Enhance Your Lamp Shade!

After creating a custom shower curtain last week, I took stock of the other items in my bathroom and decided to update the colors on my lamp shade to match my new shower curtain. In this blog, I will explain step by step the method I followed.

Comfy outdoor roll

I found this fun project at Sew4Home. I used pretty spring fabrics to make this roll, which turned out to work quite nicely for sitting on the grass at the zoo and in my backyard. It also works nicely for baby yoga (see last picture). I like the way the Nu-Foam feels. It keeps the dampness away from you and feels nice and thick.

Vinyl handbag tutorial

Bags are one of my favorite things to make, but I’d never worked with vinyl before. I decided to conquer my fears and give it a try. This bag is nice and roomy. You don’t have to use vinyl. Feel free to use this pattern with any fabric, though home dec weights will work best. Because this was a new challenge for me, I made some mistakes and learned some lessons along the way, which I’ll share with you as we go.

Padded laptop case

I wish I had a laptop. And Internet on my cell phone. I have neither, but that didn’t stop me from making a laptop case. I thought this design from Crap I’ve Made (and, dang! I wish I’d thought of that name for my personal blog.) was so cute that I needed one anyway. I used my husband’s work computer for a model, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be caught dead hauling it around in this cute ruffled case with a flower. Anyway, since most everyone besides me has a laptop (and Internet on their cell phone!), you might…

Stylish book bag tutorial (and you can win it!)

Here’s a straight-forward, lined tote bag that’s perfect for anything you need to haul around. It’s fully lined and has divider pockets inside for your phone, MP3 player, pens, etc., plus a flap pocket and a zippered pocket on the outside — a perfect place to keep your keys handy. Would you like to win this bag? And how about a book to carry in it? Children’s book author Caroline Rose is giving away a copy of Denise Jaden’s book “Losing Faith” on her blog this week, and if you are the winner, you get both the book and this…

How ’bout that? A hat!

From time to time, I like to write about a sewing project that you might not think of when you think of home decorator fabrics. So how about a hat? I bet that no matter what kind of sewing you do, you probably haven’t considered a hat. Poor hats. Nobody really wears them anymore. Maybe a knitted winter cap or a baseball hat, but as regular accessories, they’ve sort of fallen out of favor. I, for one, always feel a little too obvious in a hat. A little uncomfortable. And I’m trying to change that. One day, I came across…

Spacious yoga mat bag

I don’t know about you, but I’m often motivated by cute clothes or accessories. Maybe with a cute yoga mat bag like this, I’d have a reason to actually dust off my mat and head to class. Most yoga mat bags I’ve seen are tubular with a drawstring. That works just fine, but sometimes you need something a bit roomier to hold your other items, like a towel. I found this really cute tote-style yoga mat bag tutorial at Sew4Home, and I couldn’t resist applying pretty Warehouse Fabrics Inc. prints and coming up with this.

Lined gadget case tutorial

OK, so I’ve already shown you how to make a big, roomy bag. And, naturally, we put pockets in for phones and such. But sometimes you need a separate pouch for your phone or MP3 player. Here’s a lightly padded, velcro-closure gadget case with a cute little strap that you can open and close, in case you want to hook it around something, like a belt loop or purse strap.