First Sewing Project!

Kevin's parents bought me a sewing machine for Christmas, so I was very excited to get started on some sewing projects.  I started with getting my machine set up (very easy and straightforward), they got me a Singer and I love it. 

 

To get my machine situated, I needed to clean our office; so I spent a weekend doing this:

I'm a little embarrassed to show this, but our office had become a dumping ground for everything ... and while I have started doing more "crafts" I did not have a good method of organizing them.

 I made a quick trip to The Dollar Store for some cheap containers, and picked up a shoe rack shelf from Target, and ended up with this:

Much better ... and I now know where all of my crochet and sewing supplies are
Other side:

Now for my project, I really would like to make new curtains for our bedroom, but I am waiting on enough of a budget to re-do the entire room before I make a decision on curtains, so I went on a mission to find another little project to do.

It all started with this idea from one of my favorite blogs: http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com/2012/01/diy-makeup-brush-roll.html, a DIY makeup brush roll from a placemat!  Seriously, how smart is that?  It is also pretty relevant for me because I have just started using Bare Escentuals Makeup (which I love), which has increased the amount of makeup brushes I have.  We are also going on vacation soon, so having some new travel accessories will be nice. Instead of jumping right into the placemat idea, I did a little Pinteresting and some Googling and came across this website: Sew 4 Home makeup brush case and decided I was up for a little more of a challenge.  The tutorials on this site are super easy to follow, and I really feel like I learned some new skills .... like I had never attached a binding before, much less made my own.  I didn't do a full step by step because 1. I don't know what I'm talking about, I followed their instructions, and 2. I think you should just go off their website (I have nothing more to offer!).


I got my fabric (on sale) at JoAnn Fabrics(we have a nice, big, new store near us).  I picked from the "home decor" section because they were on sale.  The white is leftover lightweight batting I had from another project and for the interior "laminate" part of the case I used an iron on vinyl I had leftover from something else as well.  I just ironed it on to the green fabric after I had the correct size cut out.

 Cut out and ready to sew

 I used paper to make my stitch guides instead of the recommended wax paper, I would definitely go with wax paper ... the regular paper was really hard to remove.

 All done ... inside

 Outside

I am very happy with the results, even though I should have put the effort in to customize the size of the brush pockets.  I also have a boost of confidence after this project, so I am going to try and complete the Makeup Case and Flat Iron holder from the same website before we go away.  I'll keep you updated.