cupcake with chocolate icing, please

Last Friday my daughter noticed that the cork stopper on our sugar jar was shaped like a cupcake. (It looks like this.) She carried it around all day and wanted to take it to bed with her (so Puppy and Mickey could have a midnight snack, perhaps?). I asked her, “if you could have a cupcake with icing, what kind of icing would you like?” “Chocolate!”

amigurumi crochet cupcake

I whipped up this little thing before I went to bed and left it on the kitchen table for her. I love doing that! It’s so fun to watch her find it in the morning. It’s already starting to look well loved, isn’t it?

stash: Thrifted yarn and beads from my stash. Free cupcake pattern from BitterSweet.

adventures in sewing with faux leather

custom handmade faux leather bag

I know I say I’ll sew anything if it fits under my presser foot, but I’ll admit I was a little anxious when my friend asked me to make a zippered messenger bag out of faux leather. It was soft and thick and had a woven polyester backing. I decided to make small zipper pouch first to test it out. Here’s what I learned:

  • Folded faux leather creases and you can’t iron it. You can try using a press cloth, but it will warp.
  • Faux leather sews up nicely. I used a heavy duty needle that went through it like butter.
  • Corners are kind of tricky, especially the zipper corners. It was hard to get them square.
  • If you need to pin your pieces, do so in the seam allowance or you’ll have holes in your finished bag. Same goes for ripping seams. You’ll need to stitch exactly over the little holes to hide them.

The first thing I did was unfold the fabric and roll it up. When it was time for me to sew, most of the creases had disappeared.

Next I adjusted my usual messenger bag pattern to avoid some of the corner trickery. Instead of lining up the strap with the side seam, I moved it over about an inch on each side and sandwiched it between the outside fabric and the zipper.

custom handmade faux leather bag

The zipper was also a challenge. Usually I just sew right over zippers, but this one was too thick. I covered the ends with some extra fabric, so when I went turned my corners right side out, they weren’t bulky.

Mostly importantly, I went slow and used paper clips to hold my pieces together. I did have to rip in two places, but managed to stitch over the little holes. I’m really pleased with how this sewed up. It was a cumbersome project to get through my presser foot, but the finished result looked fabulous. I especially love the top stitching detail.

custom handmade faux leather bag

review: This project has got me thinking about faux leather in general. I know that animal rights organizations prefer it, but what about our earth? Here’s what I’ve found so far:

Polyurethane is much more environmentally friendly in both production and after-care. PVC contains chloride and does not biodegrade. In landfills, it leaches toxic additives and when incinerated, it emits carcinogenic dioxin. Leather production is a chemical-laden process that uses heavy metals. Polyurethane is biodegradable and is designed to deteriorate after usage.

Read more at Brentano Fabrics

handmade, no-sew abby cadabby costume

abby cadabby sesame street

I hope that all of the handmade costumes in my future are as easy as this one. Remember the tulle I found at the thrift store awhile back? Even then I had a feeling it might make its way into an Abby Cadabby costume.

handmade abby cadabby costume

Tutu
I found both of these tutorials very helpful: how to make a ribbon tutu (video) and how to make an elastic tutu. The first one is totally no sew. The second one needs a little bit of hand sewing— you need to sew the ends of the elastic together. I made my strips 40 inches long, so folded and knotted they fell right above the ankle.

Magic Wand
I had never used a glue gun before and borrowed husband’s for this project. Why was I so intimidated by hot glue? It was so easy! I used this tutorial for the wand, and the wooden dowel was the only part of this costume that wasn’t from my stash.

Hair Poufs
These are just smaller versions of the pouf I made for the wand. I tied them to elastic hair bands.

Wings
I didn’t make wings. Actually, I don’t know if my daughter even realizes that Abby has wings. She is all about the magic wand. I figured they’d just get in the way, especially if she wore the costume all day, which she did.

Everything Else
The shirt, pants and shoes all came from my daughter’s closet. The trick or treat bag is from last year’s Halloween crafting.

no sew abby cadabby halloween costume

stash: My whole family was sick the last week in October and I didn’t start this until the night before Halloween. I was thankful that I had everything I needed in my stash, as I was really not up to shopping for costume supplies with a sick 3-year-old. Luckily, we were all well enough to go trick-or-treating on Saturday!

halloween fun

October has been a really fun month for us. We’ve been getting ready for Halloween since the first week, starting with decorating pumpkins at the beach. T’s mom brought these little pumpkins with her and Bella and my mom decorated them together. There’s a Daddy, Mommy, Bella and Chloe (the cat) pumpkin.

pumpkins

After we got home from the beach, we started working on ghosts. Some have pink polka dots and others have Hello Kitty stickers. There are a few with the traditional black and orange, too.

paper ghost garland

October was a really rainy month! One rare sunny day we went outside and collected leaves. Our neighborhood trees are finally starting to get big and we’ve got some really brilliant red leaves this year.

autumn blaze maple leaves

The week before Halloween is Fall Break for the Lincoln school system, so Bella’s preschool celebrated Halloween the week before. She brought home all kinds of spooky art: a q-tip skeleton, paper plate monster, triangle witch and an itsy bitsy spider with its own water spout. Her favorite activity was face painting. (There’s a pumpkin on her other cheek.)

preschool fun

We also did quite a few collages. You can see some of them over here. After I got tired of cutting shapes out of magazines, I bought some fancy pumpkin foam stickers for her.

pumpkin stickers

The most fun was Halloween itself. Bella was Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street. She wore her costume all day, visited with her friend Mason the Bat Man, handed out candy and trick or treated for the first time.

handmade abby cadabby costume

I can’t believe it’s November already. Time to put away the ghosts and bring out the turkeys!