Barbie House

My awesome dad made this for my daughter. It was the final gift for Christmas...She was SO excited!! One of the first things she said was "Let's paint it!" Then I got lots of hugs and "thanks" and she said she was going to give Grandpa lots of hugs....she was so happy, then ran off saying, "I've got to get my Barbies" and then spent a while playing with her new barbie house. Thanks Dad!! Isn't it awsome...take a closer look....

Dining Room:

Kitchen: Complete with a microwave and dishwasher.

Office: complete with a computer...she loved that!

TV Room: Yep, it has a large flat screen and a DVD player-actually it's probably a blu-ray.

Bedroom:

Christmas Countdown Modified

So I used white vinyl the first time, but I just put red on and it looks much better!

Don't you think?

Adding some Christmas Trim

I put this together for a gift exchange I had last weekend....We shared some of our homemade syrups and threw in some pancake mix. But to give the gift a little more Christmas cheer, I used some modge-podge to add some Christmas paper to the lids of the jars. I was careful to keep the modge-podge on the lid and not on the jar. It added a lot to the look of the gift and was really quite easy and quick...I just had to wait for it to dry.

Don't you just love what a little modge-podge and paper can do?!?

Fleece Hat and Scarf

I had some leftover scraps of fleece from...years ago. I found this pattern on Make It and Love It for this cute hat and with Kyla's winter coat being purple, I put one together for her. It was really fast and easy. (yeah, that's Nathan modeling her hat for me...I thought I'd make it a Christmas present)

Her head measured 21 inches so I cut two 11 1/2 in. by 8 1/2 inch squares of purple and two 11 1/2 in. by 3 in. for the trim. The pom-pom top I stayed close to the same measurements on her blog.

And then I decided to make her a matching scarf since I had enough left over:

This isn't anything new, but I finally made one. Super easy....two long strips, sew them together down the center and cut 1 inch apart into the scarf coming to 1/4 inch of the seam.

Car "Cozies"

I instantly fell in love with this idea at My Little Gems! She has an awesome tutorial that makes it a breeze to make these!

I made one for each of my boys for Christmas....I plan to keep them in the diaper bag...they love cars, so this will be great for me and I won't have to look for the cars in the bottom of the bag, which is also a huge bonus!!

Christmas Garland (and planned activities)

So...when my last issue of BHG came, they had a christmas countdown that was santa hats for treats to count down to christmas....and I thought how cute!!! But I wanted a countdown that gave us activities to celebrate as a family this wonderful time of year. So John and I sat down last Sunday and made a list...it's written down, numbered, and now on slips of paper in this garland for the kids to be excited about and hold up to our commitment to spend more time celebrating together as a family....it took a little longer than I thought it would to whip this together, but I love it and the kids are super excited about it. So here's some pictures:

Hung above our fireplace (and high enough the kids can't get into it)

Here it is a little closer:

I used 3 different red fabrics...Hand stitched all the buttons on and then decided hot glue would work great for the pom-poms. I bought mini clothes pins, clipped them onto a box and spray painted them white.

Ah...and I'm only one day late getting it up and posted :)

Kids Kreate

My kids love creating things, too and get excited to see pictures on my blog....so I got to thinking and created a blog to showcase their work. So check it out if you have little kids...it may be something for them to create, too! http://kidskreate.blogspot.com/

Are YOU Ready??

Thanksgiving is over....And the countdown begins.... Time to head out black Friday shopping....

Baby Gift

I made this for my friend's baby...I really liked the fabric. This time I used 2 fat quarters, because I liked the fabric. I was able to get a Dipes and Wipe and a burp cloth made to match. I made the Dipes and Wipes a little wider, so you could put 2 diapers in. I thought that would be better.

Curtains in the Boys' Room

Finally....cute curtains in the boys' room! I used blackout fabric on the back (Thanks for telling me about it, Julia) It blocks out a lot of the sunlight...great for naptimes! Here's a closeup of the fabric: John picked it out for the boys. I liked it and got to work...Nathan was super excited to see all of those trucks! Kyla is now begging for curtains in her room...

Wall Construction Pictures

Finally, I got around to getting these done...and my husband was awesome and hung them up for me where I wanted them. I am happy with how they turned out. Yeah, you may have to click on the picture to enlarge it if you really want a close look...but this is what I did:
8 pieces of wood cut 8x10, perfectly cut because my dad did it for me (Thanks Dad!!)
8 sheets of paper
8 pictures, 5x7 printed with sepia so they have a brown effect to match the brown trim I painted on the edges of the boards.

Paint edges of boards, modge podge on paper. Let dry. Sand edges. Modge Podge on Pictures. Let dry. Hang...


My kids were excited that the walls are finally getting decorated :)

Satin Flower Hair Clip

I've seen these satin flowers popping up on blogs...so I used the scraps from Kyla's halloween costume (I made her a blue fairy costume...SilverMist) I really liked how it turned out. Plus it was fairly simple. I cut out 3 sizes of flowers, one from each color of blue from her costume. I lighlty singed the edges using a lighter. Then I used a needle and thread to add pearls in the middle and pulled the thread to pucker the center of the flower.

Stretching my dollar again when I dry clothes...

A few months ago I noticed a friend had dryer sheets cut in half (Thanks Julie) and I thought...why didn't I think of that...so easy! So I came home, cut mine in half and laundry is going great...so if you want to make your dryer sheets go farther...just cut them in half!

Contruction Wipes Container

So I've been thinking about doing this, and finally just did it:
Don't you just love Modge Podge!?!
The top didn't turn out perfect, but I thought it was good for my first attempt at this. I love how it matches the boys room....now I've got to recover the changing pad....

Construction Truck Pillowcases

So the boys needed matching pillowcases:

I made 2 like this with yellow trim and 2 yellow ones with the blue truck print for the trim.

Finally...Contruction Truck Blankets!

So when Nathan was a baby...I wanted to do the "boy" room in construction stuff...esp. since John was working on the temple as it was being built. I found this cute fabric...after looking for a long time and bought everything on the bolt. Then it just sat until last week when I finally got my act together and took them to my Grandma's house.

I have lots of childhood memories about my Grandma sewing, esp. quilts...she has a small business to stitch the quilts to the batting...sorry I don't know what that's called...but she's great at it! She let me pick a pattern...she had a lot to pick from! And turned my fabric into these beautiful quilts for the boys! Nathan was so excited! He had a huge grin and squeal and kept saying "Car, Car, Car" as he pointed to them all. So take a look:

The tops:

Yellow back: Check out the cool design with the thread!

She even bound the quilts for me!

Thanks Grandma!!

Hair Flower

Kari and I found matching dresses for our girls at a yard sale and made matching hair flowers:
We used modge podge, scrapbook paper and the flat marbles to make the center and glued them onto the center of the flowers. We will definitely be making more...so cute!! They are a bit heavy, so we used stronger clips.

Kyla loves it...and wants every dress she has to match a friend's.

More Dipes and Wipes Bags

Dipes and Wipes Bags:

The basic layout:


And two done:

Crinkly Tag Toy

Got this idea here. I used a wrapper from microwave popcorn and sewed it into this:




It makes a great crinkly sound and has the fun little tags to play with, too and it is small to toss in a diaper bag.

Simple Centerpiece

I found this at a yard sale a few weeks ago for 25 cents...

Added 3 roses and some water...Love it!

So I found this basket at a yard sale for 25 cents...I loved that it was blue, but wasn't thrilled about the natural wood look--so....


I spray painted the basket with white paint...now I love it!

My All American Girl

My first attempt at a "Twirl" Skirt:

I read lots of blogs listed here:

then created my skirt combining what I liked from each blog.

My measurements were:
Red fabric: 7 x 30
White fabric: 6 x 44
Blue fabric: 7 x 65

It turned out a little longer than I expected....but on the plus size she should be able to wear this next year, too!

Then of course we had to make a matching headband...then a matching bow.



My headband pattern from this blog (Kyla loves these! I love that they are reversible, so this one has red stars on one side, blue stars in the other):
http://foofanagle.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/best-band-ever/

And this was my first attempt at the flower bow from this blog:
http://www.fiskateers.com/blog/2008/09/18/cool-sewing-tutorial-pinkys-flowers/

Kids "Drive-In" Movie Night

Invitations:
They didn't turn out as cute as I had hoped, but they worked and Kyla was super excited about them. I drove her around and let her deliver them to our friends...She wore a big smile the whole time and looked forward to our party all week!

Cars:


I painted their boxes and let them help me glue on wheels, headlights and a grill. I used a brad (and John drilled a hole through the paper plate steering wheel and box) to put the steering wheels on so that they would actually turn--my kids loved that part!
Others did some cute things with their cars...one used the flap of the box and cut out the center of it to create a windshield and another made license plates on the back with their names spelled out. They were super cute! It was fun to see different ideas on decorating the cars!

I used their pillows to make a cushioned seat and tossed in their blankets for movie time.

Complete with concessions:

I cut brown paper bags short to make little popcorn bags. Chose Capri Suns to cut down on spills and of course made it easy with prepackaged cookies. Originally I was going to do mini candy bars...but was not wanted to clean up chocolate since there were four 2 year olds. (I know how messy mine gets)

Baby Burp Clothes

These are supposed to be super absorbent since they are cloth diapers: how fitting for spit-up! I thought these would be a cute addition to the John Deere baby gifts I'm working on.

I found the idea here:http://anewchelseamorning.blogspot.com/2007/03/such-mystery-not.html
(Yes, I realize I need to serge the bottom still...some little helper messed with my tensions, so I will try to finish that part soon, but you get the idea.)

I like hers better. I made my fabric thinner to go with the prefolds...I thought they might fold up better, but hers are cuter with more fabric. I'm not sure which one will work better because the diaper itself would be more absorbent than the fabric, right? So do you want more cute fabric or more absorbency? I don't know.

Wouldn't it be nice...

to have all of these extra sewing feet....

http://creativesewingsolutions.com

I didn't know you could get all of these! Sew a button on, make fast ruffles...I had heard of a bias tape foot, but it is not featured on this site. Someday I would love to try these all out.

Dipes and Wipes Bags

This is my favorite gift to give to someone, I was so excited to find the pattern:
http://www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Baby/dipecase.html

I got 2 of these for the boys when Caden was born, they work great to keep the diapers and wipes together and for taking with us for diaper changes. They also work great when I drop Nathan off somewhere because that is usually all he needs from the diaper bag.

Binki Bag

I created a pattern for this using the Dipes and Wipes pattern and just sizing it way down. It is a pouch to hold the binki so that it stays clean. I think next time I will try to add a velcro handle to make it easy to fasten to the handle of the car seat, diaper bag strap, purse, etc.

Diaper Bag Tissue Holder

Found the pattern and directions here.


It's not my favorite, but I thought it might be fun for her diaper bag.

Baby Bib

I just traced the shape of a bib I had, cut one with John Deere fabric, one with greeen for the backing and cut one with batting for the center.

It turned out ok, but I think I like the towel bibs a lot better.

Guess How Much!

Just 5.96 with tax!

Using coupons I had collected combined with Albertson's matching coupon deal, the total savings were just under $35.