Craft This Update and Name Banner Sale!

From now until November 26th I will be offering name banners for the very special price of $5/letter with flat rate shipping of $5.00. They are available in custom colours. Please message me at tinyelephantboutique@gmail.com to set up your order today.

For those of you following "Craft This!", it will be returning in the New Year. Due to time constraints during the holiday, we have decided to forgo the challenges until the New Year, but we are very excited about starting up again then - hope to see you all joining us in January!

FREE SHIPPING

All orders made from the shop before Friday, October 22nd, 2010 will receive free shipping (will ship from NY state).

Watch for my table decoration and a couple more pairs of mittens in the shop later today!

Craft This! October 4, 2010

This week's Craft This! topic was housewares. I had a really hard time coming up with something to do, because I wasn't sure what kind of "household" thing I could make. I had already finished my curtains, didn't feel the placemat love, and didn't have fabric that I wanted to make napkins out of. When I woke up Sunday I was thinking about the Fall Festival that we were going to attend later that day, and inspiration hit.

I present this Autumn themed table decoration. It is 18x15" and will be listed in the shop later this week.



Jess over at Pecan Sandies has been busy at work in her daughter's bedroom sewing up curtains and finishing up some other small projects. She'll be blogging all about it later, and I will add one of her pictures then!

This week's theme is manly. Can't wait to see what you all come up with next!

Add your housewares project to the linky below!

Craft This! Weekly - September 27

The inspiration word for this week's Craft This! Weekly challenge was Halloween.

The first thing that came to my mind when I thought of Halloween was how cute my kids are going to look when they dress up in their costumes and go trick or treating.... I wondered how I could up the cuteness factor EVEN MORE, and decided to craft some cute trick or treat bags for them. The larger jack o' lantern bag is for my daughter, and the spider bag is for my son (although my daughter insists that they are actually both for her.







Jessica at Pecan Sandies blew me away with another of her beautiful costumes. This time she made a princess gown



This week's inspiration word is housewares! Have fun and make a household item!

Please enter your addition to last week's "Halloween" theme below

Craft This! Weekly - September 20, 2010

The inspiration word for this week's Craft This! Weekly challenge was organize. What room in my home couldn't benefit from a little organization? The answer is that I could use a LOT of inspiration to organize my entire home. Since this is "Craft This! Weekly", I got inspired by organize, and spent some quality time organizing my craft supplies and project lists.

I know... there are RULES. You're supposed to make something inspired by the chosen word. That being said, one of the most key things about Craft This! Weekly is that it is meant to encourage people to take the inspiration from the word and go out and do something - sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but at the end of the week, you've done something new.

So I broke the rules, I followed my inspiration, and my crafting spaces are better for it, I think.

I freecycled a bag of knitting needles and a lot of yarn, filled a bag full of scraps to stuff toys with, and bagged up "project bags" and boxes filled with specific materials for projects. Keeping everything all together should make it easy to just go for it when inspiration hits, right?

Some of the things on the agenda in the next little while:



A knitted owl vest that needs only a collar put on it.



Bags of projects. Knitted vegetables and knitted Sheldon the turtle for stocking stuffers, socks for a special someone, and more!



Two of my larger project boxes. A knitted fishy blanket and my goal of donating 1,000 preemie items.



A basket of yarn waiting to be turned into nice warm mittens for the shop.



A very small peek at the very special quilting project that I have on the go right now.

Jessica at Pecan Sandies followed the rules and made great storage cubes. Read all about it here.



This week's inspiration word is Halloween! Let's see what spooky crafts you come up with!

Please enter your addition to last week's "organize" theme below.

Craft This! Weekly - September 13, 2010

The theme for this week's Craft This! Weekly was "eco-friendly". I decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and to work on a holiday product, and a new product for the shop.

I made reusable, reversible bag for packaging holiday gifts.







Made from incredibly cute holiday fabrics, this bag is totally reversible, wonderfully eco-friendly, and is easily tied with a bow to make it fit gifts of various sizes. I will be listing bags and sets of bags in the shop within the next couple of weeks.

Jessica from Pecan Sandies made reusable sandwich containers for her partner. Check out her blog post here.

This week's theme is "organize".

Add your eco-friendly project here:

Craft This! Weekly September 6, 2010

Craft This! Weekly has moved to a new day of the week. Expect a blog post with results and the next week's theme every Monday from this point on.

Between the weather being uncooperative for photos, and the fact that I should be starting taking some classes for school this week, and the untimely loss of the bias tape that I bought to finish this project, I don't have pictures of my entry for this week.

It's a baby quilt in a Classic Pooh motif, and I promise to upload pictures of it as soon as I have it finished (it's at the top of my To Do pile), just waiting for me to find the bias tape.

Jess at Pecan Sandies made the cutest little doll mei tai for her adorable daughter.





This week's theme is "eco-friendly". I can't wait to see all of the eco-friendly projects that you come up with.

Add your "baby" themed project to the Craft This! linky below.

Tiny Dancer Room Makeover

We finally were able to finish Tiny Dancer's new bedroom on Wednesday. It didn't get done this weekend because my husband ended up taking another shift at work. We did get it all finished now (minus her name banner), though.

Butterflies on her closet door, and a framed print that her G.G. (Great Grandma) picked up in Manitoba for her from the International Peace Garden. It has a teddy bear wearing an American shirt and another wearing a Canadian shirt, very appropriate!



This hamper we found at The Christmas Tree Store in Buffalo, NY. It's so perfect. The sparkly flowers that are at the top of her grass in these pictures are also from there, I believe. Her shelf houses a bookshelf painted by her Meema and some of her favourite books. On top of the shelf there is a basket that was decoupaged by G.G. for me several years ago.



Her green clock was a Walmart special and in this picture you can see a little bit of her bedding, another of her sparkly flowers, and part of the "braces board" that I made so that when she is wearing her braces she does not damage the newly painted walls.



A picture of her new bed. I made the cover for the bedrail so that it was prettier. The ladybug sitting on the bed is from Ikea, and isn't that bedding the sweetest? Tiny Dancer's Meema found it online and knew she just had to have it!



These rainbow curtains are made from flannel and the backs of them are actually a new table cloth that I scored from a garage sale while I was still attending highschool. That was 8 years ago and I still hadn't found a use for the tablecloth. The blinds are bamboo. The moon reading light is from Ikea.



I got the idea for rain gutter bookshelves from several blogs online, but I believe it all started at Raising Olives. The ended up being the perfect addition to her room. The little doll in the corner likes to sit on the bookshelf, and the chair is actually inflatable and was part of her Rose Petal Cottage that no longer fits into her room!



A better picture of the rain gutter bookselves, and you can see a little bit of her rug in this picture.



The perfect place for a little girl to store her bows and hang her purses and backpack. The Tiny Dancer loves purses and so I wanted her to have a place where she could store them and still have access to them. What a pretty way this was!

I hope that you enjoyed looking at the pictures from our room makeover, we had a lot of fun doing it. Next up is the baby's Pirate Room.

Craft This Weekly August 27, 2010

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this on the blog yet, or not, but the Tiny Dancer is getting a room makeover. It's happening this weekend, actually. That's why it thrilled me a little bit when I returned from vacation to see that the theme of the week was "YELLOW". Fabulous! I was planning on remaking a little table that I found at Value Village for a dollar to go in our garden themed big girl room!

With a coat of yellow spray paint (I have discovered that I may very well be the World's Worst Spray Painter) and some forgiving cut outs of bugs and flowers from scrapbooking paper, I'm quite pleased with how this little shelf turned out. Right now it's just podged on, but I plan on sealing the whole thing with a clear coat of spray.

I can't wait to finish up her room this weekend. I will surely be posting pictures as soon as I have it finished.

Jess at Pecan Sandies made a really cute wetbag. I absolutely love that fabric. You can read all about it here.

It's my turn to think of a theme, and so I've decided to go with "baby" in honour of some babies that should be making an appearance in the next few months.

Please enter a picture of the craft that you made with "yellow" inspiration below. Add a link to your blog if you have one.

Craft This! Weekly - August 20th, 2010

This week's theme was "school".

I had every intention of making a school themed project. I thought of knitting an apple for the teacher, making a cute backpack for the Tiny Dancer to take to preschool with her in the Fall, or paint a fun chalkboard space in the new playroom. None of these things got accomplished because I am vacationing out of the country.

So this week I'm going to send you over to Pecan Sandies, where Jess will be happy to host for this week - and has she ever got a treat in store for you!

Thanks!

Craft This! Weekly - August 13th

Do you ever have one of those crafting days where it feels like everything you touch is gold? Maybe it's the day that you finally learned to cable, if you are a knitter; or the day you learned how to do a french seam, if you sew.

The day that I accepted this week's challenge was not one of those days. I have loads of experience putting zippers into pouches, and the zipper on this holiday inspired GPS case is not set well at all. I regularly do machine quilting - my name banners are my most popular item.... yet the quilting on this pouch is zaggy. The design is not spot on, and the whole thing was just one big face-palm.

That's OK, though.... because this challenge isn't in place so that every week you come away with a perfect product. It is about being inspired to try new things, go outside of your comfort zone (which actually - this pouch shouldn't have been outside of my comfort zone), and sometimes to make some mistakes.



In spite of the fact that I had a lousy sewing day, my husband loves his new GPS pouch.

Jess at Pecan Sandies made a fantastic Halloween costume - it's a 19th Century inspired toddler dress. I absolutely adore this! Follow the link and read all about it here.



I've asked Megan from Gifts and Occupation to come up with a theme for this week, and she chose "School". Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Please enter a picture of the craft that you made with "holiday" inspiration below. Add a link to your blog if you have one.

Grand Opening

Yesterday was the Grand Opening for Tiny Elephant Boutique



A row of pillowcase dresses.



Some of them are in such sweet vintage fabrics.



An example of one of my name banners.

Readers get free shipping, just send me a message on etsy and I will ship from Buffalo, NY this weekend!

Craft This! Weekly - August 6

"Retro" was this week's inspiration word. I spent all week thinking about what I was going to make... should I do something with records? Should I do something with a piece of vintage fabric? What about something inspired by a time period??? The options seemed endless. Then I woke up this morning and realized that it was Friday and I hadn't even started on this week's project beyond daydreaming about all of my options.

I present to you, a 50's inspired dress up costume for my Tiny Dancer.















She adores it and she won't take it off now, in spite of the fact that she really wasn't too enthused about taking pictures of herself in it.

Jess at Pecan Sandies made a fabulous retro inspired apron. I think it's super cute and may have to add one to my own funky apron collection! You can read all about it here



It's my turn to think of a theme, and since we're about to take a vacation I'm going to leave with the theme "holiday". Have fun!

Please enter a picture of the craft that you made with "retro" inspiration below. Add a link to your blog if you have one.

Craft This! Weekly July 30, 2010

Another Friday, another results post and new Craft This! Weekly challenge.

This week's challenge was the word "eating". I spent a good portion of the week wondering what I was going to do with an "eating" theme. There were a lot of possibilities - should I make some felt food? A table cloth or table runner? Or maybe some bibs? Since I intend to sell bib sets in the shop, I decided to work on a bib pattern. Here is what I came up with:







Jessica from Pecan Sandies made some very cute playfood. Check out her post here.

This week's challenge word is chosen by Jessica. The theme is "retro" and I can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Please enter a picture of the craft that you made with the inspiration "eating" below. Add a link to your blog if you have one.

Craft This! Weekly July 22, 2010

It's Friday! The start of the weekend and the day that we show the results from last week and present the new "Craft This! Weekly" challenge.

Last week's challenge word was "alphabet" and here is what we did with it:

This week's theme (chosen by Jessica at Pecan Sandies) could not have been more perfect for me. We are currently going through renovations and the prevalent theme in our playroom is letters and numbers. It seemed obvious that I should make some new curtains for the room out of some A B C fabric that I had from the "Back to School" range of fabrics designed by Ellen Krans.

Jessica made an awesome felt board with letters, numbers, and shapes. Check out her blog post about it at Pecan Sandies

This week's word was chosen by me. It is "eating". Can't wait to see what you all come up with!

-El

Please enter a picture of your crafty project below with your blog address. Thanks!

Pillowcase Dress in Pink Vintage Fabric

I'm trying to decide if I should offer pillowcase dresses in the etsy shop when it opens, and so I was playing around with some styles, decorations, and fabric today. I made this sweet pillowcase dress for my daughter with a pink vintage floral pattern with raised white dots. The ribbon is a durable white satiny ribbon. My photography style is the patented "Snap a bunch of pictures while she runs around like a mad thing and hope that some turn out".

Be sure to check in tomorrow to post a link to your take on the "Craft This! Weekly" challenge! Next week's challenge will also be posted.