Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Christmas Crafting - Round 3





Ear warmers!!

I actually made a total of 5 of these over the weekend. 2 as Christmas gifts, 1 for myself, and 1 for each of my girls. (I'm not posting the Christmas ones just in case the intended recipients read my blog. I'm pretty sure they don't even know it exists, but ya never know... :) )  I got my pattern from Petals to Picots, and it worked up so nicely! The headband part only took about 30 minutes total. The flower was a little tricky in the beginning, but by my second one, I was able to make one in 20 minutes or so. 


A was so excited to wear her new ear warmer - even though it was 55* yesterday. :) She picked the yarn out herself at Rapunzel's in Frankenmuth this past summer when we were on vacation. The two of us could have spent hours in there. They have so many beautiful yarns and unique buttons! 



Linked at:

Monday, January 30, 2012

Shabby Heart Valentine's Day Shirt!

My big kid LOVES holidays. They're all special to her for unique reasons. Why does she love Valentine's Day? The pinks, reds, hearts, and love! So, she needs a special shirt for the special day, right? Of course!! (If we're being totally honest here, I love holidays too!)

Last year I made her a cut-out heart shirt and matching skirt. This year, I wanted to do a little something different. Plus, I'm still on my applique kick from the pillowcases. :)

I saw this adorable giraffe shirt here and knew that was going to be my technique this year!! Super easy and so fun!

My awesome husband came across some extra plain colored long sleeved T's while organizing the girls closet (that's a Daddy job around here, ya know? :) ), and I had a bunch of leftover fabric bits from my craft show projects... It's like this little shirt was really meant to be!



This is my first real tutorial. I'm waaaay better at talking than writing, so hopefully this is easy enough to follow. :)

To start out, you'll need a shirt (got mine from ON when they do all their crazy clearance sales at the end of the season), a pattern, fabric, fusible webbing (I used Heat & Bond), thread, sharp scissors, a ruler, a sewing machine, an iron, and a pencil.





You’ll want to lay your pattern onto your base fabric (the light pink and white striped here) to determine the size of your fabric pieces. I like to have some extra to work with, so I cut my fabric pieces a good amount larger than my pattern. 




Determine how far apart you want your stitch lines to be and draw them on the back of your base piece. Ultimately, I went with 1/2 inch increments. 





Stack your fabric pieces and pin them like there's no tomorrow!





 Now stitch along all of the lines you just drew.


(I didn't go the whole way to the edges of my fabric - just as little larger than my pattern.)



Next up - cutting! You're going to cut through the top 4 layers of fabric. DO NOT cut your base fabric! Start at one edge and work your way across.



When you're done, it should look something like this -




Now we need to apply the webbing. Trace your pattern (remember to reverse it if it's directional) onto the smooth side (paper side) of the webbing. 




Then iron it onto the back of your base fabric. 




Cut it out, peel the paper backing off, and determine the placement on your shirt. Iron it in place.




Carefully zigzag stitch around the outer edge of the heart. 




In order to achieve the shabby look, you need to wash and dry the shirt a few times. 


before


after


See how the edges are starting curl up so nicely? Another round or two in the washer, and it should be fabulous! 



Linked at: 




Thursday, January 26, 2012

Grandma!

One of my goals for 2012 was to make a thankful journal smash book style (thanks Jenny!!). I made it…kind of…and haven’t written in it since the 3rd or 5th of January. Not really shocking for me. I don’t think my brain works that way. I scribble stuff down in the journal of randomness that I keep beside my bed (you know, for all those thoughts that plague me while I’m trying to fall asleep. My brain seems to go into overdrive at that point in the day for some bizarre reason…probably because the house is finally quiet…anyway), but I’m really bad at doing it daily. I think (hope!!) “Thankful Thursday” will be a good fit for me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Today, I am thankful for my Grandma H. At 87, she’s my only living grandparent. I deeply cherish our weekly phone chats. We usually talk a lot about the weather, my girls, and the crops, but lately, she’s been telling me more stories of my dad, aunts & uncle, and her own childhood. I love hearing about those memories and learning more of my family history. 


Grandma & me at my aunt's wedding last summer



I'm especially thankful that my girls have had the chance to know her and spend time with her. 

Grandma & A





Grandma & C


During our summer trip to Michigan (where I was born and where most of my family still lives) 2 years ago, we loaded up Adam's laptop and our scanner, and I spent two days in Grandma's living room scanning old photos (some from the 1890's!!) and hearing the stories. It was hands down, one of my favorite trips ever! 

Just a few of my favorites - 

me, Grandma, my cousin



my grandparents on their wedding day


They were married during WWII when many things were rationed - including fabric, so they had to make due with what they had - thus no fancy white dress. :)


Love! 






Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Christmas Crafting - Round 2

Last weekend, I totally cheated on my Christmas crafting by making another pillowcase. I’m still getting used to my new work schedule, and it’s sucking the life out of me. I’m sure it’ll get better once I settle in to the new routine. :)

A pocket pillowcase for my nephew! I really enjoyed making this one and changing the rick-rack out for fabric strip to make it more suitable for a boy.



I promise something new for Christmas crafting next week!  

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Let's talk about fabric...

...more specifically, boy fabric.


I attended a baby shower this past weekend for one of my most awesome friends – seriously, it’s like we were separated at birth. (Part of the reason I’ve had this blog for forever but rarely posted is because I’m forever getting sidetracked. If this were a actual conversation, I’d now go off on a tangent about how similar Jes and I are, about our antics, her wedding, all kinds of good stuff before coming back around to real reason I began the story in the first place – and I do (almost) always come back around to the point, but not until I’ve completed over-shared. Anywho…) I knew I wanted to make her gift, but there was a slight issue with that. That sweet little baby swimming around in her belly? It’s a BOY! Don’t get me wrong – I love little guys. I have two nephews that I adore, (1 by blood, 1 by my BFF – see? Forever sidetracked!) but trying to find fabric in regular everyday craft stores for boys that isn’t nursery, character or sports themed is incredibly difficult!

Enter the awesomeness of Hobby Lobby! We just got one of these in my little (small in size, large in population, I’m not a fan, but what’s a girl to do?) corner of the world. Thankfully it’s close to my office but not to my house. Otherwise I’d be there all the time. I trekked over on my lunch break last week and was so excited to see such great “boy” patterned fabric. They had so many sets of coordinating fabrics geared toward the guys without all the crazy stereotypical themes. Instead of the usual “eh, I guess this will work, because it’s really my only option” feeling about boy fabric, I had a really hard time choosing! YAY!

I ended up going with a gray, chocolate brown, lime, teal, and white fabric, but it was a hard decision. There was set of coordinating fabrics in gray, navy, orange, maroon, and white that I loved too! 

Enough with the jabbering, let's look at some pictures!

Check out those colors!! 



They also had a great (smaller than JoAnn's but a very nice variety) selection of flannel. Great for burp cloths! 


Eeek! How tiny! These booties came together so quickly! I was able to complete them during a one hour lunch break. The pattern came from Little Crochet (<- clicking will take you to Amazon using my affiliate link). There are some seriously great patterns in there! I checked it out from the library first, but it's totally on my wish-list to own. :) 


The whole shebang! I used some scraps of fabric with interfacing for the card. I love combining fabric with paper and my sewing machine to create cards! 


Linked at:










Sunday, January 15, 2012

Pocket Pillowcases

One of my goals for 2012 is to give mostly handmade Christmas gifts. I had this goal last year as well, but didn't start until October-ish....whoops! This year the plan is to complete one gift/week.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I saw these great pocket pillowcases over at Just Another Hang Up and knew they'd be perfect for the girlies for Christmas. Both of my girls keep a crazy amount of extra "stuff" in their beds with them, so the pocket on these pillowcases would be the perfect spot to store some of those things. 


I had the hardest time picking out a fabric to use for A's pillowcase. I needed something would work well for a bigger kid, because by Christmas she'll be 8! I'm having a really hard time coming to terms with that. :)


I found the fabric for C's in the remnant bin at JoAnn's. I totally fell in love with the little jellyfish and mermaids! It was slightly less than the yard that the tutorial calls for, but it was close enough (.9 something or another) and worked great. 


Seriously, how cute are those jellyfish?!?!? 


Thursday, January 12, 2012

2012 = no procrastination!

My BFF declared 2012 the year of no procrastination for us!

(Mom & A, go ahead...laugh...I'll wait.)

At any rate, I've started the year out right. 12 days in and I've completed over half of the bibs I need for the craft show I'm doing at the end of March and cut out all the pieces to get started on my first handmade Christmas gift for 2012!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Currently working on...


... a super sweet and extremely soft afghan for an upcoming baby shower!!


Yarn is Caron Simply Soft in Off-White and Soft Pink. It looks like this will take 3 skeins of each to finish.