Unfinished Umbrage

Welcome to Day Twenty-one of the A to Z Blogging Challenge! This is the day for the letter U, and I'm talking about Unfinished Umbrage, or the annoyance with unfinished projects!

Every crafter has a pile of unfinished projects, and sometimes it's hard to not get overwhelmed with them! With our different moves, certain projects got packed away in boxes, almost forgotten. Every now and then, going through a box, I'll find a project and wish I had finished it. Sometimes I do finish it! But usually... not. 

I made a new years resolution in 2011 or 2012 to finish a project as fully as I can before getting really involved in another, but it's really difficult, especially when real life gets in the way, or a deadline pops up!

Here are a few of my unfinished projects...

 Water under the bridge... a bridge I'm making! It's actually more finished than this but I don't have more recent photo at hand. But there's still work to be done - once I'm done shaping the blocks to the right slope, it all has to get painted a grayish color.

 These dice bags ended up a bit too small in the neck to finish, so I made a new pattern and started work on black and white satin bags, they still aren't finished. I did successfully make dice bags with my new patterns with a third set of fabrics, but the black and white sets still aren't finished! Someday...

 This pillow case is almost finished, I never hemmed the open end, but my daughter loved it so much I haven't really gotten it away from her TO finish!

And one of my more notorious unfinished projects... sword plaques! The one with the shiny black sword and star came finished, which is what inspired me to make holders for our other replica weapons. The plain pine plaque is stained now, and I have plaques for the short sword and dagger also, with sketches and plans for what to do with them, and the idea of a shelf to hang the katana from. But, alas, unfinished. The swords are all in a well-padded box in a storage closet and the plaques and wood stain (what didn't get mistakenly tossed in the move) are in a storage bin in another closet. Just waiting, waiting to be finished. More wall space would help too, I'm already running out of it at our condo right now! When we buy a house, maybe I'll have them done for the new house =)

These are just the tip of the iceberg, but I have gotten better about finishing NEW projects since my resolution. It helps if the item is for a friend, or one of my daughter's dresses. Then I HAVE to get it done!

Do you have a problem with unfinished projects? Are there any projects you really want to finish sitting forgotten in a box, on a shelf, in a closet? Maybe you should try to find some time to finish them, and tell me about it in the comments! I think the bridge should be the first one I finish, then maybe I can take photos and share some of my husband's war gaming terrain.

Thanks for joining me again on this blogging journey! Come back tomorrow for something that starts with V! Only five days left!

Kids' Crafts

 Welcome again to the A to Z Blogging Challenge! Today's letter is K and I'm focusing on Kids' Crafts for the day.

 

 Doing crafts with kids can be fun! But you don't always have the best outcome...

The point is, though, that they had fun!

We used to go to a story time weekly in Michigan that did a craft after the story, and ended up with a fridge full of kid crafts!

Here's the pink pumpkin in detail, I came up with that for her after we read Pinkalicious' pink pumpkin book.

One of my favorite crafts that we made recently was a little pennant flag.

 It's really simple! Just fold a piece of construction paper in half and cut a triangle out.

Take a stick and stick that in the fold, slather glue on one side to glue the sides together, then decorate with crayon, markers, or even better, sticky back fun foam! I have some left over from other crafts, so I've been having some fun with it. 

Can you tell? (I had to keep looking at reference pictures for the mice)

One more fun craft is this pot o' gold, that we made for St. Patrick's Day

I feel bad, my daughter didn't get to make any Easter crafts, have to make that up to her with some fun spring and summer crafts! Her birthday is coming up, I'm pinning some fun ideas on Pinterest for her party! Follow me on Pinterest for more fun ideas!

Thanks for joining me again for the A to Z Blogging Challenge! Join me again tomorrow for something that starts with L!

Headband Holder

Thank you for joining me again for the A to Z Blogging Challenge! Today is H, for Headbands and a Headband Holder. Below is what I made, continue reading to see how!

 Looks nice, right? It took a bit of work to make, but I'm happy with it!

Here's why we need it:

 My daughter has quite a few headbands. More like a LOT. I love styling my daughter's hair, but the ease of a headband is just great, and you can get them at a good price, to match a lot of outfits - or make your own! A little brushing, headband on, and cuteness achieved along with hair out of face. 

But a jumble of headbands isn't very helpful when you're in a hurry to get ready, or want to find that specific one for a cute outfit. So onto organizing!

I got an unfinished coat rack from the craft store and painted it for her room decorations, to hold the headbands, but it just didn't work. There were too many, they didn't all hang straight, with at least four on a peg, you knocked three or more off getting just one headband.

This photo is a few years old, the rack was much more crowded the last time it was used. The shelf above it got very crowded as well. There had to be a better way to hold her pretties!

When I worked at a clothing and accessory store, we had metal bars to hold headbands that worked well, but nothing like that is sold in stores. Maybe I could make my own though...

The idea brewed in my head for a while before I finally decided to take action!

Want to see how I made it? Read on, maybe you can make your own!

I gathered a few things: cardstock (well really comic book boards), dowels, a wood back, and some tape.

 I got distracted by beads, but then focused back on this project! Following are a few diagrams and photos of what I did next.

 Above are the materials I used. Measurements shown are what I used, to match another shelf in my daughter's room, but you can adjust to your need. I taped together a few comic book boards to make the whole for the horseshoe shaped headband holder bar. [Edit: the foam should be about an inch or inch and a half longer than the cardstock, if you want the foam to go to the edges. Mine was the same, so you see cardstock sticking out! Seam allowances are important for a reason.]

 

 This first step I did not take photos of, so you get sketches =)

 These are the following steps. If you choose to paint the wood back, do so at this point, instead of taking it apart again to paint like I ended up doing! Paint the dowels as well, the whole dowel of both short sides, and the ends of the dowels taped to cardstock. I rounded the corners of the wood back, and softened the edges of the short dowel ends, with my dremel, since I had it out for cutting the dowels and sanding the edges.

 It is good to note at this point that a thicker wood for the back would have been better, since the one I used was too thin for the sawtooth hangers' nails!

This is the 'horseshoe' shape for the part to hold the headbands - tape it to the right size for a headband, using one as a guide. Cover the exposed tape on the inside of the U with more tape to keep from getting messy.

 With your holes drilled, you can screw the side dowels onto the bar dowels, as in the photo.

 Then attach the side dowels to the back, as shown.

 Here is a view from the bottom, assembled.

 And a view from the top!

Ta-da! It hangs on the wall and holds headbands! 

But... something's missing. It's not painted and needs something to cover that cardstock and tape. I considered covering it with scrapbook paper, but foam and fabric seemed a better choice. And some paint on the wood!

 Look, foam! And fabric!

 A cushioned bar for headbands now!

 And painted!

 Sewing the fabric and foam sleeve was a little difficult. I can show you one diagram for it, but the rest is hard to draw because I came up with the idea, then acted on it, not writing it all down or taking step by step photos (I'm new to this photo tutorial thing!)

This is how I attached the foam to the fabric - right side of fabric to the foam. It is easier to place fabric side down on the sewing machine, then some scrap fabric on top of the foam to make it move better. Go slowly and use a long or basting stitch. The fabric should be longer than the foam, match up the edges with the slack of the fabric in the middle.

After sewing the fabric to the foam, fold the raw edges in and stitch a seam with the two long ends of the fabric. Then flip this right side out, and you should have a nice cushioned foam sleeve! You may need to tighten the cardstock horseshoe to fit the sleeve, or it might stretch your headbands while holding them - we don't want too big headbands!

Slip the sleeve on the cardstock horseshoe, then screw the side dowels on, and then those to the back, and you have a nice finished headband holder!

You can barely see the holder for all her headbands! I made the four on the right.

Here is a nice collage of different angles, with less headbands on it so you can actually SEE the holder! [Edited post to add better photos]

I hope you enjoyed this entry in my blogging challenge, join me again tomorrow for something that starts with I!