Easter Sewing Craft!

Ooooh! Look at these adorable bunny bean bags!

These are from a guest post on 2 little hooligans from Me Sew Crazy. I forsee these being in my kid's Easter baskets. I'm sure I've got some scraps that will work great for this. Now I just need to force myself to go into the dungeon (because I still haven't figured out to make it any better) and work!

Have seen any other great crafts lately?

Flower Shirt for Mama!

It's not often that I make something for myself. It's even more rare that I take pictures of myself (or even allow myself to be in them!), but here ya go!

I made this shirt months ago and it was the first shirt I ever made. That collar was somethin' else to make. I'm really not very good at gathering. I would much rather pleat. This is from the McCall's M5640 pattern. Looks cute enough on the cover model, but it turned out like a big tent! I wore it that way for quite awhile until I realized that the back really did look like a big flowery circus tent. Then I saw on someone's blog how they fitted a shirt on themselves, so I tried it out.
Turn the shirt inside out, put it on & go stand in front of the mirror. Carefully pin the shirt until it fits the way you want it to. Then very, VERY carefully take it back off, sew and/or cut as needed. I tapered 3 inches in the middle on each side so that it went from looking like this /   \  to looking more like this )  (    This has now caused some funny little extra folds on the sides at the bottom, but is now much more flattering.

I bought a bunch of patterns for myself when they were .99 cents a piece, but haven't made anything else yet. (I did re-fashion a t-shirt for myself, which I may show later.)

I have a bunch of this fabric leftover so I am thinking about making the girls some matching peasant dresses. What do you think? Do you know of a really cute pattern that would work for this material?

I was featured!

The Train To Crazy featured my pleated t-shirt dress on Make It Wear It! I am so excited! I may have to link up more often.

Thank you Andrea from Train to Crazy!

4th of July outfits

The 4th of July oufits!

Finally!

 I {heart} red, white & blue!

 The boys shorts were SO super easy! They were made from CarlaC's Easy Fit Pants pattern. It took me about an hour to make both pairs of shorts. Don't let that beautiful patchwork fool you, I didn't do all that! I bought the fabric already all patchworked up. Do you think patchworked is a word? I'm gonna say yes.

I did find that the waist on these pants is a little too long for my taste, so I shortened Boo Boo Bear's. Bug, however liked it just fine, so I left it. Apparently, it's a matter of personal opinion & can easily be tailored to fit the wearer. I'm thinking about buying this pattern for adults, too. It's nice that it can be used for both genders!

Oh, these dresses were so frustrating! Unlike the one hour shorts, these things took days to make. This is probably due to the fact that I sort of made it up as I went along. I had a vision in mind, but no pattern that matched. I made the halter top from McCall's M5419 pattern, then extended it to ankle length & added a 4 inch ruffle. It turned out nothing like I imagined, but still cute.

Confessions of a Lazy Crafter & A Project!

I really must stop lying. I promised you way back on the 16th that I would be back later that day with something. Anything! What day is it now? LOL

I also must confess that I have not sewn, crafted, blogged, or even looked at all my favorite crafty blogs in weeks. Instead I have been spending insane, ridiculous & shameful amounts of time playing games on the computer. My stress is at an all time high right now & instead of being creative as a means of coping, I'm escaping. Does that sound healthy? Yeah, I didn't think so. Anyway, I decided to do something different (for at least part of the day, LOL) by uploading all my pictures, looking at a few crafty blogs & actually blogging. Shocking, I know.

The first blog I looked at today was Brown Paper Packages. I love this blog because there are so many useful projects on here. And since today is Wednesday, Leisel is hosting Wardrobe Wednesday. It's a time for crafty people to show off the things they've made to be worn. I've been wanting to join in since I first saw it, but since I never get around to posting the things I've made, I never entered. TODAY IS THE DAY!

NOTE: I am also linking up to Make It, Wear It at The Train to Crazy! (Also, a fabulous blog!)

I saw this awesome Pleated T-Shirt Tutorial from Create & Delegate and knew I wanted to make Pinky Lee a special outfit for football & cheerleading. Last year she just wore Lil' Coconut's old cheer uniform, but I wanted her to have something unique this year.

TA-DA!Isn't she just adorable???
Quite the model.

In action!

I love it, she loves it, and we got a lot of compliments on it. This won't be the last time you see this pattern because I am in love with it! Ooooh, that sounded like a promise on my part. Let me rephrase: You may or may not see more dresses of the pleated t-shirt variety. This will depend on my making more (which I have), taking pictures (which I have not), uploading pictures, editing pictures, and finally blogging about said dress and pictures.

For now, please enjoy this one & don't forget to enjoy everyone else's project entries here:

Gifts for twin baby girls

A friend of mine recently gave birth to two adorable baby girls (Okay, I haven't seen them yet, but I'm SURE they're adorable!) bringing their family size to a grand total of 6! Yea for families with four kids! LOL! Anywho, I wasn't really sure what they needed, so I decided flex my creative muscle & borrow ideas from all the talented crafters in blog land.

I have been wanting to use these gorgeous fabrics ever since I saw them, but didn't have any need to. Now I do! My first project: Burp Cloths! These burp cloths were made from a free pattern at You Can Make This. My kids think they look like dog bones, but they are the perfect fit over your shoulder. I used the fringe idea from Homemade by Jill to make them even more cute and for ease in sewing.
It's like a burp cloth sandwich. Tee hee.

One side has the beautiful girly girl cotton fabric, while the other side has soft flannel.

And now for something completely different...an idea of my own! Bath mitts! This was super easy & they are super cute. I may just give you a little tutorial (although I'm sure you could figure it out on your own) mostly so I can help you avoid the mistakes I made (although I'm sure you wouldn't make a mistake in the first place, right?)

Then there's the showstoppers!

Okay, that may be a bit over dramatic, but these were a real labor of love. I learned to use my embroidery machine with these. I ruined one & had to start over. I broke two machine needles. That was just for the monograms.

Then there were the ruffles.

Check out those frou frou ruffly butts! Oh my! I used this tutorial from UCreate. This was WAY harder than it should have been. I'm hoping that's just because I used satin ribbon & not because I'm a poor seamstress! :O

It's supposed to have 3 rows of ruffles each, but I stopped after just 2.
Oh, well. They are adorable now & I'm sure she'll appreciate them!

A New Addition

To my craft room, that is. Look at this little beauty! It's the Singer Future SES2000. It's my birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day, birthday & Christmas present all in one. Yes, it was still that expensive even though we got a great deal on it. (My husband loves me!)

This thing does it all. Sewing, serging & embroidery! I'll be honest. I haven't quite figured out yet how it does the serging, but I'll get around to it eventually. It took me two solid days to figure out the embroidery feature, but I did & I can't wait to show you what I made! I just need to take some pictures. Oh yeah, it sews too, so I've been doing a little of that.

I always thought my inability to sew a straight line was related to the fact that I can neither draw nor cut a straight line. Ha! Incredibly enough, I can sew a straight line on this machine. Maybe it's because I don't have to tug and pull my material through when there are multiple layers. And by multiple layers, I mean more than one. Who sews through just one layer of fabric all the time? Oh well, no worries now! If you have any questions about my fancy schmancy new machine, just let me know. I'll do my best to answer!

That sweet DH of mine came home from work last week to find the craft room (which is like a sitting room of sorts to our bedroom) completely torn apart, with only a small pathway to the bathroom and the bedroom. Sometime around lunch I had decided I needed to make room for my new machine & the laptop (because you have to be connected to the computer while doing embroidery), which meant I needed to bring in more work space in the form of two desks. While this is a large room, there are multiple windows and doorways to contend with, as well as keeping the outlets accessible. I had already moved every piece of furniture at least once, if not 2 or 3 times. Nothing was working. Finally we settled on something that at least seemed functional, put everything away, and called it a day.

Now I've had a chance to test that arrangement out. Yeah, um...not so much. I'm open to ideas. If you have a really cool crafting room, or you know where I can go to look, PLEASE tell me!

Cowboy Blanket Pix

Cowboy Blanket

This is the "cowboy" blanket and bumper I made for Boo Boo Bear's crib. He's supposed to be moving into Bug's room, which is already cowboy themed, so I wanted them to match. I don't have a picture of it, but there is also a cornice box that matches the bumper. If we ever get the room cleaned out and everything moved in, it should look really cute. I mean handsome.