Be a (girly) die hard fan!

New Year's is coming up, and that means football.  Perhaps, like me, your team will be in a bowl game.  Or maybe you're still in the playoffs for the Superbowl.  You might even be looking forward to that basketball sport that I hear so much about.  Want to support your team, but still remain feminine and stylish?  Here's one option:

Use the insanely popular shirt refashion that you see everywhere on the blogs these days (here's one, here's another one), but use colors that pay tribute to the Virginia Tech Hokies!  (or, um, whatever team you choose to support, although let me tell you you're making a mistake if it's UVA or the Patriots)

I took these two shirts:

Cut strips from the orange one, ruffled them, and sewed them onto the maroon one, to make this:

I won't go into any detail because this is so super easy and it's been covered by so many other bloggers, but if you want more inspiration, I highly recommend the Queen of the Shirt Refashion, Alexis from My Mama Made It.  I think this one would be particularly nice for a sports team refashion also.  SO many uses for all that maroon and orange you have lying around!

(even if you don't use maroon and orange, we encourage you to post your pics to our Flickr page anyway)

To Kyra

Who I will see in a few short days...

More on the gifts in the new year!

Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Laughter, The Best Medicine: A Tutorial(ette)

My husband and I don't do fancy gifts for each other much. But it's fun to have sooooomething to open on a holiday or birthday.  And I've been thinking about this one for a while, and fiiinally made it.

Laughter really IS the best medicine. This post, for example.... an excellent "reset" button for your day. And my husband is a pretty serious guy when it comes to work and responsibilities. If I can give him a good laugh here and there (although it's usually when I'm not even trying) then I feel like I'm doing my job.

To give a bit of Laughter, the Best Medicine, all you need is:
- a clean, empty, largish medicine bottle
- a printer and word processing program
- clear packaging tape
- scissors
- jokes and photos that will crack your recipient up

Make a label that fits your bottle. Use recipient's name, your prescription for them, add a pharmacy icon, directions for use, contact info for the prescriber, etc. Print, trim and apply. Add "caution" labels, found here.

Print tiny photos and jokes that relate. For my husband, some school-related, some sports-related, some Onion, some location-related. Photos of our silly family and of grafitti we saw in Ireland that cracked us both up: "Scott R. has no willy." Bahahahaha. Print at 2 x 2 or 2 x 3 ish. Reader's Digest sizes are good too, if you have some of those around you want to cut up.

Fold or roll up and tape or glue an edge. Cut rounded corners if you like.

Fill the bottle. Give with joy. Hope for laughter. And hope your husband doesn't have time to read your blog before tomorrow morning.

Graham Cracker House Playgroup

Where we live we have a lovely little playgroup. Actually, it's a fairly big playgroup, which is nice because there's always a different mix of kids and we're always somewhere new and different.

As we approached Christmas, I said to myself: "Self, let's decorate gingerbread houses with the playgroup friends. Won't that be fun?"

Flash forward to yesterday morning about 10 minutes before the kids started arriving: "Self, stop talking. Stop thinking. Stop coming up with these RIDICULOUS ideas."

So here's what happened in between those two conversations with self:

- A friend of a friend heard that we were planning to make houses. She was planning on doing it with a Daisy group and asked me about how I would make/find icing. I sent her the royal icing recipe, which is just a box of powdered confectioner's sugar, two egg whites and 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar. She planned, as I did, to procure the houses themselves at Ikea, which meant no baking.

- After her party, which went well, she said "it's really difficult to clean the stuff up, so cover your furniture, and have some extra houses on hand because they break easily."

- Self said to self: "Self, our kids are a good bit younger than hers. And the Ikea houses are several dollars a piece. Yikes. Maybe we need to just have a playgroup with... playing."

- Self saw this post. Plan sounded reasonable again.

- Self decided that a cardboard support structure underneath would be better for little (clumsy) toddler and preschooler hands.

- Self made this and recruited another Mom to come and help the day prior to playgroup. (Thanks, Katherine!)  I scored and folded on the dotted lines. Self thought self had it under control.

- Self laid out trays of pre-made houses and candy. Plates to build on. Attempted to keep M and K appeased and out of trouble while trying to make the icing the morning of. ALMOST LOST IT when the power went out. Repeatedly. Went running up and down the stairs repeatedly trying to figure out which panel was causing the problem. Decided that as long as the one on the main floor was working, I'd deal with the others later. Went back to making icing and all of a sudden thought: this is going to be the biggest disaster in the history of playgroup disasters. This icing will be eeeeeverywhere.

Results?

Fantastic. Self now says to self: "Self, remember that the kids at playgroup come with super-fantastic helpful Moms who are here to help and have fun too." Phew.  Thank goodness for those Moms.

And this morning, I could not help but make another one with K and some leftover supplies. Just before I trashed a whole bunch of leftover candy that I COULD NOT STOP K from attacking. It's not even Christmas yet and I am SO OVER the candy. But not the houses. I think I'll keep these out until June.

I made paper snowflakes!

Just to prove I wasn't exaggerating when I mentioned in this post that I would brag about paper snowflakes, here you go:

Look what I made!

I'm even more excited about these than I should be because prior to these, my snowflakes always resembled misshapen, asymetrical blobs with miniscule slits cut out. If you saw them, you would probably assume they were made by my preschooler.

But 10 minutes of searching on the interwebs solved that problem, and in no time at all I was crafting (in my opinion) masterpieces!


After I made these, I saw the link to these on mmmCrafts.  So go grab some paper & scissors and wow the world!  (or at least your kids)

Tis the Season...

...for matchy sibling Christmas outfits!

First, some cute casual skirts for everyday holiday attire:

What I wouldn't have done for some mini ric rac, but I had to make do with that ribbon instead (and it doesn't even really match.  You got the part about how we're 4000 miles from the nearest Joann's, right?)  I did enjoy using my rolled-hem foot for the first time though.

And the Christmas dresses:

The main body fabric is a fine wale cream stretch corduroy.  I really love the soft feel of it, and stretch is pretty important for two active toddlers.

Here is a blooper from our Christmas card photo shoot that shows the dresses off (but unfortunately not the kiddos):

In case you didn't recognize them, these dresses are the same as these.  Remember when I said I could make only this pattern for the rest of my life and not get bored?  I wasn't kidding.  The sleeve cuff on Z's dress was made partially with this tutorial.

Stitched Photo Ornaments: A Tutorial

Can I call this a tutorial-ette? Because it's too easy to be a tutorial. That seems like too big a claim. And I won't claim ownership. I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's been done. It's all been done, right? But I thought I'd share what I just made because I love it. And now I'm an ornament factory. Would you like one? Send me your address. That's how much I like making them. Uh, well, I like making them, but me and the mail.... it could take a few years for you to get it. I retract the offer. Sorry.

All you need are:

- small photos

- vinyl

- scrap fabric

- scrap ribbon

- fusible adhesive, the strongest kind

- fabric markers, if you want to add names, dates, etc.

Start by using this:

and fuse your fabrics together. These fabrics were ones I used for another set.

Trim down your photos. Mine are 2 x 2. I like to work with 2 or 3 at a time, so I cut them into strips.

Trim strips of vinyl to match the height of your photos.

Lay the photo and the vinyl on top of your fabric and stitch around the photo. Stitch just inside the photo, or just outside. With a straight stitch, with a small zigzag, with a funky decorative stitch, whatever. So many ways to do it.

Shove the hanging loop in underneath the photo as you stitch one of the edges of your photo to the fabric. Unless you want to attach it separately and embellish.

I didn't have to use any paper on top of this vinyl. It slid right through without sticking.

Trim down the edges. No need to finish them because the fusible interfacing limits the fraying. Add a note, names, the year, something funny on the back with a fabric marker, if you like. Or embroider it before you fuse the fabric. If you want to get all wild and crazy.

Hang it on your tree or give it to the grandparents to freak out over. Make lots for your friends with your favorite photos of them. But don't make any for Adrianna. That girl is picky, picky, picky about photographs.

Pocket Locket: A Tutorial

A reasonably quick, fun gift for a little girl in your life. Especially the Curious George type. Instead of opening and closing with a hinge, this locket has a pocket.

A little background on the idea. I thought about getting K a locket. Well, in fact, she has one, but I will not let her hold it, wear it or touch it. Why? Because she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. Well, it's not as bad now as it was a few months ago, but still a lot of things go in her mouth. It's frightening. In fact, it's been an ordeal. Do you recognize this?

That is one of those snappy metal hair clips. That she swallowed. And immediately told me she swallowed. Another story, but I include this photo to illustrate the source of inspiration.

So working with the idea of a locket and how she could enjoy it without scary mommy moments, I decided to make one with fabric.

Here's what you need:

Matching-size (mine were about 9" x 12") pieces of:

- backing fabric

- facing fabric

- fusible interfacing

- vinyl

- thin scrap paper

Tiny bits of velcro

Scraps of ribbon

Any embellishments you like

Place the fusible interfacing between the wrong sides of your facing and backing fabrics, and iron those suckers together.

If you like, embroider a design on your backing fabric before or after fusing.

Place your vinyl on top of your facing fabric. Place your scrap paper on top of that. Pin this sandwich together at the corners where the pinholes won't show on your final pieces. Draw your locket shapes. Circle or oval or heart or whatever. I'd say at least two inches long. Any smaller and little fingers will have a tough time with it.  Stitch the shapes with a straight stitch. A shorter stitch length will make the paper easier to remove. I used 2.0.

Stitch a tab of velcro to the top of each locket on the backing side.

Cut out your lockets, just outside of your stitches. No worries about fraying since the fusible interfacing will keep things under control. The scraps left over after you've cut the locket(s) are great for cutting little letters and shapes out of. Add 'em to the locket or to hair clips (not for my child, though!) or teeny tiny garlands.

Slide a straight pin into one of the stitching holes. Carefully push the edge of the pin against the paper to tear around the stitching. Using the pin to do this helps keep the stitches from loosening.

Use a straight pin to make a hole on one side of the vinyl large enough to get the tip of some small scissors into. Cut a crescent shape for getting photos (or rocks, or other treasures) in and out.

Attach the corresponding piece of velcro to a length of ribbon. I like folding the velcro in half and the ribbon end in half inside it. Nice and sturdy layering. Stitch these together and trim the extra away.

Stitch the other end of the ribbon to the locket. Come to think of it, I could've done this at the same time that I was attaching the velcro to the backing. Live and learn.

Embellish.

Add Martha. Admire. Laugh when your kid asks "Mama, who's dat?"

Wrap up for a kiddo whose cheeks you want to pinch.

I let K check it out for a photo shoot. Wouldn't you know it... in her mouth it goes. And that's why mommy made a pocket locket.

P.S.  Assuming you wanted to know... apparently, the concern for an item like the hair clip is whether they choke on it. Once it's past the esophagus, the question is whether they pass other things through that are larger. If the answer is yes, you can stop panicking and start waiting to see it again. Exciting! 

Feature Friday: Adventures in Dressmaking

Hi everyone!  I want to introduce you to a very ambitious blogger, Suzannah from Adventures in Dressmaking.  In her own words, "I usually make at least one cool clothing or home dec item per day."  I've been reading her blog for a little while now, and I can assure you, she's not joking!  I don't know how she does it, but she is always making something amazing.

I think my favorite part of her blog is her approach to showing off her stuff.  Me?  I will write a 4 page blog post and shout from the rooftops when I've made, oh, a paper snowflake.  But she just casually writes up a little paragraph saying something like, "Oh, hi guys, I just made this dress inspired by Boden today."

For example, one day she just popped out with this little number:

I love this shirt she made based on a JCrew shirt:

And check out how she stenciled her plain throw pillows to make them totally original and gorgeous:

Oh, and she's met Amy.  As if I weren't jealous enough already.

Go check her out today and get some inspiration!