Bed curtain out of old duvet cover

I have only something "small" to show to you this time. Last week I made a belt and this is another week that I show to you only "something small". The reason is that I have been making something secretive that I can only put here after next week. So for now to that something small - or is it actually?

Our kids share a room at the moment and they both have loft beds. There is no point in having separate rooms now that they are this young, the company of the other gives a feeling of security. But who wouldn't want to have some privacy every now and then? Daughter is preschooler now and wants to be alone every now and then. Also to calm down the bed time I thought that some kind of curtains would be good.

Then I had an idea, then another one, then I asked my kids and had to change all the plans. Then I was looking for a fabric that would suit, found something else and changed everything again. Eventually I had one ready.

First idea was to make a bed curtain out of nice fabric, or maybe just buy curtains, especially when I calculated how much the fabric would cost. It is insane really, you can buy curtains and bed sheets for cheaper than just fabric!

Then I asked what the kids would like and the ideas were so interestingly weird that I decided not to follow them as they were. But that gave me an idea, how about if they could design their own curtains? I found a fabric that would almost ask for drawing! I bought fabric pens but only my daughter wanted to draw anything and as drawing into fabric isn't as easy as on the paper this is what she came up with:

On top left curtain there is a sun, like any drawing should have. Under it grass and worm (that long pink line) and inside the circle small pond with another worm, some grass and a carrot. She said that she will draw other vegetables there as it is a vegetable patch but we will see.

So the drawing wasn't fun and also the pens were quite light, some stronger colours would probably have been good. Then they found my scrap fabric box! And after careful planning the result looked like this:

My daughter chose the pictures, my job was to cut them and sew them, all the positions are hers. If you ask her what there is you will probably get a very long tale with fairies, ponies, pandas and hedgehogs somehow connected to the vegetable patch. It isn't quite what I had in mind but it is what she wanted and that's what matters. Also she coloured one piece:

My idea was that this side would be visible to the room but of course she wanted to see her own story from her bed so we had another problem as the backside wasn't that pretty to look at. I searched my fabric storage and couldn't find any. Then I remembered that there was one duvet cover that used to be her favourite before getting bigger duvet and is now too small.

The duvet cover was a bit too small but being duvet cover it had co-ordinating fabric on the other side that I could use. Now I remembered why I don't like sewing curtains. There simply isn't big enough table to lay the fabric flat and no matter how carefully you measure the result is something that is close enough, not precisely. Even if you cut them along straight grain, you never know if the other side is few centimetres longer than the other. And I had two fabrics to be measured and with the duvet cover I had to think how to cut it to make it cover the other fabric.

I knew I had to put it on the floor but how to make it stay still so I could fit the duvet cover on it? I taped it on the floor:

Now it would stay still and it was much easier to measure it and see what would work and what not. I think I will use that again when working with bigger fabrics...

The other side is "mum-friendly" and the other side designed by the kid herself. Both are happy. :)

The curtain is hanging next to her bed with curtain wire, like this (pic not by me):

I have another one on the making for my son but not ready yet, will show it too once it is ready.

Another small thing that I made is this:

Last week we got info from school that the kids would have photo shooting for school pictures on this Monday. Naturally, there is nothing good enough to wear. I say no to all characters in pictures, so no Frozen or My little pony, thank you very much.

I have had this cat fabric for a while now and good I had, I could make a shirt for the photo shooting as it was the only fabric that was big enough to make a shirt! I used most of my fabric storage for the outfits shown in this post and haven't bought any since. I know many dressmakers have room full of fabrics but I only buy when I know what I'm going to make out of it - or if it is really, really cheap and I can think of something I can use it to. Not very good thing with few day notices...

The shirt covered but how about the pants? Not a chance that anything in the closet would do. Remember the pants in How to patch knees post? Yep, they all look like that. And now some of the patches have holes in them, as have both of the new leggings that I just made for her. Or at least they look very worn out. She likes to play on the floor on her knees and that's the result.

I tried to look for matching fabric but that's easier said than done! I looked all my shirts that were in my to be upcycled - box and everything but nothing would match!

Close, but not enough. Luckily we had business to the city anyway so I could buy new pants for her. Why not use some of the jeans from the closet that are practically unused? She doesn't want to wear them. :D Leggings are the only pants she accepts...

Good thing was that once I started making the shirt, it was smooth sailing. I copied the pattern from old shirt, just roughly draw the parts on pattern paper, measured a bit that it made any sense and all the parts fit so well together that I was actually surprised. I like the collar part, something different. In the single photos most that is showing is usually just the collar (they do group pictures too and that's a different thing, that's why I wanted new pants too) anyway. The model is very easy to sew too, the sleeve is something close to raglan forming part of the collar so no fitting the sleeve on the armhole. I think I will make a pattern with the same collar for my son too. The boys' clothing are seriously lacking the details overall and I'm always happy when I can find something new.

Now having arms crossed that she keeps her clothes clean until the photo shooting... She goes to preschool tomorrow with an advice not to be on her knees before the photo shooting. What do you think, will she remember? :D

Travelling with kids part 3 - travel tray

Final part of travelling with kids is travel tray. Super useful during long car trips when the kids can play with their small toys on their laps without them getting lost all the time. It keeps them entertained and happy for a long time, especially together with the toy bag and dry erase book.

First, the idea of travel tray isn't mine and for the pillow I used the tutorial by Two Sisters Crafting. Their tray is bigger and I have to admit it is much more neat than mine! They used new cookie tray that was painted nicely. Apparently from somewhere you can buy cookie sheets for 1$ per piece. Not here though. They would be perfect for crafting purposes for the kids but I highly suspect that you won't get an for a price like that here!

As my last post wasn't anything upcycled but a tutorial about getting best result with twin needle and the one previous that new clothes for my kids, I promised the next post would be something upcycled. This one is through and through. Here is what I used:

One plastic tray that was cut half. Plastic is near impossible to cut by hand and I was wondering how to cut it when my brother happened to visit. He said that our dad has that kind of saw that can cut it nice and neatly. Too bad he tried some other saw first and the plastic broke a bit. It was quite neat though after finished with the correct saw but the halves had some sharp points and I used duct tape to fix that (only thing here that isn't upcycled). Not pretty but it gets the job done and stays on. Why cut it half then? I was asked that and my answer was that it is too big. That's true! I asked for ideas how to cut a tray and I'm asked why I want to cut it? Don't you usually want to cut something that is too big to make it smaller? Yes, the tray was too big to fit on the kids' laps with the toy bags resting on the car tables in front of them. I think it would have been too big even without the car tables so it was better this way. And before you ask, the car tables are fixed on the front seat, they can't really be used for playing or drawing as they are too far away for that and if they were close enough, the kids' feet wouldn't fit.

I got this fabric from a relative of mine with words "do you have any use for this?". I didn't at the time but of course I took it. Since then I have used it to make pockets for advent calendars and couple wizard hats:

The material is felt like and it is from a couch. Can you get anything more upcycled than some fabric that is from old couch when the couch was ripped and thrown away? I don't know what it was used for but it has been very useful after that. Only proves that you should always check and re-check what you are throwing away. It is rather big piece and it didn't cost a single cent, hard to find better deal.

But.. the problem with unknown fabrics is that you don't know what material is it. So, when you try to attach something with bondaweb by ironing it, this might happen:

As usual, I was in a hurry to get these ready so I was pretty annoyed when that happened. Of course, I should have realized to check, so it was just my own fault.

Different fabric scraps and patterns for cutting them.

These formed the bottom pillow. There is no need for the tutorial about that, just look at the Two Sisters Crafting link above. Couple changes though. First, I used oat to fill the pillow, second I added some padding so the oat won't poke through. Oat is from old warm/cold pillows that weren't needed anymore and the outer fabric is from crib padding that I ripped here. Like I said, upcycled through and through.

I cut two rectangulars just like Two Sisters Crafting advised to, the outer fabric bigger than the inner fabric and padding same size as the outer fabric. When you use padding like this, it is good idea to cut out the corners, the padding isn't needed there and it will just make the seam too thick.

Everything went well until I attached the pillow to the tray. I only had one type of glue that I could even think would work and that didn't. The glue stuck to the fabric but not to the plastic. There wasn't anything that would have been more suitable in our household and the shops aren't exactly around the corner so I had to use what I already had. Have you noticed that you really have to get creative when you can't just go to the shop and buy what you want? I think it is actually an advantage not to live next to all shops, I have to find new solutions quite often.

The new solution was this:

Small drill-made holes and yarn worked. It is just a yarn that goes through the holes and below is attached to the pillow with small hand-made stitches:

It was impossible to get the yarn tight but it doesn't matter really, it stays put when used on lap and stays on when carried.

Our kids like to play with small figures and they usually don't need much to trigger their imagination. A pillow or blanket can be mountain, stripes in the carpet a river and so on. They usually invent their own plays also in the car but I wanted to help a bit by making a small play mat for the tray. The pictures are appliqued, the cave was their favourite:

It has been used a lot, fits nicely on their laps and can be played on and they can also use it for drawing in the car. It is one of the best things you can have in a car! Overall I'm happy with it but it needs one improvement; the play mat doesn't stay on. Of course it doesn't, I don't understand how I didn't see it before. The felt-like fabric is quite stiff but there is no preventing that the plastic is slippery. For the next play mat I will sew some velcro on it and self adhesive velcro on the tray. I think we will be using these a lot in the future and they will never get bored as I can make more different play mats!

New clothes for kids

Sometime ago I got this master idea to cut more clothes at the same time so I could just sew them all at one go. But... you won't cut that amount at one go. You won't even sew them at one go, at least not if you have kids and all the other duties in the house. It took actually weeks before they were finished and then with the summer trips couple more weeks to get the photos here to the blog. I first mentioned them here. But here they are, finally!

These are made out of new fabrics but due to my frugal nature I will never throw away a piece of fabric so I used scraps from my scrap fabric box and of course saved everything that was left from these. First couple things I'm proud of:

The top part is new fabric, second class but the mess that made it second class was easy to work around as it was on the bottom edge of the piece. The hem in this is upcycled from old t-shirt! So easy, no need to sew the hem line, just cut, gather to right size and sew together with top part.

Ah, Frozen. My favourite shirt because of the use of the fabric and my daughter's favourite shirt because Frozen:

I had quite big pieces in my scrap fabric box (big pieces for me are something that almost makes part of kids' shirt) that go nicely together and I happened to find interesting looking pattern from Ottobre-magazine where the shirt was already made out of small pieces. My pieces were so small though that I made also the back part from two pieces. We went to our summer cottage for a week and she refused to use nothing else than this shirt - when she wasn't wearing swimming suit.

I rarely buy new fabric, only if it is in good discount or if I really need something. But what I like to buy are the leftover parts from other sewers. Many sewers don't want to use their time to use all the scraps that are left over from other projects and I understand it, it takes time to cut them and especially it takes time to look for matching pieces. But lucky for me, many of them sale them in Facebook groups! I hope more people would do it, I suspect that many pieces like this go to the trash bin when their owners don't think that someone would have use for them. If you do that and are reading this, can you think about offering the scrap fabrics to someone instead of throwing them away? I usually pay something for them (plus the postage) but only when the price is descent, after all, they are just that, scraps, uneven pieces that you don't know for sure if you can finally use them for something or not. I use these scraps a lot and they offer constant source of inspiration. It is almost like upcycling trash! But don't they say that someone's trash is other one's treasure? So true.

Other dress with the same pattern as the first one (modified from a shirt pattern, hem and butterfly sleeves cut without any particular pattern):

For the hem I used a piece of fabric that was already right size in height. I have used usual zig zag to finish the hem and sleeves.

Leggings for my daughter, pattern from Ottobre-magazine with modifications to height and width. Also the original one had only fake pockets, I changed them to real ones because the fake pockets are annoying, they look like pockets but you can't fill them with stones or pine cones or other treasures like that. The real pockets would have worked better with separate waist band though but they will do as it is. The piece with pink pony is also from my scrap fabric box.

I also added knee patches right from the start and the back pockets I made with the same fabric.

Then to my son's clothes. He doesn't very much like Star Wars, Spiderman, Batman or monsters or anything like that. It seems that 4 year old boys should wear only those kind of clothes with the same colours as the adult men do, dark colours, grey and black that is. What if they scare him and he doesn't even know what those creatures are? I also don't think he needs to know just yet. He likes bright colours, cute animals and sometimes cars and tractors will do if they look nice. Try to find those from the shops, it is near impossible if you don't use tens of euros for one piece of clothing. And as I use rather tens of euros for a bag of clothing they are pretty much out of the question. At this moment it is actually cheaper to make clothes that he likes than try to buy them - if you compare to the small companies' expensive clothes. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly why pants or shirt cost 30-40e, they should if the workers get anywhere near descent salary but I just can't simply afford that. Not especially when the time that the clothes fit is so short. The fabric for all the following either with good discount, from other sewers (some kind of second hand fabric) or again from my scrap fabric box.

Cute, friendly tigers and I thought my son would wear it as soon as he sees it. How wrong can I be? He decided that the buttons were disgusting. These:

I have no idea why but he was pretty strict about it. Then one day few days afterwards I simply closed the buttons and offered the shirt and he approved because after all, the friendly cheetahs (yes, he decided they are cheetahs, snow cheetahs actually even though he well knows what tiger looks like...) are cute. Also great picture to show how I want to save also money and time - I used black thread for all three shirts and also to darker pants. Why change it all the time when it doesn't show anywhere? Also saves money when you don't have the threads in all rainbow colours without lessening the quality of the clothes. No one sees it so it harms no one.

One shirt with vehicles:

The vehicle fabric was just a bit too short so I added the sleeves and hem from other fabric. I would have liked to use something else but couldn't find anything that would at least somehow match with turquoise.

And his favourite:

It is colourful, it has cute, smiling animals and all his favourite colours (blue and green). For all the shirts I used one raglan sleeved pattern from one of the Ottobre's (can't remember which one) and just made some modifications for each shirt.

Some leggings for him too:

The two pairs on the right were approved right away, they both have something green in them but the ones on the left... I thought we might have a problem as the fabric definitely isn't the colour/style he likes but I found it cheap from local store and it seems to be quite nice quality and I thought they would do as playground pants. But no. I was told that he doesn't like them, he won't ever wear them and I was forbidden to put the pants to his closet. They say that the girls are picky with their clothes and boys let you wear them anything you like but that most certainly isn't true. I have a very picky 4 year old boy here.

That was quite some work! But I'm happy, I used many different fabrics and thus making my fabric piles at least tiny bit lower and also used many from my scrap fabric boxes, even upcycled a hem from one shirt. Of course they were fun to sew but the cutting - I don't miss that. And now kids have new clothes to wear for pre-school and kindergarten!

Next time, something upcycled! Meanwhile you can check my eight new worry eaters: http://upcyclelina.blogspot.fi/2016/07/more-upcycled-worry-eaters.html or read about our short summer trip: http://upcyclelina.blogspot.fi/2016/07/summer-time.html

Diy dry erase book - travelling with kids part 2

Time for another thing that is handy when travelling with kids, dry erase book! There are some to be bought of course but the selection in here isn't that great and the idea of the few available is quite educational. Not that it only matters, the kids usually like those kind of things but the books I found were the kind where the kids need someone to read the tasks and explain them. Something that doesn't work very well for kids on the backseat of the car. Also, it would be great to use the activity books we already have and select the pages the kids like. Then things got a little bit out of hand and this turned out.

I tried to explain to everyone that making something like this is pretty normal thing to do before going for a car trip, nothing weird in it, right?

In case you are wondering the same thing... I did it because:

• usual paper activity books can't be opened properly by kids without normal table, they won't stay open
• paper activity books don't have hard covers, something that would be needed especially when there is no table
• once a maze is done, it is done, no re-doing it even though the kids would like to solve them again
• markers aren't great to use in the car as there are always caps missing and chalks or wooden colours are too light if you can't press them enough, again you need table for this
• chalks or wooden colours can't be erased, something very important in the car as there are pumps and turns in the road making drawing more difficult

So I needed an activity book that is A5 (approximately), opens easily, has hard covers, activities can be done again and again, uses markers that don't lose their caps and can be erased easily. After a brainstorm and surfing in the Pinterest I thought I had everything covered. Of course, it should be something that I could make out of the materials I had on hand, great project for upcycling!

I knew the principles; use some plastic pockets and marker that can be erased easily. Plastic pockets I knew I could get anywhere, the ones used in folders would work just fine but the marker? There are no actual dry erase markers sold in Finland. The ones sold are made to be used with their own brand of books and might get messy working with other surfaces. Thank you for the great tips by a group of crafters in Facebook! Someone actually tried those dry erase markers on other surfaces so I knew if they would work or not! I found some on eBay (of course) but didn't have time to order them there. The tips included water soluble overhead projector and white board markers. I though white board markers would be too thick for this purpose so I decided on overhead projector markers. But... there are hardly any overhead projectors nowadays so there was nothing under that name. So, if you are looking for the markers I used, look for cd/dvd markers, they are the same, just under different name.

So I had the pens for my dry erase book but then I had another problem. The folder pockets were only A4's and I needed A5. A4 is way too big for the kids to use in the car. I could have cut them half but then the book would have been positioned wrong as the A5 activity pages I have are all vertical. I also wanted the book to open horizontally rather than vertically, again the problem with small space. It would have been frustrating for the kids to use something that they have to twist and turn to turn a page. A5 and vertical pages to make it open horizontally were the things I didn't want to compromise with. I'm sure there are the right size plastic pockets available in the depth of the internet but I still didn't have that time to wait for them. Yes, I could have cut the A4 pockets to A5's by simply making them smaller but simply couldn't bring myself up doing it. Imagine the amount of plastic that would go to waste just because of dry erase books for kids to be entertained during car trip?

Then I needed the covers and I didn't have any suitable ready folders either and first I thought I would use cardboard for them. But while looking for cardboard I I found couple old kids books that were just right! And what a great idea to upcycle old books that weren't used anymore.

I torn out the pages (and left for future crafting) and added ribbons to tie the pages. I found a necklace that I don't use, never have and most likely never will, that had just perfect ribbon! It is narrow enough and sturdy enough, the ribbon is some kind of fake leather.

The other parts I kept, of course for other upcycle projects. The ribbons I glued with hot glue.

Then I had to cover the activities with plastic. I found some overhead projector sheets that I have had way over 10 years. I once bought a package of them to make stencils but only used couple back then and still had 18 left. It wouldn't be enough for two books though so I bought a roll of sticky plastic (the one used to cover school books) and used that for the rest. I don't very much like to cover paper with plastic as it isn't possible to recycle the paper anymore but I thought I would use sticky plastic to the pages that would be used again and again. The sheets would be used for the pages that would get boring after couple trips and would need to be changed.

Of course, folding overhead projector sheet half isn't that easy but luckily I had solution right on hand, Wonderclips! Just match the edges, add Wonderclips (or clothespins) and once you are sure it will stay, press.

The pages with sticky plastic I added piece of normal paper on the place where I was going to make the holes to make it last better. For the plastic sheets I used first eyelets but decided after couple pages that I don't need them and made just the holes with the hole making tool that came with the eyelets.

With the sheets I used brads to keep the paper inside still. I attached the brads right next to the paper to pin it on its place, worked very well. Loosening the brads will make it possible to change the activities easily.

I attached the brads on different places for every page so the book wouldn't become too thick. Still, using the brads for the whole book would have been impossible because of the thickness so it was actually good thing I didn't have more overhead projector sheets, using sticky plastic for some worked just fine. Don't tie the ribbons too tight, the pages won't turn if you do that.

I could have left it here, right? Leaving the covers like that when there are so many ideas out there to try? Not likely. When I saw quiet books first time my first thought was "oh wow, that must have taken ages to make!". The second time "they would be great to make but I will never have the time". The third time "they would be great to make". The fourth "my kids would love them" and small voice in my head only whispered "I will never have the time". The fifth (I have been seeing them a lot lately because once you look something in Pinterest twice you get to see it much more often) "what would I make if had time?" At this point I was saving couple pages, you know, just in case. The sixth thought "what if I had the time, what if I made time for it?" added with a loud sound in my head "don't go there!" I knew that once I started looking them with that thought in my head I would have lost the game and I would be making them some day. The seventh thought "what does it matter if it takes time, you like doing it, just one page?" and a whisper in my head "you could be doing something more sensible like sewing new clothes for the kids!".

The other voice in my head lost. Of course it did as I knew it would from the moment I saw the quiet books for the first time. Does this ever happen to you? I wanted to make something nice for the cover and while doing it, I could make it one more activity. The problem was that most quiet book pages are meant to be used together, most of them won't keep kids busy for more than a minute, at least at the age of 4 and 5. The kids around 1-2 usually like closing and opening a clip for a longer period of time, the older kids not so much. First I thought I would make a clock with turning hands, then I saw some mazes that I considered as the mazes are my kids' favourite activity pages. But then I found a page with little mouse with cheese and home from http://anna-anafe.blogspot.fi/2014/09/blog-post.html. I don't understand a word of the blog post itself but all I needed was the picture.

I tried to sew the mouse but didn't have felt, like she seemed to use so I made my mouse out of Fimo clay and hot glued the ribbon-tail.

I draw the face with black permanent marker.

It can go under the cheese, come out from the holes and go back to its home:

As you can see, I have sewn around the holes, this is to prevent stretching. The nest's top has also framilon-elastic band to make it, well, elastic, and to keep the mouse inside when not played.

And I was right, the kids liked this idea very much! They like small figures, especially animals and usually figure out their own play around them and this one quiet book page entertained them alone for few kilometers. It also didn't take that long to make actually, of course figuring out where to find all the materials took more time than the making itself. But that's usually the case with my projects. The cover itself is from my old jeans and I matched the inside seam to the back of the book. Here I also attached the marker with elastic band.

The idea here is that the marker's cap will stay put under the elastic band so it wouldn't get lost in the car. I thought of adding a ribbon to the marker as well but then decided against it, it would just annoy the kids. Of course with smaller kids I would advice to tie the marker too. As the marker is water soluble I cut few fabric scraps, wet them and packed them in self-sealing plastic bag as erasers. Of course the fabric scraps I have are mainly from the fabrics I have used to make clothes for them so they were interesting itself and nicely colourful.

I sew folds to the cover so it stays put but can be removed when I want to change it so it isn
't glued. Overall, this dry erase book was great success for the kids and I could upcycle so many things here! Here is a list what you need:

• old book
• overhead projector sheets/plastic folds/sticky plastic
• activity books or print activity pages, there are loads available
• cd/dvd marker, water soluble!
• fabric scraps
• self-sealing plastic bag
• old jeans
• yellow felt
• elastic band (couple centimeters)
• ribbon for tail
• fabric scrap for the nest
• framilon-elastic band for the nest's top
• Fimo clay or similar
• hot glue gun

Very fun project to do, something that I liked to make and the kids liked to use! Proved again that I should never throw anything away! And what is more, the books did keep the kids occupied quite long. I'm happy.

Mobile phone case with a hole for the charger

When I bought my mobile phone I wanted to protect it but it was rather new model and not one of the mainstream models so it was hard to find a protective case for it. I bought one that is suitable for almost any model, you choose one based on the size of your phone and the phone is attached to the case with sticker. With the sticker it doesn't matter where the buttons on the side are or where is the camera etc. because the phone slides from the cover. Now to the problem... I have had it for almost a year and now I noticed that the back cover of my phone had started to get loose. The sticker attached to the back cover probably had something to do with this. So I definately needed new case. Now there are correct covers and cases available but of course the price is 20-30e and even though they could protect my phone more, I decided to make one.

 

The phone doesn't have to be in the case all the time, so self made would work. I just wanted to see part of the screen so that I could see if I have new messages, missed calls and what's the time without taking the phone out of the case. Then I wanted to charge the phone while still in the case so I made a flip cover with inner pocket and a hole for the charger.

For the pocket I used another one of the cuffs from the shirt I used to make a hand bag. It had nicely two sides sewn already, the raw edges I sew with the side seams of the cover. First I had to make the hole in the bottom.

I measured a gap that was couple centimeters wide and 1½cm tall, draw it and sew. 1½cm includes 1cm seam allowance, the hole itself doesn't have to be deep, few millimetres is enough. Notice that it isn't right in the middle now as you have to remember that the side seam will make the pocket narrower. Narrow down the seam allowances for the hole, snip notches and turn around. Of course if you have a piece of fabric rather than almost ready pocket, sew also the top and other one of the side seams. The outer side seam and bottom can be, and should be, left raw.

I measured the pocket by measuring my phone; the width of the screen, the thickness x2 and couple millimetres extra because the pocket has to be stiched inside the cover. Also when thinking how high the pocket should be, remember to count also the thickness of the phone and of course, add the seam allowances. The pocket should be tight that the phone stays in. My fabric wasn't elastic so I made it just the size of my phone. You should also use fusible interfacing to prevent the fabric stretching after a while. If you use knitten fabrics I would recommend using at least something heavier than jersey and test it first. You probably have to make the pocket narrower than your phone if you intend it to stay put.

The rest of the mobile phone case was made using piece from old jeans and scrap fabric. I didn't want to use jeans as it seems so typical material when it is about upcycling, every second idea is about upcycling jeans when you start looking for it. But it is sturdy enough for mobile phone case and needs very little support (I only used thin interfacing). And there are always spare jeans available in almost every household.

Again measure the fabrics needed for the mobile phone cover by measuring your phone, add the thickness for the width of it and few millimeters to every side so that it covers the whole phone properly.

Here is what you need; the outer fabric, inner fabric and the pocket. For the inside I used soft, elastic sweatshirt fabric.

Adjust the pocket on the outer fabric on the reverse side than it is going to be in the mobile phone case on its final form. If you want the pocket to be on right, attach it to the left.

If you want, you can baste the pocket on its place but you can also sandwich them all at one go.

Of course, remember to leave turning gap. Turn around and iron. Also iron the seam allowances of the turning gap so you can just sew over it and close it at the same time. Sew the pocket's other side, just over stitch will do. Stitch also along the center to make it better to fold, ironing helps the case to fold as it should be.

The mobile phone cover was very easy, after planning it, it took hardly half an hour to complete. It is also a project for which you will find material without shopping.

So what else have I been up to? Hardly it took me whole week to complete one single mobile phone cover? Well, no it didn't. The summer has arrived and with that, mosquitoes. We have three doors and two kids who keep opening the doors when going in and out. But they rarely remember to close them so the mosquitoes find their way in quite easily. We should get mosquito curtains for the doors but for some reason have never gotten around it. I had an idea to make one myself. The fabric I tried to use was a real pain in the... you know what. No matter how I tried to cut the fabric, I still couldn't make it straight. I cut the curtain on three overlapping pieces and when I tried the final version on its' place, the middle part was something like 5cm shorter than the two others. I decided it was time to lay the project to rest and wait until I find a fabric that is more co-operative. But it took quite some time so I have only one, small mobile phone case to show!

Also, when there is warm enough weather to spend outside without having to use quarter of an hour for dressing up, you have to spend it outside. You never know when it ends and you have to wait another year before having another chance. So I have been spending some time with our kids on the beach.

We have a beach on walking distance and if the weather continues like this, it means almost daily trips there. That brings us back to this blog; we need new beach bag! Something that would carry everything needed. Let's see what I come up with...