Baby Shower gift

Made this a few months ago for my visiting teaching companion who was having a baby.

Used fabric paint on the onsie and just free-handed it; the painting was done with Watercolor.

Halloween Pillow

Drew this up and made a freezer paper stencil and painted it on some fabric using fabric paint and then sewed it up.  Halloween pillow.

Frank

I have noticed that this year there have been lots of Halloween decorations made from felt that are being sold at stores at ridiculous prices.

A made from felt skeleton being  one of them.

So last week I was feeling crafty and so I pulled out my felt and had lots of green and so I made Frank. 

That is all.

Handmade Book

Ever since Lilly was very small she has been obsessed with making books.  She went from simple folded paper, to multiple folded papers stapled together and now she's been looking up videos on YouTube on how to make books.  She found a pretty darn good one and begged me for 3 days straight to help her make one.  I finally relented and she wouldn't let me rest until it was done.  We are talking hand sewing 80 pages.  But it was kind of cool and the result is pretty good and Lilly is absolutely thrilled with it!  Now I'm making one for Max.

Ours isn't perfect but considering it cost us next to nothing, it's pretty cool! If you want to make one of your own here is the video we used.

Melted Crayon Rocks

This project is awesome!  I saw it on THIS blog.  I thought it looked like lots of fun so we gave it try.

First collect a bunch of rocks from your yard.  We have an over abundance.  I would suggest finding bigger rather than smaller rocks.
Place them on a foil lined cookie sheet in your oven (350 degrees) for about 20 minutes or so.  I'm not exactly sure on the time, we stuck ours in and then ate lunch.

Next gather a bunch of different colored crayons and remove the wrappers.  Or if your like me and your kids love to peel off the wrappers you won't have to do this step.
Take a rock out of the oven (with oven mitts) and place the rock on a piece of foil on top of a pot holder or fabric placemat.
Then touch the rock with the crayon and it instantly melts and runs all over the place!!! You can then paint with crayons.  Mix colors and overlap, it's really fun!!!!  Next time I'll be sure to do more rocks for me!
We place ours just outside our side door in the flower bed.  They really are lovely to look at!

Piggy Bank

This is a piggy bank.

Lilly made it for Max.

Max broke his a LONG time ago and I've just never gotten around to buying him a new one.

Max also broke Lilly's Piggy Bank.

But Lilly came out of her Captain Planet 4H club today carrying this contraption.

It was a "free" day and they could make whatever they wanted out of what was leftover.

She made a piggy bank for Max.

It's so sweet.

My first thought:

What is that hunk of junk? And where am I going to put it?

 Max loves it! 

He carried it all the way home, examining it all the way.
Before he went to bed, he said "I love that Piggy bank.  It's awesome!"

Lilly likes to leave her school stuff in the middle of floor when she comes home.

I count at least 5 things.

Good thing Max's silly face distracts your eye from it.

He refuses to not make a funny face.  In every picture.

Jarrett's pictures from the same age are exactly the same. Ha ha!

 It comes apart too.

Lilly is sweet.

Baby Shower gifts

So I went to a baby shower this weekend for a friend.  It was a Starwars themed Baby shower.  Since we are on a tight-ish budget, I always make gifts to give to people.  It used to be really awkward for me...and it's now..... less awkward.   I guess I just get nervous because I'm not ever sure if the people will like it, or think that I'm a crazy person like "Who wants this weird homemade stuff, that looks like crap." I like homemade gifts, but that's just me.

Anyways, I felt like I "got" this friend pretty well.  Our personalities are a lot a like so I felt pretty confident in what she might like for her little guy.

I made some pin stripe pants with elastic in the back and a straight front, no pictures other than what's above.

 I made some LITTLE MAN SHOES.  I gave her two pairs because the smaller pair (without the buttons) were the first I'd ever made and they turned out much much smaller than I thought and they were slightly ...wonky?  So instead of throwing them out, I thought I'd just give them to her . 

Next up a Darth Vader shirt. 

Daddy?

I used freezer paper and made a stencil, used a knife blade (because I couldn't find our exacto knife) to cut out the stencil.  Then I ironed it onto the shirt and then used fabric paint and painted the stencil onto the shirt.

Lastly is an oogie boogie softie.  She loves Nightmare Before Christmas, as do I, so I knew she would like it.  Her little girl knew exactly who it was.  Success.

Max was very jealous.  I guess I'll need to make one for him.

I made him from felt and embroidery floss.

Lilly's Valentines-2nd Grade

I know everybody and their mom has done this and probably is doing this for Valentines Day, but we seriously have shoe boxes of crayon bits that I just can't stand to throw out.  So we melted them in the oven in a heart shaped silicone baking thingy (very scientific I know) and made Valentine crayons for Lilly's class.  

Homemade Christmas Loot

 I am quite pleased to say that as I have become more confident in my sewing and painting skills I have made all birthday party gifts for friends this year, painted a wedding present, made 4 quilts for baby showers, and made a quite a few Christmas presents this year as well.  The snake on the top was for Max.  He really wanted me to make him a "snakey friend" and was ecstatic to get it.  It's really the simple things isn't it.
For Lilly, I stayed up on Christmas Eve late to make this doll for Lilly, that I thought of making for her around 4pm on Christmas Eve. It's a Coraline Doll and although Lilly really has never, ever liked dolls, I saw her give it a hug and tell it she loved it and she carries it around all the time and takes off and and on her clothes and rain coat.  It's really too cute.

 I made these "sleepover mats"(pictured below) for the kids for Christmas, that I saw on Grosgrain back in September.  They showed them using like 5 pillows and had them sewn up completely.  Now, I could have used some cheap $3 pillows from Walmart but Lilly has one on her bed (for her head) that we bought maybe 2 years ago and it is FLAT!  I knew these things would get a lot of use and I didn't want to spend hours of sewing time to have them be ruined and non-usable in a few months.   Plus what do you do if they get dirty?
So, we have a ton of camping foam pads.  The kind that are like 3 inches thick.  My parents bought them years ago and my sisters and I used to take them to Girls Camp and when we did family camping.  They have been taking up space in my house for the past 6 years (rolled up under our stairs).  I couldn't bear to let my mother get rid of them, I knew I would be able to use them for something someday.  The proof is below!  Plus they wouldn't cost me a thing for them (They are like 80-100$ at Joannes)
I bought some $5 bed sheets and measured for days before deciding on only 3 compartments and velcrow closures on the sides.  (So the foam can be taken out and the sheet washed)

 Each section has 3 Velcro closures. (So 9 in all)

 They can be used as a chair for reading a book....

 Or lain flat to sleep on, or watch a movie.

Yo Gabba Gabba Bean Bags

YO GABBA GABBA has been a favorite of my children for a while now.  My nephew likes it now too and so I thought I would make these for him for the other part of his Christmas GIFT.  It's awesome because it has guest appearances by artists that I myself like.
It's been rumored that the name came from the RAMONES and although it makes sense I can't find any info confirming the rumor but  they are the only ones I know of that use the word Gabba.
The Ramones are one of my all time favorite bands.  Here is the famous (or not so much so if you're not into Punk Rock music) Song GAbba Gabba Hey!

Superhero Box

   This is part of a Christmas gift I'm giving to my nephew.  Peg people painted to look like superheroes and a nifty small lunchbox tin I decorated to keep them in.
This project was so much fun!  I thought it was going to take a long time (like weeks)  but I only painted for maybe 3 or 4 hours.

I hope he loves it as much as I do!  I can't get over how cute they look!

And anyone who knows this little fellow, better not say a word!

Bean Bags

I've been meaning to make bean bags out of fabric scraps for a long long time.  This weekend I made some for some birthday gifts and so I whipped up a few more my kids.  I actually used rice in them instead of beans because that's what  I had available.

We've had some rousing games of toss the bean (rice) bags into the basket.

Felt Feathers for Thanksgiving

Here is how I made the felt feather for Lilly's NATIVE AMERICAN HEADBAND.

You'll need need a pipe cleaner and 2 different colors of felt.  I cut my pipe cleaner in half.  My feather measures 6 inches.

1) First cut out 2 pieces of felt in any color in a feather shape.

2) Cut notches into the sides
3) Fold in half lengthwise and cut 4 small slits. (To thread the pipe cleaner through)

4)  Thread the pipe cleaner through, leaving enough at the bottom of the feather to tuck into the head band.  Start at the bottom from underneath the feather and go up, then down and then up and then down, ending on the underneath side.

5) Use a hot glue gun and glue the second smaller piece of felt on top of the pipe cleaner that is threaded through the bigger piece of felt.  You're all done!

Tuck it into a head band made from 3 scraps of fabric braided together.
I had to bribe Max with candy to get him to let me take pictures of him....and he still made a nasty face.  Oh well.

Outdoor Leaf Art

 I think it would be super fun to make a bunch of these leaf-kabobs and leave them at parks or other places where people could discover them!  The same for the swirled leaves!  I love it when I find nature "art" that someone purposely left behind!

Tombstones

Max has been begging and begging and begging me to make a "graveyard" for our yard.  Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween and would love to do a big Halloween scene in our yard, but we seem to have the bad luck of always being targeted by the low life's in town.   We've had flowers and  pumpkins stolen, and quite frankly I'm afraid to to put anything in our yard.  And we have no extra money to spend on Halloween decorations, so we make do with what we have ....or what is free.
 So Jarrett brought home some cardboard boxes from work to make some graves.  But then what if it gets windy or rains? Plus we have no black paint to paint it with, and cardboard is enough of a pain to cut, that it would suck to have them ruined, or stolen plus they wouldn't be long term.
About a year ago, Jarrett found some particle board in the dumpster. (Yes, the dumpster.  The same one we found the bike and sandbox in.) behind his work.  That thing is a gold mine! It was painted black already and we've used it to make a work table for the garage.  So Jarrett had the awesome idea to use his jigsaw (he got from his Dad and has been wanting to use) to cut the particle board and make tombstones out of it.  So I drew on grave shapes and Jarrett cut it out and I found some oil pastels and let the kids draw on the tombstones.
 *Although painting them with chalkboard paint and using chalk would be awesome and maybe some year when we have more money I may do that. That way you could change the words on the tombstone as often as you wanted.
Jarrett cut up an old curtain rod (in 3 pieces) and we stuck them in the ground and we leaned the tombstones against them. There you go FREE graveyard that won't blow away in the wind.

P.S. I'll be moving the graves before night fall....just in case.

No Sew Tutu

 This is very easy to make, can be made to fit any size, and doesn't need any sewing!!!

For this size tutu about a 6-10 years old, you'll need 4-6 yards of Tulle.  I used only 4 yards for this one and it's not super full.  I had to space out the tulle quite a bit more than I thought.  So if you used 5 or 6 yards it would be really full.   Measure the waist of the person who the tutu is for and then add 20 inches on either side for the tie.  Tie a knot on either end of where the waist measurement was.
 I used this tutorial show below to cut and tie the tutu.

 Tie the tulle strips between the knots.

This one is a gift for a friend.  Lilly originally didn't want one, but once she tried it on for the picture, she decided that maybe a black one wouldn't be so bad.  She takes after her parents.