Showing posts with label Sewing. Show all posts

DIY Education Cube

>> Saturday, October 12, 2013

Success!

So while searching the vast homeshool resources out there, i can across a cute little bird printable board game that i thought would be fun to play during our Nn-Nest unit week. Come to find out the board game was printable but it required an ‘Education Cube’. I went to the Education Cube website. You had to first buy an education cube (which was out of stock and didn’t list the price) and then pay a membership fee to gain access to the education cube printable database to print the pieces needed for the game. I liked the idea of the education cube, could be used for tons of things, but i didn't want to pay (even though it’s a one time fee) to be a member of the printable site…. later i might change my mind but for now i wanted to go all DIY on the place.

I thought ‘A cloth cube…. easy… adding clear pockets to the sides should be easy as well!’

I had already purchased and had on hand the clear plastic needed for the pockets (had it for some other projects… LUCKY!!!) So i found a cloth cube tutorial (HERE) because i had never made one before. The pattern happened to be for the perfect size cube. I wanted to make my pockets on the cube the same size as the store bought education cube that way in case my cube turned out great i could later become an education cube member, if i so chose, and their printables would fit my cube.

The fabric pieces are 5in X 5in

The clear pieces are 5in X 4.5in

And i used 3/8 seams

First Attempt:

Problems:

I don’t know if it was user error, meaning that the plastic slipped while i was sewing or that i’m using the poly fill to fill the cube which puffs out the sides but my pockets bulge out some. The cube still works, it rolls and does what it is suppose to do but i am a perfectionist and having the sides bulge out is driving me crazy. I plan on making another one and basting the plastic onto the cloth pieces before i sew the pieces together and also using some of my left over cushion padding for the filling which is stiffer and i can cut it into a square.

If the new one works better then i will post about it later. Until then, this one does the job fine and we have already used it!

BUT....

I attempted it again and did those things i mentioned i wanted to try and it worked!

So here i have pinned some bias tape to the top edge of the clear pockets

Here the bias tape is sewn on.

The i sewed the clear pockets to my jean squares only on the sides to hold it on when i go to sew the rest. This was a little tricky. It kept wanting to gather the jean material under the plastic so i had to hold tight while i sewed.

This is the filling i used for the insides. I cut stripes of left over seat padding i had on hand until it made a square the right size.

These are my pieces sewn together in the first step to completing the cube.

This is it sewn and filled, leaving the one side for me to close up.

Here i’ve pinned the edges of the opening in preparation to close it up by sewing it by hand.

Now it’s all closed up!

And here is it with the cards in it. No bulging pockets like the last one.

I love it!

So happy i got it to work right! Woot woot!

Ok so the Flap Flap & Fly printable game board is (HERE)

Then instead of paying the membership to gain access to the education cube printables needed for the game i went ahead and made my own.

Click on the pictures to go to the full size image where you can download and print your own for your own game if you so wish.

These are our game pieces.

I changed the colors so each of my girls could have their favorite color.

These are the six pieces you use in your education cube/dice to play the game

(As you can see this was taken before i made the new dice)

I cut out the bird pieces and put them in some colorful binder clips i had picked up at the Dollar Store when they had their ‘back to the school’ items.

(As you can see this was taken before i made the new dice)

My crazy girls getting ready to play the game.

They loved it by the way!

And now that i have the cube (and the good one) the possibilities are endless :D

More games will definitely be in their future!

Next Sewing Project

>> Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Some nursing shawls! These top two are basically the same kind of shawl and the one below is the same too except they add the frill and a simple collar.

I bought some more fancy looking material i thought might be good for dress up occasions like church and i will try and make it like the design below. The others i plan on just doing plain like above because the material i have for those has stripes.

I’m excited! Hoping they turn out nice. Back when i was investigating other nursing shawl patterns i found this one HERE

$79.95 on Amazon O.O I could not believe it! But i loved the design so i pinned it on pinterest. I planned on figuring out how to make it on my own but instead i found these site that tell you how to make this simple cover.

Cover Link 1

Cover Link 2

Love free patterns and tutorials :) The internet is a great thing LOL

Quick Dress

>> Wednesday, July 11, 2012

So i found this material on clearance for $7 a yard and i thought the colors went great for my daughters birthday in less then half a week. So i bought a yard even though 3/4 a yard probably would have been plenty.

So in a very short time i had this dress:
You simply sew up one seam which becomes the back and add the straps, done! Hopefully this looks really cute on her!

Mess up and corrections:
I cut the seam 1/4 from where i wanted my seam. I did serge the seam first then sew a regular stitch down it for a better hold. Well since i cut it so close to my seam, the elastic thread in the material didn't all get caught in the seam. So i had to go back and catch the elastic threads by hand and secure them so they wouldn't continue to ravel. It was doable and not to hard, just took more time then the dress should have taken. If you do this i would suggest cutting the material wider then you need it so all the threads will be caught when you sew and you don't have to go back over it by hand. Plus you can always serge or cut off the extra afterwards.

Making Travel Activities For My Girl

So i woke up after a nap the other day with lots of different ideas. It was weird cause i wasn't even thinking about this before i went to sleep.

See my husband is a football coach and football season is just around the corner... that means me lugging my girls to as many games as i can. When you have a 2 and 3 year old girls it's kinda stressful to take them to games and not have them go crazy sitting for so long.

Last year i made two of these:

Added the child straps to the travel seats. This helped a ton! But my next issue was entertaining them and also my diaper bag. See after shoving all the snacks and cups and toys to try and keep them occupied in my bag, it was crazy full and would get jumbled as soon as i would have to pull something out.

My goal is to try and keep things as simple as possible. See it's just me lugging a double stroller, three stadium seats a big stuffed diaper bag, and later in the season blankets. Yeah i look pretty pitiful and sad looking lol. I'm sure i cause some to laugh. This year i'm kinda dreading it cause i'm trying to potty train my oldest and i don't even want to think about lugging her, my youngest and my diaper bag into the bathroom. Haaaa.

Anyways here are some of my ideas i'm trying to make reality.

So this was my supplies:

And this is what i did with them. I used the marker lids and attached the elastic thread through the holes in the caps.

The caps will be krazy glued to the colored pencils (hope it holds up) Then i will wrap the elastic ends in fabric and sew the heck out of them to keep the elastic in place.

Then the other end of the elastic on the colored pencils will be attached to the clip.

This way the girls will be able to color and the colored pencils will not me able to drop (or be thrown like they like to do at the games) I'm hoping this works good and entertains them for at least a little while.

Then i looked on Amazon for an 'I Spy' book but was having a hard time. I could find lots of i spy games but i wasn't finding just the books which i found to be very odd. I adore I Spy books. Heck me and husband love to sit and try and figure them out together to this day!.

So instead i decided to make my own. I purchased these:

(100G. Lot Assorted Resin Flatback Scrapbooking Buttons Cabochon Craft Supplies)

and...

(100g. Mix Assorted Food Cup Cake Fruit Candy Resin Flatback Scrapbooking Buttons)

That's about 150 little trinkets. I bought this little glittery photo book:

So i figured the one page can be the i spy page and the opposite page can be the page showing you which items you are looking for.

Also while looking for my daughters birthday gift i came across this and ordered it.

It was described as "Choose from among fourteen fun themes, slide a card into the gameboard and start looking for matches. This handy memory game includes one game board, seven double-sided game cards and a two-player scoreboard. There are no loose pieces and everything conveniently stores in the board."

Next will be figuring out a better travel bag/diaper bag and i think i already have the idea for it!

Peek'A'Boo Bag Type #2

>> Friday, June 01, 2012

My First Peek-A-Boo Bag

Peek-A-Boo Bag directions and tutorial @ tonicoward.blogspot.com

So i screwed up a little bit, it's slightly more narrow then what the pattern called for. Not sure what i did wrong with the cutting but at least it turned out ok.

I think these will work much better then the plastic baskets i was using for her toys.

First Page Of My Quiet Book

>> Tuesday, May 22, 2012

I was inspired by creatingbycami's 'Quiet Book'. This is the beginning of mine. I haven't made it to be put in a book yet. Later after i make the back page to this page, i will make the button holes on the side so i can end up binding it into a book form.

My littles came and played with it. They both loved it but my oldest sat there for quiet awhile counting and counting. So nice to see! Hoping this sort of thing will make trips and different outings a lot easier. Although now i need to make two books LOL