New Blog

So for those of you interested, I have started a new blog experiment about my experiences as a teen mom. Check it out if it tickles your fancy :)
http://thatteenmommy.blogspot.ca/

Light up your headboard!

So, I figured this would be a simple little trick to turn my bedroom into a fairytale-esque retreat.

All you need are two packs of 100-Bulb incandescent filament Christmas lights - If your bed frame is white like mine, than make sure you buy the lights with the WHITE cord.

Then you just wrap it around your head board to add a backlit effect at the head of your bed frame.

Turn off all other lights and plug in the Christmas lights - et voila!

That's all it takes!

DIY: Pumpkin Painting

Essentially, this is the easiest DIY craft activity.

I did do this in the fall during CANADIAN thanksgiving (in October) with my son and two of my younger cousins. It's a lot of fun for the kids and it's an inexpensive way to decorate the interior or exterior of your living space in light of Thanksgiving.

All you need are pumpkins (I used mini pumpkins so it would be easy and quick for the kids), paint brushes, a painting tray (I used a Styrofoam plate), and acrylic paint for interior and exterior wear. I personally used Martha Stewart Multi-Purpose craft paint.

Anyway, wherever you choose to do this activity, make sure you keep your craft area clean and take preventative measure to ensure your area doesn't get dirty. My son's sweater was covered in paint, so clearly I did not take heed to my own advice, but to my own dismay; so you may want to learn from my mistakes.

Lay down a mat, newpapers, or something that will protect the surfaces you're working on, and then you can start.
All you do from then is pour the paint into whatever tray/plate/platter/other you decide to use to hold your paint. Then use your paintbrushes with a touch of imagination and paint away.

The kids had a lot of fun doing this activity, it takes a few hours for the paint to dry, but it will last outdoor weather. 

There really isn't more to this than that, but it is a fun and different- comparative to pumpkin carving. 

Anyway, enjoy!

DIY: Up-Cycled Upholstered Vanity Chair - Finger knitted back

So for those of you who remember, in April, I decided to upholster an old Ikea chair that my parents had at our old house. When we moved, I wanted a chair to match my bedroom, but nothing I could find matched the colour palette I chose for my bedroom. I decided I'd upholster a chair! So here it is, my tutorial on upcycling a 10 year old Ikea chair.

To be further noted, I apologize for the picture quality, this was all taken on my iPhone 3GS back in April because I had no intention of blogging the process. Most of these pictures have instagram filters as well if you are questioning the colour consistency.

Materials:

Chair

Upholstery Fabric of your choice

Yarn - about 6 150g skeins of yarn. If you decide to use three colours the way I did, get two skeins for each colour

Hammer

Quilt Batting (optional)

Scissors

Plain, white flannel

Fabric/Sewing Pins (A LOT!)

1.5 inch Foam - buy as much as you need, go to your local fabric store to purchase it by the meter.

Staple Gun

Staple Gun Staples - make sure that the staples you use coordinate with your staple gun, and make sure the size makes sense with what you're doing. If you're using thicker foam, use a thicker staple size. My staple gun required T50 series staples and I ended up grabbing 1/2 inch AND 3/8 inch staples.

The first thing you'll want to do is finger knit! You can google or youtube a finger knitting tutorial online because that's a process separate to the tutorial I'm demonstrating here.

Anyway, make sure you have enough for the back of your chair, or for however much of the chair you wish to upholster with it.

Once you've finger knitted a sufficient amount, close off the stitch and put it aside for now.

Next you'll need the chair, the foam, scissors, the staple gun and staples, and a hammer.

Cut the foam so that its edges exceed about 4 inches over each side of the chair. Pull tightly on each edge and staple to the back and bottom of the chair so that it looks like what I've done in the picture. Continue this process throughout.

Next, you'll need the plain white flannel. Keep in mind that you don't need white, you can use whatever colour you want for the underlay fabric of the finger knitted portion. Upholster the fabric to the chair back tightly so as to completely avoid folds and wrinkles in the fabric.

Take your strands of finger knitted yarn, and begin pinning them to the chair in whatever pattern you choose. Customize your design any way you like, but be sure to pin it back far enough that the edges of the flannel is unseen.

As you go up, you're going to need to staple the knitted yarn to the back of the chair as well. I sewed mine in by hand, but I don't advise that unless you want to have bloody hands for a while.

It should look something like this, make sure to lightly pull on the strands to see if they're tight enough, if anything comes loose, just make sure to staple it tightly.

Use the upholstery fabric of your choice, for myself, I used left over fabric from the throw pillow cases I made for my bed. This particular fabric is a light blue bridal satin, that being said it's slightly pricier for a plain fabric that you could easily purchase for half the rate per meter. 

Upholster this fabric to the seat of the chair. Pull tightly when stapling the fabric to ensure a smooth seat.

TIP For a more comfortable seat from the previously wooden surface, upholster the fabric WITH the cotton quilt batting. It makes a significant different if you're all about ass-savvy comfort

If you're anything like me, you'll find a way to make this work with the room that you're putting this piece of upcycled furniture in. It looks really good with my room as a whole but in this particular picture, that's hard to tell.

And that's how you upholster a plain, 10 year old IKEA chair.

ENJOY :)

DIY: Patchwork Denim Pillow Case

My best friend of all time, Kaitlyn, moved to Ottawa this year for school and as a going away present, I thought it would be cute to do something sentimental like this. These are actually scraps from our OWN denim jeans that we ripped up to do the DIY Tie Bleach tutorial. 

Materials:

Sewing Machine

Thread

Assorted Denim

Fabric Ribbon

Lace

White studded fleece fabric

Pillow Insert

Sewing Machine - be mindful that you're sewing thick material, use a canvas/denim needle, preferably a 16/100 guage medium-to-heavy-weight needle (regular point).

Also be mindful to use extra strength durability thread. 

Cut your assorted denim into square patches, sizes and dimensions may vary.

Sew them in an entirely random pattern

Make it big enough to form one side of the pillow like this. 

Given the dimensions of the pillow insert, make sure the sheet is at least two inches wider on each side.

So now you have one side.

Using the back fabric - I just used left over cream coloured fabric for the back- Sew the two pieces of fabric together and put the pillow insert inside, sewing it shut.

Hopefully it fits as well as mine did!

Now it's time for the embellishments.

I used lace and fabric ribbon to make ...well.. lacy ribbon?

Align them and sew them together

You'll get something shnazzy like this. Bear in mind that you're not limited to colour or pattern, the world is your oyster and you can customize your embellishments any which way you choose.

This is how you make a bow. Fold the ribbon to form a circle and pressing into the middle, stitch the two sides at the center like so.

Use excess ribbon to pinch it in the middle and sew that together.

Layer the sides and sew it.

Get something like this. Sew it to the pillow case wherever you thing is aesthetically to your preference.

I made two pillows and changed the style. The second one I made the insert myself with cotton quilt batting. It looked really nice together and they match perfectly because I used the same scraps.

She loved the present and took it with her to her new apartment, so if you're looking to make something sentimental but still design-savvy, this is definitely the project idea for you!

Enjoy!

-czaR2D2 

DIY: Power Ranger Papier Mâché Pinata

Power Ranger Pinata Tutorial!

Okay, so many of you saw the progress of the power ranger pinata I made for my son's 3rd birthday party, however I never made an official tutorial for it. Finally, I have the time to post it up! Here it is. I know it's late in the season and the use for pinatas are officially over, but this is still useful for any future summer party plans in the next year :)

MATERIALS:

Balloon

All-purpose Flour

Water

String

Medium sized mixing bowl

Paper cut up into strips (A LOT!)

Craft brushes

Glue

Crepe Paper or Tissue Paper

Paint

CANDY!

Okay, you don't have to do this my way, but I decided to hang the balloon from a string so I could let the access papier mâché mix drip.

Anywho, this is an extremely messy project, so whatever space you use to do this, make sure you protect the surrounding surfaces, otherwise you`ll have one hell of a time cleaning up the mess. 

In a medium sized mixing bowl, pour one part water and one part all-purpose flour and mix it together until the consistency is somewhat like a goopy paste.

You can either brush the papier mâché solution on the balloon, apply your paper strip and then put another coat of papier mâché solution on top, or you can do what I did and soak the strips of paper in the solution and just put it on the balloon. When the balloon is covered in one layer, wait for it to dry.

Repeat this process to form another layer. I put two layers which was more than sufficient because to my dismay, it took forever to break the damn pinata!

Once the papier mâché coats are thoroughly dry, you can take whatever tissue paper or crepe paper of your choosing, cut them into strips and using a mixture of glue and water, apply two coats of this tissue paper layer until the layers are opaque.

You'll end up with something like this.
Wait about a day for the whole thing to dry completely.

Now you can begin painting whatever design you want. I chose to do the red samurai power ranger simply because that's what my son asked for, but you can honestly choose whatever you want.

 

Once the paint has completely dried, you can pop the balloon inside and fill it up with candy. Make sure you reseal the hole.

Anyway after this point all I had to do was hang it and make it look pretty. 

You end up with a decent home made pinata which acts as a good party game for the kids. My son and all my friends children and my younger cousins enjoyed it. Oddly enough they didn't dive for the candy because they just wanted to beat up the pinata, but whatever, everyone can enjoy this game no matter what your age.

That is how you make a power ranger papier mâché pinata on your own! Enjoy!
-czaR2D2