Mattress Tutorial for Witch Bed

Yesterday I posted a little witch bed made from a neat Spider Web Wrought Iron Playing Card from Alpha Stamps and am now going to show you how to sew the mattress. It is pretty small, so if you prefer to hand sew it, it won't take too long. I used the sewing machine to make it a bit quicker to finish.

Materials:
Heavyweight cardstock, watercolor paper, any thick paper will do
Mattress Fabric
Stuffing of any variety
Needle and thread
About an hour

Here is the template for the mattress. I posted how this is made yesterday. This will be inserted inside the mattress, making it rigid. Because I wanted a tufted mattress, I poked holes in the cardstock template so I could later sew through the fabric and the template. Mine aren't even but that's okay.

For the mattress stuffing I went with wool roving, mostly because I have a huge bin of it. Polyfil would work, or thin upholstery foam, or a bunch of unrolled cotton balls; dryer lint would be fine too. A few layers of wool were stacked together, the template was placed on top, and I cut around the template.

Trace around the template onto two pieces of fabric and cut out, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance. The strip of fabric with diagonal lines will be used to make piping around the top of the mattress and the other strip will go along the middle of the mattress. I did not measure these- it was a completely eyeballed project- but the piping strip is somewhere around 5/8" wide and about 16" long. The middle strip is 1" wide by 16" long. (so I guess I did measure them, huh?)

Fold the piping strip in half and sew close to raw edge. I considered placing a length of embroidery floss inside the fold, thinking it would replicate real piping a little better, but hey. It worked out okay without it.

Match raw edge of piping with raw edge of top piece and sew around with 1/4" seam. Turn under the raw edge of one end then place it over the other end to join.

Couldn't even be bothered to change out the thread. Lime green it is!

Match raw edges of mattress side piece to raw edges of front, right sides together, clip corners, and sew around, 1/4" seam again. Don't forget to fold under the raw edge of the end!

Place back piece on top and sew around, leaving one long side open.

Insert stuffing and cardstock template inside.

Sew closed.

Now to make the tufts. Thread a needle and knot the ends together. From the back of the mattress, fish around until you find a hole in the template and poke the needle through. Pull thread almost all the way to the front, insert the needle a little below where it came out, then push it to the back. Insert needle between the threads and pull tight. It will dimple the fabric on the front.

Then move to next hole, but when you come through to the back, slide the needle under the thread next to the hole, then under the loop. Pull tight and make another knot in the same way. You could be neater about it and just make all the tufts the same way the first one is made then snipping the thread and repeating. 

Turn your mattress over and be amazed at how cute it is! 

It needed sheets, so I placed the mattress on my sheet fabric and cut around, leaving an inch on all sides. The corners were cut out then the edges were folded up (right sides together) and sewn along the straight edge. Repeat for all corners. 

Sew a little casing around the raw edge, insert thin elastic in casing, tie ends of elastic together. Place on bed. All done!

Happy mattress making! :D

Witch's Bed and Table

This month, the design team for Alpha Stamps was sent a few new die cut playing cards to...well, play around with! The Spider Web Wrought Iron one caught my eye and I decided to transform it into a bed for a witch. My decision to use the spider web card had nothing to do with the need to craft Hallowe'en things, I swear. The table was an afterthought, made by gluing a wood finial to a wood disk, painting it, then adding a Dresden trim along the edge. The table top has an embossed design using a stamp from the Curiosity Cling Stamp set. 

The construction is quite simple, and I'm going to show you how to do it. You will need:

Spider Web Wrought Iron Playing Card
Balsa wood approx. 3" x 4 7/8" x 1/4" (bed base. It is the same dimensions as the card)
Basswood Strip 3/16" x 2/16" cut into lengths of the following size:
                              4" long- cut two (headboard legs)
                              2 1/2" long- cut two (footboard legs)
                              3" long- cut two (supports)
Basswood Strip 3/16" wide by 4 13/16" long (side supports)
Scrapbook paper
Saw
Paint 
Glue

First, trace around the card back onto heavyweight cardstock/drawing paper/watercolor paper, then scootch the back about 3/16" down and trace around the end again. Cut along traced line. The card back will become the headboard and footboard and the cardstock will later become part of the mattress. The mattress needs to be shorter to accommodate all the bulk. You will have to adjust the length of your mattress if you plan on using thicker fabrics for bed linens. I will have the tutorial for the mattress tomorrow.

Measure 2 3/8" from top of card back and 1 1/2" from bottom of card back. Cut along lines. The larger piece will be the headboard and the smaller, the footboard. Save the middle piece, we need a strip of that for the footboard. Cut the card front using the same measurements. See those two skinny bits? They come in handy if you have to apply glue to something small. Or fold them in half and use them as paper doll stands. Or just throw them on the floor and sweep them up later. 

Next, trim off 1/4" from the headboard front. I wanted my headboard to be flush with the bed base, so I trimmed off 1/4" which is the same width (or is it depth?) as the balsa wood I used for the bed base. Because we want the footboard to be nice and tidy, we need to add a piece along the bottom to frame it out. Cut a strip from the saved bit that fits inside the footboard. I eyeballed mine, and it is crooked. Meh.

Paint all the pieces! Including the balsa wood bed base, supports, and legs.

Paper all the pieces! No, not really. Just the headboard and footboard. Ink around the paper edges and add color to the webs if you like. 

Next, glue headboard front to headboard back and footboard front to footboard back. Also glue on the extra trimmed bit. See how nice that looks? Grab the bed base and glue a 3" long support to both ends of the bed. (The photo after the next one will show you exactly where to glue the support for the headboard, whereas the footboard support is aligned with the end of the bed base.) Here you see the headboard and legs, footboard and legs, the balsa wood bed base with two support pieces glued on either end, and two additional supports pieces that don't belong in this pic and should be on the floor with the rest of the unusable pieces.

As I said, the headboard support is glued to the bottom of the bed base but with a tiny bit jutting out. The headboard will be resting on this and hopefully make the bed sturdier. The footboard support is glued flush with the other end since I did not want to see the support from the front of the bed. The purpose of that support is mainly to have additional surface area to glue on the footboard, thus making it durable. It makes sense in my head anyway! 

Headboard freshly glued flush to bed base and on lip of support.

Footboard glued to bed base.

Okay, now there are probably a thousand better ways to glue on the legs but this is the kooky way I did it.  Maybe because it's wine in my mug and not coffee. The bed is 1" from the floor, so I placed it on four 1" cubes and then weighed it down with something heavy. (EasyMold kit worked pretty well!) Glue the 4" long basswood strips to the headboard and 2 1/2" long ones to the footboard.

Lastly, glue 4 13/16" long side supports to both sides of bed. It's a bed!

The bed needed a mattress:

Sheets and a pillow:

And finally, a blanket with a really cool design (courtesy of the All Seeing stamp in the Curiosity Cling Stamp set). I used another one of the stamps to emboss the top of the table. All of the stamps in that set are interesting and will most likely show up in a lot of my projects. Thanks, Leslie!

Supplies List:

Spider Web Wrought Iron Playing Card
Basswood Strips 3/16" 
Curiosity Cling Stamp Set
Tiny Antique Silver Crown
10mm Clear Glass Marble
Large White Turquoise Skull
Ceramic Black Cat Bead
Astrology Backgrounds collage sheet
Alchemy Collage Sheet
Tiny Divination Cards collage sheet
Tim Holtz Vignette wood Finials
Thin Looped Dresden Borders- Black

3" wooden disk, bag of balsa wood (assorted sizes), modeling wax, toothpick. Happy crafting to you!

Tilly, the Junker Jane Doll

I recently joined a Junker Jane inspired swap over on Craftster. It seemed like a fun and relatively anxiety-free swap. 

And then I attempted to make one.

Uh, no. Cute? Maybe. Junker Jane style? Nope. Nevertheless, one of my kids claimed him as her own and named him Jack.

After a few more attempts (none that I care to share here, or anywhere else for that matter, as they were utterly disastrous), I ended up with something Junker Jane-ish. Her name is Tilly and she scares the snot out of Jack's owner. 

Wednesday Addams Silhouette Shrine

Sometimes you need a little Hallowe'en in your life. Who am I kidding? There needs to be an abundance of Hallowe'en all the time! I decided to spend a few hours crafting, just for me, and made a Wednesday Addams shrine to add to my growing collection of spooky things. 

I started with an ATC sized shrine with feet from Alpha Stamps, which is small and easy enough to transform in an afternoon. The shrine topper is a chopped up Miniature Reliquary, a snippet of  black Halloween Mesh Web Ribbon, and two miniature flying bats. 

On the back is another slightly chopped reliquary and bat, but what really finished this project was the Half Scale Widow's Walk Fencing. Its gothic tininess around the base of the shrine worked out nicely. Plus, it is super cute at only 1" high! After the bats, it is my favorite thing of the entire project.

Here is a quickie tutorial for you: getting the cleaver to balance on its point. It is deceptively simple. First, apply a dollop of hot glue to the back of your item and let it pool at the bottom, then pull the glue out at the end (in essence, making an "L" shape. Or a slug shape. Whatever.) Hold in place until dry.

Trim off any visible glue from the front of the piece, leaving the long "tail" of glue that is hidden behind.

Paint the hot glue the same color as the base of your project (black in my case), then you have a little foot of sorts to adhere to your project  and it is virtually invisible. It is witches' magic, I tell you!

Happy Hallowe'en crafting to you!

Supply List can be found HERE.

Aunt Tess's Cupboard and a Wishing Well

I have had an old Canterbury Greenleaf dollhouse for ages now and got as far as assembling it before quitting on it. It still sits, naked, because I can't make up my mind as to how to decorate it. A witch's residence? Christmas cottage? A little shop? Who knows! But this month I received the Matchbox Cabinet kit from Alpha Stamps which includes a dollhouse sized cabinet with a door, shelf, and tons of bottles and jars to decorate and store inside. It is adorable! It would also work well as a bookshelf.

My cabinet decided it wanted to be old, well-used, and suitable for maybe an aging farmhouse. It was glued together, gessoed, then painted with beige paint. Finally, it was covered with white glue and a coating of white acrylic paint, creating the aged effect. The center of the door was cut out and  "chicken wire" was added.  More on that in a sec.

Inside the cupboard is every sort of pantry item you could think of. Even a condiment bottle and cocoa container! Having a few different collage sheets of labels made it really easy to fill the shelves. In about an hour, I had a handful of items after gluing on labels and occasionally painting a lid. There are two jars, one with peach halves and one with pickles, that were made from polymer clay, an even tinier jar, resin, and a scrap of fabric. There was still room to cram in a spice rack (thanks, Leslie!) and a few baby food jars worked perfectly as the spice containers. I love those jars. The lid comes off and you can fill it with (a tiny amount of) whatever you wish! I built a little rack from balsa wood and made concave sections to hold the jars at an angle by wrapping sandpaper around a thin dowel and sanding the wood. So simple.

The chicken wire is actually a piece of tulle netting that was colored with a silver Sharpie. The holes in the chicken wire were accidentally made with a heat gun, but I liked the look and left it.

So maybe I will turn that naked dollhouse into a rustic charmer and stick Aunt Tess's cupboard in the kitchen. 

A list of everything used can be found HERE, including those teensy baby food jars.

In addition to the Matchbox Cabinet, Alpha Stamps also added several sizes of mini cigar boxes. I left the door off the matchbox sized one and built a wishing well scene inside it. The well is made from basswood strips and cardboard, and the rest is sticks and clump foliage. The stars were an afterthought- the space was in need of something- so I glued three short sections of invisible thread between two folded strips of paper (one on each end) then glued the paper inside the well. Added the stars and then it was finished.

HERE are the supplies used for the wishing well. Just add sticks.

Happy crafting!

More Hats for the Cat

I am still crocheting holiday hats for Chaircat Mao, and here are the latest ones:

 Mohawk

Failed sunshine hat

Pigtails

and a Viking Helmet

She must think her left side is her good side.