Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I won't get to see the looks on my kids' faces when they wake up this morning, but I will be getting relieved a few hours early so that we can open presents together, and they won't have to be tortured waiting all day for the unwrapping-fun to start.

We hope you have a wonderful day with loved ones.

























Sending you tidings of good cheer, joy, happiness, love, and prayers for a wonderful Christmas and fantastic New Year!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Crafty Christmas

I have been working hard, and long, on projects for the holidays. I have declared myself finished for the season. 

Done. Finito. No more. 

Mostly likely. 

If I come up with something that can be done quickly then I will be sewing some more. Actually, I have a couple of hair bows I want to make before Christmas, but it's not a major project.

Here are the results of my hard work:

My son is loving all things Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I found a T-shirt in the bigger boys clearance section ($5) at Wal-mart and decided to use it to make a battle shell for him. I added interfacing, cut out the shape, sewed a lining to the insides, and added straps to go over his shoulders and around his waist. On the back shell I added a couple of "pockets"- to hold weapons that we don't have-and I am ok with that. All he needs are some masks and some pillow fight weapons and he will be ready for some harmless fun--Ninja style.
I hope he likes it.



I made the girl's skirt and the boy's tie for picture taking. Love it.
I made a panel skirt in holiday fabric and added an ornament embellishment to a t-shirt. So cute.


I made some more ties and some holiday bow ties for my son, as well for another kid-cousin. I turned some bow ties into hair bows for the girl. She took one of my son's bow ties and held it up to her head because she wanted to be a present and it was adorable. How could I not make her some?  

And I can't forget about the three matching golden Christmas outfits.

These are the reversible dresses I was talking about in an earlier post. They can go from Christmas to Valentine's Day.

Lovely.
I finally did add buttons to them. A word about reversible dress buttons: they are kind of awkward to sew on, and really hard to get through the button hole because of the other button behind it. But super cute still. The pattern for the dress came from the book Stitch Savvy by Deborah Moebes. The pattern ranges from xs-l. I looked on her blog to see the what sizes the ranges were actually for and lo and behold there was information on it. A welcome change from the peacoat pattern. The small can go fit a 2-5 year old and go from a dress to tunic to top. The pattern calls for ties at the shoulder line,  but I adjusted the pattern to make it more like a jumper with buttons instead of ties.

I made some leg warmers from knee socks for my girl. Some knee socks were longer than others, but I love how easy they were to make and how adorable they turned out.

The final projects were these uber-cute baby doll baskets and a round stuffed cow. I made one basket for a kid-cousin (R) and one for my girl (L). I love the pattern that Dana from MADE released. I made the medium sized baskets. The instructions were wonderful (as always with Dana's stuff) and it was a fun project. I can't wait for my girl to see hers. I hope she will love it. 

I love the pink on pink checkered fabric with the gray on gray dot fabric (all from Wal-mart). I was going to do my girls' one in different fabric but I loved the pink and gray so much I went to buy more of it. I was lucky enough to find the perfect color of gray bias tape as well.


One of the kid-cousin babies loves cows so I made her a stuffie. I hope she enjoys it. 

We also did baking and Christmas ornament crafting and teacher gift making. I didn't get many photos of that stuff because of time issues, but we had fun.




A full range of holiday craftiness. 
And I enjoyed it all.
I am 99.99% done with everything. There were some projects I didn't get around to doing but I can do them when I have more time off. All I have to do now is wait on Christmas to arrive, play Santa and put the stuff under the tree. 

That wraps it up for my Christmas crafts and sewing projects. Next year, if I have any projects, I will try to start earlier in the year, but the last minute stuff is pretty fun too.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Busy-ness ensues...My Week

I am still deep in Christmas sewing projects. 
The end may be in sight, maybe. 
I finished three outfits, fixing one of them. 

I've got four dresses cut out...they will eventually become two dresses and reversible, so still four dresses. 

I've got ties and bow ties cut out. 

I'm still working on the baby doll baskets, two of them. At least one of those needs to be completed before the week of Christmas. And I think I need more fabric to make the handles. :/ Didn't think everything through completely.

I did wrap my kids' presents on my day off. I figured I could wrap 
the kid cousin presents in their sight...they might even help.

I've got Christmas crafts prepped, if we have time to get to them.

I've bought some stuff for Christmas baking, hoping we have time.

Things we did do recently:
Christmas parade. 

Christmas photos.

Work holiday gathering.

Calendar photos and Christmas cards ordered.

Little Bethlehem, which my girl calls "Jesus Live". Ha! She was all excited to see baby Jesus in the stable. When she looked in the manger and realized he wasn't a real baby, the look of confusion on her face was priceless. Poor thing.

Reading our Christmas advent books. We get to the end of one of them about Santa Claus and his new suit when my daughter gets an epiphany. "Santa can bring us presents?!" I sort of saw her mind working in that she was thinking she should have asked the Mall Santa for more than a toy Christmas tree, or whatever she did ask him for. She did change it from a candelabra. We have neither confirmed nor denied that Santa can bring presents.

At bedtime she said she was going to ask Santa to bring baby Jesus a toy rattle for Christmas. A Christmas tree, noisy rattle. ♥ 

I got my Black Friday fabric from Joann's in the mail yesterday. Cute!

I've got projects planned that I can do at work (Shh!, no telling) over the weekend since I won't be at home sewing.

And on the way into work this morning I hear the Kenny Chesney song "All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan"...that would be totally awesome right about now as it is cold, and I could use a break, a nap, some quiet time, some relaxing time, I could use everything in the song. *whine, whine, whine, complain, whine* 

I am almost there though, well, except for the part about being on a warm vacation, but the slow down time is coming so I can enjoy the rest of the holiday season.

Back to work-work for me. Have a great weekend!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Wooden Fabric Circles + My Week

My Week:
I'm deep in sewing projects for Christmas, decorating, and shuttling kids to holiday events. Busy, busy, busy. And loving it! Can't wait to show you what I am working. My studio is a mess, a lovely mess. I won't show you that...maybe.

Anyway, here is a project I finished for the studio!
Enjoy.

Have you seen the cute embroidery hoop fabric decorations on Pinterest, or magazines, or in a fabric shop? I love them. I first saw them online, and then when my hubs and I went on a trip to Savannah I stopped in a fabric shop, Fabrika, and they had some on the long wall separating the shopping area from the staircase.



I knew that once I got my studio built I wanted to hang some in my space. The problem: embroidery hoops aren't cheap. And I wanted several of them. 

Solution: wooden circles.

I found these wooden circles at the Hob Lob (Hobby Lobby). They were also most likely on sale. The large circle is 10 inches ($1.43) and the small circle is 6 1/2 inches ($.79). Decently priced even when not on sale.

I gathered my supplies:
-Wooden circles
-Fabric
-Hot glue gun and glue sticks
-Scissors
-Adhesive Velcro


I ironed some remnant pieces of fabric that were big enough to fit on the large and small wooden circles. The fabrics have been used in other projects, or were other projects, and will now be decoration.

Place the fabric wrong side up and the wooden circle on top of the fabric.

I put the price tag side up so it wouldn't show through the fabric when I turned it around to the side it would be viewed from.

Make sure there is enough fabric to pull around to the back of the circle to glue down. Slowly put hot glue on the circle and pull the fabric to secure it to the circle. Careful, the glue is hot, which seems odd to have to say, but it is.

Keep going around the circle gently pulling the fabric so that it will conform to the circle and look pretty on the other side.

Beautiful!

Once you have done the whole circle, place the finished product somewhere to cool off. Continue doing the other circles.



When all of your circles have been completed and cooled off you can trim the excess fabric to reduce bulk on the back.

The only fabric that wasn't a remnant was this awesomely cute turquoise, white, and red sewing fabric that I got from JoAnn's. It matches my room perfectly and I thought that was so cool. I only bought a quarter of a yard. There's a little remaining to possibly make some simple projects out of. Maybe a pin cushion? I'll think of something.



Done!

So cute and fun. Quick, too.

I did all of these is less than an hour and a half. They are ready to hang.

I got some adhesive Velcro to attach to the circles. You can use anything you want to hang yours up (some ribbon/string attached to the back and a nail would be a good idea as well). Place on the wall, or wherever you are going to put them, and stick them up. That way if I wanted to change up the look I could just move the circle to a different velcro spot.



I used some extra circles as a template for spacing. It gave me a good visual before I put the permanent adhesive on the wall, that way I could make slight adjustments as needed. I put some tape on the back of the non-fabric circles for temporary use.

My girl had fun helping me. She wanted to play with the circles. Then, she wanted to help hang them up. I let her do one. She was very proud.

The wall before and after:


I hope to find smaller circles (3-4 inches) to add to my wall. It will give it some variety and add more interest. 

I have a few more wooden circles left over, and as I complete future projects I can assure you that more circles will be added to the wall. I have some fantastic girl super hero fabric I am going to use for a project (not sure what I am going to make, as usual) for my girl. I am hoping there will be enough to make a couple of circles so I can put one in her room.

You could use this project in other ways as well. Maybe a mobile or décor in a kids room? Bathroom? On a flat ceiling? For the various holidays? There are many possibilities.

As always, thanks for visiting. :)