Shut Up and Sew: Like Daddy's Truck, But More Snuggly

A few weeks ago I realized that as soon as I found out the sex of our new baby, that I would be diving headfirst into making little baby things and nursery things. I decided that I wanted to focus on making a little something for my son before my attention was divided, and with Valentines Day on it's way, I'd have the perfect excuse.

I had big ambitions for a few felt projects that I was going to tackle before Christmas and never got around to, so I had lots of unused felt to play with. I decided to make something snuggly for my son, and since he is 2, his favorite types of things right now are trucks, trains and doing whatever his dad is doing. So I decided to make him a miniature snuggly version of his dad's truck.

I found an adorable tutorial over at Make It and Love It, which you can find here.

Her tutorial calls for a long strip of felt (34 inches) which I didn't have, but I did have three 12 inch rectangles of fabric. I decided to make the best of it, sew them together and hope that it wouldn't turn out too wonky looking. Hopefully it didn't. (Be gentle if you disagree.)

I made a little pattern from some scrap paper, cut out my shapes, and used those to cut out my felt.

I then sat down at the sewing machine and took a big breath. Ashley's tutorial is written clearly, but the item to be sewed actually takes shape as it is being sewn at the machine. Some of the other tutorials I've tried mostly because I looked at the pictures and thought, "Well, that looks easy enough." This project looked a bit daunting to me. But the end result was so cute and I knew my son would love it, so I pushed on.

I sat down with this (above), and eventually it started to look like this (below).

My finished, pre-stuffed truck.

I then followed Ashley's amazing tips on cutting corners and curves, which you must read here. SO so helpful, and made a big difference in getting the outer corners to poke out a bit more and gave me some slack at the inner corners. I then flipped the truck it right side out, stuffed it, and admired it. I showed it to my husband and we both smiled at it. I may have snuggled it a little bit - It's quite the snuggly truck!

I was very pleased to see that the lines from my sewing 3 pieces of felt together fell in places that were kind of appropriate for a truck body to have horizontal lines running across it. Such as, across the top of the "windshield" area, or near the back of the "truck bed." We'll just pretend that I planned it that way.

I traced a small cup on black felt for the wheels, pinned the center and sewed these on the sewing machine.

I cut them out, flipped them inside out and they were ready to be stuffed.

After I stuffed and stitched up the tires, I sewed them onto the body of the truck, but they were still a bit too wiggly for my liking. So I added a few lines of fabric glue between the wheels and the truck body to make sure that the tires were standing upright.

Since my truck is being modeled after my husband's truck, I went for a full windshield and played around with the truck's face a little bit. But in the end I just couldn't resist giving him a grill nose, smile and headlight eyes! It was just so cute!

I finished it off with some taillights and a fun little license plate which I painted on with fabric glue.

My son loved it. We set it on the table so that it could sit with him while he ate, and he smiled at it as he munched on his carrots.

If you like this truck at all than you need to try the tutorial! It was easier than I had anticipated, and you can't beat the price of the materials. (Felt is just SO wonderfully inexpensive!!!)

I'll be linking to these great parties. Have a great week!

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Silhouette Heat Transfer - One Design, Two Shirts!

One of the reasons that I was so excited to get my hands on the Silhouette machine was the option to use the heat transfer material. I had used some store bought iron-on letters to make my son a "lil mascot" shirt before and had TERRIBLE results! Really, the letters immediately started peeling off when my son was wearing it, several came off in the wash, and even with a iron on "refresher" they still just wouldn't stay. So last week I finally just ripped them all off.

My son was delivering Valentine's Day cookies to his dad's class, so the night before I decided to use that red shirt and my white heat transfer material to make him a cute Valentine shirt. He's almost 3 now, so I didn't want his shirt to be too cutesy, but I still wanted it to be Valentine-ish. I found this fun "trucks" graphic that was just what I was looking for.

I bought it from Silhouette's online store, opened it in the software, played around with the sizing and layout a bit, and was finished.

But as I was looking at the design on my screen, I realized that I could make good use of both the trucks and the blank space around it that the trucks had been cut out from. That way I could have 2 truck shirts, a Valentine version, and a "rest of the year" version. I sent my design to the Silhouette and it cut out the truck design.

I got a blank piece of paper and cut out a heart that was big enough to encompass all three trucks. I trimmed it down until it was just the right size, and then used it as a template to cut the heat transfer paper into a heart shape. I then peeled the little trucks out, and set them aside.

Once all of the truck pieces were removed, I had this fun heart shape with truck shapes already cut out. I ironed it onto my little red shirt and it was ready to go!

It made for one cute and sassy little Valentine shirt! I told my husband that it was like the shirt was saying "I Love Trucks!" He didn't buy it, but I didn't care, and my son was a total ham when I got the camera out!!

I then took the truck cut outs that I had set aside, and laid those on another shirt. I used the plastic transfer paper backing to keep them in place while I ironed them down, and was done!!

Two shirts out from the effort of making one!? You really can't beat that!!

I'll be linking my shirts to these parties this week.

In other fun news, did you know that Lemon Tree Creations is about to turn 1?! Yep, it's our birthday next week, and we're so excited!!

We also have some fun giveaways lined up for next week: a stunning dress from Shabby Apple, a $50 Target gift card, and a Lemon Tree Bundle - a gift from each of us!! Sounds fun, right? Be sure to come back next week and enter to win these great prizes!

Have a great week!

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Fun Fridge Train Set

I told you on Friday how you have the chance to win this great bundle from Silhouette: Printable magnet paper, printable tatoo paper, and 2 rolls of heat transfer material (yellow and white).

If you missed that post, check it out here. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, so you still have time to get in on the drawing!!

Today I'm going to share a tutorial on something that I made with just one of these items, the printable magnet paper.

Now, I have a 2 year old son. So I think it can go without saying that there is a certain obsession with these around my house. Anyone else in this boat?

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my magnet paper as soon as I opened it up, create a little fridge train set for my son.

Silhouette has an online store where you can buy single images for $.99 each. (The train above counted as a single image even though it has multiple parts.)

So I went to the store and started browsing for train tracks. I was in luck.

The tracks and the puzzle part underneath started off as just 2 outlines of the 2 shapes. You have the option to fill them in with a color or a pattern, or just leave them blank. My fridge is black and I wanted the track to pop against it, so I filled in the puzzle piece background with this fun rock pattern and made the tracks themselves black.

I then ran the magnet paper through my printer on the photo printing setting.

I then cut the pieces and stuck them up on the fridge. I went pretty basic, straight tracks and curves. (Again, with a 2 year old, this is really all that it took to thrill him.)

I also made him a little train to cruise on the tracks, and he was thrilled!

Here are the tracks in action. If you can't tell, his lips are pursed to make the tell tale, "Chug a-chug a-chug a-chug a-choo-choooooo!" sound.

When I'm ready to add on to the "set", there are train splits, 45 degree crossings, 90 degree crossings, towns, cranes, bridges, etc. Plus, since I have already bought the curves and straight tracks, if I need more I just print more off of my computer. Much cheaper than buying train extension sets, and much less little plastic pieces to trip over on the floor!!

For those of you with little girls, if I was in your shoes this would have been my first order of business for my magnet paper. Fridge paper dolls!

You can even change their hair!!

Okay, okay, so are you ready to try this out for yourself?!

Silhouette is offering a GREAT DEAL to Lemon Tree Creations readers this week of 25% off their various accessories!!

All you have to do is enter the code LEMONTREE at checkout. This offer will expire Saturday November 13th at midnight, so head on over now, just click here.

Also it's not too late to enter the Silhouette bundle giveaway!!

The winner will be announced on Wednesday, just go to this post to enter! You have 4 chances this time, so good luck!!

I'll be linking my train set to these great parties, so stop by and see what everyone else has been making this week!!

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Drab to Darling Desk Re-Do

I have mentioned before that I have some pretty incredible thrift stores in my town. I know that it is only by sheer luck that I come across these treasures, and feel it is a duty of mine to bring them straight home, and gussy them up so that they'll reach their full potential. Such was the case with this darling little desk. I have already bought my son a desk (a really incredible old desk, but I'll get to that in a minute,) but this one is one of those super tiny ones, smaller than a kindergardener would use, and perfect for my 2 year old son right now. For only $3 I snatched it right up.

First things first, I gave it a really good scrub with a bristled brush and some steel wool. It had a lot of funky cobwebs and rust all over the bottom, and since this is for my son, I wanted those to be good and gone.

The top of the desk was a plastic laminate material that wasn't winning any beauty awards, so I decided to cover it up completely and made the top into a chalk board. I coated the whole top and edges in chalk board paint. I then seasoned the chalk board by rubbing a piece of chalk sideways over the whole top. This ensures that once we start writing words, letters or anything else on top, the lines won't be permanently etched into the paint.

My son came out in the middle of this part and assisted in dusting off the chalk. I could barely keep him away the desk, he loved it already!

Next step, paint the body of the desk. Something with this many little crevices called for spray paint, and I went with Rustoleum since it has such a high level of protection and stops any more rust from forming.

I made sure to tape the desk well, all around the edges of the wood and the metal details. I then started spraying!

I did 2 - 3 light coats of paint leaving 10-15 minutes drying time in between coats, then I flipped the desk over to do the bottom and the inside.

Looking better already!!

I sanded all of the grime off of the wooden seat and back until I was down to the wood. I then tried out this Americana gel stain in Oak.

I really wanted to try this stain because it is water-based, and I really hate the fumes of oil based wood stain and the paint thinner that I then have to use to clean my brushes. I also don't ever know what to do with the thinner afterwards, so this let me avoid both of those situations.

You'll need to use a different technique than with a oil based stain, where you would paint it on, let it soak in, and then wipe off the excess. For this water based stain, you paint it on a bit at a time, and then wipe over it with a damp cloth to help blend the color until it's as light or dark as you want. It took a few applications to get it just how I wanted, but once I was finished I really loved the warm oak.

It needed a little something extra, so I went for a 3. If people ask me, "Why a 3?" I will say, "Oh, because Jayce is the 3rd member of our family!" or something like that. The real reason is, I wanted to put some sort of detail there, and this 3 was the best option in my craft room at the time. Sometimes my details are sentimental, and sometimes they are just completely random!

I sealed the wood with a coat of satin polyurethane and I was done!!

So?! Better, right?!

My son just loves it! Actually, while I was in the backyard cleaning it and it's successor, the neighbors' kids came over and all 3 were fighting over writing on it.

And here it is next to the bigger, up next for a re-furb desk. Isn't it tiny? And isn't the big one great?! It has a wooded desktop and a big hollow compartment inside for storage. I feel a responsibility to do this big one just right since it's such a great find, so I'll welcome your suggestions. But for now, we're loving the 2 year old chalkboard version.

I'll be linking this up to these great link parties this week. See you next Monday!

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