Handmade Christmas Gifts: A Chisel Case and Toolbelts

Each year for Christmas I make something handmade for our kids.  I partly do this because Christmas is so commercialized (although we do purchase some gifts too), but I think mostly I do it to give them something that no one else can give them.  Something created by me, from the heart.

It is a bit of a challenge each year to think of something that they would not only appreciate, but something that I can actually make.  Their first Christmas they will receive their stocking. The second Christmas they get a toddler sized pillow, made from a flannel with a print that reminds me of their personality or interest. After that, it's time for me to start dreaming up other projects.

You may have seen the sneak peak of one of my Christmas projects on my The Beginning Farmer's Wife Facebook Page, and if you were wondering just what it was . . . it's a chisel holder for our son - made from passed down fabric, Ethan's worn out work jeans, and a bit of elastic that I had in my sewing box.

 

 

Last Christmas our 9 year old son received a woodcarving book, Carving for Kids, along with some chisels. This past year he has been learning about how his different chisels work, practicing his carving skills with bars of soap, and is excited to soon work his way to carving some wooden projects.

We had just been keeping his chisels in a plastic zipping pencil case, but it made it hard to find the right chisel and really see what his chisel options were for the particular part of the project he was on. So this Christmas, I decided to sew him something to hold his chisels. 

Most of the projects I end up making for the kids are things that I have no pattern for, so they usually take a bit of time to create.  And a bit of seam ripping.   And sometimes even a few tears of frustration along the way.

This project was no different, but just like all of the other projects, it was one that I had set in my heart to make.  So I rip out the seams, try again, rip out more seams, gather encouragement from Ethan, and learn a few things for the next project. 

On Christmas morning, it is worth all of the hard work!

As for our other 3 kids, they received a hand made tool belt to hold their new Christmas tool in.  Caleb had received his tool belt for Christmas at age 7, two years ago.  I figured though, that since all of the kids have been working so hard and helping out so much with our hoop house project and the other building projects from this year, they really all needed a tool belt.

Along with being able to carry screws and nails to Ethan and myself, our 8 year old daughter now can tote along her own hammer, our 5 year old son can pull things with his pliers, and our 2 year old can check to make sure everything is level (and for some projects, a 2 year old's opinion of level is good enough!)

As I prepare to pack up our Christmas decorations and take down our tree, I will start my year long brain storm of what to make the kids for Christmas next year.

(I took this photo when setting up our tree to show how I keep my lights from getting tangled, by the way.  Each set of lights is folded and placed into its own grocery sack to be stored in a tub.)

Now that Christmas is over and secretive gifts have been opened, I'd love to hear of any projects you created this year . . . or even ideas of what I could make next year! 

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Diaper Pails

We are now starting our 4th round of cloth diapers, with 2 using them at the moment. (We use prefold diapers and diaper covers that my mom and I made, similar to the ones you can buy. If you would like to read more about our cloth diapering, you can do a search on the right side of my blog.) With 6 1/2 years of cloth diapering under my belt, I have learned a lot and changed a lot!

One of the things that I have changed is our diaper pail. I started out with a trash can with a flip up lid. I used an ice cream bucket to carry soiled diapers to and from the toilet to dump into the trash can and then rinsed the little bucket. It worked okay, but I wasn't completely sold on it. Not only could you eventually tell which room the diapers were in, but the trash can/diaper pail also had to be cleaned on occasion.

When we still lived in town, I started acquiring buckets. I needed a few for collecting coffee grounds for composting, but I guess I decided that it would be a good idea to keep getting more buckets. Some I got from the Hy-Vee bakery, but most I got from a local deli. They had about 2 a week from their pickles. And these are the buckets that I affectionately call "the pickle bucket". Creative, huh?

When we moved to our farm house, I did not move our diaper pail. I had used and cleaned it for 4 years, and I thought it would be best to just throw it away. So once we got into our new house, I needed something for the cloth diapers. The handiest thing I had around at the moment were some unused pickle buckets. I grabbed those, and it was one of the best diapering changes I have made yet.

So now our diaper pail is "the pickle bucket". Here is what I love about them.

• The lid has a rubber seal so no smells seep out.
• 2 pickle buckets stack quite nicely, taking up little space. They fill up at just the right time and make just the right size load to wash.
• Diapers are easy to load into the washing machine. Just take the lid off and dump them in.
• They are easy to handle, with their convenient carrying handles.
• When they are getting a bit "used", I don't feel I have to clean them. I can just throw them out.
• And . . . new pickle buckets have a rather pleasant "pickley" smell for quite some time when you open the lid. Sure beats the other smells!

As to where I keep them, they are in the laundry room. I change diapers in the bathroom, and the laundry room and bathroom are connected. (You can see our house layout here.) I know they aren't as beautiful as a white garbage can with a lid, but they are out of site - and they work so much better!

I know there are a lot of you out there who use cloth diapers as well, and many who have used them longer than I have. Since I still have a bit to go with them, and I'm sure there is more that I can do differently, I'd love to hear your best cloth diapering tips!

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Christmas Projects

Each year I like to make something for the kids for Christmas. As I was looking at the photos of last year's projects (one is similar to what I'm doing this year), I remembered I started a post last year that I never published. So here it is. I will admit, I wish I could have made as many gifts this year, but since tomorrow is Christmas Eve, I will be happy to just get done what I have planned for my kiddos. I'm close! Now back to work!!

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This Christmas (2009) I wanted to make some gifts, but with watching spending and with fabric stores 45 minutes away (Walmart no longer has fabric) I decided I would have to do it from the fabric on hand. Making gifts is sometimes tricky for me - trying to think of something that someone will appreciate and that matches who they are. Right now my main "homemade" skill is sewing, but hopefully I'll pick up some more skills down the road.

Here's what I made:
This is a Tic Tac Toss game for our son, Caleb. (5 yrs old in 2009)

A bib for our son Isaac. (Just turned 1 in 2009)

A blankie and pillow to go with our daughter, Hannah's, baby doll. (Just turned 4 in 2009)

"Grandma's Memory Gameboard/Placemat" This was for my mom. I made it out of scraps from my grandma's (my mom's mom) fabric stash. Memories for her of her mom and for her to make memories with her grandkids. The spring side: My grandma always had a cheery flower bed in the spring and summer.

The fall side: This is the other side of the placemat. My grandma's kitchen was deep browns and yellow.

A gardening apron for my mom. This was actually for her birthday, which is right before Christmas.

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Cloth Napkins, Hankies, and Milk Jugs

I'm always looking for ways to cut down on spending. One of the things that I have tried to cut down on is household consumables. A few years back I decided to make some cloth napkins and hankies.

To do this, I went to Walmart, when they still had their fabric department, and bought some inexpensive flannel. I then surged around the outside to make squares. I ended up with stripped wash cloth napkins, pink hankies for Hannah, and blue hankies for Caleb.

These have worked out really well. The napkins are great for cleaning spaghetti stained faces, and the kids can keep their hankies in their pockets or on their dinner chairs. They can go through as many as they would like, and if one get's left around, there's no guessing as to who's germs it holds.

I've tweeked the laundering of the napkins and hankies a bit to keep laundry hampers from becoming musty and gross. I now have a milk jug (easy to toss when needs replacing) under the kitchen sink that these napkins get dropped in. I put a touch of vinegar in the water, which keeps the water a bit more fresh and have a drip protector under the jug in case the kids don't get a cloth in all of the way and it wicks water out.

I also have a post it note sticker on my warm wash cycle, so whenever I do a load of warms I remember to retrieve the milk jug.

This seems to work out great for our kids, and it has really cut down on the paper napkins and kleenexes that we buy.

Home Made Wood Bag

In our mudroom we have an indoor woodpile. We use this wood to feed our fire, and then we replenish it so we have dry wood in case it rains. Our wood stove is in the middle of the house, and to get to the mudroom you have to walk around the corner and down the hallway. To fill the stove completely, it takes about 3-4 trips down the hallway, and carrying the wood through the house was making quite a mess.

A few weeks ago I got tired of the mess, and I know Ethan was getting tired of the trips. (He usually brought me the wood, and I built the fire.) I decided to make a wood bag, and it works out quite nicely. It holds enough wood to fill the stove in one trip and keeps wood dirt from being tracked through the house. If we are ambitious enough, we fill it a second time and have it sitting beside the stove ready to feed the fire.

I didn't take pictures of it when I was making it since I barely had enough time to throw it together, but I drew up a rough sketch of what I did.

I used a heavy duck cloth from Walmart (It was 75 % off since they were clearing out their fabric.) and cut out 5 pieces - the handles aren't shown in my drawing.

The base is a long rectangle, wide enough to hold the length of wood our stove holds. The sides are trapazoids, with the base wider than the top. This helps prevents the stack from tipping when the bag is set down. The sides are 9 inches high, making the bag tall enough to hold a stove load of wood. Then I just wrapped the rectangle around the sides, leaving the top open. I attached the handles, and it was done.

It works out great, and I wish I had made it earlier in the season!


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Fleece Inserts for Cloth Diapers

When Hannah was a baby and in cloth, I was having trouble with her waking up when she would wet. Somehow I got the idea to make fleece inserts to keep the wetness away from her skin when she was sleeping.

I went and picked up some fleece and cut it into rectangles, just big enough to cover the diaper when folded. When she would sleep, I would put one of these on top of her folded diaper. They worked great! She would stir a bit when she wet, but would soon fall back asleep. I continued to use them as she grew, but I used different colors of fleece for the different sizes, making them easier to sort.

Now that Isaac is in cloth, I have pulled out the fleece as well. It does add a tiny bit of bulk, but it's definitely worth it for naps!

(I scheduled this post before our washer went out, so maybe now I will have to also post my disposable diaper trick.)

Baby Bottoms

Baby bottoms are expensive! Or at least they can be expensive. I can't believe how fast they go through disposable diapers, and wipes don't last that long either. It is because of this that I dug through my mountain of unpacked boxes to pull out the cloth diapers. It may be a little extra work right now while we are still not settled in, but the savings is definitely worth it!

When Caleb was born I decided to go the cloth diaper route because of the expense of disposable. I I went with prefolds and my mom and I made the covers. With Hannah, I continued cloth and started using white washcloths for wipes to save even more. (That is all they got used for, by the way.) Now my cloth diapers are on baby number 3. I have had to recover most of them since they were wearing thin, but it was still cheaper than buying new ones.

It is nice to be saving again on baby bottoms - and also on trash bags!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone had a good Christmas. We have one more party to go on Thursday, and then we have made our rounds. We have enjoyed seeing family and friends as we have had opportunities to get away for a bit.

As you can see underneath our tree, we were able to do a little more shopping. Ethan's mom was going to be around to watch the kids on Monday, but since the weather was bad we took them with us and were sneaky with picking up the gifts. We can still do that with them being younger. So Monday night, after driving home in a snow storm, we finished our Christmas shopping.

There were two things that I just didn't get done this Christmas that I was hoping to. (There was a lot I didn't do that doesn't bother me - all the decorations up and stuff like that.) One was to take a cookie plate to our neighbors. It would have been a good way to get to meet them, but a fresh loaf of homemade bread will probably do just as well. (I'm going to wait until I get real bread pans though - coming soon. Meat loaf pans just don't bake pretty loaves.)

The other was finishing Isaac's stocking. I know he will never care, but I had really wanted to finish it by Christmas. I at least got his name on though, and I will finish it up soon. (If you click on the picture you can see a close up of our stockings. I made Ethan and mine when we first were married and have been adding the shepherd stockings as needed.)

So now Christmas is over. It has been quite a different Christmas for our family (and even more so for our pastor), but it has been a good Christmas. I have had the opportunity to reflect even more on why we celebrate since the "how" we celebrate was changed a bit this year. It was a good change too - less focus on stuff and more on others. It is my prayer that the "how" of this Christmas will continue for us throughout the year.

Camper Curtains are Done

Last night I finished the last of my 14 lined camper curtains. They cost less than $7 to make. I found the deep green fabric for $1 a yard and had to buy some thread, but the lining was used from old thin flannel sheets that had been laying around.

If you ever make curtains, I highly suggest lining them. After I worked through my first lined curtain a few years ago, I was surprised at how quickly they go together. It almost takes the same amount of time since you don't have as many rolled and hemmed edges. They keep the light out better, and the lining also prevents your fabric from sun bleaching. (You can use lots of things for lining - muslin works well too.)

I considered posting a photo tutorial on lined curtains, but things are so crazy now I'm just going to link you to this site where I learned how to make them. (The curtains in these instructions use curtain tape for rod hooks, but I just used two seems to slip the rod through and have ruffles at the top.) I do plan on making some more lined curtains for our house once we are settled in, so maybe I'll get to a photo tutorial then.

As for the camper, it is now ready to sleep in at the farm, either ourselves or our helpers. The cushions I recovered are done and curtains are up. You can also see the new flooring that we put down. It was less than $20 - just stick down tile that was on sale at Menards.

Although the camper was quite disgusting when we first bought it, I am quite happy now with how it turned out. It's still not perfect, but it looks really nice with just a little money and some hard work invested into it.

Here's a taste of the before. This is one of the old cushions. We ripped out old carpet, threw out the old curtains, and replaced a few boards too, along with a good disinfecting and scrubbing. Think 40 years old, a bachelor's house for a year, and a hunting camper afterwards.

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Tools of My Trade

Shock Wave was the chemical that the mold remediation service referred us to when we were battling mold in the house we were living in. We were told it is what is used to clean hospital rooms that have had hazardous organisms, and that is is EPA safe. This is what we used to clean our camper and cushions, and we were very pleased with the fresh smell of the previously musty smelling camper.
 

Camper Cushions

I have spent quite a bit of my "free time" in the house working on new cushions for our camper.

Not only had this camper been used for family vacations, but a bachelor had lived in it a year while building his house and the last family used it as a hunting camper. The 40 year old cushions covers that came with the camper had broken zippers, shredding fabric, outdated colors, and were just plain nasty. Because of this, the covers went straight to the garbage. I didn't even want to save them to use them as patterns.

After we sprayed off the cushions and sanitized them twice (leaving them smelling just like new), I started on the cushion covers.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the covers, but I wanted them nice. I got some cheap used sheets from a 2nd hand store for the first cover. I then measured the cushions, cut the fabric to size, sewed them up, and worked the cushion inside. These first covers are going to be permanent, so I finished them off by stitching the end closed by hand.

Next came the removable covers. I used some surprisingly heavy $1/ yard promotional fabric from Wal-Mart. I was really happy with this since it is similar to upholstery weight but so much cheaper! I adjusted my measurements just a bit to get a really snug fit, and then I sewed these covers up.

I wasn't quite sure how to finish them off to make them removable though. I could have used zippers, but I would have spent quite a bit of money and time on them. Buttons were another option, but also would have added up with money and time. Velcro wouldn't hold for sure since the fit was so snug, and snaps might have popped too. I didn't want to whip stitch the ends, since I wanted them to be easy to remove and wash. So I just ended up getting a box of quilter's safety pins and pinned the ends shut. These ends will be pushed against the wall anyway so they won't be seen. I did leave enough fabric, however, that if I ever wanted to add snaps or buttons I could.

We hope to pull the camper to the farm soon. We should be able to have electricity next week. So this week I am busy working on lined curtains - all 16 of them! It will take some time, but thankfully I found some more $1/yard promotional fabric that will work and have some leftover old sheets for the lining.

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Tools of My Trade

Shock Wave was the chemical that the mold remediation service referred us to when we were battling mold in the house we were living in. We were told it is what is used to clean hospital rooms that have had hazardous organisms, and that is is EPA safe. This is what we used to clean our camper and cushions, and we were very pleased with the fresh smell of the previously musty smelling camper.
 

New Bibs for Hannah

About a year ago I made two bibs for Caleb. The bibs that he had just weren't keeping up with his power-eating. I really liked the pockets that some of his smaller bibs had, so I used them to help design his new ones.

Here's a picture of the store bought bib and the bib I made.
When I first made Caleb's bibs, Hannah could still use the smaller bibs. Over the last year, however, she has become a little more independent with her eating. Because of this, she ended up needing a larger bib as well and has been using Caleb's bibs.

After washing the two homemade bibs after every meal and then hearing how they were wet and cold at the next meal, I decided that maybe I should make some bibs for Hannah. Ethan was gone for the weekend when I took on this project, so I decided to spend a little extra time with it and take some pictures of the process.

I started off by using the same newspaper patterns that I had made to make Caleb's bibs. I traced the pattern onto a heavy piece of upholstery type plastic that I bought in the Walmart fabric department.
Next, I cut out the plastic to the same size as the red canvas fabric shown. I then pinned them together on the outside of the bib so the bib won't have holes in it.
After the two pieces were pinned together, I sewed them together with the surger following the outside line on the bib.
If you have a serger, you don't have to do any cutting. I just followed the lines I had drawn while sewing. The serger does the cutting for you, and you don't even have to pull pins if they are on the outside. If you don't have a serger, you will need to cut out the pieces and then sew around the outside. You will also have to pin on the very edge of the bib itself. The binding will cover the holes made.

After the perimeter of the bib was serged, I serged down the neck line and into the opening, with the serger doing the cutting. Next, I serged around the circular neck opening, and again the serger cut out the circle. Lastly, I surged up the final part of the neck opening. (Although this picture has a scissors in it, it was just used for weight for the photo. The machine did all of the cutting.)
Here is a picture with the serging completed on both bibs.
Next step . . . the binding. I cut strips of fabric 2 inches wide. (2 1/4 inches to 2 1/2 inches probably would have worked better.)

I then cut strips of plastic about 5 inches tall and 4 inches wider than the width of the bottom of the bib. I bound the top side of these with my binding. These will be the food catchers. I thought about showing the steps I used to put on binding, but I think that would have to be a post all in itself. If you aren't sure how to do binding, here is a good tutorial.
Here is a picture of the plastic strips in relation to the bibs. Once the binding was on the plastic strips, I pinned them in place on the bib, placing the pins on the very outer edge of the bib where the binding would cover the holes. When I pinned the strips in place, I puckered them out about an inch to allow for an open pocket that would catch falling food. If the strip isn't puckered, it will stick to the bib and the pocket will not work well. I then surged around the pocket, again, letting the machine do the cutting.
After the pockets were sewn in place, I finished up the binding around the outside of the bibs. Here is that binding tutorial again.
To finish off the bibs, I added 3 snaps. I like to use 3 to make the neck adjustable. The snaps that I used are set with a hammer and a plastic snap setting tool, which comes with the snaps that I bought at Walmart.
And here are the completed bibs. They are not perfect, but I wasn't too concerned about keeping things even. It cost me around $3 to make both of them and took a little under 2 hours.
As far as time/cost savings, I am happy with the price, but they take me a bit longer to make than I would like. Even so, I haven't found anything similar in size and quality that I could buy, and if I did it would probably be more than I would want to pay anyway. So, I guess the time and cost in this project is well worth keeping food and stains off of clothes.

Sneak Peek

Yesterday we had another snow/ice storm come through. This time church got canceled, as well as evening youth group. As much as I want to get the house back in order, I believe that God knows what He was saying when He asks us to take a day to rest. So for the sake of my heath, I left the mess in the house and decided to spend the day working on the quilt for our room.

I have been slowly piecing it together over the last year and a half. The quilt will have 14 rows of 13 blocks each. Yesterday, I made a lot of progress. I ended the day with all 14 rows sewn in their strips. I also got 3 of those strips sewn together. After I attach the remaining 11 strips, it will be ready to start quilting.

I laid out all of the strips on our bed so that I could see how it would look finished. I was really happy with it, but I will just show you a portion and wait to take a picture of the completed quilt once it is done.I have been very blessed in that my Aunt Audry let me dig through her stash of fabric and let me just take what I wanted to make this quilt. She also showed me how to get it going and showed me some neat tricks to make it go together faster and more precise. This week her husband, Uncle Joe, was sent home from the hospital with at home hospice. He has been fighting cancer for over a year. Not only was yesterday a day for me to rest a bit, but it was also an opportunity for me to pray for my Uncle Joe, Aunt Audry, and their family as I worked on my quilt.

Reupholstery 101

About a week ago I decided to go through reupholstery 101 on my own. One of the kids's car seats was falling apart to the point where I either needed to fix it or throw it away. The seat was still in safe working order, but the fabric was starting to disintegrate from the sun constantly baking it through the windows in our car. (We don't have a garage.) If you would even touch the fabric, you would get black dust on you. Needless to say, this was starting to get annoying and messy.

When I was younger, my mom did some reupholstering of some chairs of ours. Although I was too young to help out, I did watch. I do quite a bit of sewing and fixing things myself, but I have never reupholstered anything. I didn't think it would be a problem, but I used my aunts advise to take LOTS of pictures of the disassembly when you are repairing something so you will know how to put it back together. This was a very simple project, but I took them anyway - mostly to put on my blog. :)

So here is the overview of my reupholstering. (If you make it to the bottom of the post you will see the cost and time spent for this project.)




Here is the car seat that needed fixing. The fabric on the front of the arm rest is what was falling apart - if it would have ripped all of the way through, the padding of the arm rest wouldn't be able to stay attached.












This is the arm rest fabric taken off. Definitely in need of help.











I used my seem ripper and carefully took apart the pieces, being extra careful to not tear the binding or rip the fabric I wanted to save.





Next I layed out the ripped fabric and also the backing (which was getting rough). I tried my best to smooth them out and pin them in place on the new fabric. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to position the fabric that was shredding.






Here are my two new pieces along with the original fabric that was worth saving.






After everything was cut out, I sewed them back together trying to use the same seam allowances to get the same fit. Then I reinserted the foam and reattached the original binding.












Finally, the car seat is put back together and will no longer leave us covered with black dust!













Like I said, this was a very simple reupholstery project, but it was a good one to start with. The fit isn't as exact as the original, but I had trouble getting an exact pattern off of the shredded material. After all was said and done, I spent less than $2 in materials and less than an hour of my time. Not bad for a "new" car seat.

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Where'd Ya Get Your Jeans?

A funny thing happened a couple years ago. We were at a football game and one of the kids in Ethan's youth group (Ethan is a youth director) asked him where he got his jeans. She thought they were pretty cool. Later that week, another kid asked the same question during youth group about the same pair of jeans. What was so cool about them? They had been patched from the inside - the new style that came with a nice price tag.

There was something about these jeans, however, that the students didn't know about. These jeans were probably at least 3 years old at the time, and when they were purchased - there were no patches. Yes, these jeans actually earned their patches, and I put them on. On the inside. Before I knew it was cool.

Today I spent the better part of my afternoon patching up the pile of jeans in the picture. The pile has accumulated since spring, and I figured that they better get fixed up since the fall weather is coming. Unfortunately for my husband, jeans with patches are not what is cool anymore. Now it is jeans with holes all over - unpatched. If only I would have let them be. But some of the holes were getting a bit, well . . . indecent.

We aren't really that concerned with the changing tides of coolness anyway. We're just trying to go another year without having to buy more jeans. So I'm just going to keep patching away. And when you think about it, fashions cycle - so jeans with patches will eventually be cool again. And I bet these jeans will be there to see it!

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