Greyson

Look at his foot!!

Shabby Flower Tutorial

You can never have too many ways to make flowers.  My cute friend, Brittany of Paisley Lace and Pearls showed me this idea.  And since she doesn't blog, she allowed me to share it with you.  This is simple and fun.  So grab your scissors and favorite cotton fabric!

cut a stack of circles small to big, 5-6 layers is nice. You can alternate fabric patterns, or do as I did and turn the fabric over  so it is more "sheer".

take each petal and stretch lightly, this makes it fray and makes the the cirle crinkel/wavey.  Follow all the way around the circle.

stack them all back together and look how pretty!

stitch them in the center so they stay together.

embellish what you want...  In this case I was making a custom order for a customer.  She let me have creative freedom with this and so I take those opportunities to try new things.

center it off with buttons or pearls, whatever is pretty!!  These are great for outfits, or headbands or to embellish bags or scarfs.  Enjoy another easy great flower tutorial.  Thanks Brittany!  Be sure to visit her cute SHOP and see what she has in store!!

ENjoy!!!

18 hours old

He is all boy. Just while I was taking this picture he let out the biggest fart

A Handmade Christmas- Easy Toy Bag

I need alot of these for all the little random things/toys we have laying around.  Since I decided to do last minute paper dolls for my Pia, I thought they needed a special place so they wouldn't get lost.  So Why not do a really simple draw string bag?

Cut the fabric to what ever size rectangle or square, cut 2 of them.  Sew right sides together leaving the opening at the top.

Then zig zag or serge the opening edges so you don't have to fold an press your hem. 

Get your button hole presser foot out and make two button holes next to each other.  You may want to practic this on a scrap fabric first to get the spacing right.

take your seam ripper and carefully cut the fabric in the button holes without cutting the thread.

with the bag inside out, fold the top so you are folding the button holes in half/ in the middle.  Press/iron in place and pin.  You are now making the casing for the draw string.

Sew your casing all the way around.  You don't need to leave an opening for anything cause that is what the button holes are for. 

use what ever type of "string" you would like.  I use jersey knit cause I have a lot of it, it stretches and doesn't fray so I can just cut and go.  I cut mine so it is 2 inches wide.

thread the string through one hole and out the other. 

Tie knots and trim

There you have it!  A safe place for any toy that needs a cute home.

enjoy!!  Merry Christmas

Handmade Christmas- Paper Dolls

So as stocking stuffers I thought it would be nice for my girls to give them paper dolls.  But how do I do that without then tearing them to shreds?  Laminate and then use either magnets or velcro peices to help them stick instead of the little tabs.  So Here is a couple of sites you can go to that are good and safe for all sorts of your kids favorite characters that you can print for free and make paper dolls, and yes  there are even twilight ones!  One of the sites is called Color Cut & Create.  It has all these fabulouse options plus more!

THen there is Disney Junior website.  They have paper puppets and paper dolls for most of the princesses.  These though, you would need to color yourself. 

What a fun gift that is pretty much free!  Just the cost of paper and the ink from your printer!  Enjoy!

A handmade Christmas- crochet kindle/nook case

I don't know how to teach you Joe to crochet but this is a good gift idea if you know how to!! I made this for my mom then filled it with her favorite treats. Merry Christmas !!

Tea Dyeing Tutorial

This is a fun one to play around with.  Different tea flavors put out different hues/colors.  I usually just use the black tea cause it works the fastest.  So sitting and stirring the fabric for 30 minutes.  Just dip it in, soak it, stir for a second and rinse it out, then wash.

These are great for doing vintage style clothing.  Sorry for my first picture for some reason it just wont rotate.  hopefully you get the idea though.

boil a pot of water

get your shirts/fabric and tea

once the pot is boiling, add about 4-6 tea bags and let boil for about another 10 mintues.  This gets the color of the water really saturated.  Another reason why my process doesn't take long.

remove the bags from the pot, and turn the burner off so no longer boiling.  Place your fabric in the water and saturate while stirring for a minute or so.  Take out and rinse when the desire color is acheived.  This usually only takes me literally a couple of minutes.  Then rinse with warm-tepid water.  This will fade out the excess color.  If you want it darker put it back in the pot.

After you have rinsed, wash in warm/cold water and dry.  Embellish the heck out of it and Enjoy!!!

Handmade Christmas- Felt Baby shoes or slippers

easy. simple. cute.  I will he doing this project and making some shoes for my little Greyson.  I will be adding some laces to add a little more character.  Go to the Purl Bee HERE for the tutorial.

Great Christmas Gift Idea

 Abbigail Workman is the fantastic creator and mastermind behind the cute shop AdilynLenee.  She makes unique items like diaper wipe cases, baby boots and slippers, neck ties and bow ties and hair accessories.  I did the Holiday House with her recently and fell in love with her style.  We swapped merchendise and made plans to get together and craft.  One of the things I received from her was her baby boots....although my girls aren't babies, she custom made my almost 4 year old boot like slippers so she can "be like mommy".  I love them and so does allisandria.  I also traded to get an awesome neck tie for little Greyson.  It is adjustable with velcro and is well made.  looks like a real tie from the store.  Enjoy these pictures and please head on over to her shop HERE and check out everything else she has.  Most of her stuff is already made and ready to ship, but will gladly welcome custom orders.  Enjoy!!

Handmade Christmas- DIY Sugar Scrub

This one is for my mom.  This is a great thing to make using mostly things that you already have in your pantry.  Grab a little helper.  Each of my girls (3 1/2 & 1 1/2), both helped make a jar.  So this will be their gift to Gma.  They really enjoyed helping.  Especially my small one.  She saw me grabbing ingredients out of the pantry and trotted over with her uneven/steady run saying "help help help help".

I found so many tutorials on this and this seemed to be the most simple, so I adjusted it to fit the small size mason jars to put it in. 

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of sugar (you can also use empsom salt)

about 1 cup of Olive oil or veg. oil plus maybe just a little extra...

8-12 drops of essential oils (can be found at a craft store)

1-2 drops of food coloring if you want to

Supplies:

Jar with lid of some sort

spoon, scooper or craft stick

ribbon or decoration

labels

Mix everything together really well, especially the color then scoop it in the jars.  Enjoy the aroma.

Enjoy!!

Vintage T-shirt quilt- Boy baby blanket idea

So after I saw this post HERE on Ruffles and Stuff about Disney making a pillow for her husband's man cave, I instantly fell in love.  This is the theme I wanted for my son's room.

I ventured to the thrift store to find my vintage finds...here is what I found. 

I used the grey and white polka dot fabric I used on the bumper I made HERE for the binding, to bring the two nursery peices together.  Now the opposite side is the super plush minky I got on sale at Joann's.  That stuff can be super expensive to only buy it on sale!  I chose baby blue to match the crib sheets.  So I guess you can say the nursery colors are grey, white, baby blue, and t-shirt randomness!!  I love it! 

My sweet husband didn't see the vision when I explained how awesome it would look, but now that the blanket is done, you know what I will be showing him as soon as he steps in the door from work...yep!!

don't you wanna snuggle???