I am so excited to share this tutorial today!  Christmas is right around the corner and I’ve been working on a few homemade presents for my little 19 moth old girl.  We spend a lot of time in the kitchen together and she can play for the entire duration of our dinner prep with my measuring  cups and mixing spoons.  When I stumbled upon a wooden mini kitchen at a second hand store last month I knew it would be the perfect project to refinish and give her for Christmas.

A play kitchen can’t be complete without mini pots, pans, utensils, and of course play food!  I started searching around on the internet earlier this month and completely fell in love with all of the Melissa & Doug brand wooden fruits and veggies, I think they look classy and I’d thought they’d make a good fit with the rustic/vintage look of her kitchen.  However, I wasn’t ready to spend $25 for just a few pieces.  I looked up “diy play food” on Pinterest and found a ton of tutorials for felt food, which inspired this fabric food project.  So here we go…..

For this project you’ll need:

• Citrasolv.  This is an all-natural cleaning product that I found at Whole Foods.  I’ve also seen it in the cleaning section of my local grocery store.  If all else fails there’s always ordering online.
• Vintage Food Image, you can download here. In order to transfer, you’ll need to print with a toner based printer.  Since I have an ink jet at home, I ran to a copy center and printed it there for a couple of cents.  If you want your food to be double sided, print two copies. Images courtesy of the Graphics Fairy
• Scissors
• Cotton balls or Q-tips
• Spoon
• White or cream colored fabric for transfers
• Cotton
• Needle and thread/sewing machine

Image Transfer Process

1. Cut around each veggie/fruit and place it ink side down on the fabric
2. Apply Citrasolv to a Q-tip or cotton ball and rub the back of the image, the picture should be easily visible once the Citrasolv is applied
3. Grab a spoon, and using the flat side, rub the image
4. The paper may begin to rub away and that’s OK.  The ink is transferring to the fabric below.
5. Rub the entire image. Don’t be tempted to remove the paper to check you progress, lining the picture back up exactly where you left off can be tricky.
6. Remove the paper and marvel and the beautiful image transfer you just completed!

Repeat this transfer method for each of the pieces.  If your’e doing a double sided veggies you’ll need two of each. And if you’re going to do all of them at once you’ll definitely need a helper.  The rubbing part of the transfer cramps up your wrist.

Next, trim around the edge of each set, making sure that there’s an inch or so between the edge of the veggie and the edge of the fabric. Next, place the inked sides together, matching up the edges of the fruit as close as possible.  Sew around the fabric, about 1/4″ from the colored veggie edge, leaving a 1″ opening.  Pull the fabric right side out through the 1″ opening and fill with fluffy cotton to your desired plush-ness.  And finally, tuck the edges of the opening into the center and sew along the opening.  

TA-DA!!! All finished.  Now all that’s left is to wrap them and stick them under the tree.  I’m thinking I’ll add some fabric bread, muffins, and eggs to her fabric food set. Hope you enjoy the tutorial

My second round of planting has just proven fruitful, and we went outside today to sample a few.

I’ve been trying to do some more botanical themed art for her nursery so I came up with this printable….

download here in 8 x 10 or 4 x 6

January, a new beginning.  I always feel that the beginning of the year is a new gardening milestone for me.  Something about the start of a new year makes me feel like it’s time to start planning out beds evaluating new varieties of veggies to try in my garden.  I have to remind myself to hit the breaks a bit, after all, the last frost in Utah county is still months away.

In order to slow down my garden hungry spirit, I try to turn my attention to the indoors.  I figure if I can get the interior of my home organized and running smooth during these winter months, that once spring starts to hit I can grab my trowel, head out my back door, and never look back.  Except for some laundry and light vacuuming I guess, but that’s good enough for me!

We moved into our new house in March of last year.  Since the yard was a weed patch, there was no fence, and exactly six shrubs and nine perennials on the property we pretty much threw the moving boxes inside and began an outdoor overhaul.  Admittedly, the inside didn’t need to much work, at least in the finished and remodeled upstairs {which, when you’re moving into a home built in 1942 could have been a remodel nightmare}.  The baby came a month and a half later and my husband and I spent the next several months building fences and pergolas and filling in areas with pea gravel and delicious dark brown mulch.

Winter came and we began to turn our attention to the interior.  We’ve undertaken the task of basement finishing.  There’s been duct work replaced and plumbing re-routed, it’s an adventure to say the least.  Today I decided to try something a little less labor intensive, yet still satisfying.

The printable labels today are available individually for download.  I realize that not everyone has a quinoa canister so by leaving them as individuals you can print just for your needs. All the individual labels are grouped  in a file that can be downloaded by clicking here

You can open up the labels and print them individually as needed, they have a default size of 2″ x 4″.

Another option is to insert your chosen labels into a Word document and re-size them to fit your needs. For example my olive oil container isn’t a full 4″ across so I shrunk that one down quite a bit.  Once they are re-sized or adjusted you can print several on one sheet together.

I used this method to transfer the images using packing tape  here.

*****UPDATE**** If you’d like an adorable denim whale but aren’t up for making it yourself, you can buy one from my shop here**************************************************

I don’t claim to be a seamstress, in fact my sewing skills are novice at best.  But when I stumbled upon a denim whale on Pinterest the other day I couldn’t help but make a denim whale for my baby girls nursery.

The inspiration came from a whale I pinned off of this Finnish blog.  The pictures were great, but she didn’t give a pattern.  In fact she noted in her post that she draws her own pattern right on the fabric.  That wasn’t going to work for me.  I love to draw, but I also love to erase and redraw until I’ve got something just the way I like it.  The idea of erasing on denim didn’t really appeal to me.

So I drew my pattern out on notebook paper {which you can see pictured in my tutorial}  and made a few changes.  I wanted my whale to be a little more friendly, so a gave him some cartoon-ish features and made his lest anatomically correct.

The pattern isn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But I’ve used it to make two whales so far and it’s worked great for me.  The following tutorial is of the second whale I made, the dark blue guy pictured above.  I did a few variations at my little brother’s request and I ended up loving the changes.

My second whale has topstitched fins that we filled with fluff.  The first whale has floppy fins and tail, which I think suits him just fine.  Also, on the second go around I topstitched where the belly attaches to the top of the body.  This gave him a very distinguished, whale-like upper lip which I liked better than the embroidered smile I gave the light blue whale.

Remember, my pattern is free.  Feel free to use it to make whales for yourself, to give away, or go ahead and use it to make whales to sell.  However, please do not claim the pattern itself as your own or sell it in any way.  Also, if you repost this idea on your own blog please link it back to my blog and the original pattern.  Enjoy!

I flashed back to the hardest parts of being a girl. I remembered not having the “right” kind of toys to play with the other girls in our neighborhood.  I remembered eating lunch in the library by myself all through eigth grade.  I remembered crossing my fingers {sometimes in vain} that I would get asked to a school dance.

After the ultrasound as I was thinking about all these things wondered how I made it through.  Then I realized I not only survived but flourished because of my awesome family and specifically my own wonderful mother.  She taught me to fall in love with the garden, the feeling of really good bread dough, and how to be confident and happy with myself.  She tucked bouncy balls in my pocket to play with at recess, which is the surest way to make friends.  She reminded me that being true to myself felt better than eating lunch at the popular table. And she gave me the advice that lead me to my wonderful husband: boys make the best friends.

So the fear at having a baby girl went away completely and the excitement took over.  I get to be the mom to my very own little woman. I get to give someone what my mom gave me.  I get to teach someone how to bake chocolate chip cookies, and how to deadhead roses.

I’ve come to terms with pink and I’m starting to decorate my little girls nursery. With the hopes of instilling in her a love of dirt, I’m painting some decorations.  I’m sharing this watercolor printable.  The one stipulation is that you use it for personal use only.  Enjoy!