If I had only known what I got myself into...

My beautiful niece turned 1 last week and we had already bought her a present but thought that she would really benefit from something that would have wheels (she is not yet walking but can stand up against a support)

I looked around.... Cars... Cars.... Nothing pretty or non-plastic :-(

So I went online to see if I could find something there. And I did!  A hedgehog! Cute as a button... But they only had a smaller size and I thought it to be quite expensive. So... Being handy and having s dad that is good at woodworking... I figured we could EASILY make one ourselves... Heh heh

Here is our inspiration 

So here is the process in pictures

At this point I realized I might have chewed a bit too large bite :-)

How on earth can I make this pile of fabric and bathroom rug to look like a hedgehog!!??

To me it resembled more of a beaver or water rat...

We covered the rod with plastic garden hose and made a leather sleeve from an old skirt

Final product!!!

And I have to say... It looks pretty darn good!!

And here is my darling niece riding the hedgehog... Note the cute hat I made for her too :-)

Finland travels

Here are some pictures from my travels and stay in Finland

Chanterelles picked by my dad

Finnish pancake party

Restaurant on top of an old water tower by the sea

Turku castle

Mariehamn (Åland) harbour

Åland is demilitarized zone

Local high school in Mariehamn 

Enjoying late August evening at the cottage

Did some crafts!!!

As some of you know, I have been away most of the summer. First all July at the cottage in Sudbury and after that in Finland (I'm actually still there).

This time I chose not to bring my crafting tools with me, since I didn't really use them enough last year.

But I have done some crafts too - I made some cushions for log stools and made some little mushrooms with the remaining fabric and old wine corks

I used pin needles to adhere the hats on the corks.

Me and my mom also did some forest elves from felt and pine cones

And couple of little ballerinas too

I also made couple of tissue paper pompoms and a tissue paper leaf garland for my niece's 1st birthday party

I have worked on something else too, but cannot post it just yet (as it is a gift).

I have to say, I do miss my craft room and stamping! I have my fall stamps waiting for me when ai get back in about a week... Might take couple of days to get climatzed and unpacked, but I promise there will be more postings coming up!

Sewing clothes for my little niece

So I have a little 9 month old niece. She is the cutest little thing.

I saw her first at her christening when she was just under 2 months old and then again when she was 4months.

Since then I have only seen her via Skype.

I wanted to make some dresses for he and so far she has received one reversible pinafore dress (see my post from June 4th)

Now I made an other reversible top and matching shorts

And 2 dresses with tie closures on the shoulders

Cannot wait to see her wear these

Chalk Painting and old cabinet

We have this dining room set, that used to belong to Tom's grandmother. It has seen its best days and would need a new finish to make it look nice. Problem: the cost to refinish the whole set (cabinet, buffet, table and 7 chairs) would be over $2000 and we were told that if you'd like to sell it, you'd be lucky to get $300 for the whole set. So as you can see, not worth it.

So I did some research and figured out the easiest way to make them usable would be to chalk paint them. I chose to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. 

So far I have finished the cabinet. This will actually become our master bedroom linen cabinet.

I chose to use a green paint called Chateau Grey on the outside and Old White inside.

After the paint, I used clear wax on the top.

Buy One - Get One Free THIS Friday

Sewing baby dress

I wanted to make a reversible dress for my niece, who is 8months old. The difficult part was to find just the perfect fabrics and match them together. The dress itself took only couple of hours

One side is brown with white spots and turquoise accent fabric for the collar and pockets

The other side is orange chevron pattern and without pockets

This is an apron style dress so usually you would wear pants or shorts underneath, and since babies usually have the cute diaper pants, they would be great. The design also allows this dress to be worn as a shirt for toddlers, so assuming the seams and fabric holds, this should be something Little Emmi can wear couple of years. Let's hope she likes it :-)

I mailed it to her last week and hopefully receive some pictures of her wearing the dress soon!