Bowling ball bag project

While looking at Wii games at Target the other day, I saw a Wii travel bag designed to look like a bowling ball bag. "Cool!" I thought, because I'll be taking the Wii to SD for Christmas with the family. But I ought not buy a $30 bag -- no matter how cool -- that I'm going to use maybe twice a year. I ought to wrap the whole thing in a towel and put it in a tote bag -- that's more my budget right now.

But it got me to thinking: Bowling ball bags are cool. So the next time I was at Savers to drop off a bag, I buzzed through the bag section. And there it was, for $4.99!



It still had the ball ring stand inside. The rest of the inside sort of sucked -- it was just the B side of the vinyl. (Ignore the newspaper -- that was for the pattern of what I'm getting to.) I washed the bag with hot, soapy water, then zipped up a bowl of vinegar in it overnight to get rid of the vaguely room-deodorizer-ish Savers smell. It worked really well.

Then I remembered this fabric called "Atomic Ale." I first got some of this a long time ago to make a wallet. When the bolt went on closeout, I had to buy another yard. No idea what I would do with it, but I knew something would present itself.

I wasn't sure I'd have the patience to sew the lining into the vinyl, so I made a pattern out of newspaper, then hemmed a piece of the fabric to fit each section. I adhered the fabric to the vinyl with adhesive craft spray. So far it's sticking really well!

A friend asked me, "What will you do with the bag?" I said, "What WON'T I do with it?" I think I will start by making pouches and sleeves out of Reflectix or bubblewrap for all the Wii components, and then covering the pouches and sleeves with the fabric I have remaining. I think it's going to be so awesome.

Star Wars pajamas

The boys are growing freakishly fast. Asher of course has Tom's hand-me-downs, but if I make Tom Star Wars pajamas, then Asher will want some, too. So here we go. I was having trouble with the sleeves (I'm 35! I should be able to manage a damn sleeve!). So I came up with this: Use a T-shirt, and just sew "extensions" at the seam. It worked so well, I can hardly believe it.

It looks kind of dorky with their names down the leg, but I have a hard time keeping their clothes straight, and I wasn't going to make a size tag to sew into the waistband. We had these iron-on letters left over from when my ex made a project. Ugly, yes, but already on-hand, and free! :-)

Here's Asher brushing his teeth. Well, shaking his toothbrush.

Prescription goggles for $2.99

I think I first saw this on Instructables.com. Totally inspired by my blindness in the water (and my inability to wear contacts anymore, thanks to these weird bumps on my left eye), I dug through the bathroom cabinet to find my old glasses.

I popped out the lenses. I bought goggles on clearance.


I Dremel'd the lenses so they'd fit better on the goggle lenses. I bought some epoxy (my very first epoxy project ever -- and I learned a lot, like "Epoxy seeps, which will frack everything up"). If I had it to do over again, I'd have resigned myself to going really slowly with the epoxy, even if it took a few days. The end result looks a little sloppy, but they actually work really well!

At least so far as I can tell on land. I doubt I'll get in a pool again before next summer.

Stenciling for babies ... sort of

I bought off the registry for a friend's baby shower, but then I wanted to get her something fun (and unique), too. I thought about doing a freezer paper stencil, but suddenly thought of all the leftover scrapbooking letter stickers that I have downstairs. I mean, you buy "stars and stripes" lettering for one particular page, and then what do you do with the rest? I know! You use it to create a negative-space stencil-type thing!

I found funny T-shirts to rip off online.

So: Step 1. Use stickers from your craft stash.

Step 2: Dab fabric paint on. This gives it a pretty funky, almost graffiti-esque look -- which is cool, but really I just needed to minimize seepage under the letters, because some of the lines in the letters were quite narrow.

Step 3: Allow it to dry. Remove the stickers (tweezers help). Iron to set the paint. Impress your friends.

Another cool thing would have been to use freezer paper to make the outline. A duck or something could be pretty cute.

Kitchen curtains

Simple, white, cheap: Everything I was looking for in a set of kitchen curtains. I bought several yards of this funny weave-y texture-y fabric on clearance for $1/yard. Oh, and it's probably best not to sew while you're drinking -- I totally messed up the hem on the right-side curtains and had to fix it once I sobered up.

Plain, plain white -- even with a texture -- was a bit blah. I had my fancy sewing machine do an embroidery stitch as a detail throughout, using blue thread that matched the cabinets.

They'll get a little less stiff as they hang there, I know -- but I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.