Noisy Taggie Square

I saw this tutorial at Joy's Hope and thought this would make a great little toy for Micah to play with during our 10 hour road trip! It was very simple to make and I can't wait for him to see it...I hope he plays with it for a long time! It's hard to keep one year olds occupied in the car, since he can't have crayons (he just eats them) or books (he just eats them) and since he throws most of his toys anyway. We'll see what he thinks!

These will make great baby gifts in the future too!

Neck Pillow Tutorial

The second week in July we are going on vacation! I am SOO excited! Now that we live in Texas we fly to most of our vacation destinations...but not this time. This time we are doing a good old fashioned road trip and I am excited...sorta! I love going on road trips with Greg...the open road, singing along to old-school DCTalk, talking, reading books, taking random photos of the side of the road. Ahh....memories! We used to make lots of trips from St. Louis to Milwaukee and Indy.

But alas, a LOT has changed since those days of care free road-tripping. We added two kids to the mix. The longest road trip we took these kids on was driving back to San Antonio from Milwakee via two days in St. Louis, but my mom was with us...and Micah was pretty little...so he slept most of the way. As I said before, things are different now. I know the kids will do great and we're going to have a great time but I'm planning a lot of things for the trip and planning on making it successful.

One thing in my plans to make the trip successful was to make little neck pillows so that if and WHEN the kids fall asleep they don't break their necks in the process. I figured, how hard can it really be to make a little curved pillow? Well, it wasn't all that hard actually. And here's my little tutorial to prove that anyone with a little basic sewing knowledge can make a neck pillow too! Because really my sewing knowledge is BASIC!

Here's the end product...but how did I get there? (Isn't he handsome?)

I started by drawing my shape on the wrong side of the fabric and pinned right sides of both fabrics together.

I then sewed around my line using the line as my guide.
Then I cut the shape out, about 1/4 inch from the sewn line. I found it MUCH easier to sew the shape and then cut it out rather than trying to sew the already cut shape. It's a good thing I have to do things twice because it gives me an opportunity to try it a different (and hopefully easier) way.
Turn the pillow right side out...I added this ribbon to Naomi's because originally I was going to use white chenile on the front but forgot so the ribbon is to differentiate between Micah's and Naomi's...plus I think it's cute!
Here are the two pillow forms waiting to be stuffed. They look the same basically but I made Naomi's a little wider at the bottom.
I stuffed the pillows pretty tight and then sewed a line near the top so that stuffing would stay tight in the bottom. I didn't fill the part between the lines too full because I didn't want it to push their heads forward.

Here are the pillows in action (she's faking it)...
(he's not).

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. If something isn't clear let me know and I'll try to clarify. Let me know if you make one...I'd love to see it!

Egg Carton Flowers

When I buy eggs they usually come in a styrofoam container. I would really love to get the paper ones but our grocery store doesn't really carry them. Why does it matter you ask? It would be nicer on the environment if we bought paper and the paper ones make better craft projects! So while the kids and I were on a really long walk the other day I happened to see a paper egg carton on the sidewalk, so I picked it up. Gross? Not really it was just a container for cascarones. I have no idea if I spelled that right but cascarones are these little confetti filled eggs that they sell around Fiesta time. I knew what I wanted to do with the paper egg container and once we got home we started on the project.

Naomi and I painted the container and then after letting it dry during nap time we made the container into little flowers. She really liked putting the pipe cleaners through the leaves and the bottom of the flowers. I asked her what she wanted to do with the flowers and she basically told me that she wanted to keep them for herself. So, I encouraged her to think about others and give them to the staff at church. So a couple days later we went to church to give out the flowers and to teach Naomi about giving and sharing our gifts with others. We also gave one to Anna because she watched Micah so that Naomi and I could give out the flowers and go grocery shopping. Thanks Anna.

Micah enjoyed a little coloring...till I had to take the crayons away because he was eating them.

Card Table Tent

I have been dreaming about the card table playhouse for my kids for a while now. And I finally did something about it. I made the dream a reality in my own way. We got the card table out last week and threw some blankets over it. The blankets were dark and hot. So, I decided it would probably be better with some sheets. I knew that I had some thrift store sheets just waiting to be used for something so I got those out and threw them over the table. The kids loved it.

I decided to take things one step further. I wanted to make a tent that actually fit on the table and something that could be easily put away. I thought up the design in my head and took some measurements and two nights later I had this card table tent all ready for the kids to play with.

It is by NO means perfect.

The sides aren't all the same length.

The patterns don't exactly match.

But, my kids and I could care less.

They LOVE playing in their new tent and ask for it to be set up everyday (because I like to have my living room back in the evening).

How did I make it? Well, I measured the length and width of the sides and cut two pieces of old sheets for each side. I sewed them right sides together with a ribbon at 10 and 20 inches on both sides. Then I turned them right side out. (I was thinking about top stitching all the sides but didn't feel it was really necessary and I didn't want this project to take me forever.) For the top I used a whole twin sheet. It worked out perfectly to fold the two edges to the middle and sew those down. Then I cut the sheet where it was ending on the table. I sewed a hem in the cut edges and the rest was already finished off because it's a sheet so that made it simple. Then I sewed the three sides onto the top/front piece and I was good to go. Usually when people make these things they make it so the stitching is down but I like it on top and if I really wanted to I could turn it over...it's sorta reversible. I left a big chunk of fabric in the front because we like to put it on chairs and it makes the tent even bigger. It's sorta like an awning!

So, for a huge fraction of the cost of a felt card table playhouse I made my very own. My kids love it and I'm proud that I could make something with just ideas in my head and turn it into a reality. Plus, I can easily wash this and it cost me about 5 dollars to make! Yay! Now, go make your own!

Cookies

I made these felt cookies a while ago but never posted a photo of them. I thought that since I was giving them to Aly with the apples that I should post of photo. That way I'll remember what I made and what they looked like. Aly really liked the felt apples and called the cookies, pancakes with strawberry syrup....so cute. I hope to make more of these in the future and of course I need to make some more so Naomi can have her very own set...I keep giving hers away!

Veil

My friend Kari is getting married on Saturday...so EXCITED! She asked me to make her veil. No pressure right? It's not like I'm altering the dress. It's not like I'm the caterer. It's not like I'm the wedding photographer right? I've had that pressure before. I'm just making the veil and really if it's not that great she can always decide to not wear one right? Well, all that being said, I think for my first veil it turned out okay. I'm not sure if it's exactly what Kari envisioned but I think it's close. I hope she likes it. I'll make sure to get a photo of it in all its glory adorning the head of the beautiful bride on Saturday. But she'll be beautiful even without the veil, so it's really not a big deal. Just check one more thing off the "I can do it" list.

From this:

To this:

Apples!

While watching "Australia" with my husband last night I created these felt apple slices. I looked at a few tutorials online and got the general idea of how they were done. I think the most helpful tutorial that I saw was here. It just helped me get the concept down although I already had the initial idea of how it would work in my head. I'm glad to see how other people do it so I know what works and what doesn't. I hope to make some carrots soon...and maybe some green veggies too, we'll see if I have time! Have a great week. Off to clean my crafting area!

Naomi's Easter Bag

I got Naomi's Easter bag done today. It didn't seem to take me as long as Micah's took and I'm not sure why that is. Probably because I did most of it in one day rather than stretching it over three days. I really am happy with how these turned out and could totally see making more of these for other occasions! I think they would make great birthday party favors...or presents, filled with goodies for the birthday person. Naomi was so cute today, playing with her new bag and she kept trying to give Micah his "purse" to play with, but he must have heard that boys don't play with purses because he wanted nothing to do with it.
I intended for the feet to be under the main body piece but must have moved the body piece when I was stitching it on. Oh well, nobody's perfect.I agreed to buy a table for my local PTA's Craft Fair fundraiser. I will set up a small display for my photography and also show my felt food and take some custom orders. Hopefully it'll be a little successful!

Easter Bags

My mother-in-law and I were at Target the other day and we saw these cute little felt Easter bags in the dollar spot. I was so tempted to buy one for each of my kids but decided that I could make my own and it wouldn't even cost me a dollar per bag. So, I bought a little more felt and used some that I already had and when I am finished I will have two Eater bags for approximately $1.40. So, it's not a whole lot cheeper than the ones at Target but these are handmade with love AND personalized.

Here's my first attempt at a tutorial for those of you out there who'd like to make your own Target knock-off Easter bag. Please know that I'm not a perfectionist nor do I really know that much about sewing, so take that into consideration while reading/following this tutorial. I took two pieces of 9x12 felt and cut off two inches from the shorter side, these will be your handles.Fold the handles in half and sew 1/4 inch from the edge (no need to turn under since felt does not fray). Then sew 1/4 in on the other side too, so you have two seams on the handle (the second seam just makes it look better, there's no real use for it).Next, take the two big pieces together and sew along the two shorter sides. (Sorry that I switched colors I decided to work on Micah's bag first...hence the blue.)

Cut a square off each bottom corner (I made 1 1/2 inch squares) and then stitch the bottom pieces together.Squish the square together and sew, this will be the bottom of the bag. (Sorry for the bad photo, my nice camera is in the shop so I had to use my little digital!)This is what it will look like once you've sewn the bottom pieces together.

Now turn the back right side out and you're all set (for the most part)

I like to make my bags a little studier so I find the corners and sew a seam all the way up from the corners. This makes the bag more rigid. Just make sure to backstitch at all ends since little kids will be playing with this. You want to make it as sturdy as possible.Just another view with the outside edges stitched.Next, add your handles. I just picked a place where I thought they looked good and stitched them on. I used a continuous stitch and made sure to backstitch at the beginning and the end. I also added a little "X" in the middle to make it look a little better. The trick that I've found for making handles go the right way is to hold the piece that is going to be the handle flat in front of you and then just drop your hands down towards each other and you should get your handles going the right way.Once the bag was finished I hand sewed on a little chick and an M on Micah's bag. I made a document with some bunnies (I'm using the white one for Naomi's bag) and a chick to copy and letters to trace for the bags. I just eyeballed the animals but cut out the letters and actually traced them onto the felt.Then it came time to get this on their Easter bags. First I sewed the eyes and beak onto the large yellow body, then I sewed the legs onto the bag followed by the wings and the little tuft at the top. Then I sewed the body on and before closing it all the way I added some poly-fill to make the bag pop! This project really didn't take me too long and it was great to work on while sitting outside watching the kids play and an easy project to do while watching TV (once the initial bag is sewn that is.) Let me know if something is not clear and I'll try to clarify. I'll post pictures later of Naomi's bag. I'm hoping to get it finished tonight!

Micah seems to like his Easter bag already!

I hope to do more of these in the future....tutorials that is.