Shelley Made: February 2013

Friday, 22 February 2013

Little Boy Bedroom Part 5 - Wall Decal

In the second to last installment of my son's bedroom makeover, we have the Wall Decal...

He's pretty big...measuring about 41 inches wide by 61 inches (104 x 155cm) tall...

Here he is with my son who will be three this weekend, to give an idea of scale..

I created him over at Spoonflower to match the rest of the room, that you can see in these posts:

Spoonflower have a maximum decal size of 30 x 30 inches. Don't let that stop you from creating something big and bold though! You just need to put careful thought into where your joins might be.

Mr Mikey Robot is actually 9 different pieces...all carefully cut out by me from two 30x30 inch decals.

I took the robot I had drawn, enlarged it to the finished size I wanted it, then broke it into logical parts, juggling it around to make it fit the two decals.

Once it arrived, I cut out the pieces, then "tacked" them to the walls using spare offcuts of the decal background. Here are some shots I took after cutting it out, and while I was "assembling".

Some tips for designing a large decal that you will be piecing together:

1. Choose a good contrasting background colour to give a good edge to cut around. Light grey on white might be a bit hard on your eyes!

2. Take your time re-composing your design. Tape it up on the wall before you peel the backs off to make sure you are happy with the placement.

3. Don't worry about keeping the orientation the same. Some of my pieces were landscape and some portrait - it really doesn't matter and you can't tell when it's on the wall.

4. Butt the cut edges together when applying to your wall - don't overlap them. If you overlap them, you can see the edge of the underneath decal through the top decal.

5. Don't be afraid to lift and move your decal. I pulled a couple of mine up more than once to get the joins looking perfect.

Result - one happy nearly 3 year old!

Friday, 15 February 2013

Little Boy Bedroom Part 4 - Pillowcase

Hello again!

So...we have the wall canvases...the lampshade...the roman blind...now we move on to the bedding. The pillowcase to be exact!

The kind of pillowcases we use here have a flap on the inside to keep your pillow from falling out. I have recently found out that these are called "Housewife Pillowcases". As opposed to the ones with no flap, which I believe are called "Bag Pillowcases". I much, much prefer them with a flap.

I made my pillowcases out of a yard (36" by 42") of fabric. You might need more or less depending on how many different fabrics you want to use, and if they have a "direction"

You will need:

Fabric:

Pillowcase back - 18.75 inches x 35.25 inches

Pillowcase front - 18.75 inches x 24.75 inches

Contrast - 18.75 inches x 8 inches

Trim (optional) - 18.75 inches x 1.25 inches

Coordinating thread
Scissors or rotary cutter and mat
Sewing machine
Iron

Cutting layout (if using one fabric only):

Start by cutting out your fabric pieces. You can cut them all from one fabric, or play with it and have different fabrics for the contrast and trim pieces - all up to you! I often mix it up. You should end up with four pieces like this...or three if you aren't going to add a trim.

If you are adding a trim - this is your first step...fold it in half, wrong sides together

Yuck - I need some hand cream! :)

Give it a decent press with your iron to get a nice sharp edge.

Next, line the raw edges up with the raw edge of your front piece...like this...

You will notice that I cut the trim in a different direction to the rest of the fabric. I actually fussy cut mine - so that I would have the robot's eyes peeping over the edge. This is one of the things you can play around with just to make your pillowcase a little different.

Next - I basted these two together, using a 1/4 inch seam so that they don't wriggle about for the next step...

...which is enclosing the entire front within your contrast piece. I believe the term for this is the "Burrito" method. It gives such a nice finish.

First...roll up your front piece like this...

Then, place it on top of your contrast piece (which should be right side up) - lining up your raw edges again on the left.

Last - fold the right hand side over and down to match up the raw edges on the left...like this...

Here it is again in full length...

Pin the layers together, then off back to the sewing maching to sew a 1/2 inch seam all the way down...

You will end up with something like this... Grab the fabric from the centre of it, and pull it through and out.

So that you get this...the completed front of your pillowcase.

Make sure you give it a good iron now along the left edge and the trim particularly.

I then like to topstitch - using a slightly longer stitch length, just along the edge of the trim - maybe 1/8 inch away.

Like this...

Ok. Front done. Onto the back.

Lay out your back. See that raw edge at the right? We are going to hem that now.

Fold it under 1/2 inch, then under again another 1/2 inch. Sew a 3/8 inch seam along the edge.

Nearly there...!

The last step is to attach the front to the back.

Lie your back piece down, right side up, hem to the right side.

Lie your front piece down on top of it - aligning the left side raw edges, face down....

See that bit on the right? That is your fold over.

So fold it over the end of the contrast piece, like this...

Make sure all your cut edges match up nicely. Pin it if you need to to keep it in place while you sew.

Still with me? Making sense?

Pop back to the sewing machine, and you want to sew a 1/4 inch seam along the three raw edges (two long, one short). I then serged/overlocked mine - or you could zigzag them on a normal machine to stop fraying.