Stairs

I have been totally jazzed by the numbered stairs that have been all over the web. I have yet to see a place that lists vinyl numbers specifically for this purpose (I think pottery barn kids may have had them at some point) and everywhere I looked into having them done seemed a little excessive... so I figured a DIY was in order

It took me a little while to think of an easy way to accomplish it but it finally hit me- black contact paper. I found it off of Amazon for somewhere around $11 (I actually bought the chalkboard contact paper because it had better reviews). 

Then I played around in Publisher until I found a font I liked and a good text size. After that it went fast I just laid out my printed numbers on top of the contact paper and cut through both  layers with an exacto knife. 

With just a little bit of measuring they all went up super fast. They have been up a few weeks and they continue to look good and are staying stuck. I would suggest cleaning your stairs very well so there is no dirt to get in the way of your sticker sticking. I took this opportunity to finally fully paint my stairs since I was so sick of painting when we originally refinished them that I had never bothered to finish .... and then forgot all about it. 

I barely used any of the contact paper so I see more projects in the future. Martha Stewart has all of the neat holiday silhouette stickers at Michael's so I might have to try my hand at something like that. 

Book of Numbers - now in the shop!

Surprise! 

 I had my book of numbers printed so it is now available for purchase in my etsy shop. 

 I am very happy with the way it turned out! Now if I can just get my act together on the color book (yes there is one of those coming too!)

 And some new garland is up -- yeah!

Alright back to life... it's been a LONG week already... hope yours is better than mine!

Book of Numbers Tutorial

So April's tutorial... 4 tutorials this year can I keep this up?! I'll try to make next months not kid related...

I LOVE this book I think I like it better than the color book. I REALLY enjoyed the process of making this one. Though I am very happy to say I am done with it too! And someone suggested an alphabet book which is a fabulous idea but I am taking a break from books for a while at least especially since that would only be a larger project!

Please do not sell anything made from this tutorial it was provided free to you for personal use only. 

Supplies

1/2 yard linen fabric

1 yard one-sided fusible interfacing

wool felt 

(2) Black and (1) red Embroidery floss 

Fabric Paint (orange, green, blue)

Freezer paper

X-Acto knife

fabric marker

graphite paper/Embroidery tracing paper **helpful note I tried two methods of tracing the DMC embroidery tracing paper was my least favorite. I would recommend getting graphite paper (which I found at Michaels, MonaLisa Art Products by Speedball) It transfered with one firm trace and the transfered image had dark crisp lines.

5" embroidery hoop

Printed book template

Cut

Linen

(10)      8” x 8” – Pages

(1)        16.75 ” x 8” – cover

(1)        8” x 2.5” - inner cover

(4)        8” x 3” – binding

Interfacing

(4)      7.5”x7” - pages

(1)      15.75” x 7” – cover

Directions

1.  Use your preferred method of embroidery tracing and trace the title page wording to the cover making sure to center on the right side of your cover fabric.
**my preferred method is actually this graphite paper I bought mine at Michael's it's what I traced the hands with further in the tutorial. (I would not recommend the DMC Tracing paper.)

To make centering the template easier I trimmed the edges off my template to 1/2" past the line.

Then I was able to lay my template directly over the linen and line up the edges.

2. Use a backstitch over the top of the outline.

3. Using your template trace number, word, and roman numeral onto freezer paper. Make sure to mark the top corners of you page on your freezer paper.

4.Cut out using X-Acto knife. Any letters that have little pieces like an 'e' that will need to be used leave them just slightly attached so you don't have to worry about loosing the pieces

5. Iron a piece of freezer paper to the back of your page to keep paint from bleeding through and then center your cut out word on the front of the linen using the corner markings as a guide, pull off your slightly attached letters and iron on. You will want to do this on a high heat setting so the wax makes a good seal to your linen. Add back in the smaller inside piece and iron in place individually. Repeat for all pages.

6. Paint each word with its corresponding color. Then let dry and heat set per paint bottle instructions.

7. Trace the corresponding hands onto each number page. I cut out pieces of my numbers to help me line up where I should trace the hands

8. Using 3 strands of embroidery floss go over the top of the lines with a backstitch. 

9. Cut out felt circles.

Arrange on page, pin in place and use a backstitch to attach them to the page. 

10. Layout the book in order 

Put pages right side together example 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7, 8 and 9. 

 You will only be sewing three sides. The side that will go into the books binding leave unsewn. I laid mine out so I could see which edges should be sewn

Pin the one side that should be sewn. 

And then run your seam around the top side and bottom of the page. I like to double check my measurements before sewing along the bottom- you want you page seams to be 7 inches apart top to bottom and 7.5 inches from sewn to unsewn side edge. 

 Once three sides are sewn clean up you edges and snip the corners

Iron on the interfacing to the inside of the page. It should lay between all of the seams to the edge of the unsewn side

Flip page right side out and press

11. Using the 4 cut binding strips bind the unsewn edge of your 4 pages.

First fold each piece in half and iron, then fold down the top and bottom of each binding piece to make a 7"  strip. Pin to the unsewn side of the page and sew a 3/8" seam allowance. Press seam. Snip page edges and fold in binding corners. Pin in place and sew down. 

14. Sew the Inner cover linen (8"x 2.5") between the 1 page and the 10 page.

15. Put right side together with the cover and sew around the outside leaving a 3" opening for turning.

16. Iron on interfacing

17. Turn right side out, iron, and hand stitch closed. 

18. position 1st and last pages so the cover will cover them when closed.

19. Use a backstitch to attach them to the book. 

20. measure space and evenly divide it between the 2 remaining pages. Draw guidelines to keep your stitches straight. 

21. Sew in remaining pages.

Please add your completed projects to my flickr group!

Book of Numbers

So one project kept me busy the ENTIRE time that I was gone... it might have been slightly ridiculous... I wanted to make a number book to match the color book.  It was fun to make but I didn't expect it to be quite so time consuming.

I went from 1-10 and showed each number 5 ways. The 1, one and roman numeral are all painted

The hands are embroidered (my own patterns) and the dots are felt appliquéd on

Here's a shot of all of the pages

I am in LOVE with it though I am completely done with making books and long term projects in general and I am happy to say as of this last weekend I finished all of my long term/ongoing projects so I am really happy to have some 'relaxing' time. We'll see how long it lasts!
I am also excited to tell you that there will be a tutorial out for this in April so if you want to make one for yourself and can wait that long I will show you how!

A,B,C,1,2,3's

I finished this project just before my mum and dad arrived....when I was supposed to be cleaning the house... but it turned out to be perfect timing because apparently the guys really like to play with them!
I had seen this idea a while back on a blog... not sure which one exactly but I saved the picture for inspiration and eventually found the source of the picture was this etsy store. So if you would like to get your own I would highly suggest purchasing them from there- her prices are super reasonable.



Of course if you are nuts like me and have a bunch of beautiful wool felt that your awesome mother has sent you and decide to make your own I would recommend using these magnets.

I made a full set of upper and lower case, an additional set of vowels and 2 sets of 0-9... I have been informed though that more vowels are needed!
just when I thought I was done!
I have a lot more to show you I know I kind of dropped off for a while... and probably will again... but lots is going on... and eventually I will get pictures of it and show it to you!