{crayon bags}

A long time ago, I found this great tutorial over at We Wilsons. I originally anticipated making some as snack bags, as she had done, but couldn't decide on what to use for the inside that's food safe. So, enter the crayon bag. I used her directions, only used cotton on the inside and out. It turned out the perfect size for Crayola roll-up crayons. I used the cheap velcro from JoAnn's which is perfect because it's easier for the kids to get the bag open. Finished, it measures about 4x6 and holds about 10 crayons easily.

I have made several of these now, and I use a larger version for holding prepackaged snacks like an assortment of mini raisin boxes, fruit snacks, and fruit leather for when we are headed out for a while. It's nice to have a small bag of snacks {for the kids and this pregnant lady} packed and together!

Mr. Gunny Bag

It was my week to teach Joy School again, and in the lesson they introduced "Mr. Gunny Bag". He "eats" all the toys that are still left out after you clean up! There is a cute song about it in the lesson & Bug is terrified he'll eat her toys, so maybe this will be a little incentive in our house to pick up all the toys at the end of the day.

To make him, I just did freehand fabric paint for teeth, eyes & eyebrows on a pillowcase - since I made it at 9:30 the night before school, I opted to keep it simple and I am glad I did!

.a.b.c.d.e.f.g.

We have been working with Bug on letter recognition and writing, so I made up these mini 'i spy' bags for her joy school friends for Christmas gifts. They measure just 3 3/4" square and have the alphabet in little colored letter beads inside, perfect size for taking out & about!

kcwc: day 5

Kids Clothes Week Challenge: Day 5

Today Bug asked to make a small batch of cookies to take to grandmother, so that's what we did! She took her Red Riding Hood Dress off long enough for bed, then this morning she was right back in it. Oh, how I love it when the girls love what I make! Since I didn't really want to bake cookies, I pulled some felt from our stash and whipped up a couple cookies. As far as clothes, I did wash fabric for a coat for Moo and am working on cutting out the pieces, hopefully to sew it tomorrow morning before work. I am excited to try this pattern I just bought from Heidi & Finn!

CELEBRATE!

We have had a week of celebrating 'baby girl' turning 3 - the same age as her mommy. We went out to eat and she got some new stickers... She got her own custom dress (based again on this tutorial)... a new sun bonnett - I used an infant hat and made four rows of gathering with elastic thread in a desperate attempt to make it fit... ...and a custom i-spy bag. Her best friends even got new clothes for her party we had at home. Spoiled rotten, I think.

tiny little flowers

I saw these adorable crocheted flowers and challenged myself to learn to crochet. They are not perfect (or anywhere near!) but I am pleased with my growing collection of tiny little flowers. {i love the helping hands when i take pics. makes me happy!}

party planning

I snatched this handy rotary blade from my mom a while back, and hadn't found a use for it until I ran across this tutorial for a birthday banner. With a party coming up this weekend, I was excited to use it!

'cycling' project

Bug is always attracted to the 'reuse, reduce, recycle' symbol, and asks almost daily about what we can 'cycle' (recycle) in our house. When I came across this idea again, I realized it was perfect for her. She helped break the crayons, sort by colors, and fill the muffin tin. We got this really great IKEA ice cube tray at our local thrift store, so it is reused too! This seemed to be an all-day project, which was a little bit of a bummer. I only have the one mold, and it had to cool completely between batches or the crayons would break coming out. So in one day we made a total of 6 batches, but Bug is pleased to have something to sell and I am happy to have her involved which makes it worth it.

Please forgive the poor pictures, but this is the packaging we decided to go with...complete with the recycle symbol on the back! She sold a couple sets and has put her 'earned money' in with her saving jar at our house. I am so proud of her!

tutu for frannie

Bug has just recently discovered naming her dolls/animals, and she has found a favorite bear and named her "Frannie". When I made her the dress the other day, she found the leftover tulle and insisted that her favorite baby Frannie have a tutu to match. I didn't bother with elastic, just used ribbon as a casing and sewed it up. Both Frannie and Bug seem to be pleased with it!

craft fair fun

I had a booth at the local craft fair in Victor, Id over the weekend with a couple friends, and it was a lot of fun! This also meant that my hubby had the kids all day for three days, as I worked the booth in the morning and at the Hospital at night. Luckily, he is great with them! Thanks, hubby! This was the setup of our booth the first day: We made some changes the following day, and added Audrey's hair bow stand later in the day, but it was similar overall.
{so for my inventory - one month of sewing while working 24 hours a week I managed to make 28 tanks and 24 dresses, 16 taggies, and 6 sets of 2 burp cloths. I already had the quilts done, thank goodness! They are all hidden behind the tutus.}

The highlight for me was when a mom held this dress up to her little girl, and she insisted on leaving with it. She was quite upset I had to snag the tag out of it for the price, but it totally made the weekend for me. I also sold two quilts, so hubby is happy they are out of the back room taking up space. Apparently he thinks there should be a limit on the amount of baby quilts I can hoard while we have no baby... don't tell him, but he does have a good point. I am glad they went to good homes!

This week will be some 'fun' sewing projects I have been dying to get to, and possibly a trip to Utah. We'll see.

burning the midnight oil

What do you do at midnight? Tonight after work (I get off after 12:30 am) I finally got around to finishing my craft vendor apron. It's a good thing my kids aren't early risers :) I started with a belt from the thrift store and some leftover tank fabric, and this is what I got: What do you think? It needs a little tweaking, but the size is just about right and it will work for this week. The ribbon belt goes around the back and there are d-rings so it stays on. Maybe I'll sell something, eh? I can only hope!

Update: I sold stuff! Enough to cover the entrance fee we had to pay for the summer, so anything on top of this is bonus! Okay, I guess I should say after the money I have spent on fabric, labels, elastic, etc. it will be a bonus, but right now it's just nice to have sold my items!

friday farmers' market

My friend Audrey wanted to do a craft booth at our local Farmers' Market, and I totally invited myself to do the booth with her. So this is what I have been working on for weeks and weeks... although it doesn't look like much inventory, I swear it is a lot of sewing!
As this was my first 'craft show', I was pretty nervous. Is it better to have a large inventory of a couple things? Or a small inventory of a lot of things? Since I am sharing the booth with two of my friends who each supplied their own items, I figured a larger inventory of a couple things would be good to start with. What do you think? Audrey made the awesome bows, and her husband made the stand. It looks great! Labels: I know I already showed you these, but they still make me giddy, so bear with me. I didn't want to look too much like... a beginner. I want to look polished. I have been happy with my tags, although I am wondering about satin instead next time. I still have quite a few to go through before I order more, but this first batch is wonderful. Size tags: I am so in love with the size tags I got! They are from an awesome etsy seller, angiecherryhi. She was great to communicate with and it really is an awesome product. I will stick with these for sure! I think the combination of the tags makes me a little more 'legit.' Hang tags: I searched several places online to find this font that was used on my labels. I want to have a cohesive look as far as the name goes. It only took an hour to find! I paired it with a fun heart and had some hang tags! The back of the tag on the 'upcycled' clothes has information on being green, etc. and was the right move I think. I just printed them out myself. Size dividers: I also found these on etsy! Totally in love with that site. Paper Party Design Co. is who I bought them through, and again, great to work with! She made these custom for me and they look great. I want another set so I have one for the closet in the sewing room and one for the Farmers Market. I also made a couple sets of two burp cloths and a couple taggie blankets

Now... if only there were any shoppers! Seriously, only a dozen people walked by in the 6 hours we sat there. I live in Driggs, people. It supposedly picks up and gets busier through the summmer. I sure hope so!

today...

-another rainy day. I am so ready for spring to come and stay.
-thinking about potty training. She loves to sit and sing, but that's all that happens. Maybe another month or two...

-loving that Moo talks so much. Today while she saw Bug and I getting ready for church, she said "Are you ready? Okay. Clothes, shoes, jacket, go! I go too! Jacket, Mama! I go!" She does not want to be left behind.

-drooling over a fabric purchase I made... Can't decide between a ticker tape quilt, squares like the bird quilt, or small baby blanket size projects. I love the fabric and am so happy to have my hands on a little bit!

-wishing I didn't have to work again today. Somehow my shifts all got bunched together and I have only had enough time to clean the house, but no crafting. Next week looks much better for sewing!

Slumber party

Nick bought a couple Strawberry Shortcake videos for the girls, and they have fallen in love. We picked up a couple of these dolls (4 1/2" tall) and the girls asked for blankets and pillows for them. I opted to make sleeping bags from our scrap drawers, and the girls have been playing 'slumber party' ever since!

I tried...

...but I couldn't stay away from the sewing machine today. I really did try.
My Mother's Day gift this year was a new camera! I just wanted to be able to take better pictures of my girls (and, hello, craft projects!) so I didn't want anything too fancy. Just a step up from a point-and-click. I finally settled on the Sony H20 - on sale at Fred Meyer! I have been drooling over the gorgeous camera straps on etsy, but since this is a mid-size camera, it's too small for the big strap. And too big for a small strap. Solution: A thin lanyard. Just a simple loop with mid-weight interfacing stitched to the wrist cord loop-thing they provided. (and yes, I am still in my race clothes. apparently ambitious enough to start a project but not enough to shower.)

Snowy Sunday

We got several inches of snow last night, and this is what my porch looked like on our way to church: Nice, no? Nothing says spring like two inches of snow on your doorstep. I had great plans of taking pictures of the girls outside in this skirt refashion, but it will have to wait for a warmer day. I hope we have another one before June.

ponies, toys, dolls

I have been very happy with our purchase of the toy shelf, but very quickly I realized I needed bins for organization. We picked up a couple at Target, but I wanted them to have specific contents. With a little fusible interfacing, some cotton, a ribbon and fabric paint, I came up with this:

Now if only the kids could read!

Craft Room

I am lucky enough where we live to have a room dedicated to my crafts. I love it. However, I have never actually done any crafts in there. This would be why...

It didn't start out this bad, it really didn't. I have beads, sewing supplies, scrapbooking stuff, yarn, storage, my mother-in-law's photos, my mother's chandelier... it seemed to turn into a storage space for everybody. So, today I had my hubby bring our elliptical machine in (hooray!) and had to do some rearranging in the room. I really got bad through December when I was storing all my Christmas gifts back there. I promise my whole house does not look like this! With a little help from Moo, I was able to accomplish quite a bit!
I now have space on the floor to move around, and have started tackling organizing all my fabric.
The bummer? I realized I have at least 15 quilting/sewing projects started. I would like to get down to 8... that seems to be a manageable number. I guess that means lots of sewing while hubby is away this week!

Finishing touches

I have spent the last week working on finishing all the gifts I started in October with great intentions of getting done early. Oops. So this week I have:

made my mom a necklace... this one I actually started this morning because somehow I missed her on my list...

Sewn this fabric Frosty the Snowman book for Moo,Finished binding this quilt for my Sister-in-law's mother, who will be joining us for Christmas.This quilt took 12 hours to quilt, and I used 27 bobbins! Not sure I will do pebble quilting this small again, but I love the finished look. Thank goodness it's just a lap quilt!

I have also almost finished a doorway puppet theatre (another post on that later), made a dozen scrapbook pages for my mother-in-law's book, made a dress for a friend's daughter, sewn 8 microwaveable rice bags for an order, finished knitting a hat, and beaded 3 lanyards for namebadges for a coworker. Thank goodness my family is okay with pizza, frozen noodle dinners and spaghetti for dinner!

Winter Wonderland

I saw this adorable winter scene on Chasing Cheerios, and Bug begged to make her own house. We still have a lot of felt from a great thrift store find, and we put it to good use. We dug through the felt and she chose colors while I cut.

I love how she decorated the tree. And the pink snow. That's my Buggie for you. The final scene is really cute - I imagine we will play with it a lot during Moo's naps in the coming weeks.

and... after another entire day knitting this hat again, I think it looks like I tried to knit armor from the game hubby has been playing on the xbox. Not a great look. So, I ripped it all out. Again. And started another hat. Hopefully success with this one!