How to: Make your kids drawings into a cushion...

(And more potato printing )

 The One room Challenge: Week 5

Ooooooh....nearly there folks!

One more week until the big reveal of my efforts to make over my 5 year old daughter Mia's room for the One Room Challenge!!

I am a linking participant in this awesome challenge set by Calling it home, to design and makeover a room in our home in 6 weeks. You can see my entire design process and follow the makeover by checking out my previous posts , links in the sidebar ---->

Be sure to check out the very inspiring and talented Official ORC participants makeovers here and the other linking participants progresses here.

Anyway: Don't get too jealous folks, but I'M DONE!!

Pretty much...just need to style and get it ready for the photoshoot next week!

I am itching to show you all how it's turned out, but as I don't want to jump the gun, today I thought I'd show you all how I turned Mia's drawings into some funky cushions to complete the look!

Mia has been involved with the design process of her new-look room right from the start, and it has been so much fun doing this together: From browsing pinterest finding inspiration and putting together the moodboard, to picking out furnishings and art, this makeover has all the elements that SHE wanted....

....including a plethora of funky cushions on the bed!

So last week Mia and I set about designing some fun designs to be made into cushions:

We came up with a handful of funny designs we liked, then set about enlarging them:

Mia working on the large scale drawing of one of her cushion designs

I then taped down the large drawing onto my work surface, covered it with an ironed piece of plain white fabric (that I also taped in place). I then used a fabric pen to trace the drawing onto the fabric and drew a line approximately 1" around the design to represent the shape of the cushion...

(It's not hip to be square in this case!!LOL)

 

I then mixed up some fabric paints to create the colours we wanted...

 ...and carefully coloured in the design, taking care not to go over the lines. 

TIP: Mix a little bit of water in with the paint to make it easier to paint onto the fabric, but do change to plain paper underneath the fabric before applying, as the ink on your design may bleed into the fabric!

Use a small brush to paint around details.

When I had finished painting in the colour on the fabric, I blasted it with a hairdryer to dry and set.

Then I re-drew and neatened up the lines with the fabric pen...

...and added some funky stripes to Mia's "tiger horse" for an added bit of detail.

Before ironing the finished design to set.

As I believe that the secret to all good design lies in the details,

I then set about recreating the half moon print I did on Mia's feature wall on a piece of fabric to use for the back of the cushion....just to tie in with the look of the room:

Again I used potatoes to make the pattern.

But this time using black fabric paint, and a fabric pen.

I drew up some lines, 5 cm apart on a piece of paper that I taped onto my ironing board, then placed a piece of plain white cotton on top, securing it in place with tape...

I then traced the lines onto the cotton using a ruler and the fabric pen...

Then I cut the potatoes to shape and simply painted the fabric paint directly onto the potato, before pressing the potato and printing the pattern onto the lines...

 ...when I had finished printing one section of the fabric, I blasted it with my hair drier to dry the paint, then ironing to set, before moving onto the next section of the fabric...

This way creating enough of the half-moon patterned fabric to use for Mia's cushions.

I then sewed the back panel to the front cushion design along the line that I drew up around Mia's design , using my tiny weeny sewing machine :D

If you have never sewn up a cushion before (Stop me if I'm offending you now!) just remember to pin the front and the back together facing eachother....and leave a gap along a straight bit of the seem, big enough to get your hand through.

Then I inside-outed the cushion, stuffed it with plenty of wadding and sewed shut with a hand stitch.

And that's it:

 

Mia is so proud of her cushions that she designed...

And here's a little sneaky peek as to how some of her new "monster family" of cushions look on her bed:

Fun hey?

Mia fell asleep cuddling them all last night!

I think they're a hit!

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One Room Challenge

DIY Origami Lampshade

If you are new here: Hi and welcome to Nostalgiecat !

You can read more about me and Nostalgiecat here, and you can catch up with my One Room Challenge journey so far by clicking on the thumbnails in my sidebar ->

If you have no idea what the One Room Challenge is all about, please visit Calling it home for the low-down and links to all the fabulously talented interior bloggers taking part!

I decided to join the One Room Challenge™ as a linking participant, as I needed a kick up the backside to redecorate my 5 year old daughter, Mia's room.

Being week 4 of the Challenge, It is all coming together now, and apart from some last finishing touches, like finishing off her DIY desk and making some funky cushions, it is pretty much done.

So today I am holding back a bit in terms of images of the room and instead showing you all how I made this DIY origami lampshade to fit in with our room design:

Mia had her heart set on one of these origami lamps from Studio Snowpuppe, but as it was not in our budget, I decided to DIY one....and it cost me less than £1 to make!!

£1??? I hear you say!! YEP! £1!!

I will show you how!

  I bought a roll of wallpaper lining at my local Pound shop for £1, because I wanted a continuous long sheet of paper (And I still have loads left ) But you can always stick together several sheets of A3 paper (That way you can choose whatever colour you'd like)...just make sure it is quite a weighty paper.
Because I used the plain Wall paper lining paper, I wanted to add some colour to it, and I wanted it to fit in with Mia's chosen colour scheme: So the first thing I did was to mix up some of the paint I've used in Mia's room (Some minty coloured emulsion) with some water in a spray bottle. Then I rolled out a long lenght of the lining paper, tacked it down to my work surface and sprayed the paint mixture on, creating the fun paint splatter effect you can see on the finished lampshade, above.

I let the paint dry fully, before moving on to the next, and MOST IMPORTANT step: FIREPROOFING THE PAPER:

The MOST important thing to consider when you make a lampshade out of paper, is safety, So always fire-resist your paper before folding!

I already had a bottle of Fire Check spray from a previous project, that I simply sprayed both sides of the paper with,  but you can also make your own fire proofing solution with borax and water...See how here.
NOTE: Paper can never be fully fire-proof, but this will make the paper fire-resistant (meaning it won't burn without contact with a flame or ignition source).

Then, I ironed the paper to make sure it was nice and flat (and fully dry) before I started gridding out the folding pattern on the back.

I have made this downloadable template, so that you can easily reproduce the pattern on your paper:

  Download pattern here

It has some basic instructions on it as well, make sure you read these properly!  I have added the actual measurements that I used to the template, but feel free to adjust these to fit.

Tip: Print out a copy or two, cut out the sample pattern and use it to practice the folding on!

Ok...So that is the pattern you want to reproduce on the back of your paper:

Use a pencil and ruler to draw up the folding grid...the pencil lines will actually help you create neat folds later on...

When you have finished gridding out the folding pattern, cut off any excess paper, and you are now ready to start folding your lampshade.

If you have never done any origami folding before ,watch This video to get a basic understanding of "mountain" and "valley" folds .

And do practice on a copy of the template first, to get the feel of the folding!

I am not going to lie to you, it can be a bit tricky to fold, and very tricky to explain how, but I will do my best:

Step 1: Accordion folds
You'll need to divide the entire length of the paper into 24 equal parts with these accordion folds. Start by folding the vertical lines into mountain AND valley folds Fold one way, then fold it back the other way creating a reverse fold. Take your time to get these first folds right, this will make it easier to fold the rest of the lampshade shape in the next steps.

Accordion folds

Now comes the tricky bit:

Step 2: Folding all the diagonal lines

Starting at one end of the paper, fold all the diagonal lines (maked in red on the template) into Mountain folds (towards you).  Fold ,then unfold and let the paper lay "flat", until you get to the point where it becomes difficult due to the amount of paper you have to fold over.  At this point, fold together the part you have already folded, so that the paper becomes more manageable... This can be very fiddly, but take your time (and some deep breaths) and be gentle (You don't want to rip the paper...but if you do repair with tape!) Continue to make all the folds in the paper untill you've done it all and have created the shape you see  in the bottom picture, above.

It may help to lay the folded paper out, then using your fingers to gently pop the folds into shape...

You should now be able to see the shape of your lampshade when spreading the folds apart, like above.

Use a hole puncher (Or a sharp pencil) to punch out aligning holes at both the bottom and top of your foldes paper, as shown above.

This is for your cord to go through...

But before you pull the shape together, using the cord, tape together the paper (on the inside) to create a continuous hoop...

Now you can tighten the cord to see the shape come together...

Thread both top and bottom loosely with the cord. Do the top bit first, and try to let the paper folds inside create a spirally pattern, like this^.

The origami shade is now ready for hanging:

Tighten the cords when the shade is in place on the light fitting.

NOTE! Use a low wattage light bulb to further minimize any risk of fire!

It turned out great, don't you think??

It is quite a time consuming make....and requires a lot of patience , but having saved more than £70 by making it muself: TOTALLY WORTH THE EFFORT!

I love paper lampshades as they give off such a nice glow, and I adore the geometry of origami...I just love it! 

And so does Mia...She is very proud that her mummy has actually made the lampshade for her new room!

I am really looking forward to showing you all more of how it is coming together next week, and if you want to pop back on Saturday, I have a little tutorial on a fun decoration Mia and I've made for her room!

DIY halfmoon print wall

I am currently doing up my 5 year old daughter, Mia's bedroom for The One Room challenge and on Thursday I showed you all how it's progressing, but could not fit in this tutorial on how I created the graphic feature wall.

When we were gathering our inspirations and putting together the concept board for the new design in her room, Mia really liked this wallpaper from Ferm Living. But as it was a out of our budget, I decided to DIY a similar pattern straight onto the wall, and as I promised in Thursday's Progress report post, today I am sharing the tutorial on how I did it...For less than £8!!

I used the blackboard paint that I had leftover from making her blackboard wall and some POTATOES to create the print!

Yes you heard: Potato printing on the wall!!

The only thing I spent money on, was some frogtape. And although it could be tempting to buy a cheaper masking tape, I suggest that if you want to recreate this pattern on a wall in your own home DO NOT SKIMP ON THIS!! A good quality painters tape will give you the best result!

You will also need:

Black paint (Or any other colour you fancy....it doesn't have to be Chalkboard paint)

Potatoes

Paint tray

Sponge (I simply cut mine in half so it was slimmer)

Ruler

Pencil 

Spirit level

First of all I drew up a straight line at the bottom of the wall, using my spirit level.

Although it could be tempting to use the skirting board as a guide, most houses (at least here in the UK) are not strictly straight....and it will look better if your pattern is level!

Then I applied the masking tape on the level pencil line all along the wall...

Repeat this process up the wall, making sure your tape is level throughout!

Leave a gap of about 2"/ 5cm between each line of masking tape.

The potato printing will happen between the two lines of masking tape, and the wideness of the tape (mine was approx 2,5 cm wide) will make up the gap between each row of print

Keep going until you've covered the wall.

This can be quite time consuming, but spending the time doing this right will give the best result!

Before you get ready to start potato printing, use your hands to smooth down the tape properly onto the wall...you don't want to risk the paint bleeding in under the tape...

Cover and protect any areas you don't want any paint on with masking tape , like window frames and adjoining walls etc.

Cut about 3-4 different shaped/sized potatoes in half. You want to have a variety of sizes for your print, and enough of the same potato shapes to last you for the entire wall for a consistent look.

TIP:

Make sure there is enough potato for you to grip onto, or stick a fork in the potato halves for a better grip....they will get slippery as they get covered in paint!

Place the sponge in the paint tray and pour over the paint.

Press the potato half into the paint soaked sponge and get printing...

Simply press the potato, loaded with paint, with a rolling motion onto the wall, on the upside of the masking tape.

Sometimes you may find that the print comes out a bit uneven....I didn't mind a bit of unevenness, but if I thought it was a bit much, I used the edge of the potato to drag the paint to cover, like in the video, above. Same goes for any smudged edges!

TIP:

Maybe do a practice run on a piece of wood or cardboard first to perfect the technique.

I would also suggest that you start printing in an inconspicuous area first.

 I started under the window, as I know that Mia's bed will be covering this area!

It will look quite messy as you go, but when you peel off the tape you will see that it's actually OK...

See....I had to have a look, above, to make sure!! ;D

When it comes to creating a pattern with the different shapes and sizes of potato, I found it quite productive to work on 3-4 rows at the same time, using the different potato shapes in a staggered manner!

You will get quite messy, and I would like to suggest that you regularly clean your hands to avoid smudging on the wall. You may also want to rinse your potatoes in cold water ever so often, as they get slippery and difficult to hold when they're covered in paint!

And WHATEVER you do- DO NOT try to catch a potato should it slip out of your hand: Chances are you'll catch it up against your wall, thus creating a big paint smudge!!

When the paint has fully dried, just peel off the masking tape, and use a rubber to erase your pencil marks.

Should you have a paint smudge or two, just touch up with your base colour!

I'm not going to lie to you: This is quite time consuming work, and gripping onto those potatoes was quite tiresome...but stick some music on and take your time....I love how Mia's Half moon print wall came out!

It is not quite as uniform as the wallpaper inspiration, but I think the odd shapes makes the pattern even more fun....don't you??

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