The Cake is a lie... but my companion cube foot stool is.... er not?

Halleluiah IT'S FINALLY FREAKING FINISHED!!!!

 I've been working on this foot stool for jebus only knows how long.... but yesterday I finally finished it. You all have Lewy to thank for it, he came and plopped it down on my lap while I was watching How Clean Is Your House (rather than actually cleaning it like I should but shhhhh!), told me he was sick of looking at it half finished and that I had better finish it off before the end of the day.

Now lucky for my I only had a small bit left to go, otherwise I might have just broken down and cried right there on the lounge with images of lounge room rubbish tips blaring in the background....

And the best thing of all? You can make this thing yourself.... and no it doesnt have to be footstool size!

 To the left here we have the basic pattern you need... I did forget to mention that the whole big square needs to be in dark grey felt or material... but this is pretty much all you need to know. You can re-size this pattern any way you like... make a teeny tiny one... make a gigantic one... make whatever you want out of it!










Steps:

All my pretty pieces, and sewn the hearts and "legs"on

1. Cut out all your pieces. If you're using the pattern I have given you I suggest cutting out the whole big square first, then cutting out the other pieces from inside, will save you having to print the pattern out multiple times. I made my squares about 1.5 feet because after all I did make a foot rest and it would be hard to rest your achy feet on a pillbox.
2. First of all you need to sew the heart shape into the center of the circle shape. Do this until you run out of hearts and circles.
3. You need to attach the purple "legs" (for lack of a better word to call them at the moment" to the top, bottom, and each side of the circle. It should look like you have sewn the circle with the heart on it into the middle of a big plus sign, and do this until you run out of purple pieces and hearts, you should have 6 at the end one for eac
h face of the cube.

Sewing those corners together!

4. Now you can save time by doing this step now, or you can save it for later. If you have a sewing machine handy I suggest you do it now because it really will save some time! Take three pieces of the Corner shape and sew the long sides together, you will get a pyramid shape. Do this until you run out of corner shapes, you should end up with 8 sewn together pieces. Take the light grey rectang
le pieces and sew one end of the short edges together. Now set these pieces aside, because you wont need them until the very end.
5. Take your heart on a plus sign pieces, and you are going to sew them on to each face of the cube. I found that pinning them in place helped me center them better while I was stitching them on. (Let me tell you a sewing machine would have come in soooooo handy at this point, and this is why this darn thing took soooo long to finish!)
6. After you have stitched all the faces on you are ready to make them into a cube. I found that stitching them all together in a big cross shape was more effective than trying to sew them into shape one by one... so you do four long in a row, it doesnt matter which way the row goes, just make sure that your purple "legs" line up and touch each other. Then on the second square of the row you will sew one on the top and one on the bottom of the row so it looks like a cross shape. (not an "X" cross but more of a "t" cross)

My "cross" shape

7. Now stitch all the edges together around the two prongs of the cross to make the cube, this can be a bit tricky if you're using a machine, but its alright if you round the corners a little bit on the cube because they will be covere
d up at the end. Make sure you leave a spot open so you can flip the whole thing inside out (so the seams dont show) and so you can stuff it!
8. Stuff that thing until your hearts content... but please dont over stuff it, just remember it's a COMPANION CUBE not a COMPANION BALL. Then after you're finished stuffing it stitch closed the opening. I found it best to leave one of the corners open to do this step since they are going to be covered up at the end it doesnt really matter if you have a noticeable seam after you close it up.
9. Time to put those corners on! This bit was also a bit tricky, you dont
want to put them on too tight because they are supposed to protrude from the cube a little bit, stitch around 2.5 of the sides then take a small amount of stuffing and cram it into the corner just to make it a bit more "corner-ey". and continue to stitch around the last side, tie off the thread and viola you have just done a corner!

10. Last step! The rectangle pieces you have laying around will go over the purple "legs" and in between the two corner pieces you have done. Stitch around all of the edges you can put a little bit of stuffing in this bit as well if you like but thats up to you. Tie off all your edges and you're finished!

 Now you may have noticed in my "finished" picture up there my rectangles in the middle dont look as though they have seams in the middle. Don't worry I'm not that adapt at sewing by hand... me in all my smartness didnt cut enough of them in the first place, and therefore had to make do with one to cover the whole distance instead of two thats why it looks a little bit stretched... but still I'd rather have one that I made myself than one that I bought from the shops and paid a ridiculous amount of money for.... seriously it couldnt cost them any more to make than it did you right? So why can they charge $50 for it when it barely costs $15 to make? HUGE PRICE MARK UP!!!! and mine looks just as good anyways!

Now so no one sues, all rights to the companion cube are for whoever made the portal game... i dont take credit for coming up with the design or the name or any of that stuff... I do however take credit for the pattern.... because lets face it you would have to be a freaking rocket scientist to come up with that on your own!

Now if you will all excuse me, I'm gonna go and put my feet up, have a nice cup of tea and watch some more bad youtube videos that make me feel guilty for not cleaning or eating the right foods.... and then I'm going to go to work and deal with some screaming children while I can barely breath out my nose due to my allergies not being able to make up their minds if they want to act up or not....

Yes I am in my pajamas.... but it is not even 9am and I will probably stay in them until I have to change clothes for work..... Don't Judge ME!!!! By the way I freaking love my socks, they have pandas on the toes, and the colors are so bright they almost glow in the dark! I just wish they were a little bit warmer, because it was 2 degrees outside this morning.... 2! I'm bloody freezing here!!!

Now that I think about it actually I'm gonna have to hide my pretty and comphy new foot stool.... because lets face it, it's pretty and comphy and the mario mushroom foot stool that I made for Lewy ages ago has gone a bit... er, flat.

 

Which is pretty funny when you think about it because when I first made it it looked like 

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and Lewy squished it with his big man feet!

Easy Peasy Sunglasses Bag

So I really REALLY fell in love with the material I got from Spotlight for the back of my Country Kitchen Apron, and I've been trying to find a use for as much of it as possible.

When I carried my sunnies around with my in my hand bag they always ended up really dusty and needed to be cleaned almost every time I put them on (which isn't a good thing when you're driving!)

So there was a pretty long piece of the material left over, and if I folded it then it was just the right width to hold my sunglasses. So I sewed it together up the sides, and using a pink sheet of felt cut out the same size and sewed up the sides of that to make the inside of the bag.
Next I got a small length of pink ribbon and folded it in half tying the ends in knots so they wouldn't get lost inside the bag if you pulled one side too hard.
I flipped the material inside out so the stitches are on the inside, and slipped the felt inside the material (leave the stitches on the outside).
Stick the ribbon between the two layers all the way around the bag, and then fold over a small lip on the material side of the bag. Sew all the way around the bag leaving just enough of an opening for the ribbon to slide in and out of, leave a gap between the ribbon and stitch the gap closed.

Easy Peasy! Just make sure you don't catch your ribbon in your stitches, then slide your sunnies inside and pull the ribbon tight and VIOLA!!! You have your very own sunglasses bag!

Update on Harry Potter Night!

Alright, lets just get it all out here on the table...

I've been a lazy LAZY little girl lately with my arts and craft projects...  at the moment I have about 4 things laying around half finished. BUT it's all OK.

Why? I can hear you asking yourself, let me tell you why. I've noticed it! Plain and simple truth... I'm slipping back into my old habits of starting stuff and never finishing it so now I'm doing something about it!

First thing's first, the Harry Potter night goodies. I have finished the Hufflepuff set of bags and scarves, and am 80% finished with the first Ravenclaw bag (the last of the sets that I need to make) And I've found that as long as I am doing other things while crafting I get a lot more done.

So I've been watching movies, and even the Australian version of Kath & Kim, and have almost finished this bag in record time!

Now if only things will stop interrupting me... either some one comes to visit us, the dogs have  been escaping our back yard because our next door neighbor is a moron who has no respect for his neighbors, or we have had to go out to see other people....

This week I have no plans to go anywhere, all I need to do is my housework and my crafts.

So with you all as my witnesses, I plan to at least have my Harry Potter sets finished and photographed by the end of this month!

The Long Awaited Robes!!!

(Just a disclaimer: This is not my video this is not me! I do not take credit for this work. I do take credit for the Slytherin robe which I made by following the instructions in this video that I found on Youtube)

So now as promised!!!! Here is the video I used to make my Slytherin Cloak for my Harry Potter night costume. Of course in the video they made a Gryffindor robe, the only difference is that instead of using burgundy I used green material.
In the video they used king size sheets, now I don't know about where you guys come from but here in Australia sheet sets do not come that cheap (especially king size ones!), so to save myself some money I just went out to a local craft shop and got a few meters of material, I used silk because I like the way it drapes and feels when you wear it, but you can really use any sort of material you like. You don't even have to make a Hogwarts Robe out of it, you can literally make any sort of robes you like following the simple instructions on the video!
One other little thing I did differently from the video is that I hand sewed the entire robe, I liked to be able to see my stitches and it really gives it that home made look, but you can use a sewing machine it will be a lot faster AND probably make it look a bit more professional.

The photo to the left is my finished product! You can tell from the video that I used different materials they are pretty shiny in the picture, but thats alright, this is a matter of personal tastes and you can use whatever you like!
Just remember when you are measuring your material you want to add a few inches to each measurement, especially if you are using a sewing machine because the foot will take up some of the length. The length of the whole robe is entirely personal. I made mine just long enough to reach the floor, but if you are short like me then there isn't really much you can do about things being too long. And the arms need to come over your hands, i added about 4 extra inches to my measurements so the robe wouldn't be too short when I raised my arms, and remember that they are supposed to be big, so remember to cut them that way! I cut mine like old witches robes where the sleeves kind of fan out, but I only made it subtle.

There are some little embellishments that I chose to use as well on my cloak. I added the hood just like from the video, but I also added a house patch and a clasp to close the robe.

To the left is the clasp I used. Just a simple rope clasp that I got from Spotlight for pretty cheap. Since I was hand sewing everything I thought it would be a bit easier for me to sew each side of the clasp onto a small square of black felt. That way I could just sew around the square instead of trying to make sure I caught all of the details and this way it also gives the clasp a bit more of a larger area, making sure that it holds tight and wont rip your material as easily, this is a good thing to try and do if you have a really long robe just in case you step on it. To the right is my Slytherin House Crest Patch. This one I bought off ebay for about $4 and just ironed it onto the material, but you could always make your own if you choose, there are a few tutorials on youtube that are good, but I wanted to save some time in finishing it.

So there you have it! The long awaited House Robes Blog is finally up and going places! I hope you enjoyed it!!!

Let there be cake!

What could be more appetizing than a nice gooey slice of chocolate cake? Nothing thats right!
This little beauty was made from felt, hand stitched and fabric paint gooey-ness...

What to do? This one is so simple you dont even need a pattern, cut out two triangles thats the size of the slice you would like, brown for chocolate cake, white for vanilla, pink for strawberry.... or go all out and make a multicolored rainbow cake!

Next, cut a few strips for the layers of your cake long enough to go around the two large edges of your triangles, and then cut a few strips of the "cream" to go between the layers of cake. Sew these strips in a cake/cream pattern until you run out of cake layers.
Next cut an icing layer that is as wide as the short edge of your triangles, and as long as all of your layers once they have been sewn together, this will be the back of your cake icing.
Cut out a number, or numbers from your choice of colors, a strip of white, and a flame shape from some yellow, this will be your candle. The cherry is optional, but its just a red circle and a green strip of felt.
You will also need some ribbons so you can wear it as a hat, or if you just want it as a toy forget the ribbon.. Now for the interesting part: the assembly.
1. Take the ribbons, if you are using it, and sew one end of it to each long edge of the triangle you will put on the bottom of the cake.
2. Make the candle: Sew the flame together and turn it inside out, sew the white strip together and attach the flame to it this will be the candle wick, place the wick and flame inside the number and sew the number together leaving an opening at the bottom to flip it right side out, leave this open.
3. Cut a small opening in the top of the cake and place the open end of the candle into the opening. Sew this shut from the underside of the cake top. 
4. Take the layers and the top part of the cake, sew the layers around the two long edges of the triangle, this will make up your slice.
5. Take the back of the slice and sew across the top of the cake, and down each side of the layers, this will make up the icing.
6. Sew the bottom triangle on, the same way you did the top of the cake, but leave the back edge open so you can flip it right side out.
7. After flipping it right side out, make sure all your points are pointy and then stuff it with craft stuffing until you're hearts content. Then sew up the bottom back edge.
8. Add your details, this means using the fabric paint which will make your cream look a little more creamier, or look like chocolate/caramel sauce drizzled over the top.

To make the cherry, single stitch around the edge of the red circle and pull semi-tight. Add some stuffing and pull the thread tight, add the green strip of felt to the opening and sew shut, then tack it to the top of the cake.

And there you have it, your own personal slice of cake, now you really can have your cake and eat it to!

The Bag Lady...

So I have been working on some House Bags (<-- pattern found at that link) And I must say they are a lot harder than they look. Since I am only a beginner knitter I haven't really figured out how to "work in the round" just yet so I am just straight knitting them and sewing them together after I am finished.

I've started off with the Gryffindor House bag (The first pattern on the link above) and at the moment I am about 1/4 of the way finished with it, it really is a good thing this movie shindig is a few months away at least! I'm sure  I would have been further along with my knitting projects had I not spent so much of my time creating the house elf pattern and trying to perfect it, however since putting the pattern up on my deviant art page it has been added to a few groups which feature various patterns and I have been informed that a few people are actually going to attempt to make one themselves! I'm sure you must all know how good that feels to know that people are attempting to recreate something you have made for them,  I'm just appreciative that people have taken the time to look at it and the fact that they want to try and make it themselves is just the icing on the cake!
My friend Katie (who has admitted to me that she is a horrible sewer) has commissioned me to make her one of her very own, and I have been informed by a few people that I should create two of them and give them to her as a wedding present since she is the biggest Harry Potter Fan Girl that I know (besides myself when it comes to Tom Felton *drools*) I have considered doing this for her however, I'm not sure if I would actually be able to make two of them by the time her wedding comes around since I am still in the middle of searching for a job and having to drive back and forth to interviews all day long... Still it seems like an intriguing idea.

Any ways back to the bag! Yes the bag, I have been using size 4 needles, red and yellow Oki Angora Delux Yarn which is 70% Goat Hair and 30% PAC. and I have discovered that if you intend on using the double needle method as I have decided to do then you cannot just start the pattern from the beginning of each row as I thought, you need to work from the first to last stitch of one row and the last to first stitch of the next row in order to have the pattern turn out right, otherwise it will be very messy and all over the place, trust me I have had to restart it once already because I made this mistake!
That's all for the time being, just thought I would let you all know what I was working on at this particular moment in time, will update you all again once I have finished the first bag and I will be sure to include some photos!!!

The House Elf Correction (my bad!)

So after sewing and falling in love with my house elf plushie doll, I was having trouble figuring out what to make the eyes out of.... I foolishly told all of you to use polymer clay, this was a HUGE mistake! Dont listen to that information what you really needed to do was to make your eyes out of felt. I found a wonderful tutorial on how to make realistic felt eyes on deviant art, This tutorial will help you if you dont know how to make them yourself! I will admit I had no clue how to make them I tried the polymer clay method and it looked atrocious!

I suggest that from now on you just ignore anything I say regarding polymer clay usage unless I put up whole lessons on how I make things using it. For our own good lolz! I also had to make the mouth using felt, it doesnt look that great however, I couldnt find a tutorial on how to make a realistic mouth out of felt.

To top it off I used an old tea towel cut in half and tied at the ends for the clothes. I stitched it in place at the shoulders just to stop it from coming off, and cut another strip off the remaining bit of the tea towel to use as a belt. The good thing about this is that their clothes are supposed to look shabby so it's not that big of a deal for you to use random scraps you have laying around, whether they are a bit dirty or even if they have a hole or stain!
Hope you all have enjoyed this House elf experience! If you make one please let me know how it turns out, and remember you can make and sell as many as you like but please dont try and sell the pattern I made it free for a reason!

Finally Finished the House Elf

Well it's about time right? Yes I know you have all been waiting.... well at least I hope you have been. I have finally finished the pattern and sewn the doll together.


The pattern is available on my deviant art page, I had to scan it and it would not fit on a single page so it is in four parts. Part 1 Part 2  Part 3 Part 4 (sorry its a little scribbled just cut out the pieces around the black line) I hand sew the pieces together so if you do not plan on doing this I would give ample room around the pattern to allow for a machine seam.
The finished product (before the eyes and clothing have been added should look similar to the photo added!

I had to use about 8 sheets of flesh colored felt, where I traced the pattern pieces onto them to save as much space as possible. While the pattern is pretty much self explanatory I will still share a few helpful hints. When working with the hands and arms, the best course of action is to sew the hands and turn them right side out, then sew the arms and attach them to the wrists. The fingers are hard to turn, I suggest using a  pin to coax them up so you don't rip your seams or your felt, or you can try using a small long object that is rounded on the end such as a crochet hook because this will also not poke holes in your material. Leave an opening at the back of the body so you are able to stuff and turn out the rest of the body, stuff it so it is as hard or as soft as you wish and then sew up the back. 
After you have finished the body it's time for the little details such as the knees/toes/elbows. These are quite simple and as the pattern suggests where you should put them (the elbows and knees have been slightly enlarged to stand out (as they do on Dobby the House elf from Harry Potter), and as you can see from the image I have added where to put the toes. The arms will need to be attached separately, this is so they can move freely like a normal doll's arms would move, and this can be achieved by using flesh colored thread and a doll needle (the really long ones you can get from any craft shop)

As for the eyes, I have chosen to use polymer clay. White clay for the eyeball, brown for the iris, and black for the pupil then hot glued them to the face. Then you just take some light pink fabric paint and use it to paint on a mouth, or you can embroidery it if you are good at sewing, take some scrap material or a shabby pillow case and use it for a tunic, you can choose to make a belt if you wish!

And there you have it, a free pattern and instructions on how to make your very own house elf from harry potter! If you have any questions just leave it in the comments and I will try my best to answer it!

Still on the menu so to speak: more golden snitches and mice, as well as some house bags and magic wands!

The House Elf Part 1

Well today I have officially finished the House Elf's head. It took a bit of tweaking but now it looks really good (wont know for sure until I have it fully stuffed though and  I cant do that until after I finish his body). I'm working on his legs now, since they have to be sewn to the body.
I'm using beige thread and a regular sewing needle, poly-fill craft stuffing, and flesh colored felt sheets. I wont put a photo up of just his head though (especially since I haven't figured out what to use to make his eyes yet), I will wait until I have the finished product ready to show you.

I am however despising the fact that I have went over my internet downloads for the month and my net speed has been cut down to dial up speed... I feel like I am living in cave man times! My computer room is a total mess because while I am waiting for pages to load and killing time I am either knitting or sewing away like a tiny little machine, much to the disapproval of my fiance who is constantly trying to clean everything up only to have me come right back in and start "working" on another piece... not to say it isnt tidy, its just organized chaos I know where everything is and its all over the place!

I give it about three or four more days until I will have this little dude finished though. I have used a combination of Dobby and Kreature as references for my house elf, and since we never really saw Winky from the Goblet of Fire book I cannot be sure if a female house elf would look much different from a male. I guess this ones gender will greatly depend on what its eyes and mouth look like... Photos to come soon I hope! And once again remember once I have it up the pattern will be free to any one else who feels like they want to take on the task of creating their own little house elf!