Home Makeover: in the Kitchen

On these last couple of days I turned my attention to our kitchen. We have a convenient work island in the middle of the kitchen, which naturally turned into a junk pile. We decided, as a family, that junk was not the best use for that surface, and that it could be much nicer and cleaner. We also had these IKEA bar stools, and since I usually sit on them and they hurt my back, I decided that some padding would be nice.

To save time and money, I stopped over at IKEA and picked up some fabric and other home accessories and set out to get all the work done in a couple of hours. Well, not surprisingly, it took a little longer than that (but not much). While I was there, I decided to tackle the junk pile on our bedroom dresser as well, and got some candles and a lucky bamboo, which I hope will help keep the junk away in our entire home (and I like the way it looks and that it doesn’t need to be watered very often). It’s not particularly inspiring, just clean and neat, so I’ll spare you the pictures.

This is our kitchen before:

And here is what it looks like now:

I upholstered the IKEA stools (with IKEA fabric), and used a matching contrast fabric for the table top. Two wine glasses, a wine bottle and a black and white fruit bowl (which will be filled once I get back from the market) completes the soft yet elegant look. I’m very happy with the result. In fact, I’ve been stopping to look and feel proud of my work every time I go in the kitchen…

To complete the decluttering, I moved all of the unused fridge magnets to the side of the fridge, where they don’t show. Then, I wrapped a tin box with the upholstery fabric and glued a magnet on the back, to use for pens. I got the idea here, and I’ve been meaning to do it for a while now. Finally, no more hunting for pens when delivery guys show up!

You can just see our water cooler in the back of the kitchen, so you can see that we really like orange. I can’t get enough of the color (though I try to not go overboard with it).

Last but not least, I made a cover for our Kitchen-Aid out of the same contrast fabric. When I was almost done I decided it was too dark for the corner it was going to be in, and decided to add a bias tape finish made from the orange fabric instead of just hemming it. I’m happy with the result, and I will be sharing a tutorial soon (I’m planning to make one for my in-laws, so I’ll draft a pattern while I’m at it).

Perfect.

A Doll House To Go

I made this doll house a while ago with a pattern from one yard wonders. Later, I found the same pattern in a free online tutorial, so - you can enjoy it without buying the book (though I am a fan). Personally, I would modify the pattern not to include so much hand sewing, but otherwise, it’s an excellent idea and the result is really sweet.

I had big plans for the interior - dolls and furniture and more, but I never got around to it, You know how it is… Finally, I decided that the doll house must be put into use one way or another, and started to think about what would be the easiest way for me to make dolls. I decided on finding a cute doll design and printing on fabric. The first part turned out to be much harder than I thought, whereas the second part much easier…

Finally I found this design on Sweet Clip Art, I modified it a little bit because I wanted a little boy and girl, but not holding hands (and I added the smiley face and flower’s to the boy’s shirt and girl’s dress). I chose the colors for the first set (on the left), and then my son decided he wanted a pair as well, so he got to choose the colors for the second pair (on the right). I was a little afraid of printing on fabric, but I found instructions for a simple technique which worked surprisingly well and it worked out fine: All you have to do is cut your fabric a size that your printer accepts, take some cardstock the same size and stick the edge slightly inset from the card’s edge with scotch tape. The edge will slide into the printer easily and the card will provide the necessary stiffness for printing. Easy as pie!

Because the fabric was quite see through, I ironed on some white interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric, and then cut out the doll shapes with a 1.5 cm seam allowance. Then I traced those shapes on a contrasting fabric (don’t forget to put the doll shapes face down…) and cut them out. I sewed them together right sides together, leaving a gap for turning right side out, stuffed them, sewed the gap closed and hey - 4 dolls!

Interestingly enough, my daughter showed no interest in the doll house before it had dolls, or the first doll before it was in the doll house, but together - she loves them!

365 Project: Day 85, shopping fun!

I’m getting over a bout of the flu, so today I was planning to take it easy. Go get a few supplies from the yarn store, and come straight back. I ended up walking around for about 4 and a half hours, with plenty of loot to show for it.

I started out by taking advantage of the end of season sales, and bought a comfortable pair of simple black pumps. I mean, that kind of shoe is good for all seasons and extremely useful, so why pay more? I discovered that you really must be a professional photographer to take a good picture of shoes. So, no pictures (also, they’re nice, but actually quite boring, so I don’t think you’re missing anything).

Then, I went to the fabric store and bought some fabric to cover my son’s bicycle, about to be left outside for the winter. I was planning to actually make the cover today, but 4 and half hours later, I still wasn’t home. So, no.

For some reason, after this, my camera decided it wasn’t going to focus any more, so this got to be the picture of the day.



It’s been getting cold at night, and I realized that winter is actually going to happen at some point (not really soon, but sometime), and it’s time to start thinking about hats for the kids. Since my stash is practically empty, after the fabric store, I went and bought some yarn. I love going to those stores, they’re so much fun. They’re all colorful and full of stuff you want to buy (but I don’t. I make a real effort to always buy only what’s on my list).



These are the yarns I chose: The dark pink yarn is for Hodaya (I haven’t picked a design yet), and the “poison green” and very dark green yarn in the back are for a dragon hat, which is what Noam requested (I promise a tutorial, when it’s ready).

What I learned and a jewelry organizer mini-tutorial (or: my adventures with a stylist part 2)

It’s been almost two months since my session with a stylist. After my previous post, the change had a little bit of time to set in, and I started feeling really bad. Look at all of those women crying on Trinny & Susannah or Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style and you’ll get an idea of what it felt like in the days and weeks afterwards. Even though I’ve gone through it, I can’t quite explain the feeling, I guess you just have to try it yourself to understand. Because it really is quite traumatic.

However, I did eventually get over the shock. When I put on clothes that I thought weren’t that bad and looked in the mirror – I saw what the stylist was talking about, they just weren’t flattering. That’s when I realized I had internalized the change and cleaned out my closet. Nothing less than perfect is left, except for casual hanging around the house wit the kids clothes.

Then I went shopping. I knew exactly the shapes and colors I needed, and didn’t stray one bit. It made the whole process much more focused, easy and fun. I added two questions to the shopping process: Not only is this nice, but also 1. Is it flattering to me? and 2. Is this consistent with my style?