Hang Up the Stuffed Animals

 Hello Readers. If you have children in your house then you probably have stuffed animals. And there is never just 1 or 2, they seem to multiply. There are so many. They are everywhere and don't look neat or tidy at all. We can't get rid of them so let's find a way to store and display them neatly.

Let's hang up and store the stuffed animals in a neat way. 

All of our stuffed animals lived in a pile on this chair. They also lived on the floor because they didn't stay on the chair. We love them so they had to stay close by but this mess looked bad and made the chair useless for humans. We could do better than this. 

We needed some cord or string or even thin rope. I chose this because it was in my sewing stash but it was also a little bumpy. I don't think smooth cording or satin ribbon would work well for this project. It would be too slippery.

You can use something simple like this jute cord. It is very inexpensive too. 

I put the cording across the top of the bookcase. You could also use a dresser for this project but the taller the piece of furniture, the more stuffed animals you an hang up.

 

 I wanted the cording to go over the top of the bookcase and hang all the way down off the bookcase on both sides.

The next thing you need is a few dozen clips of some kind. These cheap clothes pins would be great. 

 

You could also use something more fun and colorful if you want.

 

I clipped one end of the cording to a soft container. This was going to anchor the cord on this side of the bookcase. 

 

This is a good place for the stuffies that are heavy, large or favorites that will be played with or slept with often. 

 

The other end of the cord needed something to anchor it too. On this side I used a large bear. He is heavy enough to hold the cord. I clipped the cord to his ear. 

 

I made sure to get the cording and part of the stuffed animal in the clip. The clip really needs to hold on to both.

 

I started clipping all our stuffed friends to the corThe. 

 

 I clipped the stuffed animals on both sides of the bookcase. I liked this storage method because the stuffed friends are visible and unharmed in this clips. The bookcase or dresser you use will be unharmed too. 

 

My child liked this set up. They could see the stuffed animals but the stuffies were not in a mess on the floor anymore. My youngest child is 10 so I don't need to worry about him hurting himself with the cord or the clips. (*This is not a good storage idea if you have an active baby or toddler that will hurt them selves with string or cord or might climb tall bookcases or dressers. You know your child, as always use your best judgement and caution.) Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. 

***Year End Update***- These stuffed animals are still in a semi orderly arrangement thanks to this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chrstmas Tree Skirt to Kids Play Mat

Hello Readers. Today's project is a play mat for my little guy. He was 5 months old when I made this and he needed a soft place to play. It started with this mauve Christmas tree skirt. I was not a big fan of the mauve, and I already had a tree skirt we used every year. This circle shape was great and the material was in wonderful condition.

Christmas Tree Skirt to Play Mat

I was going to cover the mauve material with this cute blue and green flannel.  (Similar flannel fabric here.) It was super soft and would be nice for my Sweet Pea while he learned to roll over and crawl.

I wanted to use as much of the fabric and waste as little of the fabric as possible so I cut the fabric one half at a time. I started by folding the quilted tree skirt in half and spreading it out on the edge of the fabric for cutting. I used the tree skirt as a pattern for my cutting.

I did some cutting. Cut, cut, cut. I cut a half circle around the quilt with a 1" seam allowance all the way around. That would allow me room for the new seams when I sewed it all together.

 

 Here is my second half circle. The way I positioned the tree skirt on the flannel fabric was the best way to use the flannel with the least waste. I put them together with the right sides facing each other and sewed the straight sides together to make a full circle.

I put my new flannel circle on top of my tree skirt and sewed with a straight stitch around the circle close to the edge of the tree skirt. I wanted the new flannel fabric to cover the tree skirt design. I placed the flannel circle right side up, on top of the tree skirt. Once I sewed it onto mauve side the quilt, I had to cut off the excess hanging off all around the edges.

Cut, cut, cut. I trimmed the excess fabric off the edge of the tree skirt the way you trim excess pie dough off the edges of a pie pan.  I tried to sew on the very edge of the tree skirt but you can see how the edge shows just a tiny bit of the mauve tree skirt. That's OK. I have a plan for that.

Here is the extra bias tape my sweet daughter made for a past project. It is 1 inch double fold bias tape. I pinned it all the way around the circle. It covers all the fabric edges (On the top and the bottom.) that I don't want seen. You can use any bias tape you want, and you can find almost every color at your closest fabric store or online.

Here is the bias tape being sewn to the play mat. The bias tape  wraps around the edge of the mat on top and bottom.

Here is the coolest part of the mat. You can see where the ends of the bias tape meet. I folded the end of the bias tape under so it would look neat but it is not sewn closed. I pinned a safety pin to the end of the ribbon and threaded the satin ribbon through the inside of the bias tape. The ribbon went all around the mat and both ends of ribbon stuck out of the opening where the ends of the bias tape meet. When I pulled on the ends of the ribbon, it pulled the circle together and it turned into a bag to hold the toys. That means easy clean up and easy traveling with all those toys you MUST take to grandpa's house. Any cord or string you want to use would work. I had ribbon on hand so I used that.

( If you are worried the string could get caught on something, or be dangerous to your baby, you can skip the drawstring.)

 

 Here is the mat pulled tight like a bag. I could fit so many toys and stuffed animals in here. It was all washable too, which is important with kids, they are messy!

Here you can see the center seam where the 2 half circles of flannel were sewn together from the beginning of this project. There is a cute baby and dad on the mat so you can see how that works too. Thanks for reading. Now, go out there and make something fabulous! 

 

It has been 8 years since I put this mat together. That is the same baby but he grew quite a bit. We still use the mat but now we use it for Lego blocks. Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself. Or your kid!

***Year End Update***- We use this everyday. It holds a million Legos.
 

Keep Kids From Falling Out Of The Bed With Pool Noodles

 Hello Readers. I know kids eventually grow out of falling out of the bed. I am waiting for that to happen with my youngest. He will just move around in his sleep and slowly go over the edge of the bed and fall over the side. It is very disruptive to his sleep. And honestly it is really disruptive to my sleep too. I have a solution. It's easy. You need 3 pool noodles and some strong tape.

It's time for bed. Let's find a way to stay in the bed.

I got my pool noodles from the local Dollar Tree. They had plenty out in the front of the store. 

I got 3 white noodles and some strong white tape. (One noodle is not enough. It will slide out of place. I have tried it.) I thought white would blend in with the mattress and mattress cover but the color doesn't really matter.

I cut a piece of tape that was long enough to go around all 3 noodles. I wanted the noodles to stay together and be strong so I wrapped the tape around and overlapped it a little. I didn't want this to come apart in the middle of one night.

I wrapped the tape around tight and made sure it was stuck to the noodles really well.

I taped the noodles at both ends and in the middle. 

When my noodles were all taped up I slid the whole thing under the mattress cover. The noodles will sit on the mattress and under the mattress cover. I pushed it up towards the top of the mattress where the pillows would go.

The 3 noodles will make quite a lump. That is what we want.

I put the sheets and blankets on the bed as usual. You can still see the big noodle lump. 

Here is a look at the bed with all the sheets, blankets, pillows and stuffed friends. The mattress cover and the sheet are very snug on the noodles. They stayed in place well for my child in real life sleeping.

Thanks for reading along. Sweet dreams to all of you. 

***Year End Update- It has been a few more months and my child id still staying in bed and not falling out. I am SO glad I made this!

Kids Club House

 Hello Readers. I found a playhouse a few years ago. It was on the side of the street in my neighborhood. It didn't seem broken, just really faded. I knew I could fix faded. So, it came home in my car. (It was sticking out the doors of my Honda Civic but I got it home.)

 

I washed it off and put it together. It was solid but the door was broken. The roof was very faded. And so were the red shutters. The gray and tan walls looked fine so I wasn't worried about them. 

 

I gathered all the acrylic paint I could find and started painting. I used a light blue on the roof because I had enough of it to cover the whole roof with at least 2 coats of paint. 

 

 

The acrylic paint adhered very well to the plastic. I let it dry between coats. 

 

 

I painted those faded red shutters and then it got more fun. The little house had a whole designed interior. It was embossed in the plastic but there was no color to it. I decided to follow the images they put in the plastic and make them stand out more with some paint. You can see there is a little kitchen area and a floor lamp. 

 

On the other wall there was a fire place. I painted the fire and the fireplace to make them more colorful. 

 

There were a couple potted plants that needed some color too. Again, I did not create these, they were already there. I just painted them. 

 

There were even pretend outlets!

 

Since the door was broken I just hung a piece of fabric as a door. 

 

Thanks for reading along. I wanted to extend the life of this little club house because this plastic will sit in the landfill for ages. It was old but it did not need to be trashed, it just needed a little make-up. (I can relate to that on so many levels. Old but not trash. Just add a bit of make-up!) Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. Or your kids. 

***Chickie's Year End Review-This was so fun. It is still in my backyard.

The Jeans That Scared My Child

Hello Readers. I saw a picture on Pinterest of some kid jeans mended at the knees with little monster faces a long time ago. I thought they were so cute. I have been waiting for my 2 year old to get some holes at the knees of his jeans so I could make these little monster jeans. That day had finally arrived! What a fun sewing project this would be! I was so excited to make these little monster jeans.

 It seemed like it would be fun but it was not going to end well Readers, not well at all.

I got the jeans and some scraps of material and I got to work. The red would be the inside of the little monster mouths and the white would be little teeth.  I happily stitched the red cloth and the white "teeth" into the jeans from the inside. I wanted to fill in the holes to keep his little knees covered and warm.

I got some black and white buttons and used them as eyes. My little monsters have a bit of an overbite, but I love them. They are so cute! All that was left was to give them to my little boy.

(Did I mention he is 2? He reacted as a typical 2 year old. He took one look at my project, made with love and he hated them. He hated them a lot.)

How could he hate these jeans? I made him try them on, thinking that when he got them on he would like them. NO! He started to take them off. I realized this whole project wasn't going to work out. I thought I would hang them in his room to look cute. I still had a little hope that this wasn't a huge waste of time and energy. My hopes were going to be crushed.

I later put him down for a nap and there was peace in the land. For about 5 minutes. Then there was screaming and crying. "The faces!" "I don't like the faces!" They were "looking" at him. He didn't like them looking at him. I had to take them away and hide them in my closet, I had to give him dozens of hugs and kisses and he eventually agreed to go to sleep.

So...I have some cute jeans with faces in a size 3T if anyone is interested.

Thanks for reading, now go make something fun, maybe not these jeans though.

*Year end update- Do I need to say it? My kid never got near these again. They are in my closet and he still hates them.