Critter pillow slip cut-and-sew pattern tutorial

 

Back in the day, one might have used a hot water bottle covered in a washable knitted or sewn cover to keep warm on a cold night or to soothe tired muscles.  These days, little pillows filled with wheat, rice, or another grain that you can warm in a microwave are available for this purpose--and are presumably much less messy than a hot water bottle if they happen to spring a leak!

Stephen and I introduced our young daughters to the habit of snuggling with a warmed wheat critter pillow at bedtime this winter, and they've been absolutely thrilled with this extra bit of coziness at night.   So to spread the coziness around, we recently announced a critter pillow slip cut and sew pattern as a contest theme.  (The deadline for entry is Tuesday, February 19.)  Spoonflower staffer Kelsey designed her own tiny, snuggly critter and co-worker Becca stitched it up and wrote a how-to.  Read on below for the details of their adorable joint project!

[Note: While Kelsey's design included both a kitten pillow insert and its mitten pillow slip on a fat quarter of Kona cotton, the Spoonflower contest requires that only the critter pillow slip fit onto a fat quarter.  The insert can be made from unprinted muslin or scrap fabric.] 

---

I know we have it easier than some during our mild North Carolina winters, but this past week has been legitimately cold around these parts of Durham! What better time then to create a simple—and more importantly, cozy!—sewing pattern in preparation for Spoonflower's critter pillow slip cut and sew contest?   My oh-so talented co-worker Kelsey has engineered what might just be the cuddliest fat quarter of fabric I’ve seen come through Spoonflower yet, a cute little "Kitten in a Mitten."  As a beginning sewer, I'm so excited to report that completing the project really is as easy as cutting, sewing, filling, and warming!   

Just a few supplies to get started with this project:

• Kitten in a Mitten cut and sew kit (We had ours printed on Kona cotton.)
• Scissors
• Rice or other dried grain for filling (You could use cracked corn, flax seed, beans—whatever’s in your pantry. You can also mix a soothing essential oil like lavender into your rice before filling as well.)
• Needle and thread
• Pins
• Sewing machine 

First, cut out the kitten and mitten shapes.

Just a hint--cut loosely around your shapes to liberate them from the fat quarter first and trimming them down more precisely will be much quicker. (Yes, this is coming from a sometimes slow-on-the-uptake crafter!)

One of the great things about this project is that you have lots of options here! If you’d like to line your mitten, use your mitten pieces as a template to cut flannel, fleece, or any contrasting fabric that you’ll put inside your mitten. You can also finish the opening of your mitten with pretty bias tape whether or not you choose to line it.
I went with the simplest option and pressed a 1/4-inch hem at the bottom of my mitten.

Now, with right sides together, pin the kitten and mitten pieces together.

You’ll need to leave the bottom of the mitten free and open. On the kitten, leave about 2 inches open at the bottom for turning right-side out and filling.

(Delightfully, this is the only measuring you have to do!)

Before stitching the mitten together, it's a good idea to sew the hem you pressed up earlier.  I sewed my mitten hem with a simple zig-zag stitch.  Now, sew the pinned mitten pieces together with a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stitch lines to anchor your stitches. Repeat with the kitten pieces.

Once you’ve sewn your pieces together, turn them right-side out and give them a good pressing.

Now your mitten is finished.

Time to stuff your kitten!  Use a funnel or a piece of rolled up paper to fill your kitten with rice through the 2-inch opening.

Knead the rice toward the seams of the kitten to ensure you’ve got her filled evenly—and be sure to fill that little ear!

Once your kitten is sufficiently stuffed, hold the opening taut, and hand-sew the seam closed.  (You can also use pins to close up the opening while you stitch if you need to.)

And voila, your kitten is ready to be heated in the microwave, placed in her mitten, and cuddled! Heating times will depend on your microwave’s strength but to be safe, start with 1-2 minutes and work from there to achieve your desired temperature.

A simple and rewarding project!  

---

 

Becca McCoy spends her free time exploring Durham with her dog Clyde, planning craft projects and sometimes finishing them. Learning to quilt is her favorite new skill of 2013, which is really helping manage her ever-growing fabric stash.

 

 

Kelsey is a designer working in Spoonflower's Print Room. She is an art lover, maker, and all around doer of things.

 

January Refresh: Heather Dutton's Magnet Board Makeover

This week, Spoonflower designer Heather Dutton of Hang Tight Studio shares an easy but impactful magnet board makeover using Spoonflower decals.  Read on for the details of Heather's project, including some extra ideas for using up leftover decal bits at the end of the post!

---

When the New Year rolls around, I love tidying up my studio and starting the year off with a fresh space. One thing I desperately needed this year was a special place to hold my to-do lists and reminders since my bulletin boards are jam-packed with new designs I’m working on and inspiration images.

I bought a boring office supply magnet board over the holidays but it looked like something that belonged in a boardroom instead of an art studio.

So I decided to give it a little help thanks to Spoonflower’s fab wall decals! The whole makeover was easy-peasy! The hardest part of the process was deciding which design to use. Seriously!  There are so many fun patterns to choose from but I kept coming back to "Old Technology" by Michelle Luu (aka, Theboutiquestudio on Spoonflower). I love the retro vibe of her design and the vintage phones, cameras and typewriters seemed like a perfect fit for a message center.

I started off by measuring the length and width of the inside of the board (the magnetic bit) so I’d know what size to cut the decal. 

The decals come with a pre-cut easy peel edge that’s inset a little bit from the outside edge of the paper. This is a great feature but I needed a raw edge to start my measurements from so I trimmed my decal down just inside the pre-cut edge on two sides.

I flipped the decal over (to the paper side) and, using a T-square on my new raw edge, I measured out the height and width of my board on the back with a pencil. Using a sharp X-Acto blade, I cut the decal to fit my dimensions.

 

I decided that I wanted to put a small band of my own "Off The Grid" design at the bottom of my board so I cut the main decal a little shorter than the board, measured the extra space for my second decal, and cut that piece to fit as well. Once my pieces were cut, I peeled off the backing and stuck them to the inside of the board. Crazy easy!

I had a couple of decal scraps left over and I couldn’t bear to throw them away so I decided why not go crazy and make a handy pen and paper holder and some coordinating magnet clips? You could use just about anything for a pen/paper holder as long as you can glue a couple of magnets to the back of it. I cut one of the “Old Technology” decal scraps to fit this fun metal tin I had laying around, slapped it on, glued a few magnets to the back and bam!  Instant coordinating pen and paper holder! Nobody’s going to see the back of the tin so I didn’t worry about making it look pretty.

I’m a bit of a sucker for clothespins so it was a no-brainer to turn a few into coordinating magnet clips! I just traced the shape of the clothespin onto the back of my decal scrap and cut them to fit. I did the same thing for the magnet strip (which is super-easy to cut). The magnet strips are self-adhesive but I used a little glue just to make sure they stayed on. Ta da!!! Your very own coordinating clothespin magnet clips! Wheee!

 

A big thanks to Spoonflower & Michelle Luu at Theboutiquestudio for the brilliant decals and fun project!

January Refresh: Fabric Hanging Shelves

We devoted the month of January to sharing projects to inspire us to transform those unloved items in our homes into treasures and to reorganize our spaces beautifully. Anda from the Etsy Europe team shares a final brilliant organizational DIY, fabric hanging shelves.

---

You’ll need:

• one yard inner fabric in Spoonflower linen-cotton canvas
• one yard outer fabric in Spoonflower linen-cotton canvas 
• two 20cm lengths (7.5”) of 5cm wide velcro (2”) 
• four 20x30cm (7.5” x 11.5”) pieces of fiber board, lightweight particle board, or 900+ weight cardstock

Note 1: I live in Europe, and all the rulers in my house are in centimeters, so I created this tutorial in metric. For best results, please measure in cm! I tried my best to convert all measurements to inches anyway, in case you don’t have a way to convert on your own.

Note 2: I didn’t have any velcro when I took photos so I faked it with felt. Please use real velcro or your shelves will just fall off the closet rod! :)

Cut fabric:

12 pieces 23x32cm (9”x12.5”) rectangles of inner fabric, for interior of shelves

2 pieces 23x32cm rectangles of outer fabric, for top and bottom of shelves

2 pieces 20x23cm (7.5”x9”) rectangles of outer fabric, for hanging strap

2 pieces 32x69cm (12.5”x27”) rectangles of outer fabric, for outer sides of shelves All seams are 6mm (1/4”)

Create the hanging strap (use the 20x23cm squares):

With right sides together, stitch around hanging strap, leaving an opening large enough for turning. Trim corners. Turn right side out and press. Slip stitch opening closed.

Sew one side of velcro at one end, flip over and sew other side of velcro at opposite end.

Find center of the top outer fabric piece and measure 1cm from center in each direction and mark. Do the same with hanging strap.

Pin down and sew two straight lines to attach hanging strap to top piece of shelves. You probably want to sew over these lines a few times for security.

Create the top of the shelf (the outer 23x32cm piece you just attached the hanging strap to, and one inner 23x32cm piece):

Press under 1.5cm (3/4”) on back edge of top shelf piece and inner shelf piece.

With right sides together, sew a straight stitch across opposite side (the front edge of the shelf). 

The longer edges of the top shelf should still be open.

Flip top shelf right side out and press. Center an inner piece along one side of top shelf, so its right side is facing the right side of the bottom of the top shelf. There should be around 1cm fabric extending past the front and back of the shelf. Stitch along this side. Repeat on opposite side with a second inner rectangle.

You should end up with something that looks like this. 

Create more shelves (inner fabric 23x32 pieces):

Take two inner fabric pieces and repeat step 2 to make the second shelf. (First press 1.5cm under on back edge of each side, and then with right sides together stitch across front edge.) Attach this shelf to the side pieces of the first shelf by facing the right side of the top of shelf to the right side of each inner piece above it and straight stitching along this edge. 

You’ll always have about 1cm extra fabric extending past the front and back of the shelves, and will need this later when adding the outside.

Attach two more inner side pieces. Make sure you have the front of your shelves all at the front— you’ll be sliding fiber board into the open backs of each shelf at the end.

Repeat steps with next shelf. Repeat steps to make the bottom shelf, only this time use your second outer fabric 23x32cm piece for the bottom of the last shelf. Press everything. You’ll have something like this (seen from the bottom).

Add the outer sides: 

Flatten out your shelves.

Face and pin the right side of one long 32x69 rectangle to the top & edges of the right side of one inner part. Everything else will be in the middle.

Straight stitch around this edge---you’ll have a sort of lumpy sandwich. Be careful not to catch the finished shelving fronts and backs as you sew this part. 

Straight stitch around sides and top, leaving the bottom open. Turn right side out and repeat with second outer piece. Turn right side out again, and start to get excited because it looks almost finished and it’s kind of magical.

Slip stitch the bottom of each outer piece to the bottom shelf piece. Press!

Finish:

Slide your fiber board into the backs of your shelves and slip stitch the backs of shelves closed. Holy moley, you made some hanging shelves! In the photo I have the hanging strap wrapped around a coat hanger, but the strap will work best when wrapped around a bar in your closet. Be sure to use strong Velcro if you plan on hanging lots of heavy stuff. Now fill it with sweaters and underthings or whatever you like! You’re done!

---

About Our Guest Blogger

Anda Corrie is an American illustrator, Etsy designer, and émigré living in Berlin, Germany with her small family. In her spare time she obsesses over vintage children’s books, makes homemade schnapps, sews tiny dresses that her 4-year-old stubbornly refuses to wear, and draws. Visit her Spoonflower shop for some lovely hand drawn fabric designs and her Etsy shop, Boosterseat.

January Refresh: Mason Jar Decal Labels

This week in our January refreshing & reorganizing DIY series we're sharing custom label tutorials for beautiful organization. Allie showed us how she designed fabric labels to wrangle her fabric stash and Caroline shared a decal label tutorial to make finding your pantry or workspace goods a snap. Today, Laurie shares her Mason jar decal labels for a colorful way to order your crafting and sewing supplies.

---

There is nothing I find more satisfying than good old-fashioned organization. It’s like a crisp breeze of fresh air that opens up new perspectives. Really, a good organization project does this to me! And if I take things one step further and combine organization with clean design, crafty goodness, and beautiful color, I'm in heaven! Here's a simple tutorial to organize all of your lovely making materials into an artful display.

I designed my labels for craft and sewing supplies plus a few bonus labels to organize or decorate other jar lids. You can find the decal label kit in my Spoonflower shop.

Supplies:

• An assortment of Mason jars, quart-sized or larger with lids and bands. (I used the regular mouth jars, not the wide-mouth kind.)
• My jar lid decals (Or design your own! You can use Allie's & Caroline's label design tutorials for guidance.)
• Straight-edge ruler or T-Square
• X-acto blade
• Sharp scissors
• Spray paint in the color of your choice (optional)

First, using a cutting board or mat, straight edge and an X-Acto blade (or sharp scissors), carefully cut along the blue dotted line between each decal.

Once you’ve separated each decal, carefully cut around each individual circle using your scissors. 

Remove the backing of each decal one at a time, and place each sticky side down onto a Mason jar lid, pressing the center of the decal into position. If you misalign your decal, just reposition and repeat.

Once the decal is centered, press from the center out towards the lid edges with your thumb to smooth out any bumps.

I opted to leave the silver finish as-is on my lid bands but if you want to spray paint your lid bands, you can do this now. Outside, paint the screw-on bands (but not the lid that the decal is attached to) then allow the bands to dry completely.

Fill the jars with the corresponding crafty goodness, top with a decaled lid, then attach the bands! Go on, I’ll wait.

Use the extra decals for anything you'd like! Arrange them on your wall, write on them with a Sharpie for your own custom label, or stick them on your laptop.

---

About Our Guest Blogger

In addition to being a fabric-obsessed Spoonflower employee by night, Laurie Shipley is a freelance graphic designer, surface pattern designer and illustrator, a mom, writer, crafter and cook. Her work is not limited to a medium or genre, although her current focus is a meticulous juxtaposition of simplistic and intricate pattern illustration for textiles, wallpapers and package design. She dwells in Durham, NC in a continuous creative environment with her son and two cats. Follow her on Twitter and check out her work.

January Refresh: Kitchen Cabinet Decal Labels

This week for our January project series to show our spaces a little love, we're sharing a few ways to create custom labels for beautiful organization. Yesterday, Allie showed us how she designed fabric labels to catalogue her sewing room fabric stash. Today Caroline shares a tutorial for creating decal labels to personalize kitchen cabinet storage. 

---

At the new Spoonflower office we have many simple and plain cabinets that all look exactly alike, so I figured using our wall decals I could label them for ease of use. Here's a simple way to organize your kitchen pantry, workplace, or any other space where some classification would come in handy.

I used Adobe Illustrator to create the labels-- the tools in Illustrator make it simple to quickly create files with exact measurements. I determined how big the labels should be by measuring the space where I wanted to display them on the cabinet. Once I figured out the sizes my labels would be, I chose the 15"X15" decal size for my project.

In Illustrator I made a new file that was exactly 15" x 15". Seems obvious, right? But the next part is the trick. Using the object tool, click once on the canvas and create a square that is also 15" x 15" and white. Move the square so that it fits exactly into the canvas area so your file will be exactly 15" square. This ensures that none of your image will be cut off when you print your labels!

While still selected, lock the selection.

Next, using the object tool again, create your labels, using the measurements you took when you started. Choose a shape for your labels, and select a font and color(s) you like. I made brown rectangles to coordinate with the cabinet color.

Then I chose the font "StrangeLoveNextWide" for the text and made it white.

The final image will look like this (I printed the fish as something fun to use the blank space in the square decal).

Once you have your file ready, it's time to export it to a PNG of 150dpi. This will optimize it for easy upload to Spoonflower.

I was very excited when I got my decal! Next it was time to cut out the labels. I used a cutting mat, a non-slippery ruler and a rotary blade.

Once the labels were trimmed, I peeled the backing off and smoothed them onto the cabinets.

Voila--  now everyone knows where the good stuff is located!

---

About Our Guest Author

When Caroline isn't working on Spoonflower collateral or the website, she is home cooking up a storm or practicing her kickboxing moves and acting like a kid in a candy shop with her new sewing machine.

January Refresh: Fabric Stash Organization

Continuing our January DIY journey to show our spaces a little love, this week we're sharing a few ways to create custom labels for beautiful organization. First up, Allie shows us how she designed fabric labels to catalogue her fabric stash, making an attractive display to inspire new projects!

---

I love the idea of being super organized, but I never fully execute the actual organizing part. Making cute labels was the perfect excuse to complete an organization project. My ever-growing fabric stash was in need of some serious help, so I decided to conquer it!

Supplies:

• custom printed linen fabric
• heavy weight fusible interface
• velcro squares
• scissors
• iron

After much time spent browsing Pinterest and a few blogs for inspiration, I settled on two basic design ideas, either a more organic whimsical ribbon theme, or a fresh circular shape with crisp lines.

I decided the circles would look better with everything surrounding the bookcase that houses my fabric stash, so I continued to develop that idea. Picking a color palette was easy-- I love to use aqua for everything. I chose the perfect shade from Spoonflower Color Guide:

The design process was fairly simple using Adobe Photoshop, my design program of choice. First, I created an outline of circle and added a dotted border.

Adding a simple aqua diagonal stripe gave the label some color and made it a bit more exciting. Dots and stripes, and I’m sold!

Overlay text of your choice and ta-da, a label!

I chose linen, my go-to fabric choice, to print my labels on since it is a nice weight and will hold up well.

Assembly was simple.  Iron fabric to fusible interface for added stabilty, cut to desired shape, attach velcro to surface and fabric, and done!

The finished project is a beautifully organized fabric stash ready for many upcoming projects!

---

About Our Guest Author

When Allie’s not working as a part of Spoonflower’s marketing  team, she can be found crafting, studying for her Masters in  Textiles, or snuggling her dog Grace.

January Refresh: Sharon's Bookshelf Makeover

Joining in on the revamping fun this month, Spoonflower staffer Sharon refreshes a thrift store particle board bookshelf in her home's entryway using pretty Spoonflower decals.  Read on for Sharon's how-to below!  

---

I bought this little particle board bookcase last year at a local thrift store to use as an entry table in our duplex. It’s pretty utilitarian and holds our keys, reusable shopping bags, toolbox, and various decoratives.

I wanted to give new life to it by painting it or covering it with wallpaper or wall decals. After researching online, I learned that painting particle board can be difficult, odorous, and time-consuming.  I decided to forget about painting then.  After consulting with my fellow Spoonies, I decided decals would be better than wallpaper, since wetting the wallpaper might have disastrous results for particle board! The pattern I chose was a teal papercut design by Mina.

I didn’t want to go overboard and cover the whole bookcase with the pattern, so I decided on covering just the shelves. Two of the four shelves are removable, which helped quite a bit with determining the necessary dimensions of the wall decal. Each shelf measured 13.9” by 10.6” which meant a large decal (30” x 30”) would be perfect. 

To cut out the decal pieces, I used two different approaches: one for the non-removable shelves and another for the removable shelves. Both techniques use a removable shelf as a template.

For the non-removable shelves: Lining up the back of a removable shelf to the straight cut edge of the decal, I drew a pencil line right along the long sides of the shelf. Then I used a ruler to extend each line by two inches.

I then connected the two parallel lines with a straight line. This is so there would be a two-inch buffer of decal that can be wrapped around the front of the shelf and along to the bottom of the shelf. I used a ruler, razor blade, and cutting mat to cut out the decal piece to ensure a very straight edge.  

The extra two inches means that I can wrap the decal around the front edge of the shelf so that when you look at the bookcase head-on, the design appears to wrap around the shelf.

I measured and cut the decal medium for both the removable shelves in this way, using a removable shelf as a template.

To apply the decal to the nonremovable shelves, I pulled back some of the backing paper, aligned the decal to the back and left sides of the shelf, and smoothed a bit.

After making sure it was straight (it's easy to remove and reposition the decal), I pulled off the rest of the paper and smoothed using the squeegee provided by Spoonflower.  Once the top was smooth, I continued smoothing along the front edge and around to the bottom. The squeegee works best if you pull the decal taut while smoothing around the edges.

For the removable shelves: Again, I lined up the short back edge to a straight edge of the decal, and drew three straight lines around the shelf. However, this time there was an approximately one-centimeter buffer of decal along the two long edges of the shelf.  Along the front edge, I again put in a two-inch buffer so that I could wrap the decal around the front and down the bottom of the shelf. 

For the decals on the removable shelves, you could do this initial cut with scissors if you like, since straight accuracy here is not yet necessary. (You’ll see why in a few steps....)

I peeled the backing paper off the decal, aligned the back edge of the decal with the back edge of the shelf, and smoothed down the decal with the squeegee. I continued smoothing along the front edge like I did for the non-removable shelves.

Next, I used my trusty razor edge and a mat to cut away the excess decal along the edge of the shelf.

And there is a perfectly covered removable shelf!  

After just a few hours of work, I have an entry piece that is more than your average particle board bookcase, with a subtle design in one of my favorite colors.

January Refresh: Rashida Coleman-Hale's cabinet revamp

A dear sweet friend & neighbor was getting rid of this lovely cabinet and asked if I'd like to take it off her hands.  It's beautiful, so why would I say no?  I wasn't quite sure where I would put it--or even what I would put IN it for that matter--so it sat in our hallway for a few weeks before I figured it out.  I decided to display my late grandfather's prized possessions, now my prized possessions, his vintage cameras, binoculars, tape recorder and the pipe he never smoked. 

Everything looked great, but the pretty cabinet seemed so sad to me sitting in the corner with my grandpa's belongings inside. I love color and patterns oh so much and decided that's what was missing.  So I ordered up some wallpaper from Spoonflower, 'Fireworks' in 'Mint' by Holli Zollinger.  She's one of my favorite designer's on the site. Love her stuff! 

This cabinet revamp was super quick and easy to do. 

I took everything out of the cabinet and measured the length and width of the back.  The width of Spoonflower's wallpaper is about an inch skinnier than the width of my cabinet, so I had to cut two panels from my roll and overlap them, matching up the design.  I decided to put the seam in the middle of the cabinet and this worked great!  The first strip I cut measured exactly half of the cabinet's width plus one inch for the overlap.  

First I cleaned out the cabinet for dust, then I sprayed the left side of the back of the cabinet with spray adhesive (with my windows open so I wouldn't pass out).  I carefully applied the first strip of wallpaper to the back of the cabinet. I started at the top and smoothed it out as I went along.  The beauty of using the spray adhesive is that you can lift the paper up slooooowly and reposition it if need be.  I'm pretty OCD, but I've learned to let some things go and didn't worry about it being perfect.  Life's too short!  

Be careful when spraying so that you don't get glue all over the place like I did.  D'oh!  If I do this again, I'd probably spray the paper instead, then stick the paper to the cabinet.  I ended up doing some scraping up of dried adhesive on the bottom of the cabinet after I finished, but luckily it wasn't too much.  

Speaking of the cabinet bottom, I cut the wallpaper length a wee bit too long when I was preparing.  (Hey, I have three kids under six, okay?  Cut me some slack! ^_~ )  Anyway, to fix that I just took an acrylic ruler and slid the edge down the wallpaper until it lined up with the bottom.  Then I took my X-Acto knife and cut the bottom off using the ruler as a guide. Easy peasy. 

 Next, I just sprayed the other side of the cabinet, lined up my design motifs (which I'd made sure to do while I was cutting my strips earlier) and installed the other piece of wallpaper.  All done! 

Such a simple DIY, but it made a huge difference!  I think my grandfather would love it! 

Okay, actually, he'd probably have a fit, but that's okay.  ^_^ 

January Refresh: Allie's Desk Transformation

Continuing our January project series to show our spaces a little love and create treasures from worn or plain pieces in our homes, Spoonflower staff member Allie Tate transforms her childhood French provincial desk into a fresh work station ready for new creative projects! 

---

Growing up my two sisters and I all had matching French provincial bedroom sets. I had kept mine through the years and love it, but it needed some serious updating. Having been through my childhood and too many to moves to count through college and life after, my poor furniture had certainly seen better days.

A fresh coat of paint, some decals, and fabric to recover the chair cushion and it would be good as new! Choosing the right decals and fabric was the hardest part of the whole process, and I went with two longtime favorites, CandyPenny’s Woodtype Alphabet decal design and Wolfie and the Sneak’s Kristen fabric.

To start the project, I removed the hardware and sanded the desk. Since it was already a light color, I choose paint of similar color that contained primer and was able to skip an extra coat of paint.

With the help of a paint spray gun, it was super easy to achieve a smooth, even coat of paint in an amazingly short amount of time!

I chose to update the hardware by spray painting it black to tie in with the black in the decal and fabric designs.

To update the chair, I first painted it a similar shade of blue to the one found in the fabric design.

Recovering the chair, I cut the fabric to size and then used a staple gun to attach fabric to the bottom of the cushion. For me, strategically folding and stapling the corners so they weren't a mess was the most challenging part!

Lining drawers with decal was an easy way to update the drab drawers. I simply measured the inside of the drawers and using large 30”x30” decals I cut a piece to size and covered the bottom of each drawer.

Ta-Da! The end result is a definite upgrade from the sad-looking desk I started with. Now to work on organizing all my crafting and sewing notions that fill the drawers!

January refresh: Kelly B.'s bedroom makeover

This is the second in a series of posts we're running in January on the theme of refreshing, revamping and reorganizing for the new year. Spoonflower staffer Kelly Baugh recently became a proud, first-time homeowner and went right to work on refreshing her tired bedroom.  Check out her room's fresh new look below!  

---

As far back as I can remember I have wanted to own my own home so that I could remodel it and make it my own. I bought a townhouse about six months ago and quickly got to work on what might be the ugliest bedroom ever.

Well, maybe not ever, but it wasn’t my taste at all! This was an especially fun project for me to work on because both of my super-talented parents helped me out. To keep the costs low, we did all of the work ourselves! I think the carpet was original to the house built in 1985, so that was the first to go.

Then my Dad installed laminate wood floors. The new floors coupled with light gray paint, new closet doors, a new fabric-covered headboard, custom drapes made by Mom, and all of my little touches, really pulled the room together. 

A fabric covered headboard is a great way to add big impact to a bedroom. I followed this tutorial which was very helpful. The fabric I used was Holli Zollinger's "Gray Circles" printed onto Spoonflower's linen/cotton canvas.

I made up my curtains using another Holli Zollinger design called "Coral Yellow" printed onto organic cotton sateen. The pillow was sewn from Alicia Vance's "Bohemian Mod" printed on heavy cotton twill.

For my telephone table I looked to Design*Sponge for inspiration and this one was perfect!  I didn't use Spoonflower fabric for this particular project, but Zoelle's "Marigold Chevron" printed onto linen/cotton canvas would be very similar to the fabric I used.

My dog Leo's bed was made from Holli Zollinger's "Afro Text" on linen/cotton canvas.

I love the simplicity of the room now. It turned out exactly as I'd imagined! 

January Refresh: Dresser drawer word puzzle decal redo

Taking down the decorations after the holidays seems to bring out the impulse to start fresh for the new year in a lot of us, so for the month of January, we’ll be focusing on the theme of refreshing, revamping, and reorganizing for 2013! We'll be hosting a series of projects and tutorials created by talented guest bloggers and a few Spoonflower staffers to inspire you to turn those plain or worn items into treasures for your home using fabric, wallpaper and wall decals. First up, guest writer Emma Jeffery, from the blog Hello Beautiful, creates custom decals to transform her son's plain dresser into an exciting life-size word puzzle. Read on for the details of Emma's creative dresser revamp!

---

My son (now 8 ½) has had the same chest of drawers since he was born and whilst they are perfectly adequate (albeit missing one drawer knob) they don’t exactly scream 8-year old boy! I decided to give them a major new look with minimal effort, using puzzles and word games - something my son loves - printed onto Spoonflower’s removable decals.

I used the free puzzlemaker available on the website discoveryeducation.com,
which is popular with teachers and children. There, you can find a variety of word and number games, mazes and puzzles, and after inputting your own clues and answers, you can generate personalized cryptograms, letter tiles, word searches etc. I made my son’s extra unique by using the names of his
favorite book characters, friends and family members as the hidden clues and answers.

I began by generating a selection of different puzzles and saving them as .png
files on my computer. I used a total of 18 different puzzles for 3 drawers. Then I measured my drawer fronts. They measure 9” x 30” so I made 3 collages using about 6 different puzzles for each collage. I used Picasa to create my collages. In the edit collage tab, you are able to customize the scale ratio, so I set the dimensions to 9” x 30” for all 3 collages.

Next, I wanted to put the 3 collages together as one image. I selected all 3 designs, and created a collage laying them out as they would look on the finished drawer fronts. I added black gridlines between each collage to give me a perfect cutting line and also to serve as a tidy outline for each of the drawers.

Finally, I resized the final collage using Preview on my Mac and resized the image to fit my drawers perfectly at 150 dpi. You can also use Paint to resize an image. My image needed to measure 27” x 30”, so I multiplied 27” x 150, then 30” x 150. I then resized my images to 4050 pixels by 4500 pixels, then uploaded the file to the Spoonflower website, ordered my decal design and waited for it to arrive.

I prefer to use a rotary cutter and ruler to cut the decals, and I suggest using pattern weights or some kind of heavy object in each corner (think tin cans!) to hold the decal flat while you cut.

All that is left to do is remove the old drawer knobs and place the decals onto the drawer fronts. The decals can be peeled back and repositioned easily, so if you don’t get it perfectly straight the first time, you can keep trying. To add the drawer knobs I sliced into the decals with a craft knife over the screw holes, and easily screwed on some new ones.

My son loves his new look drawers and he also discovered that he can write on the decals in pencil, which can be erased if necessary. I made some of the puzzles pretty difficult so they will be sure to last him a while. (Actually, I’m not sure if I can even remember all the answers myself so if you do this, you MAY want to write the answers down and keep them in a safe place!) When he’s done, the decals can easily be removed or replaced.

---

About Our Guest Blogger

Hi! I'm Emma, and as well as working on the Fiskars Design Team, I blog over at hellobeautifulblog.blogspot.com/

I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.