigilant to go destroy something.  Today, for example, I laid in bed and kind of dozed between contractions for a few hours (no real sleep, but better than nothing!) while he sat in bed next to me and played with his cars and the iPhone.  That's pretty awesome, and I'm so thankful for that.

Now, instead of dusting or cleaning the patio doors I think I'll go have a cookie or three with my boy.  :)

Curtains from a Duvet Cover

Several months ago (um, like maybe even a year ago?) we were shopping at Ikea when I found this bright yellow duvet cover in the "as-is" section of the store.  It was the brightest, happiest shade of yellow with yellow polka dots scattered randomly all over.  It was marked down to $15, and to me, it screamed "CURTAINS!"

So, I bought it.

Then I proceeded to stick it in my closet and it became one of those "someday" projects.  My friend Christa calls them UFOs - Un-Finished Objects.  I have a lot of those, and in the interest of Getting Stuff Done, I'm trying to get to them now because I know nothing much will be happening project-wise for the first six months or so after Kelly gets here.  

Today, I pulled out that duvet cover finally and whipped these up.

Please pardon the boy's messy room.

Seriously y'all?  Easiest curtains ever.  The backside of the duvet is white with little yellow dashes.  To me, that meant these bad boys were already lined.  AW YEAH.  All I did was turn the cover inside out and give it a good ironing, being sure to press the edge seams very carefully and neatly.  Then I folded it in half lengthwise (again, carefully and neatly) and cut that sucker right down the middle.  I stitched up that raw edge (didn't bother pinning, just lined it up as I went along - lazy seamstress), turned the panel right side out, and ironed it again, concentrating on the edges being even.

After that it was just a matter of folding down the top edge three inches, sewing across the bottom of that to make the pocket for the rod and then top stitching around the other three edges so it would look more finished.  I then repeated the process for the other side.  Once again, the ironing was the hardest and most time consuming part of this sewing project.

My husband picked up the rod at Ikea on his way home from work today.  It's a Hugad rod ($3.99) with Vasentlig finials ($4.99) and two Betydlig wall brackets ($1.49 each), so the whole assembly was only about twelve bucks.  That's not bad!  I dug through my scraps for the green fabric to make the tie backs.  They have bits of ribbon (also already in my stash of stuff) on the ends that I tied together.  Piece of cake and I love how they look.

Total for this project - $27.  You can barely find ONE nice curtain panel for that price anymore.  I am pleased with how they came out and love that they're lined so they look more finished and less like I just threw them together.  I can't believe it took me this long to get to them!

Embellishing a Bed Skirt

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I've been feeling a bit more like getting stuff done around here.  One of the things I did yesterday was to pull out all the crib bedding.  I'm really glad I did because I realized that two of my crib sheets are missing.  I'm really annoyed because I planned on reusing the nice Pottery Barn Kids ones I bought  for Bubba since they're gender neutral and I like the colors.  I can't think of where they would have gone!  I guess I'm going to have to pick up some new ones... probably pink ones.  :)  For now, I have the one green one I did find on the crib.

I also added the pink minky Boppy cover I found at Goodwill, the baby quilt my friend Gail made, Kelly's Ugly Doll, and the yellow crib skirt that also came from PBK... but I messed with that first.   Of course.

The first order of business, naturally, was to wash everything.  It's been put away for a couple of years.  After the crib skirt was dry I ironed it. HOLY MOLY was this thing a pain to iron!  I hate ironing anyway, but with all those little gathers it was just awful.

A few weeks ago I was looking for something in my craft room (I'm prone to losing stuff lately - so much for being organized!) when I came across this.  My friend Suzy travels to LA for work and likes to stop at the ribbon stores in the garment district.  She got a great deal on this pom pom trim and brought me back this huge spool.  I love pom pom trim, but I hate the price!  It's ridiculous what they charge for this stuff around here.

Anyway, when I came across this spool, I knew exactly what I'd be using it to embellish.  My crib skirt!  It was really easy too.  I'm a lazy seamstress, so I hate to pin things.  Not only does it take forever, I always end up scratching myself with the pins through my shirt and I'm allergic to the metal (nickel allergy) so I end up all itchy.  If I can avoid pinning, I do.  Here, no pins were needed!

First, you take the end of your trim and just fold over the last half inch or so.  If you have to cut off one of the pom poms, that's fine.  I just laid that folded under end along the edge of my skirt.  Be sure to backstitch so that it's secure.

How did I keep it straight?  Easy.  I just lined it up along the stitching for the hem that was already there.  The main thing to remember is to NOT stretch the trim.  That will lead to you having a puckered hem.  Just sew a few inches, pause to line up the next few inches, then sew some more.  If you're not sewing in a straight line, it won't matter at all as long as your thread matches your trim.  I couldn't see my stitches at all when I was done.  Just keep the trim pretty straight across the hem and it will be fine.

I didn't even measure or cut my trim.  I just unrolled it from the spool as I went, and when I got to the end of where I was sewing I cut it an inch or so from the end. No waste!

Stop sewing about an inch and a half from the end.  Fold that end under (again, cutting off the last pom pom if you need to) and sew it in place, again back stitching to secure.  This would work with regular ribbon too! It's a fun little detail to add that doesn't take much time at all.  Honestly, the hardest part of all this was ironing the skirt.

Once you're done embellishing the skirt you can put it on your crib, only to find the trim sits neatly behind the wooden edge.  WHOOPS!  Ah well.  You'll be able to see it once we lower it, right?

Nesting?

I think this baby has dropped or something because for the past couple of weeks, I can breathe again!  I don't get winded taking a shower, I don't get dizzy while getting myself dressed, and I don't have a racing heartbeat from simply walking back and forth to the bathroom.  It's freaking AWESOME to not have someone on your lungs.

Along with the ability to breathe has come a little more energy - I know, fathom that, right?  I have 46 days until this baby gets here.  That is, if she doesn't decide to give me the gift of an earlier arrival so I don't have to have surgery.  That means I have about a month and a half to get things cleaned up and ready for baby around here.  I ordered the rest of my diapers (we're using cloth) online today, along with a couple of teething toys and the best diaper balm ever.  I called the landlord to get some things taken care of before the baby gets here, such as fixing the sprinklers (our lawn be sad, yo) and the peeling drywall on the patio.  

I also got the ball rolling on painting the living room/kitchen.  Originally I wanted to go with a pale blue, but honestly?  My heart belongs to green.  

This time I was smart and got paint samples instead of just picking a color and buying a gallon of paint.  The light is so different all over this place, and a color that looks good in one area will look completely different in another.  This was the problem I had with the blue.  The green on the right was my original choice, and while I absolutely LOVE it, it was way too dark in some areas.  I painted these swatches in five different places so I could get an idea of how the light would affect them.

I bought the other two samples the next night.  After living with them for 24 hours, we've decided to go with the one in the middle.  It's called Outback, by Behr.  I know it looks tan compared to the other two, but it's actually a very pretty light green with yellow and tan undertones.  I also picked out a very pretty, pale, buttery yellow for the kitchen backsplash and one wall called Garbanzo Bean.  It also is by Behr.  I wasn't ambitious enough to travel farther than the Home Depot a mile from my house for paint.  :)

This weekend, we're going back to buy paint and primer so we can kiss those awful  poop brown kitchen walls goodbye!!!  Hallelujah!

In addition to picking paint, I've also been sewing.

I made three burp cloths for Kelly a few months ago and my friend liked them so much she asked me to make some for her.

Since I had all the stuff out already, I went ahead and finished the ones for Miss Kelly Bean too.  I used the same technique that I did with the ones I made for Bubba, only this time I used the prefolds instead of flat diapers so there was a lot less ironing.  That's never a bad thing in my book!

I have ten for her now, which I think will be plenty.  Some of the fabric I had already (the sushi fabric, the Dia de los Muertos fabric, both of the butterfly fabrics) and some I bought just for these.  I also pulled out some fabric I bought ages ago and made covers for my couch pillows.  Those cute pillows I made from place mats didn't hold up well.  I should have guessed that light fabric would be no match for a toddler.

I worked on one other project too - I'll post about that tomorrow!

Twelve of 12 - March 2012

Or should I say, nine of twelve?  I didn't really get through all twelve this month because my time was pretty evenly split between the sofa and the kitchen table where I worked on a quilt.  There's just not a whole lot of which to take photos in that small of an area!

Here's what I did get:

1.  After three years of loving my old iPhone 3G, I finally upgraded.  My husband insisted I upgrade when we got our tax refund because the old one had been acting up and running slow.  The new one took me almost SEVEN FREAKING HOURS to get all set up, but oh, it's worth it.  It's super fast - even faster than my laptop, I swear - and it can hold all my music now.  LOVE.

Now I just need to take it to get some Ghost Armor (did it on the last one - worth every penny) and a case.

2.  I did a bit of crafting for Miss Kelly.  I started a quilt top on Saturday for a friend and made an error cutting my fabric.  That meant I ended up TWO four inch squares short for my final count.  GRR!!!  I had to run back to the store to grab more of that fabric.  While I was there, I figured since the sewing machine was out I'd make some burp cloths for my girl too.

I was able to find some of the regular cloth diapers with the padding in the middle this time, as opposed to the flat ones that I used for Bubba's burp cloths.  That saved me some work.  I did applique her initial to them using some Steam-A-Seam and then hand embroidered the borders of those.

3.  Said quilt top, finished and ready to be basted.  I embroidered the baby's name on the bottom corner.

4.  I'm a quilting dinosaur.  I still pin baste.  I know people love the spray basting stuff, but I don't trust it.

5.  Trying to get my apps organized.  After I got everything on to the new phone, I pulled all the apps off my old one, leaving just the toddler and baby apps, plus any kid friendly games, behind.  Then I made a few playlists for the boy so that it's only Bubba-friendly music on there. My husband suggested adding the Netflix app so he could watch Go, Diego, Go on there too.  Finally, I hid all the apps that I couldn't delete in a folder on the last screen.

My three year old now has his own iPhone.  True, it's just a glorified iPod at this point, but still.  I never thought I'd see the day.

6.  Bubba's getting better at building his own train tracks, but not so great at making them loop.  As a result, it's not uncommon to find long, snake-like tracks going from one end of a room to the other these days.

7.  We have a rule in our house:  No bandaids unless you're bleeding.  I found this has cut down on the bandaid use considerably, because you know how little kids are with those things.  Well, this means that the second there's any kind of teeny cut with blood, no matter how slight, Bubba actually gets excited because it means he gets to have a bandaid.  In a way, it's sort of cool because it means he doesn't freak out as bad when he does cut himself though!

8.  Since I spent a good portion of yesterday in pain (quilting is hard on a pregnant back!) dinner was sort of a mish mash of self serve options.  I had the last of the fish sticks that were in the freezer.  Bubba had a few too, plus some macaroni and cheese (gag) and a WHOLE (yay!) banana.  We've been giving him lollipops to help with his cough since cough drops are still a choking hazard at this point.

9.  I finished the quilt!  How cute are those elephants on the flannel backing?  I picked two different sets of fabric at the fabric store, then let my husband decide which set I'd make into the quilt.  He also picked the binding.  It was between chocolate brown and pink, and he went with pink.  Also - I'm getting better at those mitered corners on my binding.  Kick butt.

I'm usually a little wary of giving homemade gifts, because too many people still think you're being cheap when you give hand made.  Trust me, for the money I spent on supplies I could have easily picked up some trinket at Babies R Us and had money left over!  That doesn't even take into account the time and effort put into something like this.  Therefore, I only give them to people I really like, and who I know will appreciate them.

Since I didn't get all twelve photos this month, and three of the nine that I did get were of the quilt, I decided to skip scrapping them this month.  I'll incorporate some of the photos into my Project Life pages instead.  I finally got an album for those!  Yay!  Hobby Lobby had the nice American Crafts albums on clearance for $12 so I grabbed a pretty lime green one.

And so it begins...

What, you didn't think I'd be having another baby and not start doing crafty things on her behalf, did you?

I loved the bibs I did for Bubba, so since I still had a few blank ones in my stash it was a no brainer to start off with a few of those.  I did a Google search for vintage embroidery patterns, and when I came across this one I knew it would be one I did for Miss Kelly.  See, I joined this sorority in college, and our mascot is a lion and our flower is a violet.  Also, if you have a daughter, she's considered a legacy when she goes to college.  Not that I'd pressure her to join, of course, that's up to her.  However, I think it would be supremely cool to get to pin her with my badge if she did join.  Just saying.

Our colors are azure blue and white, so adding her name in blue was also a no brainer.  It's one of those things that unless you know and understand the symbolism behind what's going on here, you'd just think it's a cute vintage style embroidered baby bib.  I think that may be one of the most fun parts about the whole sorority thing.  :)

Either way, it's cute and that's what matters most, right?

Place Mat Pillows

I've been looking all over for the perfect fabrics from which to make pillows for my couch. Now that I've decided on my color scheme, all I had to do was find stuff that matched and that I liked. I swear that I saw awesome navy fabrics everywhere a few months ago, but now I'm having a hard time finding any that I like that aren't an arm and a leg. I've branched out my search to bed sheets and tablecloths, because hey - fabric is fabric! I was looking at the tablecloths at Target one day when I happened to glance over at the place mats.

Now, place mats aren't usually something that I look for. They seem kind of fussy to me so I just pass them by. However, I really liked the color and texture of this one place mat there. Immediately a tutorial that I saw on House of Hepworths a while back came to mind, so I grabbed two.

To make a pillow from a place mat, you'll need a place mat that is made with two layers of fabric, some coordinating thread, a sewing needle, and a seam ripper.

Oh, and a bag of Poly-Fil. I used a whole bag for each pillow.

Take your seam ripper and very carefully open a four inch long section on one side of the place mat.

Stuff the Poly-Fil into the opening. Be sure to get it in the corners and to spread it evenly so your pillow isn't lumpy.

Next, sew up the opening using a ladder stitch.

After I did that, I did a running stitch going back so that it would match the top stitching on the place mat. That's it! It took me about half an hour to do each one, which is pretty awesome considering I did all my sewing by hand. I paid $3.99 for each of the place mats, and another $2.99 for each bag of Poly-Fil. I had the thread and needles already, so that means I paid $7.00 for each pillow! What a bargain, and they look great on my couch too. Win!