Monster High Doll House - Conversion from Barbie House; Part 1

 So, Last week the little one asked if she could have a Monster High dollhouse - but, you see - she already has this GIANT Barbie house in her room.  As her mom, and a pinterest junkie extraordinaire - I was sure I could find a way to convert the dollhouse into something more suitable for her growing collection of dolls. 

With a suitable bribe for me (she had to clean her room extra), a few hours on google images/pinterest and a trip to the craft store - we spent $15 on the supplies for the first few rooms.  We began with the top level - what was the bedroom.  

I bought patterned scrapbook paper for the walls, and felt for the floors.  We did the first area with a pawprint wallpaper, fancy black pattern washi tape for the edges and pink and black zebra carpeting for the vanity area.  It needs a wall still redone in plain black, and the vanity itself needs repainted, but....HUGE DIFFERENCE ALREADY.

The top right got a purple burlap pattern paper and a neat black felt set in the middle, like a rug.  It has music note washi tape holding it down (as well as scotch tape behind the walls). 



After we took this picture we added Monster High stickers to look like posters along the left side of the wall - and the couch, much like the vanity will be getting a coat of paint and some gussying up. There is a small scrap of the pink and black zebra from the other floor that we are planning to turn into a pillow for the couch.



The room I am most pleased with is the middle level right side - what was this...

Got treated with metallic pink alligator print sheets to the wall, and black alligator print to the floor - with music note washi tape through the middle as a decorative accent - and on the wall with the door by the floor and ceiling.  It really makes the entire room stand out incredibly! It is showing the bed right now that will be getting a paint job as well!


 As we were working the invader came and joined us! Followed by both cats playing peek-a-smack through the front door of the house :)

 Little one, her dad and I all probably only put in about thirty minutes of work thus far. I need some more supplies to finish it up - we hope to finish furniture redo's this week and possibly pick up the additional felt and scrapbook paper to redo the bottom floor rooms, possible remake a better kitchen and then we hope her littleness will add to it as she wants to.  We are trying to decide how much to do the outside, but it's possible this will become a stone castle (courtesy of some awesome felt from Michaels).

We do have a few other projects going at the same time, so I have to be careful not to overload our schedules...but I hope to have a more finished picture by February 10th. 

Hooded Scarf

I love hats, especially long goofy hobbit style hoods and this has been a great year thus far for anything warm and cozy. Going through my basement O'doom and craft stuff looking for shield cover for the beloved I found two purple bits of fleece. Warm, Cozy, and just about the right size (I hoped).

Well, I was right! I created the pattern by thinking about what I had seen around for hoods with the shoulder bits and did about 40 minutes of sewing - because despite an amazing friend who sent home a sewing machine with me, I still haven't plugged it in to start learning how to use it.

It makes an amazing hood with shawl for the little one :) I have a lighter purple that will be the next one - and I am planning just to do the hood bit, have it go tight around the head and have a long silly bit at the end.  Hopefully it will be up soon!

Wolf Helmet - Project 1 of 2015

Today we got working on the wolf helmet that my beloved wants.  He has been in love with this design since running into it online a while ago - http://dmitriwolf.deviantart.com/art/Wolf-Helm-183964139.

So... First, you start by oogling the picture a lot - and thinking about what you need to shift around on it, what you like, love, maybe don't adore as much, what you really can't imagine being cooler. 

Then, you find really ugly poster-board.  Neon-ugly is best (it makes the most hilarious pictures when you force your husband to sit down and pose it for you).  He humors me so wonderfully.  Of course, he gets awesome leather out of it.

We actually started a week or two or three ago when we bought the paper, I just didn't get any farther than today.  Today! Today we pulled out a pencil and stared at the image and some scissors and created a draft pattern, tweaked it a bit when we ended up with a temporary mono-brow (Which I did not photograph).

The pattern is currently missing the under pieces which will fill in the blanks you see in the pictures, and will force some size changes.  I do worry about how it will fit as leather, as the paper fits mostly correctly now - does that mean it will be too small? But, the last thing I made I oversized so badly we ended up trimming it three times and could afford to cut it down again if it wouldn't butcher the tooling. So...I really want to be a little more careful about sizes. 

But - ARROOOO! Wolf-Helm of 2015!

The plan is to cut out the leather this week and possible start wetting and shaping as soon as Wednesday.  I tend to binge-work, and enjoy watching things develop rapidly, so we will see what ends up happening.