I have been busy okay

So this craft blog and my regular blog have kind of been suffering lately. I have been pretty busy lately and haven't taken out my sewing machine since Halloween. I have completed some cute things that I still need to photograph.... and I recently got the Sure Cuts a Lot software for my Cricut. I have started to do some fun things with that too. In the next couple of days we are going to make Christmas shirts for our family. I got the idea from a lady in my ward. Every year they would make some kind of shirt or sweater and the family would take a picture in them. I don't know if we will do it every year.... but we are going to try it out this year and see how it goes. I need to get my house under control tomorrow and we need to finish them before Christmas Eve. The other problem I have been having lately is my washing machine kind of pooped out (okay... maybe I put a little too many clothes in it) and it won't drain or spin. Lucky for me it belongs to our apartment and the management company has to pay for someone to come out tomorrow and fix it. :) Hopefully they can get the problem resolved quickly. We have a lot of laundry to do and I am running out of underwear.... yikes. I'll keep you posted. :) Merry Christmas!

Wizard Hats

I don't know if you remember the wands I made a while ago... but I promised the boys a more permanent wizard hat than the paper ones we made that day. I finally made them... and they turned out super cute!
I don't know why my little models were hiding behind their wands..... but they were.

I just made a hat out of paper then cut a straight line one side and used that as a pattern. I used two layers of felt so the hat would stay up straight and just sewed it all by hand. It didn't take very long at all.

Bumble Bee Tutu

My sister found the cutest bee wings and antenna at the halloween store. So I volunteered to make her a tutu. I got the idea at http://www.makeit-loveit.com/ and used her tutorial for the fluffy chiffon skirt. I put in a lot more layers and used tool instead of chiffon. It turned out pretty cute though.

She didn't get to wear it for very long because Halloween was kind of weird this year being on a Sunday and all..... But what a sweet costume!

Frilly Apron

My sister and I had a fairy tea party sleep over with my 7 year old niece this last weekend. Poor little thing is surrounded by boys. There are 9 grandsons and only 3 granddaughters on my side of the family. The other 2 girls live in Russia.... so she is seriously surround by boys at every family gathering. She is a really good sport about it all. But my sister and I wanted to do something totally girly for her. So we had a tea party, did her hair, painted our nails, and watched the latest Tinkerbell movie.... super cute by the way. We gave her all sorts of goodies. My sister made her an awesome wand with a butterfly on the top and I made her this:
I LOVE the colors! When I finished I wanted to keep it for myself! I am glad I didn't though. Her face totally lit up when I tied it on her. You can see the table in the background where we sat for our tea party. Isn't that fairy garland my sister made super cute?

Isn't she a cute little girl?! We had a lot of fun at our sleepover and I will miss her when we move away. :(

Here they Are

I am not even going to attempt to describe how I make these. There were a lot of different pieces to each costume and I wouldn't even be able to explain it very well. Here we all are after our ward party tonight.
The boys costumes looked AWESOME! I was very happy with how they turned out.

I think the things I was most proud of were the slip covers for their boots. :)

The little one was running around punching the air all night. What a character!

Obviously parts were made and parts were bought. The underwear I am proud to say was all me!! haha. I guess if we got real desperate for money and couldn't afford any underwear.... I could make them some....haha. :)

Been Busy Lately

I have been really busy with a bunch of different sewing projects. REALLY busy. Here is a little preview of the halloween post to come.....

Baby Girl Towels

I made some hooded towels for my friend who was having a little girl. I have taken pictures to put together a tutorial on how to do the towels. So hopefully I will have that up soon.

Taggie Blanket

My sister wanted a Taggie blanket for her cute little boy so while we were visiting my mom we went to Jo Ann's and picket out fabric and material. My sister has super good taste and chose green and brown. It was the cheapest to buy ribbon by the yard and we only needed 1/2 a yard of each of the ribbon.
So first I pinned the ribbon on the fabric like this.

Then I sewed it into place.

Then I sewed my two pieces of fabric together with the ribbon inside. Turn inside out and Stitch all the way around the edge of the blanket.

I also sewed a piece of crinkly stuff inside so it makes noise when her little boy plays with it. I used a bag from the kirkland wipes from costco. You can do it without the crinkly stuff and it is still so adorable.

So jealous of all this fun baby stuff to make that wasn't around when my big boys were babies. If I ever have another one.... I will have so much fun stuff to make. :)

Superhero Garb

My sister and I had a super hero party for our little boys. It was all of my nieces and nephews that would be attending so of course we had to go all out. I made them all capes. First I just printed out letters (the first letter of each of their names) on Microsoft Word. I think I used tempus Sans and had it set to like 400 font or something. I cut the letters out of felt.Then I sewed them on to a circle.

Then I cut out all of the capes and sewed the circle on.

Sew the two sides together and turn inside out. Add a little Velcro... and viola! They turned out super cute.

We had a couple of babies in attendance... so they got super hero bibs. Basically the same thing, but I added a piece of vinyl on the front and put bias tape around it.

They needed to have masks too right?

I just bought some masquerade masks from Micheal's and glued felt and sequins on the front (with E6000 of course). It all turned out really cute.... and I think I know what my boys will be for Halloween this year. :)

Ties

I saw a little booth in our mall that was selling little boy ties made out of just cotton material and I thought they were really cute. I have a pattern for bow ties already... and my little guy prefer those... but I like how my older son looks in long ties.
So I took apart an old tie and made a pattern. I LOVE how it turned out.

Elastic Waistband Skirt

I got this idea from my sister-in-law's blog. Thank you Dasha! (You should check out her blog, she makes some really good things and is good at everything...even knitting. You will have to teach me some day Dasha!) This was a skirt that I could actually make and the place that she originally found it from has a really good tutorial. It is really easy to follow. (Obviously... if even I could do it.)

One of my favorite things about this skirt is it has pockets. LOVE IT! I love pockets. There is also a tutorial and instructions for a little girl skirt like this as well.

Watch Bands

So lately I have kind of gotten into the whole beaded watch band thing. They are a fast craft to make, and who doesn't love jewelry? You can get watch faces pretty cheap at Roberts, they are usually on sale. If they aren't, gotta love the 40% off! Here are a few I have done.
I think the huge beads are fun, but my wrists are so small that it kind of looks ridiculous. For myself... I stick with the smaller beads. :)

Kid's Purse

I am not going to even attempt giving instructions on this one becuase I sort of just came up with it one night, and I don't think I could explain it vvery well. Maybe one of these I will do a picture tutorial for it.... until then, here are the results:

It turned out really cute, and is a perfect place for your little one to store her "treasures".

Picture Frame

My oldest has a best friend that moved to another state. They have been buddies since before they could walk (it also helps that her mom and I are best friends). This little girl always talks about how she wants to marry my son and how he is "her prince." I thought it would be fun for her birthday to send her a picture of them together. I didn't want it to just be in a regular frame so I decided to make it cute. The only things that aren't pictured are mod podge and buttons.
You just cut out the paper and mod podge it to the frame. (I took the glass out while I was working on it.)

I glued some buttons on after it was dry with my trusty E6000. (I should really be paid by them for how much I advertise their glue!) It turned out really cute.

I guess she is a little frightened by the buttons because she has seen Coraline..... but overall I think she likes it. :)

Crayon Bags

I had to teach the last day of Preschool: Z. I thought it would be fun to make the kids some little bags with zippers on them. As always.... I waited until the night before to start and I was up way to late.... but they turned out pretty cute.
I love this little cupcake. Would look super cute as an embellishment on a shirt for a little girl.

I copied a airplane button I had for the boys ones. They also turned out pretty cute.

My boys now take theirs to church as their little crayon bag. I am sure these will be around our house for a while. :)

Pillows for the couches

The pillows that we had on our couch were pretty pathetic. I got them a couple years ago from Shopko or something. We took them with us last summer on an internship. The apartment we lived in STUNK really bad. Like smoke. When we got back a had to wash them and we all know what happens to pillows after you wash them. They are never the same. They were all lumpy and not very comfortable at all. So I finally finished my new ones. There are lots of different colors in my living room.... hence the many colors of these pillows... trust me... they all go. :)
I love the pillows with different textures and embellishes, but I wanted something really functional for our living room that I wouldn't mind if people used. So I bought pillow forms and made simple covers for them. With zippers on the side so they stay shut really well.

When they start looking dirty I can wash the covers and the pillows will keep their shape!!

April Showers

Since spring is here I decided to change the flowers in my IBC rootbeer bottles a little.
It just used to be red roses, but I think they yellow brightens it up a lot.

Alphabet Magnets

We are done with Joy School!!! I taught the letter Z today. So I made 3 and 1/2 sets of these:

If you are wondering why it is 3 and 1/2, that is because one of the little girls only did it for half the year. If you like these letters here is the link for the pattern. They are really cute and you can make them any colors you want.

Vintage Zipper Flower

My friend from California introduced me to these. They are really cool and who would have ever thought you could make a flower out of a zipper.

There is a tutorial here.... but I didn't do it exactly the same. She just wound hers around, but I wanted mine more flat, so I stitched a loose stitch around the bottom of the zipper first. It made it really flat. I also used a longer zipper than she suggests. I got the longest zipper at walmart and I had enough to make all the petals around it too. Martha Stewart also has some fun ideas for zipper flowers on her website.

Wands

The last time it was my turn to teach joy school I had W. I was dressed up as a witch when they came over, we made wizard hats, and I made them wands. My three year old is a little obsessed with magic and has been wanting a wand for a long time. I was trying to figure out how I could make a wand and not have it too girly.... so here is what I came up with:
There is one little girl in our preschool so I got to make one pretty wand.

They weren't too hard to make. I wrapped a dowel in ribbon and glued it as a went. Then I just attached to stuff to the top. Here are the little recipients. I think they liked them....

What do you think?

Happy spell casting!