More and more these days I find myself embracing my cat-lady status.  Cat art all over my walls?  Check.  Consistently covered in cat hair?  Check.  Talking strangers’ ears off about Chowder and Maxine?  Check.  I’ve even written some cat poems, which I think is probably the worst offense of all.

So, after completing my first stuffed cat last night before bed (just in time for my niece’s party tomorrow!), I didn’t hesitate before starting on my second stuffed cat this afternoon.  I wasn’t really satistfied with how lumpy the finished product was, so this time I lined the entire pillow with muslin for a (hopefully) much sturdier stuffed animal.  (I’ll be using the terms pillow and stuffed animal interchangibly, since I can’t decide which one fits better.)  To make the lining, I sandwiched a gray striped tank top (right sides together) between two pieces of muslin and pinned everything in place so that I had a layer of muslin, two layers of gray jersey, and then another layer of muslin.  I then folded the whole thing in half (hot dog style), drew the outline of half a cat face, and then cut it all out in the same way I would a paper heart, leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance.  Then I unfolded it so that it actually looked like a cat face and sewed all the way around, stopping after each ear so that when turned right side out there’s a 6″ to 7″ gap at the top of the head.  This easily accomodates my embroidery hoop and leaves plenty of room for me to work on embroidering the sleepy and awake faces on the front and back.  I’m hoping that the top of the head will be a less conspicuous place to sew the whole thing up once stuffed, since I wasn’t happy with the way it looked on the chin of the previous cat.  So far, all I’ve completed are the sleepy eyes.  I’ll probably be working on this one at a much more leisurely pace since I’m not dealing with a deadline, and the next week of school promises to be busier than this one was (at least I’m not counting on two more sleet days, but who knows?).

Now that I’ve seen this photographed, I’ll admit I think I was subconsciously inspired, at least as far as the head shape and color palette are concerned, by these adorable Kitty-Cat paper dolls I saw on ModernCat yesterday.  So sweet!

Related Posts:

• Day Three: Completed Kitty!
• Day Two: Cross-Eyed Kitty
• Day One: Sleepy Kitty Pillow
• Thing-a-Day
• Days of the Week Pillowcases for Dawn

Sleepy Kitty

Including the time it took to take pictures of this little guy, I think I barely squeaked by in time for this to count as day three.  Tonight I finished this cat pillow to give my niece at her fourth birthday party tomorrow!  Having never made a stuffed animal quite like this one (though I made a similar owl, also from a tank top, a while back), I’ll admit there are things I’ll definitely do differently next time.  And since I promised a cat like this to someone else almost a year ago and still haven’t managed to deliver, I’ll be making another one sooner than later!  All of the embroidery was freehanded, which explains why things aren’t quite symmetrical.  Still, I think it gives each animal a distinct personality I’ve found to be lacking in a lot of store-bought toys.  The reverse applique for the eyes on the “awake” side of the face was by far the most challenging aspect of this project–at least the first eye was challenging.  By the time I got to the second eye I had a better handle on what I was doing, which is why the right eye looks so much better than the left.

Awake Kitty

A special note: this pillow was modeled after a cat pillow that belongs to my dear friend Melody.  She’s had hers since she was small, but I’m not sure exactly what it looked like originally because it’s been thoroughly loved over the years and doesn’t have much of a face left.  I can only hope this one is lucky enough to suffer a similar fate!

Related Posts:

• Day Four: Learning from my Mistakes
• Day Two: Cross-Eyed Kitty
• Day One: Sleepy Kitty Pillow
• Thing-a-Day
• Days of the Week Pillowcases for Dawn

Chelsey sent me the most awesome birthday gift in September, and since her birthday is right after mine, at the end of October, I immediately started trying to think up an thrifty, fun, and personal gift I could make for her.  I took a couple of things about Chelsey into consideration.  First, I knew she and Nick were planning on moving into a new, much larger, house at the time and would need things to hang on the walls of that house.  I also kept in mind the fact that Chelsey loves her cats just as much as I do.  I decided to do some sort of untraditional silhouettes of Chelsey, Nick, Mouse, and Buster on coordinating thrifted floral plates.  The color scheme was pretty limited to what the plates looked like, so my first goal was to find the plates.  It took me a few trips to various thrift stores, but I was finally able to settle on these four.

I tried to stick to plates of the same size, pattern, and general color scheme--which made the search a bit challenging but was, in my opinion, worth the trouble.

To complete this project for yourself, you’ll need the following items:

• side-profile pictures of the gift recipient (or yourself!) and other family members
• basic photoshop skills
• coordinating thrifted plates
• cardstock and waxed paper
• spray adhesive
• cutting mat (or other surface you don’t mind damaging)
• craft knife (I purchased this one especially for the project, and I feel it was a sound investment)
• enamel paint and enamel paint remover/thinner (found in the model car section of the craft store; the fumes are very offensive, so you’ll want to use proper precaution when handling this stuff)
• superglue
• triangle picture hangers
• coordinating ribbon

I picked up everything but the first four items in one trip to the craft store.  Though it looks like a lot, I didn’t really use up anything but the plates themselves and one tiny bottle of paint, so all I have to do is get more plates and I’ll have supplies to many many more silhouettes. And boy do I plan to!

A large chunk of the work on these was done in photoshop.  Basically, Chelsey’s boyfriend Nick very sneakily took profile pictures of Chelsey and himself and emailed them to me. I used google to get the close-enough cat pictures and made Mouse’s silhouette (the shorthair, pictured below) a little fatter to reflect real life.

In very un-technical terms, I’ve summed up what I did in the following steps:

• First, erase the background of each picture so all that’s left is the profile of the face or cat on a blank background.  You’ll use the Magnetic Lasso tool to trace around the face, then Select > Inverse and Edit > Cut to get rid of all that unnecessary background stuff.
• If you’re going to edit the image at all do it now; make the face/cat all black selecting Edit > Fill and using black.  I recommend this step because it gives you a better idea of what your finished product will look like.  Once the image is all black, you can see where you might need to paint in additional fat (like I did with Mouse) or clean up the hair and neckline (Nick and Chelsey’s pictures cut off at the base of the neck, but I added the bottoms of some basic silhouettes I found via Google Images to make them more professional looking).
• Now, once that’s done use the Magic Wand tool to select the silhouette only (you’ll probably have to Select > Inverse to make sure the background isn’t included; I did), then Edit > Stroke to create an outline of the silhouette.  I made my stroke about 5 px black, and I found that perfect for tracing with a craft knife.
• Now Edit > Cut everything else, so that all you have is the outline of a silhouette. You’re done, son!  Just make sure to print them in the appropriate size, which will vary depending on the plate you use.  My 5 x 7 index cards were just right for the small plates I chose.

This step is one of the most important, so take your time!

Once you’re done with the Photoshop part, pat yourself on the back.  Most of the time I find technology frustrating at best.  However, cutting out the silhouettes was one of the most difficult steps for me because it took the most time, and I’m not very patient.  I used the craft knife mentioned above and a self-healing cutting mat and traced very carefully along each outline, making sure to save both the cutout and the outline.

For important for placement purposes, especially for those of us who are bad at visually centering things.

Next I used the cutout as a guide for where to place the outline.  This is helpful because you can see which parts of the plate will be visible once the silhouette is painted on.  Once I decided on placement, I used the spray adhesive to stick the stencil (the outline) to the plate.  After giving it about a minute to dry, I painted in the silhouette in about two layers, allowing 5-10 minutes of drying time in between.

(A note: After completing this project once, I’d like to recommend you use a combination of cardstock and waxed paper.  Next time I do these I will probably use spray adhesive to temporarily stick the waxed paper to the cardstock, trace the silhouette, use the cardstock cutout for placement, and then stick the waxed paper to the plate and paint on top of it.  The cardstock bled and required more touchups and cleanup than I’m a fan of.)

Allowing the paint to dry before peeling off the stencil.

Once the paint was dry, to make sure I kept the silhouettes straight I marked the center top and bottom on the backs of the plates with a dry erase maker.  Then I flipped over the plates and super glued a triangle bracket (triangle pointing up) in the center of the back of each plate.  Once the glue was dry, I cut four 8″ lengths of ribbon, threaded each one through a triangle bracket, and tied a knot at the end (leaving about 1/2″ ribbon past the knot).  The ribbon is for hanging the plates, and you can use more if you get an especially pretty ribbon and want it to show.

This was my favorite of the plates, so I used it for Chelsey. What looks like a streak in the paint is really glare from the lights in my kitchen.

When Nick saw this in person he said, "Do I really look like that?"

Believe it or not, Mouse is really that fat.

And Buster's tail is really that fluffy--and maybe even fluffier.

Related Posts:

• Birthday Placemats and Hand Towels
• Birthday Basket!
• Wacky Chevron Terra Cotta Pots
• Ill-Fitting Tank Top into Stuffed Owl
• A Bundle of Birthdays

Finally complete and ready to be given--and they're only five months late!

Maybe the fact that days of the week pillowcases seemed like a good gift deserves some explanation, but that is not what this post is about.  To sum things up, Dawn changes her pillowcase every night.  Anyway, I started on these at the end of July (Dawn’s birthday is mid-August), thinking I’d have plenty of time to finish them before her birthday.  Using another pillowcase as a point of reference, it only took me a couple of days to  sewed the pillowcases in a lightweight natural muslin.  I finished them over the summer during the last few days of our extended stay with my parents (as we waited to close on the house).  Once we got moved in, I pushed them aside for a week or so as we got unpacked and adjusted to life in a new city among strangers.  Around the time school started I bought some iron-on inkjet paper and used my (very) limited photoshop skills to make the seven templates for the embroidery I would do on the edge of each pillowcase.

Even after all that embroidery, I'm still not sick of odstemplik. What a beautiful font!

The font I used is odstemplik, which can be downloaded free at both fontspace and dafont.com, among other places.  If you decide to make these yourself, keep in mind you’ll need to print the mirror image of what you want to show up on your pillowcase.  After embroidery, you can peel the rest of the iron-on off pretty easily by picking at it with your needle.  The simpler your design is the better.  I’m sure there are better ways to do this, but I’m not familiar with them.  All you seasoned embroiderers feel free to enlighten me in the comments!  (A special note about this method: Make sure you follow the instructions for the iron-on paper very closely.  Exposure to too much heat can cause the iron-on to look dark and gross and become much harder to peel off, which, I can say from experience, is a real bummer.)  Anyway, once the days of the week were transfered to the pillowcases, I took them all to school and left them in my desk with the naive assurance that I could finish them during my office hours.  However, it seemed that all semester long there were papers to be graded, coffee to be gotten, and other sundry distractions that go along with sharing an office with so many of my friends.  Consequently, my progress has been excruciatingly slow, and Dawn is only now getting to enjoy her intended birthday gift.

I used satin and chain stitch for the entirety of the project, mostly because those are the only two stitches I know.

I’m really happy to be done with these!  Not only because I’ve been feeling like a real turd for giving Dawn’s gift so late, but also because I’m ready to start on something new.  I enjoyed working on these because, once I got the hang of it, embroidery became a really relaxing hobby.  I can’t wait to start on something new–maybe something that features some stitches other than satin and chain.

Happy Wednesday!

Related Posts:

• Day Four: Learning from my Mistakes
• Day Three: Completed Kitty!
• Tea Rose Home’s Self-Binding Baby Blanket
• Day Two: Cross-Eyed Kitty
• Day One: Sleepy Kitty Pillow

featuring our dining room chair, which is soon to be painted dark gray

Until then, here’s a picture of the baby blanket Dawn and I made for our friend Jillian’s baby shower this weekend. I’ve had this tutorial by Tea Rose Home bookmarked for a while, so I was excited to finally get to make one of these blankets for myself.   The possibilities for color and pattern combinations are really endless for this project–I find myself hoping someone else turns up pregnant so I can make more of these sweet blankets.

We wrapped everything up in a gift basket with a few animal onesies, some baby craft books, a rubber ducky, and a Burt’s Bees baby gift set.  We, of course, forgot to take pictures of our finished work.

Related Posts:

• Days of the Week Pillowcases for Dawn
• Homemade Holidays: Recycled Flannel & Rice Hot Packs
• Day Four: Learning from my Mistakes
• Day Three: Completed Kitty!
• Birthday Placemats and Hand Towels

Yes, that is Amy Butler's Midwest Modern Honeycomb!

These placemats look so wonderful on our kitchen table.  I decided to use the hand towels in the bathroom rather than the kitchen because, since we don’t use paper towels, kitchen towels have a really rough time around here.  I couldn’t be happier with these beautiful gifts, and I can’t wait until Chelsey visits and can see her handiwork in its new home!

(photo via Stitchy Sweet; click the picture to visit Chelsey’s blog and see her tutorial.)

Related Posts:

• Day Four: Learning from my Mistakes
• Day Three: Completed Kitty!
• Fancy Silhouettes on Vintage Plates (a LONG tutorial)
• Days of the Week Pillowcases for Dawn
• Tea Rose Home’s Self-Binding Baby Blanket

Pumpkin granola, luna and larabars, Ms. Meyers room spray, cake mix, a handmade headband, and a beautiful birthday card!

(Photo courtesy of Turby and John)

Related Posts:

• Fancy Silhouettes on Vintage Plates (a LONG tutorial)
• Days of the Week Pillowcases for Dawn
• Tea Rose Home’s Self-Binding Baby Blanket
• Birthday Placemats and Hand Towels
• A Bundle of Birthdays

These colors make me think of Rocko's Modern Life.

(Side note:  the above picture was taken back in May, while we were still living in our crummy little apartment in Columbus.  I know it’s only been two months, but seeing this picture now makes my stomach hurt a little.)

To make these, you’ll need:

• Plain terra cotta pots in whatever size you prefer
• Acrylic paint and paintbrushes
• Tape measure
• A calculator if, like me, you can’t do simple math in your head

Start by picking out the two colors you, or the person you’re giving the planter to, like together.  For this container, I started off simple with black and white.  At this point you may cover the pot in an even coat of one of your two colors.  OR, if you’d prefer to have a mixture of exposed terra cotta and paint (like the turquoise and terra cotta planter above), skip this step.  If you aren’t sure, you can always go back and paint the terra cotta parts if you don’t like the way the combination of terra cotta and paint looks.

mine measured about 27.25"

Measure the circumference of the planter around the widest point, then divide that number by something that will come out close to even.  Mine was 27.25″, so I divided it by 6 and got something like 4.5″–rounding is key here, because paint will cover most of your mistakes and it’s way too much trouble to worry about getting everything exact.  The most important thing to remember is that you have to divide by an even number, otherwise the pattern won’t turn out right.  Around the widest point of your planter, make marks in intervals the length that you got when you divided.  You’ll have the same number of marks as the number you divided by.  Since I got 4.5″, I made a mark every 4.5 inches–six marks total.

i used my tape measure to help me draw a straight vertical line

Next, at every mark draw a straight vertical line from the top of the bottom of the planter.  This part is kind of tricky because the pots get smaller as they go down, but I was able to conform a tape measure to the pot and mine seemed to turn out straight enough.

i made marks at 2", 4", 6", and 8"

Measure one of your vertical lines and then divide it by a number that makes sense. My vertical lines were 8″, so I divided by 2 and got 4.  Starting at the top and going down the vertical lines, measure and mark intervals as far apart as the number you get  by dividing.  Again, you should have as many marks as you divided by–I ended up with 4 marks, each 2″ apart.

we had blue painters' tape left over from painting my parents' upstairs bathroom

Next, simply connect the marks you made on the vertical lines with tape.  You’ll be outlining one stripe and filling in the other–it’s hard to explain, but the above picture should make it pretty clear.  This blue painters’ tape worked really well, but I’ve used plain old masking tape with success too.

almost as easy as a coloring book

Just paint inside the lines; I used acrylic paint because that’s what I have on hand.  Terra cotta really sucks up some paint, and while it dries amazingly fast that means it’s really hard not to get streaks.  For these reasons, I imagine spraypaint would work like a dream for this project.

my sweet little catnip had really outgrown it's previous container

After taking off the tape I decided I wasn’t too crazy about the white and terra cotta, so I covered the exposed terra cotta with black acrylic paint.  After letting the pot dry, I transplanted a puny catnip plant from a small container it had outgrown and am really happy with the way it turned out .  I’ve found that a mother of millions looks great in these containers, too.  I love the combination of bold colors like these with plants whose flowers aren’t too showy–otherwise I feel like the plant and the container are competing for attention.

Related Posts:

• Fancy Silhouettes on Vintage Plates (a LONG tutorial)
• Plants that Grow Well in Containers
• Organic Catnip Mice
• Ill-Fitting Tank Top into Stuffed Owl
• Homemade Holidays: Doily Tote Bags

A stuffed animal/pillow hybrid.

Lately I’ve been getting divine crafty inspiration from on high; as I was sitting in my Capstone class earlier this week I got the idea for this sweet little stuffed owl seemingly from nowhere.  I sketched the concept in the margin of my notes and went back to my discussion of Lily Bart, almost forgetting about the owl until I cleaned out my tank top drawer later in the week.  (Yes, I have a tank top drawer, and until a couple of days ago it was very full.)  I’m making an effort to get rid of a lot of stuff before we move, and part of that effort involves getting rid of anything I haven’t worn in the past few months.  One of those things is this brown tank top.

Ill-fitting brown tank top.

It started out white, and I never wore it.  At some point I dyed it brown because I thought that would make me wear it more (which obviously didn’t work as the fit, not the color, was the problem), but I was wrong and it continued to languish in my tank top drawer with no sense of direction or purpose.  The “dotted line” below represents where I cut.  Out of laziness, I tried to use as much of the original side seams as possible.

Please excuse my photo-editing skills.

After I cutting, I turned the top inside out and sewed up the top.

Inside out, after sewing.

After sewing up the top, the inside looked like this.  I then turned it right-side out again and stuck it in an embroidery hoop and attached the eyes.  For the eyes, I used scraps left over from a men’s shirt I previously turned into an outdoor pillow along with scraps from a t-shirt I dyed a cream color with tea and used to make another pillow.  I used one of my vintage snuff glasses and a tin of Burt’s Bees lip balm to get the right sized circles for the eyes, and I secured them with fabric glue before doing some very remedial embroidery, mostly for decorative purposes, but also to tack down the edges.

My remedial embroidery in all its glory.

Almost finished with the eyes, before adding the beak and stuffing.

Rather than sewing the bottom closed, I made a small cut on the wrong side of the hem at the bottom and fed some embroidery floss through, making a sort of drawstring, then cinched it as tightly as possible.  There was still a small opening where stuffing could come (or be pulled) out, so I hand stitched that closed.

I see a lot of potential to have fun with this project–buttons for eyes would be really cute (but they’re a choking hazard, so be careful!), and depending on what fabrics you have on hand the potential for interesting color combinations is really limitless.  I toyed with the idea of adding applique wings in another coordinating fabric, and I may try that out at a later date as well.  Having said all that, I’m really happy with the finished product, which is sort of a stuffed animal/pillow hybrid.  I already have a sweet little boy who might need a stuffed owl in mind.

Related Posts:

• Organic Catnip Mice
• Worn Out Shower Curtain into Tea Towels
• Bird Mobile from Spool
• Day Four: Learning from my Mistakes
• Day Three: Completed Kitty!

The finished product, right before I wrapped them up this morning!

The lace is sweet and girly, but the colors are fun and bright enough that I think Holland will still feel like a rock star/princess, or whatever it is kids want to be these days!  To make these sweet shirts, you’ll need: a plain shirt, acrylic paint in a coordinating color, spray adhesive, a doily, and textile medium.

Here’s the process:

• First, pick out where you want the doily pattern to show up on the shirt.  I’m partial to bottom left corner and around the collar.  Using the spray adhesive, stick the doily to the shirt, making sure that no air pockets are left between the fabric and the paper.
• Next, mix the acrylic paint and textile medium according to the instructions on the textile medium package.  Mine required two parts medium to one part paint.

• Using the doily like a stencil, paint over all the spaces where the shirt is showing through.  Be careful not to go outside the doily, and not to apply too much paint (so that it doesn’t bleed). If you’re using a color you’re afraid won’t show up, you can let it dry and apply another coat rather than slathering a ton of paint on all at once.

• Once you’ve given them ample time to dry (a few Weeds episodes did the trick for me!), peel the doily off and wash, dry, and iron the shirts before giving them away.

Related Posts:

• Homemade Holidays: Doily Tote Bags
• Homemade Holidays: Cookie Mix in a Jar
• Homemade Holidays: Sweet Little Shirts
• Homemade Holidays: Recycled Flannel & Rice Hot Packs
• Homemade Holidays: Terrarriums