Reupholstering a roman blind

Hello again,

Has spring sprung where you are? Here, 15 days after Joppe was born, it is still very chilly. With a fierce wind blowing from the East, I have not taken our little boy outside yet. Hoping it will get better next week... 

On the upside, it gives me some time to catch up on blogging. I still promised you a post on the reupholstering of the roman blind, so here goes...

So, before Joppe was born, I wanted to make sure the nursery was suitable for the arrival of a little boy. Therefore I wanted to redo the roman blind, which was in the room. It was fuchsia pink and at first I decided to dye it a lovely navy blue, but unfortunately, as it was 100% polyester, the dye did not take at all.

So I had to think of something else to do. As the lampshade in the nursery was a navy and white-checkered fabric, I went to my favorite fabric shop and bought a few meters of matching fabric. Using fabric glue and my sewing machine, I reupholstered the roman blind.

The curtain has four stiffeners at the back of the curtain, so folding over the fabric where the tunneling is and using the fabric glue, was not an option. I cut into the fabric and sewed the seams.

Then I folded the fabric around the original curtain and using glue, I attached the seams to the back of the blind. That way I could secure the fabric before stitching it with my sewing machine. Using my crochet hook, I stuffed the fabric into the tunnels.

Then I turned curtain with the back facing forward and using the original stitching, I sewed the curtain so the horizontal panels were visible. If I did not do that, the fabric would look very weird when I would hang it back up in front of the window. It was a tricky job, because I was sewing with the back of the curtain facing up and it was 120 cm of straight sewing, it was quite hard to keep it straight. In the end, I am very happy with the result, even though the stitches are not perfectly straight.

And when hanging them, the nursery immediately turned into a boy’s room!

Have you ever done anything like this? Would love to hear from you!

Thanx for stopping by today!

Xoxo,

Maartje

Birth Announcement Card

Hi there!

Hope you are doing very well. Is it Spring already where you are? Or are you moving on to Fall if you are somewhere in the Southern hemisphere?

In The Netherlands the weather has been up and down, spring-like and with some snow showers as well. So Spring, get here already! I want to take our son outside for a walk!

In The Netherlands it’s custom to send cards with a birth announcement. There are so many cards, styles and prices to choose from, that it can be quite the challenge to find something suitable.

First up, I checked our supplier that made our daughter’s card two years ago, because we wanted the same card, in blue. Unfortunately they did not stock that specific card anymore, so I needed to think of an alternative.

We really wanted a card, which had navy blue in it, so with everything being open again, we could pursue that idea. Most cards for baby boys here are in baby blue, beige or maybe even light yellow or green. Only a few cards I could find, had navy in them, but I did not like them all.

I also wanted a card that had elephants on it, just the silhouette, but I could not find anything suitable. I made a secret board on Pinterest to collect ideas and I took those ideas to the printer’s. I drew the outline of the card on a piece of paper and the girl at the printer’s took my idea and worked out two different lay outs. My husband and I were unanimous that the one with four elephants on it, was nicest. I wanted them to be a bit smaller than the girl had suggested, and so she adapted the design for me.

I choose the ink colour that would be used to print them and we decided to make the elephants all in a different blue, making sure they we all the same colour, but the saturation would vary. One would be 100%, the second 75%, the third 50% and the fourth 25%. When the cards were printed and the husband picked them up, we were both very happy with the result!

And since the card has arrived overseas within one week, I can now post this on my blog ~smile~

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Xoxo,

Maartje

One week ago...

... our son Joppe Wisse Maes was born! This past March 11 was the coldest since 1928! Today he is one week old already and doing very well!

Cannot help but want to show you a lovely picture my sister-in-law Anique made over the weekend of our two precious children. I am so grateful for these two little ones (as is the husband of course ~smile~)

I will pick up where I left off blogging last week in the next few days! I still want to share with you how I reupholstered the fuchsia pink roman blind in the nursery and I also made some wall art using flock foil.

Looking forward to hearing from you, wishing you a lovely week!

Xoxo Maartje

Makes by Maartje: Flag Garland

Hi again!

Hopeyou are doing well on your end of the world! Thanx for stopping bytoday and read up on my blog.

Inthis post I wanted to share my flag garlands. I made them to matchthe playpen mat and made two because I had enough flags to do so.Both have flags which measure approximately 10 x 12 cm and areattached using bias tape. One has seven flags and the other one five.

Ichose to make rectangular flags, as the playpen mat also has arectangular shape. The longer one I used to hang on the playpen. Theother one is now in the nursery, on the memo board.

Myidea for the one on the playpen is to iron the letters of our son'sname on it. That will be done later though, since he isn't born yet.Of course the husband and I already know his name, but will not shareyet ~smile~.

Asfor making the flags, I used a cutting mat and rotary cutter (which Ilike to call my fabric pizza knife ;-) ). It is an incredibly fastway to make same size rectangles with straight edges. Putting theright sides of the fabric together, I sewed three sides of the flagswith a regular straight stitch, leaving an opening to turn. Using oneof my crochet hooks, I pushed out the corners and ironed them flat.Then, using bias tape, I sewed the flags to the bias, one by one,without pinning them. As the flags are so small, this was no problem.I did adjust the sewing speed of my machine, allowing me to sewstraight. When I finished step one of sewing them together, I took ashortcut in folding and sewing the back of the bias tape, to avoidthe use of pins.

AgainI ironed the flags, folding over the bias tape and ironing that aswell. Forgot to take pictures, so I cannot show you. I do hope youunderstand what I mean. If not, do not hesitate to drop me an emailat makesbymaartje@gmail.comI would be very happy to help you!

FinallyI sewed the bias tape to finish the garlands and hung them on thememo board and playpen.

Thiswas a very easy and fun to do Make. It actually gave me enoughconfidence to sign up for a charity project, making a birthdaygarland for Happy HippoFoundation. My blogging friend Annemarie is organizing this andhas some information about it on her blog which you can find here.It is in Dutch but that might not be a problem for all of you. Goalis to make 300 garlands which can be given in a birthday box tounderprivileged children so they can have a lovely birthday party.More on that in another blogpost!

Ihope to have inspired you to make your own flag garland. It is an ideal way to use those left over fabric scraps and it makes for a great present for any newborn or just as a (birthday) present ~smile~.

Sofor now, thank you for stopping by for a visit!

Xoxo,

Maartje

Makes by Maartje: A Playpen Mat

Hello!

So lovely of you to come and visit my blog (again)! Today is all about the playpen mat I made for our son to be! As I am not experienced at all in writing tutorials, I hope you can understand my describing the different steps I took to make this Make! Hope you enjoy it and would love to hear from you.

So with our second child on the way and the creative spark that is slowly but surely bursting into a flame, I decided I wanted to make our son a playpen mat. My mother-in-law made one for our daughter two years ago, but this time I wanted to give it a go myself.

Our playpen measures 80 x 100 cm. With our daughter having hit her head a few times when she was tiny, I wanted to make one approximately 100 x 120 cm.

So I came up with the idea of using three different kinds of fabric. The color scheme for the nursery is navy, gray and white. Even though the playpen is in our living room, I decided to go with the same colors for the mat.

I bought four kinds of cotton fabric in various blues and prints. A navy one with small white dots, navy with small white stars, a patchwork fabric with stars and stripes, also in navy and white and last but not least, a Delft Blue like fabric with old fashioned mills, wooden shoes and tulips on them. But when laying out the design, I decided to not use the Delft Blue one as it did not complement the color pallet or style. That one will be used for another one of my Makes ~smile~

I cut two types of fabric into four rectangles and sewed them together. Nothing fancy, just straight forward sewing. I did hem the fabric as in my experience, babies do drool and puke on these mats from time to time. By hemming the fabric, it will surely survive our laundry machine ~smile~. After sewing, I ironed out the edges, giving it a straight and nice look. It also allowed me to iron out some creases in the fabric.

So the four blocks are the base of the mat. With the navy and white stars fabric, I made a border. Since my mat was a bit bigger than the base of the playpen, I wanted to use that same fabric as backing of the mat.

Before cutting and measuring the backing, I cut the edges. My mother-in-law helped me so I cut all of the fabric as economically as possible ~smile~.

For padding the playpen mat, I used a fairly thick duvet from my favorite Swedish shop, Ikea! I cut it into the right size, after I sewed the edges to the four rectangles.

Then I put the large panel of fabric on the floor, with the rest of the white star fabric underneath. Then I cut out the backing, remembering from one of the tutorials I read, to add 2 centimeters on each side, allowing the lining to have enough room as it was so thick.

With the right sides of the fabric on top of each other, I pinned them together without the lining in between. That way sewing them on my machine would be much easier. I also measured the playpen, to check where I needed to attach the ribbons I wanted to use, to secure the mat to the bars of the playpen. Then I pinned on the ribbons and started sewing it all together. I left an opening as if I was making a proper duvet cover, to be able to put the lining inside. Then finally I cut the lining to size and sewed the opening shut.

Only thing I have to do now, is to sew the rectangles, the lining and the back of the mat together, to prevent the lining from shifting. But that will be done over the weekend, and I will have to do that manually, as the total package will not fit my machine without wrinkling all of it. And I would hate for that to happen of course!

Pictures of the final result will be posted later on. 
My next Make will be a flag garland from the leftover fabrics. I will post that in a couple of days. So until then, thanx for joining me today!

Xoxo,

Maartje

Makes by Maartje: Crafting a memo board

Mid February my maternity leave started and I wanted to spend the days my daughter is at the daycare, with an updo of the nursery. That meant three days a week of me-time, for a period of three weeks, giving me a chance to craft up a storm here ~smile~.

One of the things I really wanted to do was to decorate the wall of the nursery with a memo board. A friend of ours gave us one she made herself when our daughter was born and I really liked the look of it. Especially when we got to hang her drawings and birthday cards on it. But to have a pink memo board hang on the wall of a baby boy nursery, well, that's not quite what I had in mind hahaha!

I looked up various tutorials and thought, hey, I can do that! And using a painter's canvas instead of a panel of mdf, made it a lot less heavy to hang on the wall. So this would be one of my projects for the nursery.

At one of the local fabric stores, I found the coolest fabrics, canvas with postal bag print on it. I thought it would just be great for our son's nursery.

The color scheme I had in mind for the room was navy blue, gray and white. And the color of the fabric, a burlap type beige with the Dutch flag on it, would be great for this boy's room.

So I decided to buy a panel of the fabric and got some padding as well. Then I went to Action, which is a discount shop with fabulous stuff for creating and crafting. There I bought a painter's canvas measuring 60 x 80 cm, for only 3,99, so I was very happy about that!

At home, I covered the panel with fiberfill and then fitted the fabric around it. Using a staple gun, I attached both layers to the canvas. Then I left it alone for a couple of days, because I was searching the web for some nice ribbons to use for the memo board. Online I came across the website of Marieke which is filled with all kinds of cute fabrics and haberdashery. I ordered three different kinds of ribbons, one of which could be used on both sides. When they arrived a couple of days later, I made an outline of all of the ribbons and using the same staple gun, attached them to the board. Finally I used several wooden buttons to secure the ribbons to each other and to the canvas, allowing me to put different cards and decorations to it, without losing grip.

I have to say, I am very happy with the end result. And having some of the postal bag fabric left, I want to make a pillow to put in the white chair in the nursery. But that will be another post, probably in a couple of days ;-).

Would love to hear your adventures in these types of crafts. Thanx for visiting my blog today! I am looking forward to seeing you again soon!

Xoxo,

Maartje

Welcome!

Hi there, and welcome to my blog!

On this blog I want to share parts of my life with you. Especially the creative part that is!

The past couple of years, basically since my daughter was born in 2011, have sparked the creative flame that I wasn't all that aware of. 
Always having been interested in styling our house into a home and reading up on home decorating, I was always fascinated by the idea of creating and crafting. Having never had the courage to just do it, I only thought of what I wanted to do, instead of just going about doing it!

Over the past two years I thought, why wait and just give things a go! Last year I bought myself a sewing machine, because I wanted to make my lil' girl some skirts and dresses. My mother-in-law could teach me a thing or two in that area, so I thought, just start! Also my husband was very encouraging, which helps!

I ended up making a cute flowery dress for my baby! Unfortunately the not so nice summer of 2012 meant that she only got to try it on for size.... Hopefully this summer will be nicer so she can wear it again (with some alterations because she has grown quite a bit haha!). Other fabric, meant for a tunic and legging, is still sitting in my cupboard, waiting for another chance ;-)

Last year my husband did an international project for his company, which resulted in him going off to Toronto, Canada for almost four months in total. I stayed in Rotterdam, with our daughter. And having a daytime job, I just could not pack up and leave of course ;-)
Fortunately I was able to fly in on two different occasions to spend a couple of weeks there with him and our daughter. During that time, Maaike, wife of a Dutch colleague of his, who had moved there in 2011, sent me an email with all things nice to go do and see while in the TO-area. We arranged to meet, so she could give me a guided tour. We had a great time and has become a very dear friend ever since. She's a very talented designer and crochet lover, last September she taught me the basics in crocheting! I still have not managed to finish my first project, but I will not give up and keep persisting ~smile~

The crocheting sparked another craft I had not done since I was 8 or 9, which was knitting! I knitted myself a very comfy cowl, and have several skeins of yarn lying around, waiting to be knitted into something pretty!

Being pregnant now with my second child, a boy, to be born mid March 2013, has me crafting around our house, preparing it for the arrival of our baby boy!

Since my maternity leave started mid February I reupholstered the fuchsia pink roman blind in the nursery, sewed a mat to put into the playpen and made a big memo board to hang on the wall in his room. I also made matching garlands to hang on the playpen and in the nursery. 

And these things combined have made me think about starting this blog. To share my Makes with you and maybe even to inspire others to start crafting and creating.

So, during the next week, before our son is born, I will post some of the projects I have been working on. I will also try to figure out how this blogspot thing works, so I can personalize my blog by adding photo's and that sort of things ;-) And after, I will obviously continue blogging ~SMILE~

So thanx very much for stopping by and hope to see you again soon!

Xoxo,
Maartje