Last Minute Gift: Fabric Covered Notebooks

Do you still need a last minute gift idea? I just made this cute little set of 6 fabric covered notebooks and it only takes an hour to do! On top of that, this is a great stash-busting project, as you can make 4 journal covers with just one fat quarter. I chose these pretty Amy Butler prints that I had been saving for a rainy day. These notebooks are great gifts for anyone who likes writing, or staying organized, or just likes jotting things down so they can remember them later. To make this gift really special, you could include a nice pen, or some pretty stickers.

To complete this project you will need some small journals (I used Moleskine 5" x 8 1/4" ruled journals, which come in packs of 3), some quilters cotton or similar lightweight woven fabric and Krylon Easy-Tack repositionable adhesive. I also used some white linen, a Sharpie paint pen and some coordinating thread to make labels for the fronts of my journals. You could also choose another fabric or trim to decorate the fronts of your notebooks.

I cut my fat quarters into 4, each about 11" by 10" which worked perfectly for the books I had. If you are using different sized books, you want to cut your fabric about 1/2" bigger all around than the size of the journals cover.

You can customize the fronts of your notebooks like I have by writing on white linen, or other solid coloured fabric, with a Sharpie paint-pen. Cut out the text in any shape you like and sew to the front side of your print fabric with a zigzag stitch in a coordinating colour. Pull the thread ends to the back, hand knot and snip short.

Mark the center line lightly on the wrong side of your fabric with a pencil. Make 2 small snips on either side of the center line, top and bottom, as wide apart as the bound spine of your notebook. Fold and glue these tabs down. Lay fabric right side down on some newsprint and spray the back with the glue. Line the spine up with the center and smooth the fabric down on each side of the cover. If you don't get it right the first time, the adhesive is repositionable, so you can peel back each side and smooth down any wrinkles. Open the book, clip the fabric around the corners. Fold the clipped corners down first, and then the sides for each cover. Done!

Tiny Apartment Crafts Giveaway Winners! (Or: The Internet Really Likes Owls)

 Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment on my blog during the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway. All the positive feedback was overwhelming and I really appreciate it. This was my first giveaway and I will definitely be participating in more.

When I was choosing fabrics for my giveaway l knew I wanted to use the Echino print I had been hording, but had no idea which animal would get the most attention. The results were so interesting that in the name of science I made a little chart:  

So you know what the internet likes? Owls. It likes them a lot! I better get busy and come up with some more owl-themed projects pronto! Anybody have a great idea they need a craft-guinea pig to try out?

The winners were chosen using the random number generator from random.org.

The Winners! Congratulations to:

Maddie from New York State, who will be receiving the (much coveted) Owl wristlet.

Manuela, a sewing blogger from Portugal! who will be receiving the lovely Tiger wristlet.

Bonnie, a crafty blogger from Ohio, who will be receiving the Yellow Bird wristlet.

All 3 winners have been contacted and can look forward to receiving these pretty hand painted envelopes with their prize soon after Christmas.

Thank you again for all your kind comments. There will be lots more posts and tutorials to look forward to in the New Year. Happy Holidays from the Tiny Apartment!

The Golden Snitch! Ornament Tutorial

Yup, I wore a hastily made clip-on felt Gryffindor tie to the premier of Harry Potter this year. This officially makes me a crafty dork, but it also means I had an uncontrollable urge to try making a Golden Snitch ornament for my tree. They turned out really nicely and I thought there might be one or two other crafty Potter fans out there who would like to know how to make one too.

First, draw an actual size sketch of how you want your snitch wings to look on a scrap piece of paper. Use this as a guide to shape thin craft wire into your wing shape. Close the shape by twisting the wire around the other one 3 or 4 times to make a tight coil. Snip the wire close to the coil. Make 2 (I made 4 as I am giving another Snitch away to my lovely sister).

Coat wires with glue and lay a sheet of tissue paper over top of wires. Use a clean dry brush to push down on the paper, sticking it down to the wires all around each wing. Let dry, then cut out, leaving a few millimeters of paper as a border. Apply glue to border and roll over edges of wire all around the wing. Coat wings on each side with white glue and apply light gold glitter. Let dry.

I used a mixture of brown and gold acrylic paint to paint the swirly 'snitchy' markings on the golden ornaments. I did this mostly from memory and they don't look like movie replicas, but I am okay with that. It occurred to me that if you had a fine-point brown sharpie and one of those gold paint pens, you might be able to achieve real greatness here. I chose to use glass ornaments, because I had them already, although plastic might prove easier to attach the wings to.

Use a small dab of hot glue on the wire coils to make a surface for attaching to the ball. I held each of them vertically against a piece of parchment paper. They don't stick to the parchment (or the glass balls, I tried this first), so just hold each one until the glue cools and a flat surface has formed on the bottom.

I tried a bunch of glues to get the wings to stick to the glass balls. Hot glue pops right off, white glue takes too long to set, even Super Glue didn't work. Finally I tried my trusty Fabri-tac, a glue which I only recently discovered (that I cannot live without), which is like a very strong type of rubber cement, and success! Hold each wing until the glue sets (about a minute or so), then cover glue with gold paint. Tadaa! Go hang it on your tree and get yourself a cookie, you deserve it :)

Giveaway Day is Here!

The Giveaway is now closed, thank you so much for visiting, and thanks to all of you who participated. I will be announcing the winners soon.

This is my very first giveaway and I am so excited! I am giving away 3 adorable zippered wristlets, each one unique and handmade by me. I will be randomly choosing 3 names once the giveaway closes on December 17th and contacting the lucky winners by email. Anybody can enter, and I am willing to mail these anywhere in the world. Please check the bottom of this post for entry instructions. This giveaway was organized by the wonderful people at Sew Mama Sew; click the giveaway button on my sidebar to see a complete list of all the participants.

These handmade wristlets have silver plated double chain handles and brightly coloured zippers. They are made of super soft upcycled dark brown leather from a vintage skirt and a Japanese Echino printed cotton. The lining is bright pink cotton with a card pocket inside. They measure about 7" by 3.5" and as you can see, they have enough room to hold a phone, a small camera or some makeup basics, along with a little cash or cards. They are also long enough to fit standard pens and pencils. These little wristlets are great for a night out when you don't want to carry a purse, and they also work as organizers for a few special items, slipped into a bigger bag.

I have a lot of ideas for future projects and I am really looking forward to sharing them. If you are interested in seeing more of what I'm doing please subscribe to my blog. Thank you all so much for visiting. Good Luck!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated, comments are now closed, and I will be announcing the winners soon.

Tiny Apartment Crafts is having a Giveaway!!

Please visit my blog on Monday, December 13 and leave a comment to enter to win one of three pretty made-by-me zippered clutches. The giveaway will remain open until December 17. Who's going to win? It could be you! This is part of an organized giveaway event by Sew Mama Sew. You should check out all the other participants, there will be lots of amazing handmade items up for grabs!

For a sneak peak at the giveaway prizes, check out my flickr!

Modern Christmas Village for a Tiny Apartment

I have always loved the beautiful vintage cardboard houses in Christmas villages. Unfortunately, in The Tiny Apartment, there is no mantle piece, no empty bookshelf or spare side table on which to set up a village for the Christmas season. But this year, I have come up with a great solution so that even tiny apartments like mine can have a little snowy village complete with lights and mini trees. It takes up just 9 inches square of wall space, and who can't spare that?

I made my village over 2 evenings, with a little time spent hunting down the supplies first. If you want to make your own village there are some special supplies you will need: a 9" square, deep shadow box frame, plaster of paris, small square dowels, mini trees, small sheet yellow vellum, glitter card stock, white fiberfill or other fake "snow", small rectangle of thin white acrylic batting and a short string of battery powered miniature LED's (much smaller than regular tree mini lights). You might be able to find the lights where Christmas village sets are sold. I found mine for 5$ at Michaels. Basic craft supplies you probably already have include some old cereal boxes, assorted glitters, hot glue gun, white glue, old paint brushes, craft knife and scissors, heavy background paper, craft wire and wire cutters and any other decorations you want. 
First make your little houses. If you are lucky enough to own some real vintage houses, you can skip ahead and use this project as a great way to display them! I cut my houses out of thin cardboard from cereal boxes. I also made a fence to go in front of the houses out of a double layer of cardboard, cut to fit the interior width of my frame. Remember to glue vellum down inside windows and door opening before gluing houses together with glue gun. Cut a hole in the back of each house just big enough to accommodate a single light. If you need help designing your houses, Twelve22 has a great free printable house pattern here to get you started. Remember that everything gets coated in glitter and plaster so if you make any mistakes they will not be visible later.

Coat sides of houses with white glue and then glitter. Mix up plaster of paris according to directions on box, it should be smooth and about as runny as pancake batter. Use an old paint brush to apply to roof, window and door frames, the top of the chimney and the fence. I added another layer of plaster to the houses once they started to set. Sprinkle a little extra silver glitter on the roof after plastering. I also dipped some really cheap green fake trees in the plaster, and then dusted with white glitter to make snowy trees, which turned out great! I found them in a dollar bin at a model railway store, much cheaper than the trees sold with other Christmas decorations. Set everything aside to dry overnight.

Measure and mark a line 3/8" inside the back edge on all sides and glue doweling behind this line with hot glue (cut to fit about 3/4 of the length of each side). Use short sections of dowel to secure battery box (glue dowels down around box, don't glue box down) against the back dowel with "on-off" switch towards the front. Cut vignette out of glitter cardstock to fit inside the frame; make a notch for the battery box and another small notch on the opposite side for the light cord. Make little wire "hooks" and glue to back of doweling to secure lights around frame. Leave an LED for each house and then pull string to back of scene and attach by bending hooks around wire (see process shots). Glue glitter cardstock to dowels. Make a snowy ground with white batting. Position houses and poke remaining lights into each. Glue down front fence. Insert trees and then fill in any gaps with a little fiberfill; use fiberfill to cover on-off switch on battery box too. Cut background paper to fit and glue to back of frame. Hang and enjoy! Whew!

OK, so this project has a lot of steps, but it isn't very difficult and with a little patience the beautiful results make it worthwhile. If anyone tries this out please let me know, I would love to see your photos! To see more photos of this project you can check out my Flickr.

Playing Catch-Up: Felt Playfood Set

This summer, I made a huge collection of felt foods for my best friends daughter. The project sort of got out of hand because making felt food is more addictive than you would realize. It was interesting and challenging to figure out how each 3D shape could be made from cut shapes of felt. There are lots of tutorials for felt foods out there, so here are just a few pictures to get your imagination going. A small group of felt food pieces would make a great economical present for a young child who likes playing little chef. More pictures on my Flickr.

One of the things I did with this project was try to make it as interactive as possible. Some of the vegetables were made in two or three parts, to show the insides, with velcro buttons so they could be "cut" apart and put back together. Whenever I could, little extras like butter, syrup, cheese, veggie slices or buns were not sewn together so that they could be stacked freely, and mixed and matched in imaginative ways. I actually made a lot of fruits and a few sweet treats as well, but never had the time to photograph them before they went to their new home.