More Sewing

I have been sewing a lot lately. Well, I was, and now I'm taking a much-needed break. I got burned out. I just have so many things I want to make, and such limited time to make them in.

I made this dress for Chess to get her two-year-old pictures made in.






I used the same fabric to make her birthday shirt.


I made this shirt using from one of my old shirts following this tutorial, but adding the ruffles.






And last, I made this hooded towel. Actually I made two, one for my kids and one for my nephew's first birthday.

menu board

here was my take on the dry erase board.... i had it posted on the tombow website. i had attempted some a year ago, but wasn't loving the result, and i had used cheap frames that fell apart as i was working on them. anyway...thanks sarah for the inspiration!

Recycled Crayons

Ever since I found THIS TUTORIAL online from Little Birdie Secrets, I knew my kids and I HAD to try this. How easy and fun! My kind of project. First, it gave us an excuse to gather every single crayon scattered across the far-reaching corners of our house. Then we peeled and peeled until they begged me to just take over and do it myself. Then the kids sorted the colors as they wanted. Once they were cooled (took a couple hours), my two oldest thought these were the coolest things EVER. Coloring took on a whole new dimension in their minds. If you are reading this, you should definitely try it sometime. You'll never have to throw away another broken crayon again.

Shaggy Raggy Rug

I have been looking for a rug for my baby's nursery for a while and have never been able to find one that matches the colors in her room well enough, so when I stumbled on a friends tutorial for a shaggy raggy rug I was so excited. HERE is a link to the tutorial.

Here is a view of what it look like from the side:

Easter Outfits

The first set of outfits was for Easter egg hunts. I did a bunny applique on the shirts, but you can't see it very well in the pictures. I made my older daughter's skirt from this tutorial. It's very fun and twirly. I used vintage rose fabric that my grandmother gave me when she cleaned out her sewing stuff.









The second set of outfits was to wear to church. I wanted them to be coordinating, but not the same. For Lera's dress, I used this pattern, just made it bigger. For Chess's I made it up as I went. I got the idea from a ruffled dress I saw at Old Navy, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Menu and Message Board

I made this message board from the tutorial on Make It and Love It.  It is fabric wrapped around the frame backing with hot glue. You use a dry erase marker on the glass of the frame to write the messages. I added hooks for our keys since it hangs right by the garage door. I plan on using it for fun kid facts or vocabulary words over the summer.

This is a similar idea but a smaller scale. I printed the menu and day letters on pretty paper and framed it. I use the dry erase marker to write the menu for the week right on the glass of the frame. It is leaning on the counter by the fridge in the kitchen. It is a little more elegant than my old printout for the kids. Now I need to work on my handwriting to get it to match the font! Here is another tutorial we found for making these.

Boy Ties

Here are my boys sporting their new ties for Easter.

The pattern was pretty simple although I had a few adjustments to it.

It would be easy to do this one as a group sometime.
*Pattern can be found here.

Beaded Watch Bands

Happy April Fools! Check out these hilarious craft tutorials, just in time for April Fools Day at Crafterhours. 

More of the beaded, changeable watch bands we featured earlier last month. I made a bunch extra to give for teacher gifts. My fav is the red one. I'm always getting compliments on it and people mistaking me for a Georgia Bulldogs fan. Sorry -- I'm not a Georgia native. What can I say? I don't think it would be possible to have too many of these. Color combos, fancy vs casual ... one for every day of the week! :)

 

Though we did not use an online tutorial to make these (we had the fabulous Sarah P. show us how), we did find a great tutorial on making beaded watch bands at Sisters' Stuff.