Canvas Boxes

Remember the canvas boxes I posted the other day? I finally have time to write up how I made them. I'm not sure this was the best method because I was pretty much making it up as I went along, but it worked! Here they are:

To make 5 of these 5"x5" boxes I used 1 yd of 9 oz canvas, 1 yd of quilter's cotton, and 1 yd of the stiffest interfacing I could find. 

To begin I used my rotary cutter (oh man to I love that sucker) to cut the interfacing into 5"x5" squares. I cut the canvas into 6"x6" squares and the quilter's cotton into 6"x7" rectangles. You will need five of each per box. 5 of my lining pieces are 6x6 because I messed up when I was cutting, but if you pay attention the entire time you shouldn't have this problem.

Then I sewed the interfacing to the center of each canvas square. I made them smaller than the canvas because the interfacing was so stiff that I didn't want it in the seam allowances, but this does mean the stitching holding it on is visible from the right side. My fabric and thread are both black, so you really have to be looking closely to find it, but if you chose a printed canvas or your thread wasn't a perfect match these stitches will be visible. 

Next I sewed four of the squares together in a line using 1/2" seam allowance. These are the sides of the box.

Then I sewed on the fifth square to make a sort of 'L' shape.

Now comes the slightly tricky part. Between the canvas and the interfacing you end up having to kind of manhandle the box to keep it under the pressure foot while you sew. Start sewing the sides of the box to the bottom (the small leg on the 'L')

When it is all sewn together turn your box right side out.

Now sew your lining pieces together the same way you did the box. They will be much easier because they are nice and limp. If you are using a patterned lining make sure you orient your pattern in the same direction for each side piece.

With the wrong sides out fold down the top edge 1/4" and sew. This will be easier if you have the kind of machine with a narrow arm, but it's not hard even without one.

When you are done with the hem put the lining into the boxes. Poke the lining down into the corners of the box. 

Then fold the top down over the edge of the box and admire how cute it looks!

If you want to you could sew the lining to the box by pressing the top 1/4" but not sewing anything until the lining is in place, but I knew I would have make-up and lotion in at least some of these and I wanted to be able to throw the lining into the wash if need be. 

One of my boxes is 1/2" shorter than the others because my lining was shorter, but I still wanted the cute folded down visible lining so I trimmed the top of the box down to be even with the interfacing before putting in the lining. If each box was next to each other I might be able to tell one was shorter and it might bug me, but with stuff in between each box on the shelves it's not obvious that one is smaller. 

I've been using my boxes for a couple of weeks now and I totally love them. This is the most organized and the cutest I think my bathroom has ever been, and next week I can start sharing non-bathroom related home decor projects with you!

Coffee Filter Flowers

Well, Fiance and I are mostly settled in from our move, although my sewing area still needs some attention, so this week I started working on wedding related projects. I've got two really big time-consuming type projects, one is bunting and the other is paper flowers for all of the tables. Seeing as I don't have a sewing table set up yet, I decided to start with the paper flowers.

I started off using this tutorial by Michella Marie for white paper peonies. Although I really like the look of her "peonies" I found that if I used only 5 filters instead of 10 I got a product that I think looks more like a rose and I like it even more (plus it uses half as much material which makes me happy!) So I thought I would write down how I made my coffee filter roses.

This is what the finished product looks like:

Drinking wine while making the flowers is totally optional, but I highly recommend it. ;) I would not recommend the wine that used to be in the bottle holding the flowers, though. I picked it because I wanted boat and book themed labels for the wine bottle table but the wine itself wasn't very good.

Anyway, for these flowers you will need:

- Paper coffee filters; five per flower (I bought the cheapo Kroger brand packs, $2.00 for 200 filters)

- 16 or 18 gauge wire (Confession: I'm a vendor for a company that makes wire (among other things) so I didn't pay for my wire, I just marked down some damaged packages, but if you buy the wire at a home improvement store it's only like $3.50 for 50 feet, but if you buy it at a craft supply store you will pay more for fewer feet of wire)

- Scotch tape

- wire cutters/pliers

- ruler

- scissors

-craft glue (optional)

To begin: cut a piece of wire to your desired stem length. I used 9 inches for my long stems and 6 inches for my shorter vases. Use your pliers to make a loop at one end of the wire to stop your "petals" from sliding off. 

Now grab two or three coffee filters. Two can easily be managed, three takes some effort to cut.

Fold your filters in half to create a semi-circle:

Now fold them in half again, try and get a nice point at the bottom so your center point is easy to identify later

Now fold in half again

And one last time

Now use the scissors to round the corners so you have an ice cream cone shape. This part will take some effort if you are working with three coffee filters but it's pretty easy with one or two. I also recommend cutting over a garbage can or bag or something so minimize needed clean up later. This was by far the messiest part of this project.

Now open your filters back up. Use the wire "stem" to poke a hole in the center of the filters and slid it up to the loop.

Pinch the center of the coffee filter and twist it. It takes a mix of force and gentility. You don't want to pull too hard because the loop can still rip through the filter, but you do want to get a good tight twist or your "petals" won't look right. If your filter does rip you can use a drop or two of Elmer's glue to secure it back in place. I had to do that once or twice and now I can't even pick out which flowers I fixed.

So for each of the five filters slid them on and pinch and twist the filters. After a couple of flowers you will get a feel for how to do it. Here it is with two filters:

Three filters

four filters

After you get filter number five twisted onto the wire take a piece of clear tape, about an inch and a half long and wrap it tightly around the base of the flower and onto the stem. You don't need to get a ton on the stem, I found about a quarter inch or so worked fine and keeps the petals from sliding down the stem.

Ta-Da!

I like the look of these flowers a lot. I only took pictures of the flowers I made with unbleached filters, but I've made a few with white filters as well and they look nice tucked in among the brown although I think they would look too white if it was all I used. Not sure why, but I'm not into really bright white anything. I've made about 55 flowers so far and I probably need about 200 more, although I won't know for sure until I finish collecting the other stuff for my centerpieces. 

How to Make a Rice Pack

I've been seeing a lot of tutorials lately for making your own ice pack, but have you ever thought about making your own rice pack? They are pretty much the most awesome thing ever. I love my rice pack because it can used hot or cold, it's already soft and snugly so I don't need a towel to protect my skin from the cold, they don't get covered in condensation as they warm up and if it gets cut/punctured/ripped the only thing it leaks is rice, instead of creepy blue chemicals.

This is my old rice packs.

I've had it for years, but it's starting to get a bit of a fridgy smell to it, so today I thought I would make a few new ones. All you need is some flannel, a needle and thread (or sewing machine) and rice.

I had some super cute flannel in my fabric stash that I got on sale for only 2.99 a yd. I only had a yd because it was all the store had left and I figured I could make some pajama shorts out of it, but I wanted new ice packs more. I used about half the yard and got 4 rice packs out of it. You don't have to buy any flannel if you have remnants already in your stash.

So decide on your size/sizes and cut your fabric. I went with two packs that are about 18"x8" and two that are 8"x8"

The longer packs are great for draping cold across your forehead or the back of your neck if you get migraines like me, and hot they work wonderfully for backpain/cramps. You can use the same pack or both, it just takes longer to heat when you start with it in the freezer. I'm only bothering to making two because I had plenty of rice and plenty of fabric.

So, after you cut your fabric put two pieces right sides together and sew around three sides, leaving the fourth side open.

Turn the pack right side out.

Repeat this for all of the packs that you are making.

Now fill them with rice. Any grain actually works, I think my old one has millet in it, but rice tends to be cheapest. A note on stuffing them: about halfway full is plenty of rice, you want the pack to have some give and me flexible with you are using it. I used an entire ten pound bag of rice stuffing these four rice packs.

Now sew up that last side. You could do it by hand with a blind/ladder stitch, which is what I did (great tutorial on how to do that here). I just used smaller stitches than usual to make sure my rice couldn't get back out.

You could also just fold the ends in and stitch across on your machine.

That's what I did on my old rice pack because I didn't know the blind stitch when I made that one.

And here are your finished rice packs

They are a wonderful, quick, easy, and useful project. I hope you enjoy them!