Fabric Flowers




      Aren't these fun?! There are so many tutorials on the web of how to make them, so I'm not going to post a step by step tutorial on how I made these. Skip to My Lou, (A very cool blog BTW), posted a collection of tutorials on not just one way, but ten ways to make adorable fabric flowers! I think these flowers are so versatile, you can put them on pins, clips, rubberbands. *ATTENTION MAMAS* this is a GREAT craft to do with your little girl, there are many steps in which she can help out. If she's anything like my little girl, she will feel very proud to be able to wear something she helped to make.

     If you decide to make something using any of these tutorials I would love to see it! I am still looking for ways to use these (since I made a ton of them). So hop on over to Skip to My Lou and look at all the beautiful flowers just waiting to be made. http://www.skiptomylou.org/2011/03/22/10-beautiful-fabric-flower-tutorials/ 

 

Happy Crafting!

Thank Heavens for Taco Bell and Mixed Signals, My love story...

I met one of the mom's from Alyssa's preschool class, and well I like to think we kinda hit it off. We're both in the same stage of life, (in case you're wondering, that would be the stage of life where you're on the verge of insanity due to crazy schedules and 2 active children). It turns out she's quite the tech savvy chica and a rockstar blogger to boot! Her blog Life Without Pink chronicals her life in a house filled with boys. She's doing this awesome project right now, project marriage, where she's asking readers to send in their stories of how they met their mate. Well since June is my anniversary month, and I'm ever so thankful for my hubby, I decided to do it and enclose the link so that you can too!
 So here goes...
     Before I met my husband, I will admit I liked to date around. a lot. In fact I had a one date rule in college, I would say yes to anyone who asked me out on a date, even if I doubted we would hit it off (I'm a firm believer in you can't judge a book by their cover). I was not looking to get into a serious relationship, I was just having fun getting to know different people.
     Flash forward a few months, my roomate and I stopped at Taco Bell to grab a bite to eat (I know, I know, yuck right?! But to be honest it was college, and we were flat broke). We ran into two guys that my roomate knew, one whom we affectionately called "Blinky Eyed Dave" because of his stunningly long eye lashes. So we decided to grab a booth and eat with them. Dave proceeded to invite us to check out his new apartment, since he was uber cool and living off campus that semester we agreed we would. We stopped by campus first to pick up a guy friend whom I was interested in at the time, "Kicker Dave/ Red Head Dave" (In our defense, there were a lot of Dave's and we needed a system to decipher between them). Now, according to Dave, this first invitation to his apartment was supposed to clue me in to the fact that he was interested in me, so my impending arrival was somewhat squelched by my new traveling companion (how's a girl to figure that one out, right?!)
     Dave's apartment quickly became the new cool hang out and we were over there pretty often. He eventually asked me out on a date, and when I got in his car to go to the restaurant where we were meeting up with friends, he had a Frank Sinatra CD in. This is going to sound pretty cheesy, but at that moment I knew he would forever be my guy. Most guys that age would want to impress the girl by playing something ultra macho, or hip you know to send the signals that he was by de facto ultra macho and or hip. But here was this sweet guy with beautiful eyes singing along to Frank. It brought back memories of me and my brother jiving along to Dean Martin playing on our parent's record player. (I know I'm not that old, but inside I really am that old).
     The rest in history, or at least another post down the road...
We aren't the romantic, emotional, drama filled kind of people. He's my best friend, we watch Will Ferril and comic book based movies together. He lets me use his power drill when we are building something, even though he knows he could do it faster, and better. For our anniversary this year we are going to an Amusement Park (without the kids). We might be a little quirky, we may act more like buddies than husband and wife, but its what works for us ;)

Snow Paint

So I'm really looking forward to the snow this winter after finding these pictures of some snow art from last year. I was at my Mom's house and grabbed some empty spray bottles, food coloring and water. VOILA! Snow Paint!!!  I gave one to each of my nephews and to A.R. they had a BLAST! they sprayed every bit of snow in sight (including a portion of the vinyl siding which I very quickly scrubbed off with a washcloth and some cleaner so the grandparents wouldn't flip :) ) here are a few shots of their snow masterpieces...and if you know my parents at all and how very tidy, and orderly they are, you will find the appropriate humor in these pictures...I'm sure their neighbors thought they had gone insane or gotten vandalised.

Monster Carseat Pillow

I love the blog Make it and Love it ! She has the most adorable tutorials and very practical projects for the average Momma. I followed her tutorial for a carseat pillow because A.R's poor head and neck look so uncomfortable when she falls asleep in her carseat. We tried a store bought carseat pillow years ago but the behind the head portion was so thick it just pushed her head forward more in the seat. I made my own pattern trying to follow her dimensions, but had to tweak it here and there to get it to work just right. A great tip for you when making your own pattern pieces: draw them out on file folders (they're cheap and much easier to trace around on fabric than delicate paper patterns) so here is my pattern drawn out on the file folder and the finished carseat pillow

I had to include close-ups of the flannel monster fabric I got at Joanne's for only $2.50/yd. I am so in love with it and bought extra to make a couple throw pillows for J.D's room. I covered each side of the pillow with different material b/c I couldn't decide on just one of them!

A.R loves her new monster pillow and we both decided when J.D moves into a big boy carseat I will make him his very own monster pillow too!

 Happy Crafting!

Re-upholstered children's chair

I've been meaning to get this up for a while and am excited that I am posting my very first step-by-step tutorial!!! (I guess the excitement is over the fact that I had an original idea I could post instructions for and not have to link to someone else's blog for the instructions :) )

Re-upholstering a child's chair

A.R. had a child's rocking chair given to her many yrs. ago as a gift. It has acquired many stains over the yrs. and since JD is more the right size for it now than she is, I decided to turn it into a little boys rocking chair. I purchased some inexpensive material from walmart and my dear husband bought me a staple gun (ahh...the power) and a project was born....

First I made a mental note of where all the folds and pleats were in the chair and noted where they stapled the fabric. Then I had to rip all the old material off the chair without damaging the foam cushioning or the individual pieces since they become your pattern pieces for the new fabric (you will be amazed at how many staples you pull out and continue to find days later even after careful vaccuuming...)

Lay out the individual pieces you've taken off the chair and lay them on top of your new fabric. (I chose a fabric that had no real rhyme or reason when it came to the pattern to make it easier, but if using a striped fabric you will want to make sure that the stripes are running the right way when you trace your new pattern pieces. )

I marked all the pattern pieces to keep track of what piece went where when it came time to cover the chair, and simply traced all the patterns using disappearing ink.

Once all the pieces were cut I started fitting the fabric around the chair. You will need to pull very tight when you staple, the fabric will stretch...the seat of my chair is already buckling a bit because I could not pull the material tight enough when I stapled. Keep all your pleats and folds as close to it's original pattern and staple the heck out of it...After all the pieces had been stapled we went around the chair with a mallet and tapped on the staples to make sure there were no sharp points sticking out from the staples.

The chair looked cute, but I though it was missing something still. I cut out a round piece of scrap leather and used dark T-shirt iron on transfer sheets to print out a yankees emblem (please no comments about the yankees: my husband is from upstate NY and we made a deal...he gets JD as a Yankees fan and I can have AR as a Phillies fan. So I'm merely playing by our rules here ) I stitched the patch onto the back of the seat before stapling it down and was very pleased with the results...

So here you have it...JD's birthday present from mommy and daddy and my very first tutorial hooray!

Happy Crafting!

Birthday Crowns

I always loved the cardboard party hats at kid's parties...but the elastic always breaks, or they tear apart during the party. At A.R's 3rd birthday party we threw her a princess themed party. I decided to make each girl attending a princess hat of their own...something that would last at least through the party...this is a picture of A.R's complete with a "3" for the birthday girl...

Well now it's J.D's 1st birthday and I have been wanting to make him a felt birthday crown for his birthday party. There are a lot of different tutorials on the web for felt birthday crowns...I blended a few different ones together until I got what I wanted... It was surprisingly easy and he really seems to like it!

Happy Crafting!

Hooray for Ice Skating and Leather!

Okay so the title of this post may have really thrown you for a loop...unless of course you're figure skater Johnny Weir. But, for the sake of this post we're going to separate the two :)

We signed A.R. up for ice skating lessons this yr. She is only 3, but we decided the younger she learns the better she'll get. Plus, she is in desperate need of a structured learning environment so we thought some type of lessons would do her good. She's doing really well, and has only had two lessons so far. So I had to share this sweet photo of her on the ice all by herself!

Ok....so now to the crafting aspect of this post :)

My crafting budget is $0.00 except once in awhile when I can sneak some craft supplies from walmart in with the groceries (shhh!) So I have to rely mostly on other people's unwanted stuff, which is just fine with me. My mother just gave me an old black leather coat of hers...I've never worked with leather and I have to admit I'm a little intimidated.

Cathe Holden over at http://justsomthingimade.blogspot.com/ has worked with leather though, and she has made some incredible things with it. Here is a picture of a leather, monogrammed Ipod holder she made...I'm seriously considering giving this project a try (if I can gather the courage to cut apart this jacket)

 Here is the link to her tutorial on this project: http://justsomethingimade.blogspot.com/2009/12/simple-leather-ipod-touchiphone-case.html

Happy Crafting!