pillowcases

Many years ago, I covered my pillows with fabric I have now grown out of - meaning: I really don´t like them anymore. I have been thinking about new pillowcases for a while now and during a visit in  IKEA the other day I got some really nice fabric on sale and some lace curtain-scraps for almost nothing. The best thing about the fabric probably was the color: curry/mustard/crazy-yellow/greenish. 

This is what I made out of it:  

Nr. 1.

IKEA fabric and curtain-scraps: 

it was a bit tricky to sew the two fabrics together but it was worth the effort...

I really love the way the yellow/greenish shines through the white lace curtains

(p.s. my older son likes this one too and want´s one of his own to sleep with in the night)

the back: my cases are open so it´s really easy to wash them

Nr. 2.

An old doily from my favorite thriftstore and IKEA fabric

 - what a nice way to use/recycle old doilies -

the two together, waiting for their brothers and sisters I´m currently working on...

Bat Mask

Last year I wanted to be really practical and bought some Halloween costumes for my boys on sale, for them to use this year. This summer, since we live in a really small flat, I decided to pack all things unnecessary away  - what a wonderful feeling that was! The only problem is that on the same day my boys needed their costumes, I discovered that I had packed them away and it was impossible to find them again. :-(

What is a mother supposed to do in a situation like that?? I had to solve this costume-problem right away... so I went online and found this very cool, simple and quick Bat Mask for my older one. I also bought some really cheap but pretty black velvet (þunnt flauel, 3m á 1400 kr. í Rúmfó) and made him a black bat-cape - all in all it took me about 1 hour to make those 2 things... he just wore black pants and a black shirt and turned into a bat...

I bought my younger one a cowboy-gun&a sheriff star badge - he wore jeans and a shirt and turned into a cowboy...

What I learned from this Halloween-costume-situation: costumes don´t always have to be complicated, store bought and expensive to be fun! My boys had SO MUCH FUN with those simple, homemade costumes - and I really had fun making them... I think I might even make more masks like that for them to play with at home or as gifts... how about a fox-mask, a superhero-mask or a bear-mask???  Do you have more mask-ideas??

I´m so sorry, but the quality of those pictures is really poor... the light has been really bad lately and the weather has made it totally impossible to shoot some pics outside.... but at least you can see the costumes! 

 My Bat boy:

a bat and a cowboy:

Cardigan-restyle and still knitting

Do you have a sweater (or maby more than one), that´s too short and too tight? Well... some months ago, I found a new blog I really love: "Delia creates" and a very cool post (good tutorial) about a cardigan conversion (here). What a creative lady!

Ever since I read this post, I´ve been looking for the perfect sweater for this project and the other day, I finally found one and only paid 200 icelandic krónur for it!! Since I love lace, I had to add some, which makes the cardigan very feminin and girly - and the best thing is: wearing it feels like summertime! I really like the way my new cardigan turned out - it´s a perfect match for my IKEA-dress I showed you in my last post...

my cardigan before:

after:

ahhh... lace and pretty buttons! (It was my first time, making buttonholes)

love my new cardigan... thank you Delia!!!

on the inside: I was thrilled to be able to add some owls... :-D

I also wanted you to know, I´m still knitting like crazy, I just can´t show you anything just yet... but here you have a glimpse of one of the things I'm knitting:

IKEA makeovers and buttons...

I´m a really lucky lady... a wonderful friend read a post, where I told you how I love buttons and she sent me some beautiful buttons she had at home... ohhhh how I love them... thank you so much Kristín!!! Aren´t they pretty and perfect??

For a long time now, I've been a big fan of IKEA and IKEA-makeovers. I´ve done several IKEA-makeovers, but today I want to share with you my 3 favorite ones:

1. IKEA RAST-bedside-table turnes into a stove for my boys:
A few years ago, my boys had so much fun, playing around with children-stoves so I used my imagination and made them one myself. I used a bedside-table, a towel-rail, knobs, IKEA-fabric and some black paint to create this:

My boys still play with it, and love it! A friend of mine came with her tools, and we had SO MUCH FUN making it - much more fun than I would have had just buying a normal childrens-stove in the toystore :-) Imagination is a great thing!

2. IKEA fabric turnes into one of my favorite dresses:
Remember how I told you the other day, that my mother was helping me making a dress-pattern, so I could sew a dress for myself? I knew exactly what I wanted: an A-line sixties-feel-good-dress. My genius-mother and textile-artist helped me to make a pattern (Link to her homepage)... she learned how to do this many years ago and I think she is able to make a pattern for almost anything you want to sew, if you just know what you want... like I said: genius. The first dress was a "test-drive" for the pattern, and we used a really pretty IKEA-fabric... this is how it turned out and I LOVE, love, love it:



3. IKEA fabric and a cork-memo-board:
The other day I got this really boring and ugly looking cork-memo-board. From the start, I knew I wanted to give it a little makeover, and this weekend I finally did! I used this really beautiful IKEA-fabric and my staple gun and made this:

Bidenam, my wonderful big boy, thought this was so pretty and genius and called it a "piece of art" :-) (eða: "listaverk") - I actually love it too now...

So very quick and easy! It took me about 5 minutes...

I wanted to show you, that spring has arrived in Iceland...

... at last!!!

Beautiful roses my husband gave me the other day - we´ve been together for 15 years know...

Sewing weekend: bibs and a laptop-sleeve

Note to self: on this picture of my boys, having fun with their chalk you can see, how the most simple things can make you happy, if you just notice them...

A strange thing happens, when I pick up my knitting-needles on weekends and start to knit: my boys and husband seem to need my help and attention for everything they do... with my sewing machine it´s a totaly different thing: when sewing, it´s almost as if I was home alone - strange, isn´t it?
But now you understand why I went crazy on my sewing machine this weekend...

I started by making some bibs (slefsmekkir) for a pretty little boy I´ll soon be visiting for the first time. You can never have too many bibs!! :-) I used a towel (úr Rúmfó), some pretty fabric-napkins, the remains of my husbands trousers I shortened and a green doily (yes, those bibs are made for a boy)... I used this great bib-tutorial by sew she sew´s. It has a great a free pattern and the bibs have the perfect size... I really love the way they turned out!

The second thing I made was a laptop-sleeve, for my sweet and tiny laptop. The outside fabric used to be a curtain (from a thrift-store), the lining is made out of a towel and remains of my own old trousers (pics are at the bottom of this post). I also used snaps (smellur úr Rúmfó) to close it...

Amazing how this...

... can turn into this:

this one, used to be trousers... (strákarnir kalla þennan: töffara-smekk)

the trousers-bib on the inside:

this one used to be a fabric-napkin:

X-napkin with a pretty doily that works for a boy too...

green doily-bib and the blue one on the inside (a towel):

2 snaps, for 2 sizes:

1 snap:

and this thing (what is it called??):

I also love how an old curtain, a towel and this...

can turn into this pretty thing... it´s almost like magic...

How I love this amazingly pretty, vintage, woven, mustard fabric! I really do! The best thing is, I still have 3 huge curtains like this one left to play with...

Together with my pretty curtains, I found this knitted beauty in the thriftstore for almost nothing... it´s white, it´s lace, it´s vintage, it´s handmade... it´s perfect!

Creative...

I´ve been creating so many different things for the last few weeks:

1. I´m having a crochet-collar-mania at the moment: since I started my crochet-journey, I´ve been going crazy with my crochet-hook and making many different kind of collars - they are so much fun, quick and easy to make and really make a difference...

Really love this one - been wearing it a lot:

Yes, I DO have a thing for buttons - this one is vintage from a thrift store:

great picture, but you get the idea:

2. I´ve been really busy making something special with my mum for a week now... it involves old curtains from the thrift store, some new fabric, IKEA and 2 sewing machines... can´t wait to show you the result of this secret mission! :-)


3. After spending a lot of time (maby too much) on Pinterest, I was inspired to make a fairytale-box for my boys. You might be asking yourself, what that is? Well, since my boys are growing up with 2 different languages I´m always thinking of new methods to help them developing their language-skills - making them tell a story of their own really helps them and makes them use their imagination at the same time. This is how it looks like:

on the outside: on the inside: You put some fun things inside, and make your kids tell a story about them - you can use everything you want to, even words if the know how to read, shapes, numbers, letters, colours, toys... depending on what you want to practice and the age of your kid:

The fairytale-box helps your kids developing their language-skills, readings-skills (if you use letters or words), colours, shapes... what ever you want too... and the best thing about it is, that for them this is a game and it is so much fun to hear their stories! My boys really love this simple thing!

How I did it:

I clued pretty origami-paper-sheets on an old shoe-box (inside and outside) and something called "bókaplast" in icelandic (a plastic-thing with glue on one side, used to protect books - please tell me the word if you know it).

Me and my boys having fun:

A knitting needle roll

It always goes on my nerves how my knitting needles are all lying in a big chaotic bundle in my knitting needle-case... if I want double pointed needles nr. 3,5 I´ll have to search forever... and if I´m lucky enough I´ll find 5 of them...
Therefore I´ve been searching a good, free knitting needle roll-tutorial on the internet for a while now - and today the big day arrived: I finally made my very own knitting needle roll, mixing up those 2 tutorials: madebyloulabelle and lupinbunny.

I had to adapt the roll to my needs, since I never, ever use those 2, really long needles... this is the result and I´m really happy with it. The only thing I would do different next time is, to use thinner fabrics... maby just a thick one for the outside and thinner ones for the rest.

At last, I can find all the needles I need... I just can´t wait to make another one for my circular needles... just have to find the right fabrics...

open:

closed:

everything has it´s own, special place:

ahhh... finally some order...

all rolled up...