Bookshelf Quilt

 This project was a labor of love! I started making my little sister a quilt featuring her favorite books back in November as a Christmas gift. After getting a list of books from her, I screenshotted and photoshopped each book to look like it was sitting on a bookshelf. Then, I used my Brother Printmoda Fabric Printer to print the pieces out. I found a couple images of frames online and photoshopped her pictures into them as well. 

Then, I started and stopped about 15 times, removing hundreds of stitches because it just wasn't going the way I wanted. I decided to get her something else and would finish the quilt when I had time and the magic I needed to get it done.

Fast forward to December 23. I got a notification from FedEx that her present was delayed in the mail and wouldn't arrive before we left for my mom's house. I couldn't show up with no gift for my favorite little sister! So I buckled down, after finishing my mom's Christmas quilt at 11:30 pm, and pulled out the dozens of pieces I prepped and got down to business. I have no idea what time I finished the quilt top, but knew I needed a very simple digital pantograph because 1. It's the middle of the night and it needs to get done and 2. the pieces are so detailed the Internet suggested horizontal or wavy lines that are separated enough to blend in and not ruin the look of the books. My main goal was that there were two quarter-size faces of her I didn't want to stitch over (spoiler alert: it did). I learned a ton while making this and will definitely know how to improve should I make another one in the future. 

Anyway, I also didn't get a picture before gifting, but here it is. I managed to finish at 4:40 am, just in time for my husband to suggest we go ahead and make the drive to my mom's because he was awake for the day and I could sleep in the truck. I still haven't reclaimed my sleep schedule, but she absolutely loved it!

And here is a picture of my 13 year old puppy, Elsie, hating dressing up but loving all the family snuggles! 

New Craftroom Bookshelves

I can't imagine being any more excited than I am right now! When we moved to the new house, we agreed that the whole basement (minus the room with HVAC) would be my craft room. We wanted a guest room with ultimate privacy, so I'm turning the room down there with a door into a Harry Potter themed guest room, but the rest of it is mine, all mine! lol  The first thing we did was have the brown carpet torn up and replaced with a wood-like waterproof floor. There was carpet down the stairs, too, so we had hardwood put in. It was by far the most expensive part of the whole project. It looks SO good! 

The next thing I did was decide that my children's books were going to stay here, not at school, so I could bring them in as needed. That's what is in the 35+ Lowes boxes in the picture below. To make it work, we decided that the back wall should be a wall of shelves. 

 

After a trip to IKEA for Billy Bookcases, my wonderful sister spent the weekend helping me build the wall of my dreams. I put wallpaper on the back of each shelving unit before installing, which looks great, and then painted the trim the same blue color as the guest bedroom next door to it. 

Here are the shelves nearly complete. You can see we still had the brown carpet at that point, so I had ripped up enough to do my job. 

And here it is completed! I have a few more boxes of books that won't quite fit, along with some clear totes for other teaching stuff, so I'll get some big storage shelves that won't be as pretty to go around it, but here is the first look at my beautiful library!