Things you can make | How About Orange

June 17, 2008

Things you can make

Fabric bird mobile from Spool Sewing
Business card holder from Amy Butler
Memory candles at Inspire Company
Serendipity tote bag at Sewing Republic
Papercraft rabbits driving cars (so funny!) at a Japanese site I can't read
Papier-maché bowls from Painted Fish Studio
DIY roman shade at A Merry Mishap

(Image from Spool Sewing)

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh yea! I love these posts. Can't wait to give everything a try:)

Grandma G said...

Those birds are so pretty!

Mum

Anonymous said...

I love when you do these posts!

calicodaisy said...

Thanks for the links. Love the birds.

Casey said...

I love those birds, I just a made a couple of those last night actually :)

Abby and Stephanie said...

I had already found Spool Sewing and have 3 darling birds! I'm addicted...more on the way.

TranquilityKnots said...

Found the little birds tutorial. I am going to make some for my niece. Thanks.

jen said...

some great links! thanks!

Saying It Simply said...

These are great! You are impressive!

Judy said...

You have consistently brought the best little projects to your site. Fun easy and joyful. You are the Martha for us, and somebody - mmm - somebody should be watching.

Anonymous said...

Awwww I love those paper rabbits, thanks for the awesome links!

Young People in Love said...

thanks for the great ideas! i'm totally making that tote bag!

alice said...

I can't wait to have a go at the bowls and the birds!

Jen said...

I love this post. I am going to make my nephew a kitty and some birds to play with!

Dottie said...

i want to make the bird mobile, what a great find! i wish there 9 days in a week.

jojoebi-designs said...

ohh I HAVe to make some of those birdies,
birds or dusting?
birds or vacuuming?
birds or laundry?
Hmm when hubby comes home and complains about the state of the house, I will be blaming it al on you!
(just kidding, any excuse for me to get out of doing the cleaning)

Kelly said...

Help! I need an expert's opinion on these birds!

They're so darling that I printed off the pattern and cut 12 out of scraps before I remembered that I'm not very good at hand stitching. (And even if I thought I could use my machine on this project, which I can't imagine, it's broken right now.)

I tried sewing the first one, and it turned out... well, less than pretty. I think I used the wrong type of stitch. All I've ever used for hand stitching (which I avoid like the plague most of the time) is the running stitch or overcast for hems. I used running and it didn't work well. Should I have used backstitch? Your stuff always looks so beautiful, and I've been lurking for quite a while, and now I want to know how you got yours to look so pretty! I'm jealous!

Thanks for the links to the cool projects! (And the links to fun stuff you find on Etsy - love that too!)

Jessica Jones said...

Kelly, so sorry to burst your bubble, but the bird photo above is from Spool Sewing (mentioned at the bottom of the post)—the website with the tutorial. So I personally have not made one of these guys yet. And I'm not a great sewer by any means! I guess I'd try a backstitch, and keep them fairly small.

Somebody else who sews a lot, help us out!

Teresa @ good-grace said...

oh gosh!! Thanks so much for sharing these great links. (I love the little birdie pic.)

Anonymous said...

Hi, I too found those cute birds on Spool a couple of weeks ago and was immediately inspired to make three. I used back stitch, but it helps if it is very neat and small. I also found that with fabric that frayed easily it was worth dabbing the raw edges with pva glue to seal them (and letting it dry) before turning the bird right side out - particularly round the beak area!

Hope that's useful. You can see my first attempts on my blog post 'Rare Birds Indeed!'

Fifi Flowers said...

Those are so cute! I do not sew and so I will not attemp these... but if I did... I just might!

Nathalanes Place said...

I just love those birds. I wonder if they are hard to make. You have great links here. Love your blog by the way and I've added it to my blogroll for safe keeping so that way I'm sur I'll be going back so I don't miss nothing.

Janis said...

These projects are the coolest -- thanks SO much!!!

Anonymous said...

These are totally rad! I might try making them from my many scraps.

Kelly said...

artshades - thanks for the advice!

jess - my apologies. It took me a moment to realize that the pictures on your site and on Spool's were the same. That said, thanks for the link to the awesome project, because I'd never heard of Spool before and now I might just have to drop in on their site every once in a while.

Pin Cushion Princess said...

I am so excited to try all of these fun things. Keep up the fun links. There are never enough fun projects to do.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Bummer~! The site for the bird mobile isn't working...and I purchased fabric just to make it too. Does anybody have the pattern that I can get via email? lchoidea@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Jess, I can't thank you enough for posting these great birds. I went to the Spool site and low-and-behold... It's in Philly! Me too! AND I signed up for a little birdie class their having this Saturday! Thanks for turning me on to this great resource in my very own city.

Jessica Jones said...

That's great! Glad to hear it.

April Moore Skelton said...

lchoidea--I am having the same problem. I actually looked at the pattern several days ago and didn't print it ... now the link doesn't work and I can't find it on Spool's site! I was going to make this for my sister-in-law, can anyone send me this PDF file? aprilbmoore@gmail.com

Jessica Jones said...

The link to the pattern changed... I've updated it in the post, so now it should work and you can get the bird pattern.

AnnCP said...

I can't find the link to the pattern. Can someone send it to me? savvychixstudio@gmail.com