itsMyDesign87 - Sewing & Crafting & Life.

Memory Bears

2010-02-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

This is the start of a new project...Memory Bears.
I can make them out of basically any fabric, but to be more of sentimental value, they can be made from:
-the clothing or something sentimental of a loved one who passed away
-baby clothes/blankets
-wedding dress/tux/other attire
-sports uniforms
-anything that is of sentimental value...

If its made from something of special value, you will be able to hold the memory forever ♥

In order to make these, you would need to contact me, and we would set up a listing through my Etsy shop. From there, you would need to ship the clothing/items to me at your expense [I suggest getting delivery confirmation and/or insurance for your package, as these items are irreplaceable in most cases!].

Each bear is approx 12 inches tall in sitting position, and 18 inches from head to toe. You can have bows added in their hair, neck ties, etc - all made from the things that you send with your bear.

I will use the items you send to me to make a bear for you, and send the extras/leftovers back to you with your bear. In most cases, I am able to embroider a name or initials or date [for whomever/whichever date the memory bear is for, perhaps] on the bears foot or chest area.

Each bear is $25, free shipping back to you for USA residents.

If you have further questions or inquiries, please email me at itsMyDesign87@yahoo.com

Michael Jackson T-shirt transformation

2010-02-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

I bought a men's t-shirt size 2xl with Michael Jackson on it. Mind you, I am a size sm/med in jrs/womens...But I bought the shirt b/c I liked it and it was on clearance, and I had a plan for it. My plan was to make it into something I could wear. And that's what I did....I made it into a dress.

I wanted to kind of give it a little MJ flair as well, so I took some leftover fabric that I had from making the jacket to a Michael Jackson costume for a friend of mine [its shown in this post], and I used it to make embellishments. Since it was a T-shirt for This Is It, I also embroidered the opening lyrics to the song entitled 'This Is It' along the bottom of the dress. It reads, "This is it. Here I stand. I'm the light of the world, I feel grand........" and then it says "RIP Michael Jackson 1958-2009". On the upper back of the dress, there is a small white heart embroidered, and under it, a sequined glove. Yes, the glove is in black sequins instead of white, because black fit in more with my theme.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out...and you can bet I will make more in the future :]

2009-12-31T20:59:00.001-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Wishing you the best for 2010. May the new year being lots of success and new fantastic memories!

Will you pray for this family?

2009-11-28T18:35:00.001-08:00

Click on the photo link above to read their story.Please pray for them!

2009-11-11T21:14:00.001-08:00

I'm planning to do more updates with projects and such soon...as you can imagine, the closer we get to the holidays to busier I am!

I got a van.

2009-11-04T14:44:00.001-08:00

I haven't updated since I've been car searching...but I've found one. I got a van today. I've actually been wanting one so I'm happy about it.

Tomorrow is Halloween...

2009-10-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

So I guess I will show the kids' costumes.
I have photos without them in the costumes....the ones with them actually wearing the costumes will come after trick-or-treating and such .

Maia is going to be Tinkerbell. I followed (and modified/customized) Simplicity pattern 0549. I did not make the wings included in the pattern. Instead, I made some from coat hangers, stockings, and fabric paint.

Sean is going as Peter Pan. For his costume, I bought an over-sized shirt and cut and sewed it to look like Peter Pan's top. The bottom is just a pair of green sweatpants (we didn't want him wearing tights...). The hat I made from crafting felt. The red feather on the hat is from a pack of crafting feathers we have. The belt is made from 3 stips of brown fabric that I sewed together and braided.

As for me, I just wanted something to wear because I have not dressed up for Halloween in awhile. I bought a t-shirt from WalMart that was a mock 'french maid' costume. I made a matching tutu.

I also made the kids some Halloween outfits. I let them pick out the fabrics for them. No patterns were used. Here they are:

Happy Halloween :)

My poor, poor car....

2009-10-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, around 3:30 pm, I was sitting in our apartment with the kids...somebody came banging on my door. I looked through the peephole and it was a man from upstairs. I opened up the door, and he immediately says 'somebody hit your car!' (which by the way was parked out in the parking lot). I replied, "my car? are you sure?". He said 'yes, your car! Come!'...I immediately ran outside to see what he was talking about, still not believing that my car had been hit. As soon as I turn the corner from the apartment to the parking lot, I see a crowd of people...most of them looking towards me and shaking their heads. These were the ones who knew it was my car that had been hit. I knew then that it had to be pretty bad...as the crowd started to part, I saw it: (my car is the green one...)

Yeah. It's nice, isn't it? I stood there kind of in schock for a moment. Then the police man came and talked to me and told me what I needed to do and everything....

Apparently the driver was drunk...he turned into the parking lot doing 50-60 mph. He uprooted a fire hydrant, a metal sign, continued down the curb, and finally stopped as he slammed into my car...pushing my car sideways in the parking spot and causing it to hit the car beside it.

Fantastic.

Anyways, because the damage on the car is more than the car's worth...it should be considered totalled. It is immobile due to the front axle being broken....just look at the photos of my tire!

It's horrible. So I am car-less....at least insurance seems to be cooperating though.

Costumes - Orders I've had

2009-10-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share a few Halloween costume orders that I've had through my Etsy shop, and off Etsy. I've also made my kids' costumes, but they are not fully done yet. I will share them when I have all of the things together :)

Here are some costumes I have made for others this year:

Bumblebee (Adult) - The first picture is the costume, the second is the wings, the third is the head piece.

'Ballerina Girl' - The lady who ordered this costume has a young daughter who came up with her own superhero by the name of 'Ballerina Girl'. The mom wanted to surprise her daughter with a costume for Halloween of her made-up hero. We discussed it and came up with this. The firs picture shows the full costume. The second picture shows the cape, the mask, and the wristlets.

'Boo' Costume (from Monsters, Inc) -

Michael Jackson (just the black sequin jacket for a toddler) - The first shows the jacket in regular light. The second is with a flash to show the sparkle.

Fairy Tutus/Pettitutus (for my nieces) -

And those are a few things I've made for Halloween costumes this year. I still have a few more to make, plus mine to finish...and my kids' to finish. I don't mind too much though. It was fun making each one :)

Talking about fears - Halloween.

2009-10-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

Young children are sometimes scared by all of the sights and sounds of Halloween. Talk about costumes and noises with your child. Have a discussion about things that may frighten him/her. Let them know that we all have fears...reassure him/her that Halloween is a time of fun and pretending.

Craft: Autumn Placemat

2009-10-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks, my 4 year old and I did a few crafts for the fall season. I'm just now getting around to posting them :)

In this post, I'd like to share the autumn placemat that we made on Thursday.

My daughter is always trying to collect leaves from outside and bring them in the house. We usually end up with leaves by the front door, and sometimes she even sticks them in our fridge....So when she wanted to bring some leaves in the other day, I had to think of a way she could keep a few 'pretty leaves' (as she calls them) in the house without them being all over the place. I decided she could make a placemat...that way the leaves would be preserved, and not be crumbled and scattered around.

Here she is the finished product:

Here is how to make your own autumn placemat:

Supplies:

Leaves (we used 10) or paper cut-outs of leaves or anything autumn-themed.
two matching lengths of wax paper (whatever size you desire your placemat to be)
a sheet of newspaper big enough to cover the wax paper
iron set on medium heat
contact paper or construction paper
markers/colored pencils/crayons (optional)

Instructions:

Have your child (or yourself) pick a few nice leaves from outside.
Lay one piece of wax paper down so that the shiny side (the side with all the wax) is facing up.
Have your child arrange the leaves on the wax paper however is desired.
Place the second piece of wax paper, shiny side down, on top of the leaves.
Place a sheet of newspaper over the waxed paper and, with your iron set on medium heat, press the sheets until the wax paper fuses together.
Cut up the construction or contact paper to create a border for your placemat.
Glue the border into place and let dry

RiP Fred G G Harris - It's been 2 years.

2009-06-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

RIP Daddy!

It's been 2 years since we said goodbye to Fred G. G. Harris. He is loved very much, and missed greatly. Fred was like a father to me for many years, and his departing shocked us all.

We will never forget you.

We will always love you.

Rest In Peace, 'Daddy'

Rest In Peace, Michael Jackson!

2009-06-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

I couldn't believe it when I heard Michael Jackson died...I'm still kind of in shock.
Crazy...

2009-06-22T08:12:00.001-07:00

My phone will only let me send up to 160 characters at a time, so a better update will come when i am able to use the computer...

2009-06-22T07:53:00.001-07:00

Woke up this morning to no power. Electric company is out front working on power lines...so I've been about 2 hours with no electricity...

2009-06-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Making progress on the car...

I'm really tired, so I'm not doing any 'real' update.

Tomorrow, though...tomorrow.

Goodnight

This past weekend...

2009-06-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was not the best, I can tell you that! But there were some good points.

Friday night, a friend out ours died in a motorcycle accident. Rest in peace, Stephen Stone! He was only 21 years old. It definitely was a shocker..

Saturday morning, my husband took my car to be inspected. It failed. We were told it would take about $500-$600 to fix. Yay, right?

Saturday afternoon, we were watching a movie at our place. All of a sudden the a/c unit started making these weird sounds. The lights started flickering, and then got real low. Then one by one, all of the electric started cutting off in every room. The only place we had electric that worked, was the bathroom. Apparently, something burned in the main breaker or something for our building...and it only affected our apartment. The maintenance people were here trying to figure out what happened for hours. They were unable to fix it that day, so we went out to Wal-mart and bought an extension cord to run from the bathroom (since it had working electricity) to the living room, for light and such. I had orders and stuff that I needed to do...but my sewing machine and other 'tools' were unable to work due to the power problem. It sucked.

Sunday morning, I received a huge bag of sewing/crafting/other art items from a nice lady. Also, lots of fabric. That definitely made me happy :) As I was going through the stuff, I told my husband 'This is like Christmas for me..' haha. I love new art stuff.

Sunday afternoon, the kids and I went over to my moms, as we do basically every Sunday. We replaced 2 of the lights on my car that had failed inspection. We looked over the other things that needed fixing and my mom talked to the people at the auto parts store. The other thing could probably be fixed much cheaper if we (meaning my brother, of course) did it ourselves...So I am probably going to head back out there on Tuesday to fix the other things (with the exhaust), and look at tires. My mom and I also took my kids, and my nephew to the pool. That's a nice way to wind down a lonnng weekend.

I've decided to wait on my contest that I was going to open up...maybe a week or two, while I figure some things out.

M'kay, well I am off here to work on some projects that I've started. Later.

2009-06-13T10:47:00.001-07:00

Rest in peace, Stephen Stone...1988 to 2009

Twinkle Baby Boutique

2009-06-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine just started a new online boutique, through Etsy. There is also a myspace page for the boutique as well.

The name? Twinkle Baby Boutique.

How cute is that?

The boutique has some adorable bows, clippies, and bowholders in it at the moment. There will definitely be more soon though! Check it out and make sure you let her know I (Kimberlee P.) sent you!

It's run by Kerin. She's an awesome person! She also runs all of the All Mommy Talk sites (http://www.allmommytalk.com/, www.myspace.com/allmommytalk) AMT is a online community/network of women of all kinds...not necessarily moms. There are aunts, grandparents, godparents, expectant moms, ttc moms, etc.

Ok anyways...Twinkle Baby Boutique is currently running a contest. Wanna get in on it? Visit the myspace page: www.myspace.com/twinklebabyboutique

Make sure you tell her that Kimberlee P sent you!

ALSO Be on the lookout for my blog contest...coming soon!!

2009-06-10T16:17:00.000-07:00

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade
itsMyDesign87.etsy.com

2009-06-10T16:10:00.001-07:00

I successfully set up my mobile blogger. Fantastic, huh?

An introduction is in order...

2009-06-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a new blog here on Blogger. (Obviously...right?)

I used to run a blog on Xanga (www.xanga.com/xl3abugirl4u05x) where I just rambled on about my life and such, and I plan to do the same here :) lol. I just stopped using xanga a few months back...all of the people that I was in contact with on there seemed to disappear. With the exception of about 3 or 4 people, I no longer have contact with my xanga friends, so I feel the need to move on. I figured I could start fresh here.

I have actually had this account set up for like 2 weeks (or more) now, and just didn't know what to do with it. I have decided I will use it for regular blogging, as well as showing off my crafts and sewing projects...Oh yes, and promoting my etsy shop :) That URL, by the way, is http://www.itsmydesign87.etsy.com/

I have been a member of Etsy since about Dec. 2008...but I just started my own shop there in April, so I am fairly new. I am still getting into the swing of things, and still do not have much in my shop. Things have been kinda busy around here...But I am sure you will here about that later.

Ok...see...This was supposed to be an introduction post. Ya know, where I introduce myself? So far it has just been some rambling. My bad....lol. Alright, I am Kimberlee. I'm a 21 year old wife and mother of 2. One girl (3yrs), one boy (1yr). I enjoy making all kinds of things. I love to sew. My sewing machine probably hates me because since I got it, I have used it basically non-stop. I am up for trying to craft/make/sew just about anything. I will honestly tell you that I am not a 'pro' (yet lol), but I love my creativity.

Ok, well I am off in search of a blogger template that is not so boring. Stay tuned, though, in honor of my new blog I think I will start a contest/sweepstakes sort of deal...I just need to figure out what/how to do so. Thanks for reading.