Handmade Christmas-Part Two: Jeff's iphone Case

Citymade husband Jeff loves to hunt…


…for the perfect product that is.  He has been hunting for the perfect iphone case for months.  He has been showing me pictures of various cases over the internet and he really liked a case that he saw on Etsy but it didn’t come with a card pocket, which was one of his requirements.  If any of you know Jeff, he is very particular about certain things.  He has a very detailed idea of what he wants and will search for months or even years before he finds it.  I decided that the only way that he was going to get exactly what he wanted was if I custom-made him a phone case.

I found gray felted wool at Hobby Lobby as well as leather and snaps.  Here are some pictures of the finished product.

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Jeff really likes his new iphone case…the hunt is over.

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Handmade Christmas-Part One: Caroline's Tool Set

One of the busiest and most productive times of the year for citymade is Christmas time.  We love putting on Christmas music and sewing for hours at a time.  We always say we are going to start making Christmas gifts in July but it usually comes down to a frantic sewing frenzy during Christmas break!

Our first Christmas gift we want to highlight is Caroline’s Tool Set.  For some reason, Caroline loves tools…she takes after her mommy I guess. Every time I pull out the tools she has to try them out and “fix dis” as she says.  This gift of her own tool set was a no brainer.  Of course she needed her own pink tool caddy and tool belt…that is where citymade came in.  We even stenciled Caroline’s name onto her tool caddy using fabric paint and freezer paper.

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Here she is in action!

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I liked Caroline’s pink tool caddy so much that I asked for my own for Christmas.  Thanks Jim and Nancy!  Now we can carry around our tools in style.

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Happy new creating!

We have had a bit of a lull in our blogging and are hoping to get back into it in 2013, so let’s get started.

We begin this year with an up-cycle. We had old corduroy pants, old tweed (one of our favorite things to re-purpose) and some left over fabric from Christmas gifts (hopefully we will have our Christmas gift round-up soon).

All these turned into some pencil cases, zippy purses and coffee cuffs.

We added small details on the zippies and the coffee cuffs (it was the relaxation of winter break).

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Love these little pencil cases. Fun and easy to make.

So, our new year resolution will be to blog more, create more, up-cycle more, sew more. We will see how we do. Until then, Happy New Year!

 

 

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I love my red shoes. . .

We are excited to share our latest project with you.  Instead of fabric and a sewing machine this project involved a big wall, paint, and children’s literature. Intrigued?

I have always wanted to tie a room around a piece of children’s literature. Choosing just one book seemed impossible.  When my daughter, Lauren, came home from kindergarten and couldn’t stop talking about Pete the Cat I decided to check it out.  Not only was it a super fun story…the art work really appealed to me.  The use of primary colors and simple pictures drew me in.  I knew this was the inspiration for designing the room that we call our “creative space”.

 

The best part of the room and citymade’s latest project was the mural wall.  Here are the pages from the book that inspired the mural.

Not only did I want a mural but I wanted the wall to be an interactive art piece that the girls could hang and re-hang their art on.

Here is the finished mural.

The wall itself was painted with two different shades of blue.  I started by rolling on the lighter blue.  When that was dry I brushed on a darker blue in sections and spread it around with a rag to get the watercolor effect.

Luckily Carol’s artistic abilities extend into drawing and she was able to freehand the details in pencil and paint them on the wall.  She did an amazing job!

Here is the wall with the girls artwork.

The art is hung using the wire-clip system from Ikea.  Have we mentioned that we love that place?

For some finishing touches I added some framed pictures from the book and a plush Pete.

This project was so much fun and, if you haven’t read the book, Pete the Cat, we highly recommend it!

 

 

 

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When in doubt, sew a zippered purse

As Melany mentioned in our last blog, with the fall comes the work. We both are trying to juggle kids, school, home and work. It is hard to find to time to sew (and blog!) and projects to tackle.

Usually, when we just need to get some sewing time in we turn to one of our favorite and easy projects.

This time we made a bunch of zippered purses.

These cute, practical purses are perfect for make-up or to use as a wallet. They are also easy and fast to make, and therefore, very satisfying.

We will have these cute zippy’s on sale at the Lewis and Clark Middle School craft fair, Saturday, October 20.

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A New Home!

The summer is over and we are settled into our school year routine.  Carol is back to work full-time and I am working part-time.  This means, sadly, that our sewing and blogging slow down.

Some big news that we had to make time to share is that the Spiehs’ bought a house!

We are now neighbors with our best friends and have a house of our own to call home.   We are very excited to learn the ropes of homeownership and when the big projects get overwhelming what better thing to do than to…make pillows.  Pillows are usually one of the first projects a beginning seamstress takes on but are always fun to make.  Pillows can play a big part in adding color and excitement to a room.

The first pillow I made is from fabric that I saw on pinterest (imagine that).  I ordered one yard of it and used it for my inspiration for starting the decorating of the main floor of the house.  I was able to make two pillows from the fabric and thus kicked off the color scheme.  Here it is…

I really love the bright colors and we pulled the gray color for our wall paint.

Wanting to add some more orange I found this great orange ikat at the fabric store.

I also had fun making some different style pillows for our bedroom.  I tried a ruffle pillow and a tucked pillow.

I also recovered a bench in some fun Ikea fabric that Carol bought me for my birthday one year.

Our next project will be making curtains and promise to show you our finished product. If you’re seeking inspiration for wall decor, consider exploring this Vintage Rebel USA Don’t Tread On Me Flag.

We also want to note that citymade will have a booth at the Lewis and Clark craft fair October 20.  Early Christmas shopping!

 

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Make-it Monday

As we mentioned in an earlier post we love having our kids home in the summer.  The flexible schedule and summer fun activities are a refreshing change to the strict school-year routines.  We had the joy of having Ava join us while Carol taught summer school in June.  In order to keep some sort of a routine we followed this wonderful schedule that I saw in pinterest:

Make it Monday-arts and crafts

Time to read Tuesday- weekly trip to the library

Whats cooking Wednesday-culinary art with CBD oil, so if you have been looking for a natural way to relieve pain and inflammation? If so, then Synchronicity Hemp Oil may be what your doctor ordered.

This sort of products contains nothing but pure hemp extract–no other ingredients or preservatives that might irritate sensitive skin. Learn more about this sort of products, by checking here the gelato wedding cake strain available at the link.

Thoughful Thursday-service project

Fun Friday-go somewhere or do something fun

We wanted to share one of our make it Monday projects with you

Dolly cloth diapers

The girls were all very motherly, bringing their baby dolls with wherever they went.  These drink and wet babies were going through more diapers than actual babies.  It was a little silly to buy diapers for the baby dolls when we didn’t even use paper diapers for Caroline.

We made each baby a waterproof Velcro cover and cut up an old towel for “pre folds”.

They turned out pretty cute and now we have some new ecologically conscious “mothers” around here.  I often catch them hanging their diapers on the clothes line outside…very cute.

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Summer Sewing

Citymade loves summer!  For us it means more sewing time, having all of our children around and….farmer’s market!  This summer we are trying a minimalist approach to the market by selling a smaller selection of items and only having a booth set up several times.  This makes set up and take down less of a chore and lets us highlight a few products at a time.  At our last market in June we sold out of our tote bags!  Being one of our favorite items to make, we weren’t sad about having to replenish our stock.  We had fun trying out some new tote styles and, of course, using our new Ikea fabric.

These bags will be for sale at the market in September.

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Summer=hats

Maybe it was a week straight of 100 degree temps. Or maybe it was the many walking field trips (in said 100 degree weather with plenty of sun.) Whatever the reason, we decided to make hats.

Lots of hats.

Bug hats and daisy hats.

Perfect for hanging by the pool,

and keeping the sun out of your eyes.

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Fabric Shopping. . .again!

Recently citymade took another trip to one of our favorite places, IKEA. (Oh yeah, we went to Minneapolis Minnesota, too. ) While there we took some time to choose some fabric to inspire new projects.

We also spent quite a bit of time enjoying all there is to see there. And made some purchases.

After a long afternoon, we enjoyed a beverage at Pat’s Tap. A tasty experience (can you say cheese curds?)

It worked. We found some great deals and have already started creating.

 

 

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