basement reveal

Poor, neglected blog!

Would you like to see what I've been working on while I haven't been blogging (or even making) cute sewing projects?

Last time I showed you the basement bedroom, hallway, and closets we've been working on, we had primed and painted the ceiling, doors, and trim white.

It looked a little something like this:

The wall paint made a huge difference, and then we added carpet, and I'm pretty excited to move our older 2 troublemakers downstairs and rearrange the bedrooms upstairs.

Here are some reveal photos:

Bedroom before:

After paint:

After carpet:

The other side of the bedroom before:

after paint:

after carpet:

Hallway before:

hallway after paint:

hallway after carpet:

This room has been "finished" for about  a year, but we decided to wait to carpet until we had the bedroom and hallway done.  During the interim, we have been using a large carpet remnant in the center of the room.

Family room (angle 1) before:

Family room (angle 1) after:

Family room (angle 2) before:

Family room (angle 2) after:

Whew!  It was a lot of work just to make a room into something that we can now personalize with furniture, curtains, photos, etc!!  Now the fun part begins.

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crib sheets

My husband's cousin had a baby shower this past weekend, and I found myself wanting to make something different than what I normally make (ie: burp cloths, blankets) since I knew my mother- and sister-in-law, as well as several aunts are quite adept at making those cute crochet-edged blankets and burp cloths.

So, I got to thinking about why it's nice to have all those blankets and burp cloths.  Naturally, it's because babies, while sweet and adorable, are also sometimes little packages of poop and puke just waiting to leak or, heaven forbid, explode.

The worst possible times for this to happen are in the middle of the night.  Imagine entering your child's room in the middle of the night to realize he has spit up or blown out sometime in the 3 hours since you saw each other last.  You find yourself staggering around in the dark, eyes half open, brain completely off from the countless nights without sleep, trying to clean up after your infant and his lack of control over bodily functions, only to reach into the drawer where his sheets are kept to realize that he did this exact same thing earlier in the day, and you haven't gotten to that mountain of laundry, yet.

*sigh*

So, what do you do?

Strip down the bed and lay down a blanket big enough to tuck in on the sides so as not to be a smothering hazard and vow to buy more sheets in the morning.

The next morning, when at least half of your brain is firing again, you wash a load of laundry containing both sheets, and then suddenly the need for more crib sheets is pushed right out the back of your brain until the next time you need more than one sheet in a day.

Having experienced this predicament more times than I care to admit, I wanted to provide the new mommy with a head start.  I made her 3 crib sheets out of varying fabrics so she can decide what she likes.  Hopefully these, coupled with the sheet that comes with her crib set will give her enough sheets to keep ahead of the disastrous projectiles coming out of her sweet little angel.

I winged the pattern all on my own, but if you're interested in making your own crib sheets, I recommend using Dana's crib sheets tutorial.  It's detailed, fun, and like all her tutorials, full of great, easy-to-follow pictures.

The only things I changed were that the sides to my crib sheets were 6 inches, rather than 8.  Also, instead of creating a casing around the bottom edge, I simply serged around and then attached the elastic directly to the serge using a triple step zig-zag stitch, stretching the elastic as I went.

I used flannel:

cotton:

and super-soft Minky fabric:  (this is what I would want to sleep on, if I were a baby)

So, the next time you're making something for a baby shower, don't forget to include a crib sheet or two!

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jeans to skirt

This project has been a long time coming.

I bought these jeans at a thrift shop because if you find jeans with a 30" waist and a 36" inseam, you just don't pass them up.

Unfortunately, even after paying only $6 for the jeans, I never wore them because the seam from waist to crotch was too long.  I felt like I was wearing men's pants; they sagged and bunched under my crotch and I just didn't feel sexy in them!

So, I decided to make them into a knee-length jean skirt--something which I've never been able to find for myself because my legs are so long.  I used the bottom of the jeans that I cut off to fill the triangle-shaped gaps created by cutting the legs apart.  I'm so happy with the results!

Before:

After: