Marvellous mural...

Or something...
Very pleased with this one. I'm glad to report that Joshua's a big fan of Charlie and Lola. Glad for two reasons. One, it's a fantastic programme, and I thoroughly approve of it (more than can be said for Waybuloo!). The other is that it's fantastically easy to paint onto a bedroom wall!
When Joshua wandered into his room as I was painting it, and saw it for the first time, he grinned broadly and said, "Charlie and Lola". (I'm glad he recognised them!) I was chuffed that he hadn't come in and burst into tears or anything, because that would have been somewhat annoying!
Very satisfying, and only took a couple (maybe three...) hours to do. The black outline was pretty time-consuming.

A new home.

Ok, so it's not exactly huge, but it's still home (with a bit of luck, anyway...) for a couple just starting out :)


As usual, it was a joint operation involving me and Joshua. It's SO easy to make though. You just need a plank of wood and you chop it up. Roughly speaking, it's a long bit for the back (bearing in mind you'll be using this to attach it to the tree or whatever, so it's gotta be longer than the box itself) then a front with a 1 1/2 inch hole drilled into it, a base, the two sides cut at an angle, and the roof, which is from the same plank, just mounted sideways. In terms of dimensions, you just need to make sure it all fits together using your chosen sizes. As you can see from the pic (if you click on it it's bigger) the front and back are 'inside' the sides, which means the roof fits. If you screwed it together the other way, the roof would be too narrow, and the birdies would get wet.

We painted it blue coz that's the only colour we've got in at the moment! I'm sure the birds won't mind. There are plans for more bird-related stuff in the pipeline.

And while I'm on 'things made outside', here's a picture of our creation from a couple of weeks back:

I'm particularly pleased with the hat and the goatee :)

Ooh ooh ooh.

I've just remember I haven't blogged about the thing I was meaning to blog about on this... So I'll try to remember to take some photos tomorrow (Joshua and I put it up on Sunday afternoon, and someone commented on it today!)

Has bean bag, will blog.

Well, it's not the cushions I promised, neither is it the 'other thing' I mentioned in the last-but-one blog, but it is a bean bag.

Here's how:
Buy a whole loads of those minuscule white balls to put in bean bags.
Buy some end-of-line fabric (£2.99 a metre!).
Have a look at a bunch of bean bags and wonder which design is easiest.
Conclude it's the one with the least sewing.


(These are not precise measurements...)
Cut out two trapeziums (Base 90cm, one vertical side (i.e., the sides are at right-angles to the base) 65cm, the other 35 cm. This leaves about a 95cm diagonal at the top.)
The easiest way to do this is cut a rectangle 90cm by 100cm, then cut a diagonal line across it (make sure you cut it the right way) It would be much easier if I drew it, but I can't be bothered. These sides need to be sewn together back and front (not top and bottom!), so that the front is 35cm high, the back 65cm. (Obviously, you'll need to have the outside bits of the fabric (if applicable) facing each other. You'll notice from the photo how beautifully the fabric matches up at the seam.

Use your high school maths knowledge to work out the diameter of the circle needed for the top of your bean bag. (It's circumference divided by pi [pi is 3.14ish]) So if you've got a circumference of about 186 (which you would have if you double 95 and allow for a bit of seam) then you'd have a diameter of 60cm. Measure this out on the fabric (If you're like me, you'll spend ages cursing the fact that you bought a repeating fabric that's got the wrong distance between repeats and is thus a nightmare to figure out).
Pin the circle to the sides. I took three attempts at this, because I hadn't measured quite right, so I kept ending up with a big fold at the end of my pinning line. (Make sure you've pinned it the right way)
Sew the circle to the sides.

Wonder how you're going to do the bottom, which needs a zip.
Decide to do it by sewing a whole bunch of bits together and then chopping them into a circle (make sure it's the right size - it's pi time again!)
Spend about 40 minutes trying to figure out how to sew a zip in.
Figure out a way of doing it that probably isn't right, but seems to have worked anyhow. (I sewed two bits together, then sewed the zip onto the two bits, then unpicked the original seam so that the zip actually worked.)

(At this point my machine broke. I don't know what went wrong, but the thread kept gathering underneath and the machine made unhappy noises (it is 73 years old...). After reading the (73 year old and thus slightly dog-eared) manual and fiddling with the machine for about 20 minutes, I managed to stop it being broken. I wouldn't say I fixed it, as such ... but it lasted the rest of the job, and hopefully will live to sew another day.)

Sew the bottom to the rest (keep it all inside it)
I'd suggest undoing the zip before you sew the bottom to the sides. I didn't and then had to work out how to undo the zip, which was on the inside!

Admire your work.

Get loads of bean-bag filling and stick it in (I used a lining which I'd stolen from another bean-bag).

Wish you'd taken some 'during' photos.

Restock all the bean bags in the house with the leftover bean-bag filling.

Sit on your creation for a while and enjoy the extreme satisfaction.



Take some 'completed project' photos.

Blog it.

A Pirate Ship

Thought I'd put this in this blog, just to be different... I made it, after all...

Requirements:
Two sofas,
A crazy three-year-old with a vivid imagination,
About ten minutes,
A weakening grip on sanity.
Yes, the transformation really doesn't take very long, and you can have your very own pirate ship in your very own lounge. You can see a picture of the outside (that's a sail on the top) and the inside (yes, they're my sock-clad feet there) here. If I were able to take a photo of myself (other than my feet), it would have been of me having just climbed in through the window (one at each end) of the ship and getting slightly stuck in the process.

You may recognise the sofas as being the ones already modelled in previous posts. They're wonderfully versatile.

Get on your knees.

There are a couple of things from recent days to blog about, but I'll space them out, so it doesn't look like I just have creative phases ... (Not that they're particularly 'creative' as such, as they both followed instructions. Creating, yes, creative, not really!)
The first one is something I've been meaning to make for ages (years?). I only finally got around to going and getting the wood for it last week. It's a prayer stool :)
If you're wondering why it's on the bed, it's because, being pine, it didn't show up very well against the beige carpet!

Ingredients: (enough to serve 1 person at a time)
Plank of wood (smooth planed, unless you want splinters in your bum) 6 inches wide, about 32 long.  Choose a thickness of plank that you think will bear your weight...
Batten (square, 1/2 inch, about 12 inches long)
8 screws (I used reasonably lightweight 1inch ones - obviously if they're much longer they'll stick out the other side)
4 nails.
Wood glue.
Saw
Sandpaper
Hammer
Screwdriver (I confess I used the power tool rather than my fair hands)
Three-year-old son to help (optional)

Cut an 18 inch length off the wood. (This will be the 'seat' bit)
For the legs, I cut them 7 1/4 at the back and 6 1/2 at the front. (I'm sure you can work it out for yourself, but measure 6 1/2 inches then 7 1/4 on one edge of the face, and on the other edge measure 7 1/4 then 6 1/2. You'll have a sloping cut that creates two identical bits of wood) The precise lengths you'll want depends a bit on your shape - shorter/taller people may wish to vary, but I would have thought this would work for most. Mum's prayer stool, from which I stole the measurements (it's ok, I helped her make it years ago) is 6 1/2 and 7 inches.
At this point, my three-year-old helper (a.k.a 'Big Boy') went inside to watch telly. I sanded down some of the corners, so it's got a smoother finish, but that's pretty optional. I actually went in to sit with Big Boy whilst sanding, but got a very clear, "I can't hear the telly properly", so I left again.
You then need to construct it - I nailed the top into the legs before screwing, and applied wood glue at this point - I didn't use any in the battens.. (It's probably obvious, but make sure you have the legs the right way up (If it's not obvious, you want the right-angled edge to be on the floor, and the sloping edge to be at the top!!))
I then cut the batten at a slight angle, so that it follows the line of the legs, rather than sticking out at a jaunty angle).
Screw the battens into the top and legs.

If you want to, you could of course paint/varnish it. (Or carve your name and postcode in it, so if it's nicked it can find its way home). I think I'd do this to all the bits of wood before putting it together.

One last thing...

USE IT!

One to amuse you.

Thought you might like this one.

Ingredients:
Leftover fabric (that's leftover from the leftover fabric used for the last project)
A heart to cut around (suggest wooden one rather than real one - much less messy)
A dead pillow that can be butchered.
Sewing machine etc., as in previous post.

Cut two hearts out of the fabric.
Worry about the fact that they seem to be different, despite the fact that you used the same 'template' for them both. Also worry about whether the fabric should have been a certain way up before you started.
Figure it doesn't really matter and pin around the edge. (Note, if you're using a fabric with a right side and a wrong side, make sure the right side is on the inside - don't worry, you'll see it again in a second)
Sew almost all the way around the edge, leaving about a 1 1/2 inch gap.
Turn the empty heart (?!) inside out (or inside in, actually) so that the seam is on the inside not the outside. (Though I guess there might be something vaguely 'trendy' about having the seam on the outside - seems to be all the range with t-shirts these days)
Rip bits out of the innards of your dead pillow (should probably have mentioned that a polyester one's perhaps easiest and least messy, but I'm sure others would do)
Jam as much stuffing into the heart as you can.
Hand sew (unless you're better with a sewing machine than me) the last 1 1/2 inches up, making sure that you've not got any guts spilling out through your seam.
Wrap the heart up and give it to a loved one. (Or, I suppose, anyone ... if you're into freaking people out)