Little Homemade Homes Part 3: Fabric House Ornaments

This is the final homemade home I made for the holidays. This project also came about from a pin on Pinterest. The Fabric Home Ornaments free pattern is from the Retro Mama Blog. Her houses are absolutely adorable. Take a look!

The originator of this project included even more details on her houses- wee door numbers and little birds. These homes were fun to make, but they took me way longer to complete than I had expected which is why I skipped some of the details. Another way that I deviated from the original pattern is that I hand embroidered the stitching around the doors and windows. I tried the first few with my machine and I wasn't thrilled with the results. Mine didn't turn out looking as nice as the ones shown with the pattern. The hand-stitching of course took longer, but they came out so much lovelier that way.

I made twelve in total, but I couldn't complete them all at once so I didn't get images of them all. These were given to my family and the children's teachers. Everyone who received one of these really loved them. This is a very nice and easy holiday sewing project.

♥ Andrea ♥

Little Homemade Homes Part 2: Spongebob

Hello! Happy 2016!

I had a ton of fun working on this Spongebob house for my son. As I mentioned in my previous post about  the Lalaloopsy Dollhouse, the idea came from the Lalaloopsy Dollhouse from Scrappalific. For this playset for my son, I decided on Spongebob and we didn't own any Spongebob characters so I ordered the lot of them from E-Bay. The carrying case was found at the thrift store.

Here's a rundown of how it was put together:

The door is made of card stock with three tongue depressors cut to size and glued on. The door's window is a button with a piece of felt glued on. My friend gave me a bag of notions a few months ago that included that little Lacoste alligator patch and I thought it was perfect for this project. The guitar is Playmobile, The little Spongebob and Patrick poster was cut out from an old Spongebob calendar I kept from a couple years ago. The bed is made from two pieces of foam cut to size, glued together and wrapped in fabric from an old shirt. The sheet and pillow were made with the same old shirt. The pillow is stuffed with some polyfil and just glued together. The blanket is made of a piece of felt with a ribbon trim. I made the little bedside table with a toothpaste cap topped with a piece of cardboard wrapped in fabric.

The table is a shampoo bottle cap finished with a ribbon and topped with a piece of patterned card stock. The little fire on the table is Playmobile and so is Gary's bed. I also glued two Playmobile pieces to the wall above the bed- a crab and a starfish. The couch is made of three Nerf gun bullets tied with embroidery thread, attached to a piece of foam wrapped in fabric.

The doormat is a piece of faux fur. The pom pom garland is mini pom poms strung with embroidery floss and attached by little buttons affixed to card stock and glued to the top of the case. The fishing lure was purchased from the hardware store.

Finally, I decorated the outside of the box with a skull and crossbones. It is a patch from one of my son's favorite pair of pants that got too small and too worn to be passed along to anyone else.

The kids are playing with these playsets daily. It's so great to see them loving these so much. If you feel at all inclined to do something like this for someone in your life, I highly recommend that you do! If you happen to make one, I'd love to see it.

In a few more days I will post the final part of the Little Homemade Homes series. I hope you're enjoying them.

I wish you a very happy 2016! I spent last night cleaning and reorganizing my workspace here at home and planning out what projects I'm hoping to do this year. Do you have special plans for 2016?

♥ Andrea ♥

Little Homemade Homes Part 1: Lalaloopsy

Here is one of the projects I made for Christmas this year. This was for my seven year-old daughter. For some reason, all of the holiday crafts I made this year were little houses. So here I present the first of three posts featuring little handmade homes.

I fell in love with the idea for this Lalaloopsy dollhouse from Scrappalific when I pinned it onto my To Make and Do Pinterest Board six months ago or so. Her dollhouse is so adorable! I gathered little bits that could work for it over many months. I found the carrying case at the thrift store.

The flower vase is Playmobile. The table was made out of the outside of a lens from an old projector we took apart a couple of months ago when it became obsolete. I topped it with a piece of card stock covered in fabric. The edging was made of a strip of  gold leather from a book cover that fell off of one of my daughter's journals. There was a gap between the top and side that I filled with a piece of chain a friend gave me in a bag of notions. I finished the bottom of the table with a length of ribbon.

The couch was made of foam and card stock wrapped in fabric with a felt trim.

I cut a little rug out of faux fur and made two wee pillows out of a vintage sheet stuffed with recycled polyfil.

The window was made of the top of a little cardboard jewelry box covered with felt. I covered a piece of card stock with fabric to fit inside of it. The curtain rod is a little wooden craft stick glued to two wooden beads. The curtain was made of a little organza bag tied with two pieces of ribbon. The starfish is an earring that I love, but I lost the matching one.

The pom pom garland is made out of mini pom poms sewn with embroidery thread. I attached them to the top of the carrying case by cutting small squares around the buttons on the card on which they were packaged and I glued them to the box.

The bathtub is just a shampoo bottle lid. It's filled with cotton balls that have been broken apart. The mirror came from something, but I can't remember what. It was glued to a piece of the gold leather book cover I also used to trim the table with. The sink is made with a little clear plastic bottle that is turned upside down and covered with some cotton lace trim. I glued a plastic bottle cap to it and cut a little circle of blue faux fur for the water. The tap is the little piece of plastic that can be found on some plastic hangers. The bathmat is a piece of a fine child's washcloth.

The outside of the box is decorated with a gold letter and an embroidery from an old top that doesn't fit my daughter anymore. I love that this whole project, other than the carrying case, was made of scraps and found pieces. I must admit that I became a bit obsessed with it. It was so much fun to make this! This little dollhouse has already been so well-played with. It's awesome to see her loving this so much.

In the next few days, I will post images of the playhouse I made for my son.

♥ Andrea ♥

Hairy Beasts Now Available in the Teetoo Etsy Shop!

It's taken me many months to complete this batch of Hairy Beasts. Thank you to those of you who have been waiting patiently, some of you for two years! There are only a few available, so if you've been thinking about ordering one, I recommend you purchase quickly as I will not have any more available for at least 6 months or so. But I do intend to make more and have already purchased the materials to do so. There will be some smaller ones in the next available batch as well.

Here is a link to the listing in my shop: Giant Hairy Beast

For those of you who are also hoping for a strap and bag, I have decided to make some of those available also. These will be completed and shipped out in January. If you would like to pre-order one (I will be making them based on the number of pre-orders I receive), please visit the listing here: Bag and Strap for a Hairy Beast

If you are located in the US or Canada, there is still time to get one of these on time for Christmas as they will be shipped expedited with tracking and insurance.

Also, you'll notice there's a bunch of other stuff in the shop now too! I'm finally back and ready to put some time back into Teetoo again. I've added six new baby stars and listed a few other things I have ready to ship.

Please send me an email if you have any questions!

Here are some hairy beast progress photos over the past few months...

About to jump into an ocean of fur

Sewing , watching Dr. Who and drinking margaritas- a few of my favorite things :)

Building the furry army

Twenty legs pinned and ready for sewing

A few of the cute furry faces in my storage room

♥ Andrea ♥

Miss Independence Bag

Hey, how's it going? Check it out- I finally finished this handmade bag! I'm pretty excited about it. It's perfect in so many ways.

This bag is the Miss Independence Bag from the book Big-City Bags by Sara Lawson. I used Cotton + Steel fabrics for the exterior and interior. I bought the interior fabric for a different project, but when the fabric showed up, I realized that the colours were slightly different in person and would look terrible against my skin as a blouse. I was happy to see that it coordinated well with the fabric I had chosen for this bag.

Overall, this pattern is great. Sara's directions are thorough and clear. There were only a few wtf moments for me where I wasn't sure exactly what I should do, but I managed to figure things out :)

One particularly tricky part of this project was my old pal, binding. I love the way it finishes the bag and makes it look like such a professional job. Sewing the one side with the machine was okay, but I just couldn't do the other side by machine as suggested in the book and get a nice finish. So the inner side of the binding is hand-stitched. It took a very long time to do it because the size and weight of the bag made it awkward, but the result was certainly worth the added effort.

The main reason I chose to make this bag first from Sara's book was because I loved the size. I'm really enjoying it for work. It can hold everything I need it to. I changed one detail and opted for an open pocket on the inside instead of a zippered one, which has turned out to be handy for pens and lip balm.

For those of you still waiting for a handmade hairy beast, I'm getting so close now to finishing a batch. It's been a huge project for me that I've chipped away at for months and months on evenings and weekends. I think I've grossly underestimated the amount of time it takes for me to make them previously- which I see now can happen when you love what you do. I'm in the home stretch now and that feels great. It looks like I'll have them available for sale by mid-November. There will only be a few available- less than half the amount that have been requested of me, but I have ordered additional fur to make another batch afterwards. The second batch will include some wee ones as well, but I'm sure it will be several months before a second batch would be completed. Again, if you want to be one of the first to know when the hairy beasts will be available sale, please send me an email.

Also, I'm hoping to post a little Halloween craft tutorial later this month- stay tuned!

♥ Andrea ♥

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Handmade Lilou Cat Dress

I made a dress for myself :) This is the first dress I've ever made for me. And while I would hate for a bonefide seamstress to look it over, from a distance it looks pretty fantastic and I love it. This dress is the Lilou dress from Tilly Walnes' book, Love at First Stitch: Demystifying Dressmaking

I chose a gathered waist instead of the original pleated waist for this Lilou dress because I thought it would better suit this fabric. I also added a trim to the bottom. This dress looks so much nicer with the trim. It took me probably a solid 2 hours to put in my first invisible zipper, and it's not perfect, but perfection will come in time, I'm sure.

As usual, I didn't follow the 'rules' of the book and I'm sure I would have been better off had I started with the easier patterns in the book and progressed to this more difficult one. I just couldn't help myself and I jumped right into the back of the book. I made a few mistakes that I probably could have avoided- like not doing a mock up, so I had to take the straps apart to shorten them after the dress was all done. It was a bit of a hack job to put them back together again, but oh well, it's all a process of learning. All in all, I learned a ton.

I'll be back soon with more project inspiration. I'm almost finished making a bag that I'm excited to show you and I've started cutting up the fur for the batch of hairy beasts I will be releasing later this year.

I'd love to see what you're working on too. Share your projects here in the comments if you like, or connect with me on Instagram (@AndreaTeetoo).

Happy sewing!

♥ Andrea ♥

Handmade Dress

Hello! I just finished making this dress. I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out. My confidence has increased tremendously with this dress and I feel that I will no longer shy away from sewing clothes. In fact, I'm pretty hooked now.

I recently purchased Tilly Walnes' book, Love at First Stitch: Demystifying Dressmaking. This book combined with the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing, have helped me a lot in my quest to learn how to sew well. If you are new to sewing or feel you would like more of a helping hand through sewing clothes, I highly recommend these two books.

Tilly's book includes six patterns that increase in difficulty with each project. I've almost completed the first one and have ordered fabric to complete several of the others. This really is a great book. And her blog, Tilly and the Buttons, is fantastic as well. I notice her most recent post is a tutorial on buttonholes- sure could have used that last week...

And apparently I've turned a new leaf... I've fallen in like with binding.

But the true test of a dress is it's twirlability and I am delighted to report it has passed the test. The pattern I used is Butterick 6486 and the fabric is a vintage sheet, both picked up at a thrift store.

Happy sewing!

♥ Andrea ♥

Hello & An Eyeball Pillow DIY

Hello! Long time no see, hey?

Receiving this adorable customer appreciation shot recently, inspired me to write a post. This is Rosie. Isn't she delightful?! I am thrilled to think about the adventures Rosie is going to have with her Furry Beast :)

Truth be told, I miss Teetoo. Over the many iterations of my life, I have found that I have swung back and forth between two loves; natural healing and art making/crafting. But I have yet to find a nice balance between the two. I have always found myself in a position where I felt I had to leave one for the other. At this time, I am very involved in my natural healing life as a homeopath and my full time work at the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine, but I would very much like to be sewing and drawing more than I have time to.

One thing I've been working up to do, is to make a big batch of Giant Sasquatches. I've had a lot of inquiries about them and I miss making them. I have no idea how long it is going to take me to get them done, but I am planning to do them this year. If you would like one and you want to have a better chance of getting one when the batch is available, you can either send me an email, follow the blog, like my Facebook page or follow me on Intstagram (andreateetoo). I will post to all of these places before I add the Sasquatches to the shop whenever that may be.

I thought I would share some photos from Instagram of a few projects I have worked on over the last year with you today. There aren't very many, but it is nice for me to document them here; for posterity's sake and in hopes of inspiring others to find more time to be creative.

The first two images are of a patchwork pillow I made for our bed several months ago. It was originally going to be a quilt, but I have learned that I am a crafter who likes to do a project that I can start and finish fairly quickly and though I've managed to make a few lap quilts over the years, I have yet to complete a full-sized quilt. In this case, I opted to turn the quilt into a pillowcase so I could feel good about actually completing something :)

The next project is a Halloween bunting I made from this Heidi Kenney Halloween Bunting Spoonflower fabric. This was a fun, quick and easy project. I put a star fabric on the back, so I can reverse it and keep it hung up in the living room the rest of the year. 

The illustration is a tree drawing for some friends who were married in September and wanted to make a Wedding Tree Guest Book. 

Over the summer, I made a lunch bag for my daughter, Winnie. I used the Quilted Lunch Bag pattern from the book, One-Yard Wonders. This is the second project I've made with this book and like the other one, The Folklore Bag, I found the instructions to be easy to follow and I am extremely happy with the final product.

This next project is something I made recently for my son, Eamon's, upcoming birthday in March. I saw an eyeball pillow for sale on ModCloth a while ago and thought he would love it. They don't have it in stock anymore, but I thought it would be fun to make my own anyway. So today, I'm going to give you the how-to so you can make your own eyeball pillow too.

Eyeball Pillow DIY

Materials

I used felt for this project. You will need some white and black felt and whatever colour you want for the iris, white thread, red thread, black thread and thread to match your iris colour, no-sew fabric glue and recycled polyfil.

Cut It Up

You can make this pillow in any dimensions you like. My pillow ended up being 12" around and 3.5" deep. For mine, I just found a top to a wicker basket that was a large circle and traced it for my template. It was approximately 12.5" in diameter and I cut two of these. You can use anything- a large serving plate would be a great option. 

Then I guessed on the proper depth of the pillow for that size of diameter and I went with 3.5", so I measured around the perimeter of my circle to make a strip of white felt that was about 4" x 40". Cut your strip a bit longer than the perimeter of your circle.

I found some other random round items to trace for the iris, pupil and white spot. My iris measures 6" across, my pupil measures 4" across and the white spot is a 1" circle.

Sew It Up

First take your iris and position it in the center of one of your large white circles (or off to one side if you like). Pin it down and sew it on with thread that matches the iris' colour. 

Then take your pupil and pin and sew it to the center of your iris, using black thread.

Now thread your machine with red thread and sew in some random veins. I just used a straight stitch and changed the direction every few stitches and tried to be as random as possible. To make the veins look  more realistic, sew a few of them so they split and make some of them span from the edge of the eyeball all the way to the iris and make some of them only span part way. 

Now take your long white strip and stitch one long side of it to the right side of the front of your eyeball. Your strip will be longer than the perimeter of your white circle, but don't worry about that. Sew right up until you meet the top of the strip and stop. 

Now take the other white circle that will be the back of your pillow and sew the other side of the pillow to the other side of your white strip (with right sides facing). Leave a little opening of about 5 inches before your strip end meets up with the front of the strip. Now clip around the edges of the seam allowance every 1/4" or so and flip right side out. 

At this point, I folded the end of my long strip under and laid the fold down as an edge onto the front of the white strip and with my machine I stitched the fold very close to the edge of the fold onto the front part of the strip so that it made a neat little seam. I left the five inch opening between the back of the pillow and the strip for stuffing. 

Stuff your pillow until it is nice and plump. You may have to do some pressing down and even punching here and there to make the pillow do what you want it to.

Now hand stitch the little opening at the back of your pillow.

Finally, use your no-sew fabric glue to glue your white spot down and you're done!

I hope you enjoy this little project!

If any of my directions are confusing, please leave me a comment and I would be happy to help and/or change my wording here to make it easier to understand.

Happy sewing! And hopefully, I'll post here now and then over the next few months. I've missed you!

♥ Andrea ♥

Pom Pom Flower Fairy Pillow

This is the last thing I made over the Christmas holidays. Years ago I made a pillow for my son which he sleeps with every night. My daughter loves his pillow and so she has been asking me to make her a special pillow for a long while now.





Winnie really wanted a fairy pillow so I put this super cute fairy fabric from Michael Miller on one side. The star fabric is also Michael Miller and the flower fabric on the reverse is an Anna Maria Horner print that I've had for years. I'm so delighted she loves it and I kind of wish I made myself a pom pom pillow :)

♥ Andrea ♥

Lace-Trimmed Vintage Sheet Nightgown

This is the nightgown I promised I would share that I made for my daughter for Christmas this year. I just love the way it turned out! I think the style and colours of this nightgown are just about as lovely as can be. I did start off with a pattern, but patterns and I don't always get along so I changed it up quite a bit in the end, mostly around the neck. I got frustrated with the instructions and I think sometimes I don't like being told what to do. Ha!

I've had this fabric for a very long time and always had a hunch that the large vintage sheet might someday become a nightgown. I cringed slightly when I cut the sheet. I may have to at least make a pillowcase or two with the left over fabric.

This dress is reminiscent of the pillowcase dress I made for a dear friend years ago. It's amazing to me to think that was four years ago now!




I haven't been posting as much lately. One of the reasons is that I have been loving going to bed really early and reading. I feel myself becoming quieter lately and wanting to spend more time alone; reading, writing, and just thinking things over. It's been very nice. But I'll be back soon to share some photos of a sweet little pom pom trimmed pillow I made for Winnie as well.

I hope your January if off to a wonderful start!

♥ Andrea ♥