Dollhouse Brick Tutorial

Hey guysss! I have been working on my 'brick' foundation for my dollhouse, and I wanted to share a quick tutorial with you guys about how I did it! 

I have seen several BEAUTIFUL bricking tutorials where people use cut up egg cartons. I must admit I was feeling like...way too lazy for that, so I tried to come up with a slightly lazier simpler solution.

I found these adhesive backed cork sheets at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbooking section. They were half off so I got a couple sheets for $1 a piece! (YASSS SALES) How much you need will depend on how big of an area you are wanting to brick. I am only doing my foundation, so I just bought two sheets. 

ALSO, before you start, I would HIGHLY recommend doing ALL of your cork sheets at one time. Do more than you think you will need...it helps the finished product look more cohesive. Because yay cohesion!

OK. So, I grabbed a bunch of ...brick colored acrylic paints I had in my large box o' paints. These were just the cheap bottles you can find at Walmart or any craft store. I also applied them with a kitchen sponge...because, texture things and stuff.

I didn't try to be too neat here, because the more random and splotchy the colors are the more brick-like (brickish? brickly? brickesque?) they will be.

I laid down a base coat of red, and then dabbed back over it in several different colors.

Ignore the medicine syringe. The small humans brought it to me lol

After your paint dries, turn your sheets over and mark off the height you want your bricks on the back. I used a piece of college ruled notebook paper to mark my lines, because, well, #lazyprobz.

Using an x-acto or other delightfully pointy object, carefully cut out along the lines. Cutting from the back makes cutting the cork 10000% easier and shreds it less than cutting from the front.

Then, you get to cut your strips into SEVEN THOUSAND TINY RECTANGLES. I highly recommend doing this whilst binging Netflix. 

Then, you can simply peel off the paper backing and MASON THAT SUCKER. I am sorry for the potato quality of this picture, but I will take better pictures once I've grouted it!

That's it! Really easy, just tedious!

DIY Dollhouse Hardwood Flooring....Realistic, Easy, and CHEAP

So my first post in this most likely to be disjointed series about my dollhouse, I wanted to share with you guys how I did/am doing my 'hardwood' floors in the majority of my Alison Jr.

I am currently in love with the wide, rustic-y vibe hardwood that is currently trending about. I love the matte, not quite perfect, driftwood look to floors like this one;

SWOON. I love the greyed out boards. LOVE THEM.

I originally came across this flooring at Hobby Lobby, 

but even if I used a 40% off coupon, it was going to be $8 a room, minimum, and I was going to need about 8 of them to cover everything I wanted to cover. I definitely wasn't in the mood to spend $64 just on flooring. Also, it wasn't the color or width I was looking for, so I turned to the internet in my time of need.

I found several awesome tutorials on using popsicle sticks as hardwood, (like this one and this one), so I started out by picking up a bag of popsicle sticks from the dollar store and attempting to do it that way. 

Y'all. I got real tired of chopping off the rounded end of those popsicle sticks real quick and in a hurry. I had a hand cramp. I ruined a pair of scissors. I was being real whiny (ask my husband). So I went back to the internet, and found one blogger who used thin sheets of veneer chopped into small pieces with her paper cutter. That looked easier so I took myself to Menards to check out their selection of veneer. The good news was they had LOADS of beautiful colors. The bad news is that it \as still more than I wanted to pay (I'M REAL CHEAP YALL)

I ran by Lowe's to see if they had better prices, but their selection wasn't very large. So as I was walking out of Lowe's, I spotted a sign that said 'ADHESIVE VINYL FLOORING'. COULD THIS BE THE ANSWER?? 

I asked the sales associate nearby if I had to buy them by the box, and he told me I could purchase the planks individually! YAS!! I got two 6x36in planks in the color 'Driftwood' for less than $2 a piece!

At first I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to cut it very easily (despite it being thin), but you only have to score it with a craft/utility knife, and it snaps right apart. It was so easy! I decided to cut my pieces 1/2 in by 6 in. I used my clear quilting ruler to help me make the lines super straight.

If you want to make your floors removable, you could cut a cardboard template in the dimensions of your floor, and simply peel and stick the pieces to the template as opposed to the actual dollhouse, but I don't plan on changing this (FAMOUS LAST WORDS AMIRITE), so I simply stuck mine directly to the dollhouse floor.

 To make it look realistic as possible, I staggered the 'planks' so the seams weren't all lined up. It give it a more organic feel and texture. After I finished the first little hallway, I was so pleased! I loved the width and the color! These pieces also have a beautiful woodgrain texture to them. 

After I laid the pieces, I decided I wasn't loving the bits of white showing at the seams, and it wasn't quite as dark as I was going for, so I brushed on a coat of Rustolem's Ebony Wood Stain, making sure to push my foam brush into the all the cracks and crevices.

Next, IMMEDIATELY wipe the stain off with a paper towel or four. I say IMMEDIATELY because this dries very quickly and it will, well, stain, your vinyl. I also recommend wiping with the direction of the grain.

Sometimes you might have to do more than one coat. This is what I had after one coat. You can probably tell I missed some spots. You can also probably tell that I got the stain on the wall. I don't care so much about that as I will be covering all the walls and you wont see it, but IF you are doing this AFTER YOU ALREADY PAINTED/WALLPAPERED, make sure you tape off/cover the walls and anything you want to be protected from stain.

I repeated this process in the rest of the rooms that I wanted to be hardwood.

This next step is optional, but if you find you have gaps/uneven spaces between some of the boards...

...you can mix up some spackle with some regular acrylic paint to use as a 'wood filler' of sorts. I used a tub of lightweight spackle from Dollar Tree, and some regular black acrylic paint.

I mixed it until I got a nice dark grey color. I didn't want brown because I thought it would draw attention to the spaces. Grey is a nice subtle, neutral color.



Then, I just took my finger and rubbed the spackle into the cracks. I wiped away the excess with a damp paper towel.

It might not seem like a big difference in the pictures but I can really tell up close and in person. It definitely makes the floor look more even and polished. There were also several spots where I cut boards too short and the spackle filled it in nicely!

I am so so happy with it! I already had everything but the flooring panels on hand, so it was only like $6 total!

What do you think? Anyone ever try this method? Let me know! 

Also, you can pin this picture to your favorite Pin board for later!

Adult T-Shirt into Baby T-Shirt DIY

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Plus, when you order through my link, it helps me stumble along in this bloggy blog world! I appreciate your support! My husband who has to put up with my craft supply obsession does too :D All opinions expressed are my own, and I am not sponsored by any product manufacturer unless otherwise stated :)

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As cute and wonderful as cloth diapers are, they can be rather bulky. They can kinda make your baby look like a lightening bug. A cute as a button lightening bug, but all that fluff on the tooshy can be kinda a pain to stuff into a onesie. SO  I decided it would be easier for L to wear t-shirts when we're around the house. The only problem? Baby tshirts can be few and far between AND expensive.

Ya'll know I don't do expensive. 

I looked around the interwebs for a tutorial and all the ones I found involved sewing on ribbing for the neckline and arm holes.

I don't like working with ribbing, ya'll...

It turns out all kinds of nasty bad.

SO first I tried cutting off the existing ribbing of t shirts I had and sewing that on. NO BUENO. After staring at it in frustration for about two hours, I had a duh moment and thought to myself, 'Self, why don't you just leave the ribbing on?' 

So I took myself to the thrift store and picked up a bunch of large sized shirts with appropriately stretchy neckholes.

Ingredients:

-Tshirts (or shirts) with large sized neckholes. You want a decent amount of existing ribbing to work with

-Sewing machine

-Serger (optional but awesome)

-Scissors

-Thread

-Double needle (also optional, but also awesome)

-A onesie that fits your cute little nugget bebe :)

-Marking pen (Or a sharpie haha)

STEP 1: Lay out your shirt ON DA GROUND. Or table, if you have it. My table is covered in laundry...thus...DA GROUND.

STEP TWO: CUT OFF YOUR ARMS. No really, cut off the sleeves and SAVE THEM. Also, cut down the sides of your shirt, so you have equal front and back pieces.

STEP THE THIRD: So This is kidna hard to explain, but really simple in actuality. Cut you shirt along the top of the shoulders, making sure that you leave more ribbing on the BACK of the neckline than the front. Basically cut it a little over halfway.

This is what it should look like now. Got it? PEACHY!

STEP 4: Overlap the back of your shirt piece over the front, like so. The white dashes are how the front piece should lay under the back piece. PIN THAT. 

STEP 5: Now take your nicely fitting onesie and line up the collar with your shirt-in-progress. PIN where the shoulder seam meets the sleeve. You are going to want to sew two lines of stitching at that seam line. 

It should look about like this. But preferably better, because I kinda jacked mine up. MOVING ON.

STEP 6: Again with your onesie, fold the sleeve under (or in) and trace the arm hole of your onesie onto your big t shirt. THEN SNIPPY SNIPPY. Cut a straight line all the way down your shirt, through both layers of fabric.

You should now have this. Again, except hopefully better and more even....MOOOVVING ON.

STEP SHEVEN: Remember those sleeves I told you NOT TO THROW AWAY? Yeah, better go grab them out of the trash if you didn't listen to me. Trace a sleeve shape out along the hem line of the existing sleeve. The sleeve pattern I have here I simply drew up on a piece of paper...you can trace an old onesie sleeve to make it easier on yourself.

STEP 8: I didn't take a picture of these last few steps, because they are basic t-shirt putting-togethery-stuff. And I'm not very good at explaining that part. THIS TUTORIAL is awesome for doing foolproof sleeves! Attach the sleeves as normal, and sew up the sides of your shirt. You can serge or hem the bottom if you want, as well as embellish to your hearts content! I am currently experimenting with sleeve styles and for this one I threaded elastic through the hem casing before attaching it to the shirt.

STEP 9: Put your pretty new shirt on the cutest baby you know! 

Please ignore the spit up...this is the appreciation I get for making L new clothes hahaha

BONUS: Take some of your leftover material and make your little girl a matching headband!

These are two others I made while I was experimenting with sleeves/embellishment :)

As always guys, thank you for stopping by! Feel free to ask me anything! I love questions! :)

DIY Nursery Wall Art {On the Cheap!}

I have an...issue, you could say...with bare walls. I don't like them. They bother me. I have an obsessive need to cover the empty space with something...ANYTHING. 

Come to think of it, I basically just like cramming as much stuff possible into as little space as possible, regardless. 

UNASHAMED. 

Ahem.

The wall above my soon-to-be-here daughter's crib has been mocking me with its nakedness for the past few weeks, and I finally did something about it today, and I love it! I'm going to show you guys how to do cheap, mod-ish, wall art for your own nursery. Or kids room. Or any room! NO NUDE WALLS.

First, I simply went to Google and eugoogled (its a verb Mr S made up...it means, 'to Google') 'free nursery printables.' There are TONS of adorable printables out there that lovely bloggers have made available for you to download and print out for free! (and yes, we had spaghetti squash for dindin tonight. It was excellent. I would recommend)

After I had found the ones I wanted, (It was SO difficult to narrow them down! So many cute ones!) I saved them to a USB drive and took them to Staples to have them printed. NOTE. To save yourself even more money, you can definitely print them at home! I just happened to be very short on colored ink and wanted theses to come out bright and not streaky. Staples will also print them on heavier paper if you ask them, which adds a nice touch.

While I was out toodling about town, I went to Dollar Tree and picked up six document sized frames. 6 frames @ $1 each = $6! I almost always buy my frames there because, honestly, frames are expensive, and the cheap ones can be painted! Another idea...hit up your local thrift store...those always have frames, and lots of times you can score unique ones!

I popped the glass out and painted them white... (I wanted to spray paint them but I ran out of spray paint halfway through. Boo!)

As those were drying...I made pudding! This pudding, to be exact. If you have never eaten hot, chocolate pudding with whipped cream, you don't even know what you are missing. Go make some. Raight now. You will not regret it.

After the frames dried (and I was through carb-loading on pudding) I carefully placed the glass back in the frames and then inserted my prints. Some of the prints I cut the edges down some and backed them with white paper for a sort of faux-mat look. 

I played with the layout I wanted on the floor for a minute or two and then dragged my sexy, long-armed husband into the nursery with me to hang them :) 

What do you think? I'm sorry about the glare, the light was being VASTLY uncooperative and unsympathetic to my photographing plight.

Again, thank you light...

I think my favorites (apart from all of them, that is) are the feathers and the 'L is for Laurel' one. You can customize that one with your own letter, name, and color! They add such a nice personal touch to the room, I think!

All told this project only cost me around $11! Like I said, it would have been cheaper if I had printed my pictures at home, but I was *very* pleased with how Staples did. I can't wait to show you guys the nursery all put together!

Printables Sources:

Teacups :: by Stephanie Fizer via IndieFixx

'L' is For :: via On To Baby
She Believed She Could :: via Honey and Fitz
Feathers :: via Oh So Lovely Blog

Oh The Places You'll Go :: by SohoSonnet via View From The Fridge

Let Her Sleep :: via Oh So Lovely Blog

Definitely check out those links! So. Much. Cuteness. Oh man.