Carnival Birthday Party

Back in August my little guy turned 2.  We had a carnival themed birthday party complete with game booths, a prize table and LOADS of fun.  I recently realized that I never posted the pictures on my blog. So here you go, a glimpse at some of the things I made.  

First the carnival booth banners - I used felt and (with the help from an amazing friend) cut the lettering out on my Cricut, traced them, and cut them out.  

I love the way they turned out.  And did you notice the bunting along the booths.  So cute and so much fun!  I used an adorable Debbie Mum polka dot fabric that will now be pulled out for all birthdays in our house.  

Here is the bunting right after I finished it.  They were simple but took quite a bit of time to make.  Using some cardboard I made a triangle template.   Using my rotary cutter I cut out TONS of triangles.  Then I matched them up and sewed up right sides together.  After turning them I topstitched - I used a zig zag stitch to dress it up a bit.  Then I used bias tape to connect all the triangles.  

Next, the birthday boy's shirt.  I LOVE iron-on vinyl!  Using some scraps I had left over from the boys brother shirts I tried out a double layered design.  

Here is another item that will become part of birthday traditions around here.  Can you imagine getting your own special chair decoration on your special day!  Well here is ours.  Ideally I would have liked the lettering a bit larger but I was working with scrap vinyl so this is what I have.  Might just have to make another one and applique the lettering on!  

Diaper Box Liner Tutorial

My friend Heather of Pinfluence.com asked me to help her with a project she wanted to feature on her blog.  For those of you that haven't visited her site, you NEED to!  Heather has taken pinning to a whole new level.  Not only does she pin away {as many of us do!}, she started a website where she posts what she has done with her pins.  She uses the pins as inspiration for her own projects!  Isn't that genius!?!?!  

Heather needed some sewing done so she emailed me to see if I would help. My answer was an excited YES!  I, too, had see this pin on Pinterest and thought it was a fabulous way to recycle something ALL moms already have around the house. We all know how expensive bins are and as moms so many of us are NEEDING containers to wrangle all the toys that come with having children in your home. 

Diaper Box Liner Tutorial

Anyway... back to the tutorial part. Here is what you need to get started:

- a diaper box

- fabric (for this size box a yard was perfect, you might need more depending on your box.  

    {See below for an explanation of how to measure to determine size of fabric necessary}

- coordinating thread

- sewing tools (rotary cutter, pins, sewing machine, iron, etc)

How to Determine Fabric Size:

First measure your box. Here you can see that the diaper box was 10 inches tall.

 Second, measure the sides of the box.  This diaper box was 9 inches on the shorter side and 10 1/2 inches on the longer side.

 Now is where it gets a bit tricky. Decide how much overhang you want the liner to have.  Since Heather picked such cute fabric, I decided to show it off a bit more and made it come over the outside of the box about 3 inches.  Now we are going to put all these numbers together.

overhang + height + box length + height + overhang = length of fabric

For me that translated to:

3 inches + 10 inches + 11 1/2 inches (additional inch added in for seam allowance) + 10 inches + 3 inches =

37 1/2 inches

Repeat for the width of the box:

overhang + height + box width + height + overhang = width of fabric

For me that translated to:

3 inches + 10 inches + 10 inches (additional inch added in for seam allowance) + 10 inches + 3 inches = 

36 inches

Now that all that math and measuring is over with figured out, we can get to the cutting.  {Be sure to do all your measuring BEFORE heading to the fabric store or you might not get enough fabric!}  

Here is the fabric for this box. Once the cutting was completed it measured 36" x 37 1/2".

One yard was perfect for the width.  I then folded the fabric so my cut ends were together and now my piece was 44".  I cut that down to 37 1/2 inches for the length. 

Since both sides were going to be 13 inches I folded the fabric lengthwise so all 4 corners were stacked together. This way only 1 cut would need to be made.  {Yep, I'm lazy efficient like that! As my page name suggests, I'm a busy mama and I usually have at least ONE of my four small children pulling on my leg, talking my ear off, or crying about something so needless to say, I need to work quickly.}

I moved the fabric down on my cutting mat 1 inch 

so I could see the gridlines and then using my ruler I measured and cut down 13 inches.  

After moving the fabric back up to the O at the top of my cutting mat,

 I then moved it one inch to the right (again to see the grid).  I again measured 13 inches and cut.  

I now had a 13 x 13 inch square cut out of the corners of the fabric. 

 Here is what it looked like completely open. 

Starting with the bottom left corner, I matched up the sides and pinned them in place. 

This would become the first corner of the liner. 

I sewed the sides together. 

This is how it looked once I was done. See how a corner was created. 

Now just continue matching up the sides from where the corners were cut out and sew them up. 

Here is the liner with 2 sides sewn up. 

Once all 4 sides are sewn, you are almost finished.  I tried the liner in the diaper box now to check for fit and length of the overhang.  Only a couple more steps and the liner is done.  

(notice the edges here aren't hemmed up yet) 

 Inside of the box with unfinished liner

Move over to your ironing board and iron wrong sides together all the way around at 1/2 inch {I totally eyeballed it, I am horribly impatient and don't enjoy bending over the ironing board with the ruler making sure it is exact}. 

 Then fold it and press over 1/2 inch again.  

Now your unfinished edge is completely hidden.  

Pin the fabric into place. 

 Sew all the way around the liner at 1/2 seam allowance.

Put the liner back into the diaper box.

Close up of the finished edge. 

There you have it!  Your liner is done and you can start filling your bin with whatever your heart desires. 

Well you are almost finished!  First you need to click on over to Pinfluence.com for Heather's post on how to finish the box itself {that is unless you like the picture of the diapered baby and the diagram of the diaper on the outside of the box}.  

I hope the tutorial was easy for you to follow. Please let me know if you try it out and link back to your own project!  Can't wait to see how you are using your upcycled diaper boxes to help get your space organized!!!  I'm off to make a few of these for myself.  With TWO kiddos in diapers, I have a couple different sized boxes to choose from ;) 

Craft Room Valance

Once again Pinterest has inspired me!  My craft room was in need of curtains and I had recently bought this third coordinating fabric that matched the previous fabric I had purchased. With my hubby's help, I hung the fabric from the existing curtain rod so I could stare at if for a bit. The look of long curtains was amazing, however, my hanging scrapbook storage and magnetic rack (in the photo- on the right) made long curtains pretty much impossible. 

So while scrolling through my Pinterest feed I came across this post about No Sew Curtains. Being that I know how to sew, I decided to make my own version of these using them as my inspiration. I measured my curtain rod and went to work figuring out what I needed to do. My print looked better (in my opinion) one direction than the other and so I had to piece the fabric together to make the length I needed. Instead of having a seam down the center, I used my full panel in the center and then two side panels. This way the seams would be covered by the accent strips. 

After sewing those and them hemming the sides and bottom, I made a casing for the rod at the top. Once that was done, I got to work on the accent strips. For those I cut two 6" strips of fabric, sewed them right sides together, and then turned them.  After top stitching along the sides and sewing the ends into a point, I added a button and buttonhole for attaching them.  

Here is the finished product. I will probably be going back and shortening the accent strips to make the valance pull up a bit more like the inspiration picture.  I could not be more happy with how these turned out. Walking into my craft room now I am greeted with pops of design and color instead of just lots of blue!

Ironing Board Up Do

Let's be honest - who really spends a lot of time ironing anymore?!?!  Definitely not me (much to my hubby's dismay). If I am really making confessions here, I think in the almost 10 years of having my ironing board I had used it less than 10 times. That was until I started sewing. If you are going to sew, you have to iron!  So out it came and it is used on almost every project. I don't at all mind ironing in this sense. It is fun since it goes with my creations. Isn't it lovely!!!

Well one day while searching Pinterest I came across a tutorial from Sew4Home (which I LOVE) on how to recover your ironing board. Since I had been wanting to buy fabric to make under desk curtains I knew this could go right along with it!  First I had to find just the right fabric. This proved to be the largest challenge since the JoAnn's here in town doesn't have a huge selection. Before my nephew's birthday party we decided to check out the Redlands JoAnn's and I hit the jackpot!  A beautiful set of coordinating fabrics were practically jumping off the rack and into my basket. I love the color combos and the fun in the patterns.

Just a few days later I was following the tutorial to make my new cover. I am horrible at taking pictures along the way so all I have is finished project. I do have a smaller table top ironing board that I plan to recover and I will try to remember set by step pictures of that.

 I love the color it adds to the room. More projects to dress up my craft room are coming. Including a sewing machine cozy and a Pinterest inspired valance. Check back soon!

I wish I had a daughter...

Pinterest strikes again! When I saw these ruffle butt onesies I just had to make them for someone. Luckily, my sweet friend Chelsey was just about to have her second little girl. I knew instantly what she would be getting at her baby shower. She already mentioned wanting Big Sister and Little Sister shirts her daughters could wear at the hospital. Thanks to some iron-on vinyl and pink onesies from Walmart. But they are so boring on their own. 

 
So this is what I did to the back. This is about 5 or 6 layers of ruffles!  {SQUEAL} They turned out ADORABLE!!!  I must say, as tedious and time consuming as it was to cut the strips, overlock the edges to help with fraying, ruffle the strips, and then sew them all on, they turned out great & I can't wait to make more. Just need more little girls in my life!

My Sewing To Do List for 2012

Thanks to Pinterest I have a huge list of projects i want to complete!  Several are for myself to dress up my craft room a bit. Here is what I am going to be working on...

-Curtains for under my desks, I need to hide all the supplies i have stored under there and add more color to the room.
- a sewing machine cover
- an ironing board cover (to match the sewing machine cover)
- curtains for the window
- just found these cute terry cloth (AKA Towel) shower curtains today!

The CopyCat Bag... Thank you Pinterest!

For my birthday this year, my hubby took me to JoAnn's and let me pick out whatever I wanted. Since I was neck deep in Christmas projects I was grateful for the break and decided to spend the afternoon making myself a little something!  I found this purse on Pinterest and I fell in LOVE.  So much so that I even snagged the same fabric used in the tutorial to make my own. 

While there is quite a bit of cutting, this was a pretty easy tutorial to follow and within a few hours I had a new purse!  I added some pockets to the interior of the purse to hold chapstick and such. In retrospect I would have also put in a snap to close the bag. When I made this same bag for my sister in law for Christmas i put a snap on hers. 

This purse has gotten quite a few compliments and it is roomy enough to be a perfect mommy bag!  

(just tried to link back to the blog post where the tutorial was given and the page it no longer being found.)

SEW much to do!

Christmas is a mere 89 days until Christmas and I still have not really even begun to make Christmas gifts. I have known what I was making since LAST Christmas and yet, NOTHING! I have 6 sisters, 4 brother in laws, 2 sets of parents, a hubby, 4 kids, and my close friends and their kids to make gifts for. So I have begun having craft nights several times a month. I have enjoyed these since I have been inviting friends to come create with me. Nothing better than working with friends. Last Friday I got ONE present completed and that pushed me to get 3 more started. I am on my way!

Adorable Apron

I am making aprons for Christmas presents so I have been on the lookout for online tutorials. When I found this tutorial I fell in love!  This is the cutest apron with such attention to detail. So one day during the boys naps I decided to test it out. I have LOTS of these to make so I wanted to see it if was possible to use this pattern.

Before the boys woke up from naps, I was done with the apron! It was that simple. Definitely going to be making these as gifts. Since making this one, I have gotten 1 more completed and 3 more are about 1/3 of the way done. Yeah!

Sweet Girl turns 2

Zachary is friends with a sweet little girl named Macy who just turned 2! Her mama has a small addiction love for pillowcase dresses so I knew the perfect gift for her. I found adorable bright colored fabric that matched Macy's bright and sassy personality and off I went. This was whipped up while all my little guys were napping one afternoon! Can't wait to see her in it!

Thinking WAY ahead

I saw these adorable stuffed sea turtles and knew my nephew (well, his mama!) would love them. Might just have to make him one or two of these for his 1st birthday. He is only a week older than my youngest so I have quite a while to get them made.

We all know, I am a planner :)

"His Banner over me is LOVE..." Song of Solomon 2:4

I love to craft and I love it even more when I get to create things for others. So when I saw this post for a blessing banner, God placed someone special on my heart immediately. You see my sister-in-law and her husband have been praying for a child for quite a while now. God for whatever reason has not allowed that to happen... YET!  Well, after seeking medical help they are going forward with IVF this month!  Our whole family has been praying that they would be blessed with a baby. I don't know any couple that would be better parents!  

When they do get blessed with a little one, Angie said she would decorate the nursery in brown and pink or brown, blue, and green.  With that information, I was off to the fabric store in search of fabric for her very own blessing banner. As some of you may know, IVF (invetro fertilization) is not an easy process and it involves hormone shots. This was quite scary for Angie and Tim. I wanted to get the banner made before she started her shots so she would have something positive and encouraging to focus on. 

 

Once I picked out the fabric, I cut out rectangles in each of the patterns as well as smaller white rectangles. This is where our family would all write our words of encouragement, Bible verses, etc for Angie and Tim.  Once all the cutting was done, the rest came together pretty quickly (sorry, but I am HORRIBLE at remembering to take pictures of each step as I work!).  I sewed on the top flaps of coordinating fabrics, then the banner was sewn onto a wide ribbon. To finish it off I tied a few different size and colors of ribbon in between the panels. 

Here is one side of the finished banner before the family wrote on it. There were 8 panels for writing and then the center was a panel with a pink heart on it. As I was pinning the banner together, God placed the verse, "His banner over me is LOVE..." on my heart. That is the perfect verse for this project. It was a project to show people that we love very much that we are here for them and behind them in all they are going through. 

If I only had a girl!

...she would LIVE in pillowcase dresses!  Now, I really do love being a mommy to my 4 adorable and energetic boys. They are loving, helpful, super sweet, and stinkin' cute!  While I would love a daughter, I wouldn't trade my boys for anything. 

But, when I come across adorable crafting projects for little girls I can't help but dream about how a little girl of my own would look sporting a huge hairbow or a homemade skirt I made for her. I have always been a fan of pillowcase dresses. Several friends of mine have precious little girls that model them often. So one day, while wandering around JoAnn's in search of inspiration, I decided I would make a pillowcase dress for my sweet friend Tracey's daughter, Emma who was turning 3. I found an adorable fabric, grabbed some coordinating ribbon and I was ready to sew!  

 After a quick search on Google for a tutorial, I whipped up a pillowcase dress in no time (well, almost no time. I had to stop at one point and wait until I went to JoAnn's again the next day for some bias tape). These dresses are SUPER easy to make. And of course I had to make hairbows to go with it!  Since Emma was having a sweets themed birthday party, she needed candy hairbows!

I would make one of these for every occasion...

if I only had a girl!

Valentine Chair Bags

 I saw these bags on this blog and I knew immediately I had to make them for the boys!  Such a cute way to remind them how much I love them during the month of February. They really weren't too hard to make and the boys loved waking up each morning to a little treat inside!  

I had lots of leftover felt so I made a few "girlie" versions of the bag with ruffles for some friends. I sold them for $20 each. One of my friends came over and told me they sell these at Pottery Barn for WAY more than that!  Might have to make more of these for next year. Mama could get lots of craft supplies with just a few orders!

My Crafting To Do List...

I have already been busy searching for fabrics for next year's Christmas gifts (hey, I am going to be a mom of 4 children ages 6 and under come March and Christmas comes VERY quickly!) I figure if I make things little by little I can be stress free come November (here's to wishful thinking! LOL).

So far on my list of things I need / want to make:
coloring book tote bag - for my nephew's bday in January (crayon roll is already made)
Valentine chair bags for all 4 boys
burp rags for my SIL
a book sling for Zachary and Ethan's room (made from the 2 valances I don't need)
baskets (again, out of a valance that goes with the boys new bedding)
nursing cover for myself :)


Next Christmas gifts:
Lego sacks for 9 boys and 4 girls (their's will be Barbie sacks)
BBQ aprons for my BILs
aprons for my sister, mom,  MIL and SILs (and Bryan too)

Better get busy!

Mama's Got a Brand New...

SEWING MACHINE!!!

For a couple of years now, I have wanted a sewing machine for Christmas but other crafting gifts has preempted it - my Cricut, my Gypsy.  Since our family is about to grow to 6, we are in need of a large vehicle so I figured Christmas wasn't going to be a big deal this year.  Boy was I wrong!

My hubby surprised me with a fabulous sewing machine!  The 26th of December that puppy was out of the box and I was reading the instruction manual.  After quickly figuring out how to thread the bobbins and the machine, I was off.  I had some fabric scraps on hand and I set about finding patterns I could download.

I soon got to sneak away to JoAnn's for some fabric and I found some amazing things!  I found fabric to make the boys tote bags for their Awana books, fabric on clearance for purses and for next year's Christmas gifts (Lego sacks) and the like!

I have had the machine a little over a week and have already made the following:
3 purse type bags for "my" girls (my BFF's daughters)
2 tote bags for the boys' Awana materials
2 Buttercup bags
a crayon roll
a nursing cover