Sewing for Pea: Toy Boxes

Well Pea (the nickname we gave our baby girl before she arrived into the world), is well and truly here, 3 months old now and already has a ton of toys. So I wanted to create some unique toy boxes for her.

I took these plain storage boxes which I got from Muji...

... and turned them into these:

 Here's how I did it:

1. I printed off an image of a 5 sided star, taped this under a sheet of acetate and, using a cutting knife and board, cut out the star shape to create a stencil.

2. I mixed up my desired colours of fabric paint, and using my star stencil (secured with masking tape) stencilled different colour stars on the sides of the boxes. To fix the paint, I ironed them (putting some scrap fabric between the painted area and the iron).

3. I then sewed this fancy pom-pom ribbon around the top and trimmed the handles with co-ordinating ribbon.

Voila!

Sewing for Pea - Christmas Stocking

Before Christmas with the imminent arrival of our new family member (who was nicknamed "Pea" until she arrived), I decided it was time for some new Christmas stockings for all 3 of us. Unfortunately, I only managed to make one by the time our little daughter, Cari Marie, arrived on 8th November. But at least she had a stocking for her first Christmas even if mummy and daddy had to make do with their old ones.

I used some dark teal linen as the main fabric, soft brushed cotton for the inside and some festive patterned cotton for the top of the stocking.

I get very confused about the whole right sides together, wrong side to right side, upside down and turn it all around thing, so rather than attempt to explain how I went about making this, I'll instead refer you to this great tutorial which I followed:

http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2010/12/tutorial-lined-stocking-with-cuff.html

There are lots of possibilities for getting creative with this - using different combinations of fabrics, stencilling your own fabrics for the top part, stencilling or appliquéing the name or initial of the owner-to-be of the stocking.  And then of course, what to put in the stocking ready for Christmas morning - oh wait, Santa does that, right?

Now I just have to make two more for next year!