Simone sent me the link to the lovely paper dolls by Portuguese artist Ana Ventura. You can purchase her postcards as seen above here (don’t trust me on the euro conversion, but I think you can purchase these for under $7).

Another paper artist, Patricia Zapato of A Little Hut creates wonderful cut paper images like Hiding, above (8″x10″, $35).

Just added the Etsy shop of Creative Thursday to my new Etsy Favorites page. A print of buttercup (8.5″x11″), above, is available in her Etsy shop for $35.

Since finding the photo of Liberty of London fabrics framed in embroidery hoops at Purl (see post here), I’ve been meaning to try the idea. Here’s my interpretation with some embroidered birds on linen. I painted the hoops matte black. But I think that these would be great unpainted or painted with different bright colors and used in a child’s room.

I simply hooped the fabric and cut the excess, so this was a quick and easy project. I plan to add more to this grouping, mix in some plates or find some flea-market style small round mirrors. I embroidered the birds myself, but I think that vintage handkerchiefs would make a great display. You can find lots of vintage handkerchiefs online here and here.

Stuffed hedgehog from Apple and Eve.

Rubber stamp from Craft Pudding.

Buttons from Bunte Fabrics.

Since I updated our playroom, I wanted to make something that the girls could use so I decided to make a checkerboard quilt using this flower fabric from IKEA and some striped fabric that I had on hand. I quickly realized that a checkerboard has 64 squares! I cut 3″ squares and made the top. I then decided to make things more difficult by making the reverse side a tic-tac-toe game board. This was a little tricky, so I decided to just use one piece of fabric and delineate the squares with the stitching. There is a lot of math in quilting. Argh.

But I am enjoying my first attempts at quilting. I love to come up with a design and piece it together. I’m having a little trouble putting it together and finishing the edges. You can see on this project I finished with the fabric from the reverse side. I can see why this is not the recommended quilting method because you would be much less likely to get puckering with a separate piece of fabric.  But I was too lazy to cut binding.

We went to the craft store and bought some unpainted wooden chips for the checkerboard pieces, which we painted green and blue. We couldn’t find Xs and Os, so we went with hearts and stars instead and painted those as well. I think it would be nice to make a pouch for the game pieces and ties to roll up the board and take it with you.

The image above is from Yarnlust over at Etsy and is a bamboo blend, which I suspect will hold up better. You can find a variety of colors in 100% bamboo here and it’s likely to be available at your local knit shop.

Anyway, since I was thinking about bamboo, here are some other bamboo finds:

I saw these bamboo kids’ utensils on Cool Mom Picks a while back and keep meaning to order some for the kids. Available from Branch for $7. There’s a lot of other great bamboo stuff there, like these colorful bowls.

Bamboo fabric? It might be slippery to work with, but great possibilities for pajamas and baby things.

Bamboo clothes at Bamboosa.

And of course you can find bamboo sheets all over the place.

I’ve added a page of resources for fabric, well-designed original items, and handcrafted goods. Like these pillows by Kstudio, which are available at ReForm School here.

See all resources here. I’ll be updating this frequently and welcome suggestions!

We’re all about fairies, princesses and now, after our trip to Hawaii and a television program starring a large-headed Spanish-speaking character, mermaids too. Since I’ve started sewing, the kids are asking me to make things (often unrealistic, elaborate things, by the way).

My younger daughter wanted a fairy crown yesterday so her sweet sister made her the one pictured above and fitted it properly with no assistance from me; just the stapler. Are you tired of me showing my child’s drawings? If you’re my mother, you’re not. Today the little one once again requested a mermaid crown, so I obliged with this fabric, some leftover shells from our beach trip last year and a glue gun.

What? The holidays are over? We have a dead Christmas tree and I just now completed my ornaments for the Holiday Ornament Swap.

Now granted; I never did receive my list of swapmates, but finally got the list from someone who graciously sent me an ornament. Thank you! So here are my ornaments all made and ready to ship. Better late than never? The first photo shows all nine ornaments stacked up and makes me wish I’d made little yo-yo accordion ornaments, but the next photo is what the ornaments look like on their own. This is the first time I have made fabric yo-yos and I love them! Here are some very nice instructions. So many possibilities and you can make them while watching Project Runway.

So I managed to get a large number of toys to Goodwill before the onslaught of birthdays and Christmas, and I think we have it pared down pretty well. But our playroom has always been a mish-mash of furniture with toys thrown in baskets. I got some great storage from IKEA last year and I decided to finally put it all together last week. I had a few yards of the fabric pictured above (also from IKEA) that I had been planning to use for another project. Since it looks like there will be only female children around here, I went with the flowers.

I made these felt stool covers (for IKEA stools) with appliqued flowers. I made a few floor pillows and some quilted chair cushions. We painted our table and chairs by mixing up some leftover house paint (which sort of came out as weird colors), and now I need to add a coat of polyurethane. I say “we” because I let my very young children help. Oh how frustrating, but they enjoyed it. I’m also working on a checkerboard quilt and hope to have that completed this weekend. I really didn’t have to buy anything new, we just rearranged and renewed what we already had, which was nice.

These note cards from Paperhill Studio available on Etsy are made from vintage wallpaper. Set of 6 note cards for $11.

I love this switch plate from Fondue Art + Design, also available on Etsy for $20.

Or how about this gorgeous lampshade from When in Doubt Draw Flowers, available here for $250.

Here‘s a list of sources for vintage wallpaper from domino magazine.