Diary of a Crafty Lady

You Are Kneaded - Activity and Bread Recipe Packet

2019-03-13T17:05:00.001-04:00

Bread is so delicious, so comforting, and so fun to make!

We recently had women's activity with the theme

"You are Kneaded"

and were able to share our mutual love of the glutenous stuff.

I wanted to share a few pictures of all the beautiful bread we sampled, and share the bread recipe packet I compiled with best-loved, tried-and-true bread recipes from them women of our group.

It was great fun putting together this spread. We had over a dozen varieties of bread, plus cheese, salami and fruit. And of course toppings like: herb butter, cinnamon honey butter, and homemade jam.

Little tent cards were handy to identify all the delicious items. Some of my favorites: Rosemary Garlic Braid, Brazilian Cheese Rolls, Orange Rolls, Danish Rye Bread, and good old fashioned white. It was quite the feast!

Plus, have you ever made bread-in-a-bag? The recipe we used was modified from a website dedicated to toddler activities ;) But us grown women loved kneading bread in bag just as much as toddlers, I'm sure! lol.

And our cute friend Richard did a bread making demonstration. He's been making bread for over 40 years! And he gave us some great tips.

So, is your mouth watering for some focaccia bread sticks and potato rolls?

Click here for a .pdf copy of the bread recipe packet.

Enjoy!

And even though it isn't included in the .pdf, I wanted to share the awesome covers I made. I printed text and stamped actual bread on the paper, using Speedball block printing ink and a rubber roller. I love the way they turned out!

And, if you need a lift, here are some uplifting messages about how much you are "kneaded"!

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Felt Trick or Treat Bags: The Emperor's New Groove

2017-09-21T13:35:00.002-04:00

My favorite part of creating Halloween costumes is making these custom, felt Trick-or-Treat bags every year. We have quite the collection now that I've made them for Jessie from Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear, Harry Potter, Peter Pan, Frozen, Super Mario Brothers,

And my original bag - where you can find the tutorial - HERE

The entire bag is made from felt. The stuff you can buy on the roll at the fabric store is typically made out of recycled plastic bottles, and it is pretty strong. These bags have always held up really well when I make them from that material. That, plus the ribbon enforced handles, ensures that these bags last through all the parties and trick or treating of the season, and long after that.

Two of Kronk's best lines are on the two sides of this Trick-or-Treat bag.

And Yzma as the wicked cat with a funny high pitched voice looked great!

Not to mention her vials of poison :)

These two quotes from Emperor's New Groove can often be heard around our house:
"You Threw off my Groove!" and "No Touchy!'

Here I took a couple of in-process pictures. I often trace images I find and cut them out of felt.

Some pieces I sew down, some I glue down with a small amount of fabric glue. Fabric glue is easier - and certainly works just fine. I usually just like the way that sewing looks, but it does take longer.

And sewing them all together is fairly quick. Again, you can find the full tutorial here:

Click here for the felt bag instructions

I love how much these little sweeties get into Halloween. They are the best!

Happy Halloween!!

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Halloween 2016: The Emperor's New Groove

2017-08-20T17:29:00.002-04:00

Around here, Halloween is a family affair - with themed costumes, and silly fun that everyone participates in!

Before I get going on our costumes for this year, I wanted to share our family costumes from 2016 - because they turned out to be some of my favorite yet!

Back in 2000, Disney released what has become a family favorite, oft quoted around our house:

The Emperor's New Groove

If you don't know this movie, I highly recommend it - and for those of you who do, I hope you'll appreciate our versions of these fun characters!

Our sassy 4 year old was Emperor Kuzco - and she really pulled it off! "No Touchy" was her favorite phrase, particularly when referring to her Halloween candy ;)

I used 2 large t-shirts to make her costume. It worked so well! I was really happy with the result. I tucked the yellow shirt inside of the red shirt (which I cut to match the pattern I needed) and zig zag stitched them together. With the remaining under part of the t-shirt I was able to make fringe leg wraps. The sash and bottom of the shirt were scrap fabric.

For both Kuzco's hat and Kronk's hat I got cheap foam construction hats from the craft store. I cut off the bill and cut notches in the top so that I could hot glue in double thick foam sheets for the top of the hat. It was heavy, so I added an elastic chin strap. The earrings were double thick foam pages I cut into ovals and hot glued onto earring hardware. Pretty easy - but so effective!

The villain of the show was my favorite costume - Yzma was played by my 2nd daughter, and she was SOO adorable! Foam sheets again to the rescue for her hat - with a thick black knit headband to hold it all on her head. The v on her forhead was felt, attached to the purple foam curl.
We thrifted the black dress, which I modified to fit her - and found a boa at the dollar store.

My favorite was the addition of the fake eyelashes and lipstick. They really made the outfit :)

Kronk, the loveable henchman was my oldest. Thrifted skirt, fabric sash, more modified tshirts, and knit arm arm and leg warmers. Plus another foam hat I cut the bill off of. A yellow straw and foam accessory at the top made a perfect Kronk hat!

My husband and I were Pacha, and his wife Chicha.

Lots of thrift store items here - but all modified to fit our theme. Plus, a simple hat out of flannel for Pacha. Love this guy ;)

And last but not least, our baby - the squirrel. Squeak Squeaken Squeaker, as Kronk would say.

I took a brown hooded sweater she already had and added a felt tummy and felt ears. The tail was a rectangle of faux fur I found at the craft store, sewn into a tube, stuffed, and sewn onto the back of the sweater.

A little black nose, and there you have the cutest little thing you ever did see!

Not everyone knew who we were, but those who did gave us a great response!

We participated in a "Trunk or Treat" at our church, and kept the theme going with the secret lab:

Although this was time intensive, it was so fun to have the girls all excited to dress up together! We had an awesome Halloween.

Stay tuned for close up pictures of their trick-or-treat bags - my favorite things to make each year!

And check out our other family costumes over the years:

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Sticks and Stones - A Quilt of my Own Design

2016-10-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

I am REALLY proud of this quilt, and I am really excited to share it with you! I spent a long time designing, cutting, sewing, quilting and binding this beauty, and I am so happy with the way it turned out!!

Quilting has been really fun for me over the last few of years. Made even more fun by the fact that my mom has a long-arm quilting machine!

After finishing up several antique quilt tops into quilts, I decided that I wanted to make a quilt, from the beginning, all myself!

I really love many of the scrap quilts I've seen, and I needed to pare down my scrap pile, so I decided to create myself a pattern, and put together my own HST (half square triangle) scrap quilt!

Using triangle shapes in a powerpoint document, I started to arrange them, and came up with several different designs that I liked. Below is the design I settled on.

Using this wonderful tutorial for making HSTs in bulk, I started the long process of sewing and trimming the hundreds of HSTs that I needed.

I had quite a few blue and green scraps of fabric, so I arranged them according to those colors.

Then, I started laying out my quilt.

After I had my layout just the way I wanted it, I stacked the squares in each row, from left to right, and pinned them all together - including a piece of paper with the number of the row.

That way, I was able to get it up off the floor, and keep it in order.

I sewed each square in the row together, as you see below. It took a long time :) I made sure to re-attach the number to the row once it was sewn together, so that I could remember the order.

You can see below I would check to make sure I had sewn things together correctly by laying each row side by side to look at the pattern again. Once all the squares in each row were sewn together, I sewed the rows together.

I also used some HSTs to create a pattern for the backing.

Then, the fun (but stressful) part. I agonized over what designs to quilt using the long-arm quilting machine. I wanted the quilting to reflect the time I had taken to make it, so I was careful quilting it myself, and I spent a long time on it! It was worth it!

I did swirls on the outer edge, pebbles in the squares, sunburst things in the pinwheels. I did scallops between the zig zag border.

Then I bound it with a bright color to complement the zig zag border. I really LOVE how it turned out. I'm willing to use most of the quilts I finish, but this one I've decided will just be for looking at, no for using :)

What do you think? Are you a quilter? Have you made your own pattern before?

It's a lot of work - but a ton of fun!

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Disney t-shirts for baby

2016-02-04T08:04:00.001-05:00

So, my older girls got their handmade Disney t-shirts, but for my baby, I tried a few different ideas.

It was really fun to outfit my sweet little 7 month old with some hand made Disney outfits. It was quite cold while we were there in Florida, so some of her outfits were covered by jackets, but I have a few darling pictures of her sporting her one of a kind clothes.

I bought a pack of white onesies in her size, and for this one, I made a little Snow White inspired, apron-like fabric front. I cut and zig-zag stitched on a blue front. Then, made little U shaped pieces of fabric by sewing 2 pieces, right sides together and turning them right side out. I sewed them along the waist - and let them hang over her pants like a skirt. Then, I sewed ribbon around the middle, over the yellow fabric, so I could tie it in the back. I didn't sew all the way around, because the fabric and ribbon wasn't as stretchy as the onesie, and would have been hard to get on her otherwise.

I used hot glue and ribbon to make a bow with Snow White colors - and hot glued an alligator clip on the back to secure it to a stretchy headband. I found that bows were a really easy way to make the baby look festive!

We love Tsum Tsums around our house - do you?
This onesie was inspired by those dolls - and was made with regular acrylic craft paint.
Minnie on the front, and Pooh on the back ;)

I traced the shape onto the shirt ...

Painted it with acrylic paint using small paint brushes.

And then I created a stencil for the words. Easy and cute!

This Peter Pan inspired shirt was probably my favorite. My girls and I carved a pumpkin this year that looked a lot like the Tinker Bell image above. I simply made a stencil for Tink, and painted it onto the t-shirt with black acrylic paint. I used the end of a painbrush for the dots.
Tinker Bell went on the back, and Peter, Wendy, Michael and John on the front...

I made another bow - yellow, like Tinker Bell's hair - and she looked awesome in this one! I never did take a great picture, but you get the idea :)

With my last white onesie, I couldn't resist these Frozen quotes.

They seemed too perfect for baby.

I made a stencil with my Silhouette for these too - one for the front, and one for the back.

And she even got to meet Anna herself while wearing it!

I have to say, I'm really pleased with the way these turned out. Simple, but they each added a fun and festive element to our trip.

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Disney T-Shirts - Do it Yourself!

2016-02-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

We recently returned from a fabulous trip to Disney World! With daughters ages 3, 6 and 9 - it was so fun to live through their eyes. It is such an exciting place to be a kid :)

Before we left, I did a lot of planning, and gathering, and I made a bunch of Disney goodies for them to have ready to go at the parks.
Some of those things were t-shirts and hair bows - and I wanted to share all my fun creations!

Back when we planned the trip (knowing we would go with cousins and grandparents), my sister, mom and I did a t-shirt project together - so all of the cousins could have a matching shirt. This Sharpie tie dye look was easy to achieve, and fun because each one was different, but matching in the style. My mom had done these before, so she explained the process, and it's really simple. Here are a few pictures to give you the idea:

With plastic cups (could be yogurt containers or anything like that), we used a rubber band to secure a portion of the t-shirt over the opening of the cup.

Using any color sharpies we wanted, we drew little patterns, dots and squiggles inside the circle shape - really anything goes.

Then, using a medicine dropper, we dripped rubbing alcohol right in the middle of the circle, and watched as it slowly spread from the center outward. As it passed over the Sharpie drawings, it spread the ink to create this tie dye effect. It was like magic!

We used bigger plastic containers for the head, and smaller for the ears - and the result was a funky Mickey head.

Tip: We did not wash these before they were worn at Disney. Since being home, they've been washed, and they do fade quite a bit.

Because white t-shirts are so inexpensive (I got mine at Walmart for only a couple of dollars), I felt like I could experiment with different ideas, and not worry too much if they didn't turn out.

This idea ended up being really cute though!

I love to keep my children's artwork. I scan into my computer all sorts of cute pictures - and from a few years ago, I had these pictures done by my older girls.
On the left you can see what they drew. I put a white piece of paper over them, and traced the main lines, darkened my tracing, and then put it inside the front of the t-shirt.
I traced those lines again onto the t-shirt in pencil, and then using a paintbrush, I painted over the lines, to match their drawings.

They turned out so cute! I wrote their names underneath, with the age they drew the picture, and it was another fun shirt for them to wear at the parks.

We took princess dresses, and other cute shirts I had purchased in advance - but one other set of hand made shirts were these silhouette shirts my mom made for all the grandkids. Each has a different Disney character - and the bright colors were easy to keep track of ;)
She used her Silhouette Cameo - aren't they fun?

Stay tuned for other DIY outfits I made for my baby!

How about you - have you decorated your own t-shirts before?

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Mini Stocking Advent Calendar

2015-12-16T14:17:00.004-05:00

The Christmas season is such a lovely time of year. I truly enjoy teaching my children about Christ's birth, and the joy of giving. As my girls get older, it is great to involve them in gifting, service, and learning during Christmas.

One of the ways I enjoy doing this, is through an advent calendar! We do have an advent calendar with cubbies, but I wanted to do just a 12 days of Christmas advent calendar this year. Plus, we had this perfect spot on the mantel, just begging for a cute strand of mini stockings!

These little stockings hold a small piece of chocolate candy for each of the girls, and a little card that gives an activity that we'll do that day. We have things like make cookies and deliver them to neighbors, visit relatives, attend our church Christmas party, act out the nativity, watch a Christmas movie, make gifts for siblings, and things like that. So far, it has been really fun.

So here's a quick how-to:

For each stocking, I cut 2 pieces of lining fabric, and 2 pieces of outer fabric. The shape of the stocking can be found here.

For the outer fabric, put right sides together and sew around the stocking with 1/4" seam allowance (leaving the top of the stocking unsewn, like a regular sock).
For the lining fabric put right sides together and sew around the stocking with 1/4" seam allowance, but leave a 1" gap at the bottom of the stocking for turning. Leave the top of the stocking unsewn, like a regular sock.

Turn the outside of the stocking right side out. Then stuff it inside the lining fabric (which you have left inside out). See above. Line up the top opening of the stocking. Then, sew around that top edge with 1/4" seam allowance.

Pull the whole thing right side out through that hole you left in the lining fabric. It will look like the middle stocking above when you have pulled it out.
Below, you can see that I then sewed the hole in the lining closed.
Then, push the lining fabric inside the outer fabric, and fold the top down a bit. It will look like the stocking on the right in the photo above.

Here are a bunch of them made and folded over.

To add the numbers I found numbers that I liked on the computer, made them the right size, and printed them out.
Next, I ironed heat n' bond on the back of a piece of dark fabric, and traced the numbers onto it.
If you are tracing numbers onto the back of heat n' bond, make sure you trace them upside down. That way when, you cut out the number, and iron it down to the stocking, it will be the correct direction. This is a good time to iron your whole stocking nice and flat.

Finally, I sewed a little loop of twine into the top side of each stocking for hanging. Then, I strung them on a longer piece of twine.

I love the way they look and the girls are so excited to open them find their candy and activity each day.

Do you do an advent calendar in your home? What kinds of things do you put inside?

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Uncommon Goods - Your new favorite gift giving site!

2015-12-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

Hello friends! Now that we are in the midst of the gift giving season, I have to ask you --

have you visited Uncommon Goods???

If not, you are going to love me. This site is fabulous. It is the best collection of quirky, fun, unique, useful gifts I've seen.

If you’re looking for a gift that will spark your child’s imagination, and keep them occupied for hours – check out the kid’s section by clicking here. I swear, I want every single item there!

This mechanical music box looks fun! And the OgoBild below would keep my kids occupied for a long time, I have no doubt.

There are tons of craft and art projects - which is right up my daughter's alley. And maybe I'd say that the stop motion animation kit was for my girls, but I think it would really be for me - it looks so fun!

And how about that ever elusive gift idea for the teen in your life? I’m telling you, if I was a teenager, I’d want my presents coming from here ;) There are so many cool, unique things to choose from!!

Drumstick pens. I think yes. Or these iPhone charger stickers. Funny!

And here is one of those quirky and useful gifts. A ball jar amplifier speaker.

Seriously, I am having so much fun browsing their stock. As if you need one more website to get sucked into. But I’m telling you, this one will get the creative juices flowing, and have you even more excited about gift giving.

Some of my favorites are the really quirky stuff. You can even search specifically in the geek section here :)

Tube Wringer anyone? Or these Shower Squids? Seriously useful for the pool or vacation!

I love clocks. And this one is geekily awesome.

And believe it or not, I think I found my husband's Christmas gift. He loves grilled cheese. He usually uses a frying pan - but this utensil is actually MADE for cheese grilling! I can't believe it.

And you still have plenty of time to order for before the winter holidays. Use their useful sorting tools to narrow down your search, and have fun!

The amazing thing about Uncommon Goods is that many items have a designer story with it. You can see the talent behind these amazing items and celebrate the artists who work hard to create them. And Uncommon Goods has a great story behind their brand. This is the kind of company you can feel good about supporting – which means a lot these days! They think about sustainability, being fair to artists, and giving back to the community. Awesome!

And for me? I'm thinking about some jewelry from here ;)

Then again, this handcrafted hanging planter is gorgeous!

Oh boy, decisions, decisions!

Compensation received for this post, but all opinions are my own.

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Happy Halloween 2015: Peter Pan

2015-11-01T21:18:00.001-05:00

Happy Halloween!

For several years, my oldest daughter has been the mastermind behind our family themed Halloween costumes.
We've been a Harry Potter theme, Super Mario Brothers, Toy Story, and more!

This year, she decided on a Peter Pan theme - and we got everyone involved. Even the dog!!

The three older girls were Wendy, John, and Michael. They were so cute. For Wendy and John, I got clothes from Goodwill and modified them. A blue nightgown taken in for Wendy, plus blue ribbon for the waist and hair.

John was a large men's shirt, with the sides taken in, and the sleeves shortened. The glasses were from the dress up box, and luckily, the craft store had a foam top hat! I think this costume might have been my favorite ;) With the trick or treat bag and umbrella (which we ended up using on rainy Halloween night) she really looked like John!

Little Michael with his teddy bear was very easy. I purchased pink footy pajamas and sewed a matching square of fleece on the backside. A couple of buttons held the flap up, and that was it!
My toddler has really curly hair, so we slicked it back and pinned it to look a little more like Michael. She had a great time, and was nice and warm ;)

Click here to see how I made their trick-or-treat bags. That's another thing I do every year, and I'm always happy I did.

Grandma and Grandpa got in on the fun, and played the bad guys! Hook and Smee were hilarious. Aren't they good sports?! And my good friend made this Hook costume. Amazing detail!!

My husband and I went dressed as Peter Pan and Peter Pan's shadow. He loved wearing that morph suit cap ;) The tunic, belt, dagger and hat were all made from felt. I used a tutorial I found at Make It, Love It for the hat and dagger. The tunic was just two shirt shapes sewn together, front and back. Be ware though - felt does not stretch!! So, when making felt costumes, add several inches when compared to a t-shirt to accommodate the fact that there is no stretching.

Sweet little baby (she's just turning 5 months old!) was Tinker Bell! The same friend who made the Hook costume made this dress. She was so generous to let us borrow them (and saved me tons of work). I made a little felt cover for a beanie to look like a blonde tinker bell bun. I literally cut and hot glued felt until it looked right. I covered up some loose edges with the ribbon in the middle, and folded it over at the bottom for a nice rim. For a few minutes of work, it did the job!

The wings were the wire hanger and tights variety. Make It, Love It has a tutorial for those also, which is helpful. I added some glitter glue, and they were very cute.

And the star of the show was the grandparent's great big Newfoundland dog who played NANA! I took white fabric and sewed a square for a kerchief. I gathered the middle a bit, and sewed a large piece of blue ribbon to the kerchief which allowed me to tie it around his gigantic head, and he looked great! He walked with us on Halloween night, and that was really fun.

These little Darling children... I love them!

Hope your Halloween was safe and fun!

Click here to see close up pictures of their hand made trick or treat bags!

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Review: Chalkola Chalk Markers

2015-10-19T22:27:00.000-04:00

Here is a fun product to try! I received these Chalkola Chalk markers, and I have been having so much fun with them! The colors are bright, so they stand out really well. They are like paint pens, so the writing is very easy and fluid. And the best part: the chalk writing is SO easy to clean up!

Have you ever wanted to write on a window or mirror? These markers are awesome for writing on glass! My daughter just turned 3, and it's a tradition in our family to write notes for each other and hang them up around the house. With these pens, I wrote her little love notes all over the bathroom mirror, and it was so fun! Once it's dry, you can touch it and it doesn't smear. And all it takes to clean up is water. It's amazing!

One of the first things I considered doing with these was writing on the car windows. I always wondered what people used to write "Just Married!" or "State Champion Volleyball Team!" or something like that on their car windows ;) These Neon window markers are perfect for stuff like that.

I thought it would be silly to write "Honk, I turn 3 years old today" on my car for my daughter ;)

Because the chalk paint doesn't wipe off once it's dry, I even used these to decorate the outside of a ball jar that I had put goodies into for friends. It's perfect for delivering a personalized gift, but then they can easily wash it off when they're done, and have a perfectly good ball jar to use. Win-win!

If you want to check out more about Chalkola Markers, visit their website at http://www.chalkola.com/. Their cute video gives you more great ways to use them. Seriously, the possibilities are endless.

Do you want to try them for yourself?

You can get 20% off at Amazon.com using the code; CHALK20A

Disclaimer: chalk makers received for an honest review.

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Peter Pan Felt Trick-or-Treat Bags

2015-10-14T16:46:00.000-04:00

Our family theme for Halloween this year is Peter Pan - and of course, I had to make felt trick-or-treat bags to go along with!

Making these bags each year has become a tradition, and they are a ton of fun to make.
The three older girls will be Wendy, John and Michael - and since their costumes are fairly simple, I feel like these bags are really going to add a lot to make them recognizable.

These bags are really very simple to make - and so inexpensive, because they're made from felt!

The full tutorial, and tips and tricks from all my past years can be found at the following previous blog posts:

Doggie Treats Bag - With Tutorial
Frozen Halloween Bags
Harry Potter Halloween Bags
Toy Story Halloween Bag 1
Toy Story Halloween Bag 2
Super Mario Brothers Halloween Bags

When I make these bags, I draw out a pattern on scratch paper, and then cut out felt based on my pattern. Above you can see my template for Michael's teddy bear.
Below is the treasure map that John and Michael play with at the beginning of the Disney movie.
I sew each piece of felt down with coordinating thread.

For Wendy I made a story book, and above you can see the start of Neverland for the back of the bag.

I did books for Hermione's bag when were were all Harry Potter characters, and my daughter insisted that Wendy have The Adventures of Peter Pan. Simply sewing black lines on the white felt makes it look like book pages from the side. And I used a stencil I had cut with my Silhouette to paint the words.

I always like to sew the decorations on my bags, but you certainly could glue the felt on. I did use glue to secure the tiny pieces, like the fire, the mermaid tail, and the sails in the picture of Neverland, below.

For John's bag, the map, above is pretty recognizable, and I love the bright colors on the white background. For the back of the bag, I made a feather, like John wears later in the movie.

And what would Michael be without his trusty teddy bear?! Rather than have my 3 year old carry a real teddy bear and try to deal with that on Halloween, this is the only thing she'll have to carry, and it completes her costume, as well as holds her candy. Perfect!

What are your kids going to be for Halloween? Are you getting ready?

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Antique Quilt Top - Now a Finished Quilt!

2015-05-19T19:06:00.000-04:00

Its' time to play ketchup on my blog posting. I've finished a few quilts that I've been so excited to show you - it's just taken me forever to get outside (aka: get my husband to hold them up for me) to take a picture ;)

This is one of my favorite antique quilt tops. But it started out a little less charming...

Check out that pink! This one required a little vision. I don't always spend so much time on these quilt tops. Sometimes repairs need to be made, but I have not often disassembled the whole top like I did this one. But I really was not feeling the pink. The blocks were gorgeous though, and for such a reasonable price, I went ahead and snatched this one up!

My first step was seam ripping each block out of that pink sashing. Nice, mindless work to do in front of the TV. It left me with this beautiful stack of blocks you see above. I then spent quite some time reinforcing all the loose seams, and fixing tears, and occasionally patching some holes. With so many different fabrics and tiny blocks in each quilt square, this process took a fair amount of time. The blocks were all hand sewn by some lovely person back in the day, so it wasn't surprising that so much repair needed to be done.

I love the look of natural colored muslin in an antique quilt top. It really lets the colors of the blocks take center stage. So, I picked up some muslin, and simply added a 4" sashing back in between all the blocks. Above you can see part way through the process.

Then, I had to wait a while to quilt it, because I love to use my mom's long arm quilting machine, but I have to wait until I go visit her. I've had a lot of fun (and agonizing) picking patterns that I want to try to free hand quilt onto my finished quilt tops.

I did a big loopy flower design on each block, and a twirly, leafy vine on the sashing.

I stay up late each night I visit working on quilts, and it is really fun to see it all come together so nicely! Even for a beginner like me, the long arm machine makes the quilt look so well finished! I love it!

I went for a bold red backing this time. I've been wanting a red back on a quilt for a while, and this one seemed perfect for it.

I used an on offwhite fabric with red seed shapes for the binding. You can see my process for binding a quilt by hand if you click here.
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I was really worried about the red backing bleeding in the wash though, so I bought this product online called Synthrapol. It worked great to keep my white fabric white. I also threw 3 color catcher sheets in the washing machine (found those at Walmart). Can't be too careful, right?? ;)

And now I have one of my favorite finished quilts so far! The vintage fabrics and colors are so sweet. The white is fresh and clean. The quilting is tight, and after the wash it is nice and crinkly. I absolutely love it!

I know I've said it before, but quilting is addicting. So stay tuned, because I have more :)

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Little Mermaid - Under the Sea Birthday Party

2015-03-18T07:00:00.000-04:00

When my little sweetie turned 6, she asked if she could have a Little Mermaid birthday party with a few of her friends at our house. I have had a great time planning parties for my daughters.

We've had a Rapunzel party, a Winter themed party, an Art Party and a Pirate party which have all been really fun!

I'm all about doing parties at home, making decorations, and finding simple and inexpensive crafts and activities. I've never had to spend a lot of money to fill a couple of hours with plenty of fun things. So - here you can see some of the ways we made our back yard an Under the Sea wonderland!

I love taking pictures of the partygoers, so as with many of the other parties I've thrown I try to make some sort of background. First, I cut a blue plastic tablecloth into scalloped strips and taped those onto a lighter blue plastic tablecloth. (The dollar store was pretty much the only place I had to shop for this party!). The bubbles are white card stock circles sewn together, and the green seaweed is twisted crepe paper.
My favorite are all the fish, starfish and seahorses. The girls made pretty watercolor patterns on cardstock - covered the whole page in pretty designs, and when they were dry I cut out all sorts of fish shapes from those pages. It was great to have the girls involved in making decorations!

Another decoration they helped with were these cute jellyfish. We glued colorful circles onto paper bowls, and then hung streamers, ribbon and curling ribbon from the inside.

Some white balloons on twine were another twist on bubbles, and added a fun birthday feel.

The invitations were similar to the fish decorations.

I had the girls paint half sheets of cardstock in pretty watercolors

I went over the watercolors with sparkle ModPodge, and cut out an oyster shape that I could fold in half to form a card...

Then, I printed the party information onto pretty paper and pasted it on the inside. A few oceany stickers on the outside, and these pretty invitations were ready to send!

We started off the party with some arts and crafts (of course). I like doing this, because it gives friends a chance to be working on something while everyone is filtering in.
I got little treasure chest boxes from the craft store, and had watercolors and stickers out for decorating. The watercolors worked great on the wood, and afterward we spread some sparkle modpodge over the top to seal in the colors and add some sparkle!

It was really fun to see their creativity! Then, while they were waiting for things to dry, or waiting for other friends to finish painting, we painted their fingernails with "mermaid colors" - pink and teal.

After crafting, we played a few fun games. One was blowing bubble snakes with these homemade bubble blowers. A water bottle, an old sock and some duck tape are all you need to provide endless bubble entertainment! A little dish soap water made these super sudsy, and easy for even my 2 year old to use. I found the tutorial here at Housing a Forest blog.

We also did the limbo - my daughter's request - with little seaweed streamers hanging from the pole and some Little Mermaid music. Pretty cute.

Another request is always "pin the something" game. We did pin the starfish on the mermaid - which my girls helped me paint onto a poster board.

One of my favorite games was a treasure hunt, complete with treasure map!

I thought it would be fun for the kids to treasure hunt for their party favors. We got buckets and a couple of goodies for each person from the dollar store. I stuck on a tag that said "Next time you go to the sea, take this bucket and think of me! Thanks for coming!"

Then, I hid the treasure under a towel with an X marks the spot.

I made a treasure map (which took quite a bit of time actually... but it was fun). The map had the first clue, and everyone got their own copy.

The first clue directed them to the hose, where they found the second clue. Each person got a copy of each clue to tape onto their map. We had to make the girls promise they would wait for everyone :) That was a little lesson in patience, but it worked just fine.

I taped the clues onto wax paper so the tape would come off easily and be ready to put on their map.

On and on they went, finding clues, and taping them to their maps, until they finally found their treasure! It was great also to have them take turns sounding out the words of the clues (their little Kindergarten brains were working pretty hard for this treasure!) ;)

They searched in trees, in bushes, under chairs, in pots - thank heaven we could have this party outside, it worked so well!
And here are the cuties with their treasures!

And then of course there was cake and snacks! There are sooo many great ideas for a sea party - but here are the few I went with.

I used those colored chocolate melty candies to pipe a mermaid tail shape onto wax paper. A few hours in the freezer and they were hard and perfect for diving into the cupcakes.

Add a little blue frosting, and these mermaid tail cupcakes turned out adorable.

Some blue Jellyfish Jello with a swedish fish inside...

Pretzel Driftwood...

I added some old wood and twine to the table to add to the beach look. The little lifesavers tied to the twine looked like little shells, and my daughter loved them.

Seawater punch was made with:

equal parts blue Hawaiian punch and sprite

plus frozen pineapple juice concentrate (to taste)

and I added a few scoops of vanilla ice cream to the top for sea foam.

It was yummy!

Goldfish crackers are kindof a must at a sea party.

A simple setup - perfect for Kindergarteners to enjoy!

The party was a ton of fun, and this was just the right amount planned for the two hours all the friends were here. We even had a tub of play sand and sand toys ready if we had extra time, but we never even got to those.

During the party, I made sure to take pictures of the birthday girl with her friends.

First I had them wrap her up in seaweed. They LOVE doing this -each taking turns to wrap a couple of times - and it makes such a cute picture!

And of course they all wanted to be wrapped up after that.

I also took individual pictures of the seaweed wrapped birthday girl with each friend. Then, I printed a group picture and the individual picture for each friend, to send along with their thank you note.

I printed a little phrase onto half a page of cardstock that I folded in half to form a card. Then my daughter draw a mermaid on the front cover, above the words - "It was good to sea you. We had a splash!" Didn't they turn out cute!?

I helped her figure out what to say on the inside, and she wrote out each and every card. I love having my kids write their own thank you notes. Not only is it great handwriting practice, but it really helps them learn to show gratitude for gifts and friends.

Happy birthday to my sweet daughter - and good luck next time you throw your own birthday party!

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I just can't get enough -- TSHIRT QUILTS!

2015-01-13T19:59:00.001-05:00

I am really loving these t-shirt quilts! I've now made three using the same method, and each one is better and better.
I made one for a relative for Christmas, and another for my husband, and here are a few pictures I took...

For the original post, and complete tutorial, click here.

Above is a picture of all the pieces sewn together, before it was quilted. I've found that around 50 t-shirts makes a nice size quilt.

Below are some of the funky quilting designs I used. I quilted this on a long arm quilting machine, which really helps because of the bulk!

I describe extensively how I put these quilts together in my original post, but here is another picture of my list...

A description of the shirt, the shirt color, the size I end up deciding on based on my pattern (below) and the size I need to cut the shirts, with seam allowance.

I've improved my process for making patterns. I still zoom out as far as possible in powerpoint, create squares in real size, and make them the same color as the t-shirt they represent. I also like to add the dimensions in parenthesis, so I don't have to click on each individual square and look in the formatting tab for the size every time. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself ;)

If you compare the above picture with the one below, you'll see how they coincide. There were quite a few more oddly intersecting pieces in this quilt than in my original, but if I sewed with 1/2" seam allowance, and stopped 1/2" from the end when sewing those odd sections, eventually everything matched up ;) It's not for the faint of heart - but it is doable!

Below is a picture of the second quilt I made this holiday season - all quilted and ready to be trimmed and bound. I always like the simple, swirly quilting design. As you can see, I used much larger pieces in this quilt - and had a lot more white space. I had fewer t-shirts to work with, but still wanted a good size quilt. I prefer when things are cropped tighter, but if you don't have the 50 or so t-shirts needed to make a large quilt, you can always do as I did and leave a lot of blank space around the logos.

On all three I've used soft, neutral colored flannel for the backing, and warm and natural cotton batting.

These create such a wonderful, useful and unique keepsake! I definitely see more in my future ;) My girls have already started setting aside their sports t-shirts at the end of each season for some day when I'll make one for them!

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Wood-burned clock from Reclaimed Wood

2014-12-27T07:02:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I was riding bikes with my girls, and saw a neighbor down the street taking out a huge fence in order to replace it with a new one. After riding back and forth a few times I got up the courage to talk to the neighbor, and found out that he was taking down a fence made of cedar, and was willing to give me several pieces of fence board!

I was thrilled. This wood has never been treated, and the colors and grooves and nail holes are all so pretty! I ended up taking enough to use at a craft night with friends, where we made nativity scenes on some pieces of board. A few pieces I saved to use for other projects, like this clock.

I started by cutting a piece of wood down so that side by side the boards formed a square. I put a bit of wood glue between the boards to help hold them together, and on the back nailed some stir sticks over the seam to keep it together while I did the wood burning. I also found the middle of the clock and drilled a hole where the clock mechanism would go. The size of the hole depends on the clock workings you have.

I really enjoy wood burning. I did these wooden spoons recently, and have done many projects using an inexpensive wood burning tool from the craft store.
Wood burning really went well with the rustic look of the wood to make this clock.

On the computer, I made a circle shape the size that I wanted it. Then, I evenly spaced lines to help me place the numbers in the correct positions for the clock face. Then, I printed it out in order to trace it onto the wood.

To line the paper up on the wood, I used a pencil to poke through the middle of the paper, through the hole I had drilled in the middle of the wood. Then, I lined up the 12 and 6 lines with the seam in the wood.

A trick I use often for tracing: I rubbed pencil on the back of the paper where the numbers were, before placing the paper on the wood. Then, when I traced over the numbers, it left a pencil mark indentation on the wood as a guide. The lines are faint, but enough to see while wood burning.

Once the wood burning was done, I cut thin pieces of cedar I had found at the salvage shop in order to make a border. A miter box or miter saw really helps with this!

I used wood glue, and then nailed through the back of the clock to hold the border pieces in place.

Finally, I added the clock mechanism, and a saw tooth hanger, and the clock was finished!

I gave this as a gift for a family member to hang in their cabin. I really love how it turned out! This would be a great clock for a rustic or outdoor space, and you could easily make one!

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Snowman Block Ornaments - Kids' Craft

2014-12-20T13:34:00.004-05:00

The girls and I love doing crafts together, and while I was making gifts for their teachers, they wanted to make gifts for their friends!

When I saw these snowman block ornaments at Twin Dragonfly Designs, I loved them! I knew it was something the girls could pull off - and they had a great time working on them.

I tried to find used blocks, but ended up purchasing these. The girls liked picking out letters to match their friends' names, and they love to paint. They did a couple of coats of white acrylic. Then, we used the back end of a large paintbrush to make the dots for the eyes and mouth in black. Now that I'm thinking about it, I wish we had tried q-tips. I bet that would have been even easier!

Then they used a tiny paintbrush to paint on the orange noses.

I helped them to screw the hooks in the top, and hot glue torn strips of fabric around the bottom for a scarf...

I just love how they turned out! They wrote love + their name on the bottom with a little permanent marker, and passed them out to their friends after school.

It was nice watching the girls enjoy giving little presents, and this project was really fun to do together!

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Woodburned Wooden Spoons: Teacher Gift

2014-12-16T19:44:00.003-05:00

I think it's nice to show appreciation to teachers at the holidays, and I have enjoyed making small gifts over the years. The school supplies clock, first aid kit and personalized clip boards have been some of my favorites.

This year, I decided to combine homemade and store bought by woodburning a wooden spoon and wooden fork set, and putting them inside an oven mitt along with some yummy shortbread cookies. I think they turned out awesome, and the kids are excited to give them to their teachers!

The plain wooden spoon/fork come from IKEA, and they are ideal for woodburning. I started by sketching some mendhi designs in pencil, and then using a flat edged tool, carefully woodburned over my pencil lines.

Other than the dots, and the simple shading, I used that one tool for all the detail work. I got better as I went along, and all together, these gifts didn't take all too long to make.

The main design is on the back, but I put a little design on the front as well...

It is really fun to be creative with the design. I've seen these done with simple arrows, or dots too, and simple designs also look really neat when they are burned into the wood.

My sister sells custom wood burned wooden spoons in her etsy shop if you wanted to purchase these, and she is very good at it! I picked her brain for a while before starting this project :) And even though mine aren't as detailed as some of hers, I'm very happy with the way they turned out!

The nice thing about woodburning, is that the design really won't fade and doesn't affect the ability to use these utensils. They can be washed like normal, and look darling displayed in a utensil bowl on the counter, or used in a salad or casserole at a family meal.

Haven't ever tried woodburning before? Use a coupon and buy yourself an inexpensive kit at the craft store, and give it a try! I've woodburned picture frames, clocks, plaques, shelves, all sorts of things! It is really fun, and not difficult or expensive to get started. And woodburned spoons make really great gifts!

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Book Page Christmas Tree Decorations

2014-12-08T19:48:00.002-05:00

For the first time ever (well, for my kids), we actually have a real Christmas tree to decorate! We went to Grandma and Grandpa's favorite place, and picked out a gorgeous, fragrant tree (and got to pretend we were reindeer with the branches...)

Then, I got to Youtube how to wrap a tree in Christmas lights ;)

Since all of our Christmas decorations are in storage, we had to get creative with the ornaments, and it's still a work in progress. But I wanted to show you some of the cute things the girls and I have done so far...

One thing we have plenty of (and is easy to get for cheap at the thrift store) is book pages. I have a big old thesaurus that I've used for many a book page project. These ornaments, above, were really easy to make, and I love how big and elaborate they look. I found a tutorial here, and simplified it a little bit.

I used my circle punch to create 2" circles, which we formed into a cone and hot glued shut. When placed side by side and hot glued they make a great flower shape! Instead of making a double layer, my daughter made accordion fans that I put in the middle, along with a button. Then, some red rick-rac glued to the back for hanging was all I needed to complete it. I'm loving the red against the book page pattern!

Another book page project was inspired by this adorable Little Golden Book I found at the thrift store. This thing must be from the 60s, and the pictures are so classic, and the colors are amazing...I love it! I was thinking of making gift tags from the pages, which I may still do, but for the tree, I decided to make a garland. I made some color copies onto cardstock, and then used a 3" triangle pattern to trace sections of each page and cut them out.

I hot glued the triangles onto green ribbon (which would have been red if I'd had any on hand ;) ) and strung it across the tree a couple times. It makes me so happy! I don't know if you can see some of the little details, but the children's faces, the little cat, the darling stockings and little elves...every picture is so fun!

Not to mention some great drawings of Santa and Mrs. Claus...

I interspersed a few red vintage glass ornaments that I found at the thrift store - sticking with the red theme. I'm thinking I'll grab some cranberries at the store tomorrow and make a cranberry garland with the girls to add in. Even a popcorn garland would be fun! We're being all old fashioned with this tree :) <3 p="">

Mostly, I love the smell that wafts through the house, and because the tree is near all these big windows, at night the twinkle lights reflect 5 trees back at us, and it is so beautiful!

Hope you are enjoying decorating your home for the holidays!

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BIC Merry Marking: Slushy Drink with DIY Drink Stirrers

2014-11-27T02:24:00.001-05:00

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of BIC®. All opinions are 100% mine.

The holidays are so exciting, and it is so much fun to plan all the little details of holiday meals and decorations. This year, I'm making our family's traditional "Slushy Drink" recipe for our holiday meal, and BIC Mark-It™ permanent markers came in awfully handy for making some festive and personalized drink stirrers to go along with!
This slushy drink recipe is so simple, and so delicious, and comes from my grandma, who made it when I was a kid! It really jazzes up a party, and looks pretty on the table. It makes a large batch, perfect for a large gathering - but you can certainly half the recipe for smaller groups.
Mix 6 cups of water and 4 cups of sugar together in a pot and bring to a boil. Once the mixture has boiled, remove from the head and let it cool.
Add to the cooled mixture 1 can of orange juice concentrate, 1 large can of pineapple juice, and the juice of 2 lemons. Stir until incorporated and then pour into a freezer safe container to freeze overnight.

Once the mixture is frozen, put chunks into each cup, and pour Sprite or 7-up over the top. Then.... use these adorable stirrers to mix it all together as the "slushy" part melts. It is delicious!

And these stirrers are really simple too. I got white, oven-bake clay and rolled it out flat. Then, using small cookie and biscuit cutters I cut out little festive shapes and baked them according to the package directions.

Once they were cool, I used my BIC Mark-It™ permanent markers to draw little designs right onto the clay! These permanent markers come in a pack of 36 colors for fine and ultra fine tip sizes - which means that there are tons of great colors to choose from! The colors are bold, vibrant and low odor, which makes it nice when working with them, and family friendly.

Once I was done coloring the clay to my heart's delight, I carefully hot glued matching pieces back to back on the top of plastic stir sticks, which left a little slit at the top to add in a little piece of cardstock.

I used the #MargaritaGreen BIC Mark-It™ permanent marker to write the names of our guests on mine (so they also double as drink markers!) but you could write little holiday messages, or whatever you'd like to personalize your stir sticks! With another dab of hot glue, I glued the paper in between the clay.

BIC is offering a coupon to save $1.00, and has a booklet with other #BICMerryMarking ideas to make your holidays colorful! This is the sort of project my mom, two sisters and I love doing together - so I nominate them each, and all of you readers, to go get the booklet of merry marking and a coupon to start marking, and enjoy!

Happy Halloween! From the Frozen Family 2014

2014-10-31T18:42:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween, friends!

Here we are, in all our costumed glory...!

The girls are all excited to go trick-or-treating, and hubs was a good sport to let me dress him up as Kristoff. I made a quick costume for him out of fleece and faux fur (heaven help me). We live with a great big Newfoundland dog right now, who we've affectionately been calling Sven. We might even take him trick or treating with us! Wouldn't that be the sight??

The girls decided I should be a rock troll, and since the only other suggestion was the big snow monster, I decided rock troll was a bit more manageable! I have to stick with the fam though, because otherwise, someone asked if I was mother nature ;) A green cape, leaf necklace and some glow sticks for "fire crystals" are about all that distinguish a rock troll though - plus a little bit of green hairspray, cause...why not?

So there you have it! Our Frozen Family. Sans a baby smile. But honestly, I was lucky to finally get a family picture. Today was the first time we've been together, in the daylight, with no rain to go outside and snap one! But Olaf was tired, and did NOT want any warm hugs ;) Here's hoping a little nap will make trick-or-treating bearable.

Happy Haunting all!

Click here to check out close up pictures of their trick or treat bags!

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Felt Trick-or-Treat Bags: Frozen!

2014-10-15T06:00:00.000-04:00

For years now, I've been making trick or treat bags for my girls to go along with their outfits. I really enjoy coming up with a fun design to compliment their costumes, and they turn out so great! They are a perfect size for their candy, and they get a lot of compliments on the whole ensemble.

Above are their last year's Mario Brothers bags, and below are the Harry Potter versions from two years ago.

This year, they chose Frozen! These bags are constructed almost entirely with felt - and the tutorial can be found on my original post from years ago, here. All of the embellishment is done before the bag is sewn together, and after that it comes together really quickly.

I have to admit, Anna was tough. There wasn't a really obvious accessory that came to mind, but I think it turned out great. Above is the design on the front of her dress. I simply cut out all the little pieces from felt and sewed them down with coordinating thread.

Below are the things she gives to Kristoff and Sven for them to help her up the North Mountain. A bit of a stretch? ;)

Elsa needed an Ice Castle, and for the back I got the fancy swirly felt, and made a little cape and gloves flying away in the wind.

Olaf was a no brainer. SUMMER! Have you noticed that in the move, the ice in Olaf's cup is in the shape of him? I liked putting that on the bag.

And of course, bees will buzz, so I used little black pom-poms, glued a strip of yellow felt around them, and glued them to some wings which I had already sewn down in the middle (so the edges are free to flap!). The zig-zag stitch shows the bees buzzing around. And I used white thread to sew dandelion fuzz, just like the song.

Here are my pretty princesses in their costumes! Costco pulled through this year with some great Elsa and Anna costumes.

And of course, baby Olaf. I love it!

So, be sure to check out the easy bag tutorial, and embellish your own felt trick-or-treat bags. We've kept all of ours, and it is really fun to use them in the dress up box after Halloween.

Happy Trick-or-Treating!

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My Love Affair with Antique Quilt Tops

2014-09-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

Is there anything more comforting than wrapping up in your favorite quilt ... maybe while sipping hot chocolate, reading a good book, or watching your favorite show? I submit there is not. Quilts are amazing. They tell stories, they have character, they span generations. They can add color and charm to your home. Anyone can make one, and everyone can use them.

A couple years ago, my mom and I really started getting into antique shopping. Antique shops in New England are abundant, and we would always find treasures too great to pass up. We found old things we could repuropse or display in our homes, and we loved getting a good bargain.

And then, we discovered the quilt tops. I remember the first quilt top we found. It was a hexagon pattern, with beautiful fabrics, all hand sewn. We swooned, we oohed and ahhed, and then my mom paid an exorbitant amount for it :) That didn't matter though. That quilt sparked a passion in my mom and me - and now we're hooked. We've gotten more judicious, and recognize a good deal, but we are still suckers for those beautiful, unfinished works of art. As my mom says, she feels it's her duty to rescue these quilt tops and finally finish them! They were meant to be used and loved!

Over the course of these past years, we've purchased dozens of antique/vintage quilt tops and spent time repairing and finishing them. They are all so beautiful, I wanted to share some of them with you!

This quilt is affectionately called the "rat quilt" and it is one of my favorites. This quilt had holes (and rat droppings on it), and it required a lot of love and patching. But look at the fabrics! It is gorgeous. And the scalloped edge! This quilt is one of the most unique quilts we've found, and my mom did a gorgeous tight spiral machine quilting over the whole thing. She waits to wash the quilts until after they've been quilted, so the batting will shrink slightly and add a crinkled, aged look.

We love to finish the quilts off with great modern fabric that matches the color of the vintage fabric from the front. This is the back of the rat quilt. This quilt now sits on the guest bed in my parent's home. (Don't worry, it's been washed!)

This quilt top below was much smaller, so my mom added a border around the edge before quilting it. It's a great lap quilt now. Can't you just imagine someone taking old clothes and scrap fabrics and patching this piece together? I love it!

This quilt top is bursting with color! It is all crinkled up because it literally came out of the drier just before I took this picture - so it will loosen a flatten a bit. It is so cozy and lovely!

Sometimes, we find quilt squares as opposed to an already assembled quilt top. These were squares mom sewed together before adding the border.

Here's a view of the back and the fun variety of fabrics that make this quilt feel modern and vintage at the same time!

These small antique blocks in the middle of the quilt below made a great centerpiece for a modern looking quilt with strong colors.

And more backing that I love!

Here's another use for antique quilt blocks. These hexagon blocks called grandmother's flower garden were sewn by my great-grandmother! When my mom inherited them, there weren't enough to make an entire quilt. She put together a quilt and appliqued the hexagon blocks onto the top. She actually made one like this for each of her daughters, so now we all have a keepsake from our great-grandmother that we can display and cherish.

This is another one of my favorite quilt tops. I love bright, bold colors, and the vintage patterns are so dreamy.

Choosing blue for the back brings out the blue in the front, and I love it!

Two years ago, my mom gave each of her daughters a completed quilt top for Christmas. I absolutely adore mine! It is made from a quilt top we found together at the Brimfield Antique Show in Massachusetts. She is so thoughtful. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the amazing tight spiral quilting she did on it.

This is the quilt she made for my sister for Christmas. This one was found in an antique shop on the Oregon coast. My sister has it displayed on a wall in her house...

And those are just the finished ones! My mom has a handful of other quilt tops that she hasn't finished yet - all as spectacular as these.

Now that I live in the Northwest, I was afraid I wouldn't have as much luck finding quilt tops here. Luckily, I've stopped at a number of great antique shops, and I've already had good luck!

I just got this awesome postage stamp quilt top for my sister a few weeks ago...

And this beautiful quilt top I picked up for myself at the same time:

And one more I picked up on the west coast - which is an awesome unique pattern. I can't imagine how long this one took. That's another awesome thing about finding quilt tops. Most of the work is already done, so with a little of your own work, you get to enjoy a quilt much faster than making it all on your own.

So, what do you think? Are you as enamored of old quilts as I am, or do you prefer the very modern styles? Would you pick up an old quilt top and finish it?

I have another, not pictured here, that I'm working on fixing up. I can't wait to share it with you too!

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Start of School Pics - My Favs

2014-09-11T12:16:00.003-04:00

I love this tradition now, of taking pictures of the kids before school starts. This is probably about the best they'll ever look since this isn't the hair-done-just-before-running-out-the-door look, so I don't know if it's a great representation ;) but aww well. I love to capture their expressions, their excitement, and be able to see how much they change from year to year!

In the past, I have hand written their chalkboard signs, but since my chalkboard is in storage, I used this great printable from Skip to my Lou.

I also like doing the sidewalk chalk writing - I wonder if I'll still be making them do this in high school? ;)

And of course, little sister has to get in the picture...

And hold the signs... lol.

Here's an adorable one that they did all by themselves. Little cuties.

And just because it's fun to see the comparison, here are a few from past years...

I like to take a picture of them against a blank wall so that I can include writing about them. PicMonkey.com is a great option for adding the words, because it is easy, and free!

Okay, that's it! Don't grow up anymore!!

Hope start of school is going well for all of you out there with kids! It isn't too late to go outside and take some of these pictures now, if you didn't get around to it before school started.

These pics are certainly ones I cherish!

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Outdoor Play Mud Kitchen

2014-08-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

The girls and I really like to be outside. The weather in the Northwest has been phenomenal, and we've been riding bikes, blowing bubbles, having picnics, and just about everything else we can think of to do outside. In addition, my husband and I have been working really hard on clearing overgrown brush from the backyard so we can utilize the space better.

Over the weekend we put down sod in this corner of the yard that was formerly overgrown with bamboo and raspberry bushes - you couldn't even see the fence it was so thick! It took us months to dig out every root and stump, but we finally made this beautiful, usable space! And now that it's clear, we plan to use this area a bunch. The concrete patio is also a nice place for the girls to bounce balls and ride scooters, and I'm happy to have a fenced place to let them play!

We didn't have any kind of storage for the little outdoor toys though, so it's been on my mind to make something. Then, a couple of weeks ago I found out about this industrial recycle center near my house. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the pictures. This place is huge. Talk about a repurposer's dream. People drop off all sorts of building leftovers and discards, and it's all priced really cheap - score!

So, I picked up an old cabinet and some scrap wood to play with...behold, the raw materials ;)

I sanded the cabinet, took off the hardware, and spray painted it a bright teal color. One of the handles was broken, but that was ok -- the recycle center had hundreds to choose from. I picked up another for a few cents, and spray painted the handles black.

I wanted a pallet style back sticking up behind the cabinet - both because I thought it would look cute, and because I wanted to be able to hang things from it. With my scrap wood I cut and nailed the boards together like you see below...

Then, I nailed it to the back of the cabinet.

Besides just having a place to store toys, I wanted the kids to have another place to play - and kitchen toys are perfect for digging in the dirt with.

The girls helped me pick out a few old kitchen things from the friendly neighborhood Goodwill, and we got to sprucing those up too.

I spray painted the handle on an old slotted spoon, and with a few well placed nails we hung the kitchen stuff on the back boards.

My daughter traced and painted the Mud Pies sign - I love the way it looks :)

They could barely wait for the paint to dry before they were filling it with their toys and banging around with the kitchen stuff. Mission accomplished!

I'm sure this will be a work in progress. We might pick up more old kitchen utensils eventually, or make crates to go on the shelves...we'll see! Now, it's tucked perfectly against this wall, right where we'll be playing and having a great time in the summer sun. Mud pie anyone?

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Fold-up Fabric Needle Holder

2014-07-27T13:57:00.000-04:00

Is this thing darling, or what??

I don't know about you, but I'm always digging around in my sewing box for a needle. Ripped seam, popped button, (heaven forbid I actually have to hand sew something, but it happens. I do so love my sewing machine...).

My needles are usually on my magnetic pin cushion, but they are hard to find (insert joke about needle in a haystack) and I'd rather have the needles in their own, designated place.

I first saw one of these types of needle holders at my friend's house. She's had it for a while, and loves hers! I made myself a pattern, and it was a fun project.

To begin, click this link to find the pattern shape.

Using the larger shape, you'll need to trace and cut out 2 pieces of fabric. One of them should have fusible batting, interfacing or fusible fleece ironed to the back.

Using the smaller shape, trace and cut a piece out of felt.

Sew the two large pieces, right sides together, with 1/4 inch seam allowance. Leave a 2 inch hole along the side of the tab or opposite end for turning. Clip all the corners and curves before turning.

Turn right side out, and make sure to carefully push out all the turns. Iron nice and flat. Top stitch with 1/8" to 1/4" seam allowance. Make sure to fold under the opening you used for turning, and catch it in the top stitch, so there is no longer a hole.

Next, you need to sew the smaller, felt flower shape down.
To easily know where I was sewing the felt down, I used a disappearing ink fabric pen (or a really light pencil mark would work) and a ruler to make lines between opposite inward points (see below).

Center the felt, sew along those lines from inward point strait across to opposite inward point. Back stitch at the ends to secure.

Next, in order to make it fold properly I ironed the folds. This really helped me when trying to make that nice folded shape at the end. If you start by placing the tab up, fold the flower shape diagonally to one side and iron, and then fold it diagonally the other way and iron. It will be folded along the sewn lines when done this way.

Then, fold it backward along the middle, as you see below, and press with your fingers. Depending on the kind of felt you use, you may not want to iron it. Some felt I have purchased off the roll will melt if ironed!

Once everything was tucking in where it was supposed to, I ironed it again very well to reinforce the way it should fold.

For the closure, I used a sewed a small piece of Velcro to the end of the tab (again, used what I had on hand!), and the matching piece of Velcro on the other side of the holder. Then, I sewed a decorative button on the back of the tab. You could even use a functioning button with a button hole if you don't have Velcro handy...

Awesome! Now, I have this great fabric needle holder - with the needles securely in the felt, no lost needles because it folds it up into a cute little bundle for safekeeping.

This is such a quick project, you'll want to make a few for your friends. And they will love them too!

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