Artsy and crafty

Normally I’m not inclined to do drawing/painting sorts of projects but to save some money and some space in our fairly small house I had a plan to make ChaosGirl a play kitchen.  I bought a small tablecloth and then never did anything with it.  I’m taking a mental health/cleaning/cooking day today and while I was cleaning the craft room I found the table cloth.  Taking that as a sign I proceeded to muck around with it for about an hour and have ended up with this:

Materials:

• one round end table with bottom shelf
• one round table cloth (the kind for the cheap-o little round tables that you screw the three legs on to.  I don’t recommend using one of those tables though unless you have to because they aren’t very sturdy.
• various colored Sharpies
• pipe cleaners
• that white cloth tape you use for bandaging with gauze
• scissors (regular and pinking shears if you have them)
• 1/2″ elastic (about a yard should do but measure your table first.)
• Assorted dishes to trace around

The gist of it:

Put the table cloth on the table.  Wrap the elastic around the table so that it is tight enough to hold the table cloth on but not so tight you can’t get it on and off easily. Cut to length allowing an extra inch to overlap and sew the ends together to make a big circle.  Now put the elastic back around the table and get your markers and dishes.

I used a Care Bear placemat to trace the edge of the cook top and a bowl for the outside circle of each burner.  A spice jar was a good size for the control knobs.  A square leftover container gave me the outline of the sink and a rectangle one the outline of the cutting board. The rest I free-handed.

The faucet is about half a dozen white pipe cleaners and one blue pipe cleaner twisted together and bent to a faucet shape with the blue being the water coming out of the faucet. Leave the bottom 3″ or so untwisted.  I cut a tiny hole in the cloth and stuck the bottom untwisted part of the pipe cleaners through and splayed them out to hold the faucet up. It’s not sturdy but easily fixable and if it ends up being too much of a pain I can take it off and put a little piece of tape over the hole.

I then made two cuts in the front for the oven door to be able to lift up. The oven door is about 15″ wide.  I used pinking shears in the hope it wouldn’t fray too much. We’ll see.  I then used a rectangle left over container to outline a window and cut that out.  A little marker decorates a bit.  To make it hold its shape a bit more I used the white cloth tape to attach four pipe cleaners to the underside of the door – one on each side of the window.

Yeah, I probably should have ironed the tablecloth first.

EDITED TO ADD: ChaosGirl pointed out that I forgot the buttons to turn the oven on so we had to add those.

And the oven window makes a good cat door into what may be their new favorite napping spot. 😉

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A crown for the princess

Her Highness, Princess ChaosGirl commissioned the creation of a new royal crown. If you would like to make one for your little princess or prince here is the pattern. You’re basically working a ripple on top of a straight bit of ribbing.

The first one is crown-shaped ear warmer (think Calorimetry). It’s great for when she doesn’t want to wear a hat but needs something to keep her ears from freezing. The second one is a traditional play crown.

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Crocheted Crown Ear Warmer

Materials:

• A small amount of worsted weight yarn (I used Wool-Ease for warmth)
• A small amount of lame craft cord
• I/9 (5.5 mm) hook or size appropriate for your yarn

Special Stitches:

• Dc foundation stitch – This starts out with a double crochet foundation stitch. If you do not know how to do a foundation stitch instead of a chain stitch please read this tutorial. If you start with a plain chain it may not stretch enough. ADDED: Here’s a photo tutorial of sc foundation stitch in case the first site doesn’t help enough.
• Decrease stitch – Insert hook through first sc and pull up loop. Insert hook through second sc and pull up loop. YO and pull through both loops.

Row 1: Dc foundation stitch until it is around 1/2″ shorter than the circumference of the child’s head. Make sure you have an even number of stitches. Join to form a circle. Chain 3 (this counts as your first bpdc).
Row 2: Alternate fpdc and bpdc around the circle. Join with slip stitch to third chain. Chain 3.
Row 3: Fpdc in fpdc in row 2 and bpdc in bpdc in row 2 around. Join with slip stitch to third chain. Chain 1.
Row 4: Work the following pattern around the circle: *Sc, sc, hdc, dc, hdc, sc, sc, sc* until you do not have enough space to do a complete repeat. Single crochet across to the beginning of the round. Join with a slip stitch into first sc. Chain 1.
Row 5: Work the following pattern around the circle: *decrease stitch, hdc, 3 hdc in dc, hdc, decrease stitch, sc* until you reach the end of the pattern. Work sc in all remaining sc. Join with a slip stitch into first sc. Chain 1.
Row 6: Repeat Row 5
Row 7: Work the following pattern around the circle: *decrease stitch, hdc, (hdc, dc, hdc) in dc, hdc, decrease stitch, sc* until you reach the end of the pattern. Work sc in all remaining sc. Join with a slip stitch into first sc. Tie off and weave in ends.
Row 8: Join craft cord and work sl st around the top of the crown. Tie off and weave in ends.

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Crocheted Play Crown

Materials:

• A small amount of worsted weight yarn ( I used a baby boucle)
• A small amount of lame craft cord
• I/9 (5.5 mm) hook or size appropriate for your yarn and a larger hook that will handle both your yarn and your craft cord held together ( I used an L/11 (8.0 mm))

Special Stitches:

• Dc foundation stitch – This starts out with a double crochet foundation stitch. If you do not know how to do a foundation stitch instead of a chain stitch please read this tutorial. If you start with a plain chain it may not stretch enough. ADDED: Here’s a photo tutorial of sc foundation stitch in case the first site doesn’t help enough.
• Decrease stitch – Insert hook through first sc and pull up loop. Insert hook through second sc and pull up loop. YO and pull through both loops.

Row 1: Dc foundation stitch until it is the circumference of the child’s head. Make sure you have an even number of stitches. Join to form a circle. Chain 3 (this counts as your first bpdc).
Row 2: Alternate fpdc and bpdc around the circle. Join with slip stitch to third chain. Chain 1.
Row 3: Work the following pattern around the circle: *Sc, sc, hdc, dc, tc, dc, hdc, sc, sc, sc* until you do not have enough space to do a complete repeat. Single crochet across to the beginning of the round. Join with a slip stitch into first sc. Chain 1.
Row 4: Work the following pattern around the circle: *decrease stitch, hdc, dc, 3 dc in tc, dc, hdc, decrease stitch, sc* until you reach the end of the pattern. Work sc in all remaining sc. Join with a slip stitch into first sc. Chain 1.
Row 5: Repeat Row 4 putting 3 dc in the center dc at the top of each crown point.
Row 6: Repeat Row 5
Row 7: Switch to larger hook. Join craft cord and work sc around the top of the crown holding yarn and cord together. Do 2 sc in the top of each point. Tie off and weave in ends.

Feel free to add an appropriate royal emblem on the front 🙂

Disclaimer: The yellow crown fits me. If you get more than 7 points at the top of this I’d recommend trying it on the child to make sure it fits.

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Comments or questions? Please leave a comment. Thanks!

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