Christmas Book Help

I’m not even sure anyone even follows me anymore since I’ve been such a slacker but if you do I could sure use your help.  I want to start doing a tradition I read about a while ago where the family wrapped up all their Christmas books and depending on how many they had they start opening one a night until Christmas Eve.  I don’t want to just go buy a whole bunch of meaningless Christmas books.  I would love them to be about the true meaning of Christmas, about giving rather than receiving, and about Christ.  Here’s where I need your help. 

What are your families favorite Christmas books?

Just leave a comment of your favorites and if you want why you love them!

Thanks a ton!

Turkey Pumpkins

What do you do when you are a slacker of a mom and didn’t make the time to carve the pumpkins for Halloween?

you turn them into Turkey’s for Thanksgiving…..

 

 

Supplies:

Brown Cardstock

Feathers

Glue

Pumpkins

Yellow and red foam (or felt, paper, etc)

Wiggly Eyes

I’m not going to go into great details but you can wing it from my pictures!

Make the face on brown cardstock

Glue feathers to strips of brown cardstock

Glue the strips of feathers together fanning them out and the attach to pumpkin (I used hot glue for this part)

Then glue the head onto the stem of the pumpkin.

Now you have a Turkey Pumpkin!

Here are two of my Turkeys posing with our Turkey Pumpkins!!!

Seasonal Pillow Covers

Just finished making these pillow covers.  They turned out so cute and they were super easy to make. 

I finished this fall/thanksgiving themed ones just in time!  I love the off centered orange stripe (the orange is sparkly too, love the sparkles!!!)

I know these one’s are a little late for the holiday but they are ready for next year.  The only thing I would change if I was to make these again would be to make the orange frame larger.

I had a hard time finding just the right ribbon to make these pillows covers look like presents.  Then I found out that JoAnn’s sells a ribbon that looks like burlap without the rough feel of burlap.  Then my other struggle was finding just the right green something to go in the center of the bow.  I must admit I’m not entirely in love with what I used but they do still look cute!

Quilt and Fish Tail Towel Hanger

I’ve got a gazillion projects either waiting to be finished or waiting to be recorded.  I’ve been trying to get myself organized again since moving into our first home and sending our oldest daughter to Kindergarten.  It’s been quite the struggle to manage schedules and I’ll admit I don’t like having to work my life around school now.  It’s always been nice to just pick up and go whenever I wanted.  The worst part is the schedule crunching is just beginning and I know it will only get crazier the older she gets and as her siblings join her.  Life sure is crazy!

Anyways enough with my rant…

Here are some pictures of a couple of projects I just finished:

This is the baby quilt I made for my sister’s little girl who was born last January (this tells you how far behind I am)

This fish tail towel hanger came out of necessity when the kids hung on the original towel rod and it cam off the wall (thankfully not damaging the kids or the wall).  This makes it so the kids (except the baby) can now hang their own towels after their bath.

Ocean Cave is done!!!!

Sorry I’ve been absent on this blog for a while.  I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to get any blogging done.  I’ve still been creating but haven’t had the desire to blog about them.  Hopefully, while I’m in the mood I’ll get my blog caught up on all that I’ve been doing. 

To start off we have been building a bed for our son Christian’s new room.  It was quite the project, fun but took a lot of juggling of time to get it done.

We finally finished it yesterday. 

So while the kids had a sleepover in the living room

 

we set the bed up in his bedroom. 

Climbing wall (we didn’t use the foot and hand holds from the other bunk bed because they hurt your feet to use if you’re not wearing shoes.

Shelf along side and empty space at the end for books and toys

Treasure Chest toy box inside cave

Shelving on the inside of cave.

Oooh La La Baby Legs

I love Baby Legs. 

I have been wanting to make some for my baby for a while and when my husband started getting rid of his dress socks because they looked like this:

I started snagging them before he could throw them away so I could make them into little leggings for her.   This is how I did it:

 

I cut the foot portion off the sock like so: 

Then I took some trim and pinned it to the cut edge of the sock and just started stitching it down.  (because this trim was finished i just stitched wrong side to the right side of the sock)

When I got back around to where I started I connected the two ends together but lining right sides together and stitched so there was just enough trim to lay over the remainder of the sock (I hope that makes sense) Stitch that section down to the sock and then viola your done!!! They were so easy and fun I made another pair using wired ribbon.  I used the wire to scrunch up one side and then stitched it the same as above and then removed the wire once it was all stitched down!

A New Favorite: Headband Trim

I was strolling through my local WalMart craft area and I stumbled across this:

 

It’s a roll of Headband trim!!!  The same stuff as the popular headbands for babies and children are made from except it’s in a roll with 2 yards of the trim.  Maybe I’m behind the times and everyone else already knew about this stuff but it’s great.

From one roll I was able to make five headbands

and I had a small amount left over that I turned into a cute bracelet!

To make them I just wrapped the trim around my little girls head pulling it so it was a little snug and then cut it then finish it on your serger or sewing machine.   Here’s how I finished them using my sewing machine:

One method I took a square of the same color of fabric and wrapped it around the end of the trim like so:

(If you don’t wrap the end the trim gets stuck in your feed dogs)

I used a ziz-zag stitch and went over the end a couple of times.  Then I trimmed the extra fabric off and it’s done!!! 

The other method I regular lined paper wrapped one the back side instead of the material.  That way I could tear it free.  I did this method because I didn’t have any pink fabric to match the pink trim. (The paper leaves little pieces between the threads that you have to get out with some tweezers, otherwise it works great)

These were so easy and so fun to make. 

I foresee more projects to come using this trim!!!

Scrapwood and Screws

Scrapwood and Screws

is a brand new blog a friend of mine started to show off the projects he has done and maybe help inspire us to turn “junk” into treasures.  

I’m loving his very first post of a

 Sandbox Excavator.   To see how he made this

Sandbox Excavator head on over to

 Scrapwood and Screws!!!

Canvas Brushless Art with Kids

We had a blank wall in our hallway and I really wanted to do one large artwork to add some color unfortunately there was two problems.

First I didn’t want to fork over the $$$ for a large piece of artwork

and

Secondly I’m not much of an artist so I couldn’t paint one myself.

Voila! 

Let My Kids Be The Artists!!!

Here’s how we made it:

I made the frame from scrap pieces of wood by cutting two long pieces and then two smaller pieces about half the size of the long ones.  I also one more small piece that would fit snug between the two long pieces for more support.  (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the frame before I put the canvas over it)

I purchase a white twin size flat sheet at Wal-Mart for about $5.  I cut it so the sheet was about 4 inches wider than the frame on all sides.

Then I let the kids have at it doing whatever they wanted.  It didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped so a couple days later we had another go at it but will a little more direction to create an actual scenery. 

I asked the kids what they wanted to make, then I squeezed out the paint to resemble the item, and they spread the paint out.

Flower TreeSun The big thing I would change here is I would make a light outline of the frame so that we could keep the bulk of our picture on the part of the fabric that will actually be seen.  As you can tell we lost most of the flowers and rainbow in order to keep the tree with the handprint apples!!!

After the paint has dried just line up the frame where you want and wrap it around to the back of the frame and staple it in place.  Be sure to pull tight.  I recommend working on one end then move to the opposite end and then work on the sides.

 

It was definitely a five star ***** project in my book!!!

Fun, Easy, and Cheap!!!

Plus we can easily make another painting to change it up if we like.

I think the next one we make will have a beach theme to it!!!

All in one week…

We woke up on the 18th of May to find this:

That afternoon we made this:

Then on the 21st of May we did this:

Teaching Sewing Lessons

I’m going to start teaching sewing lessons and I just received this letter from my professor in the mail:

 

This sure gave me a confidence boost and I can’t wait to get started!!!  You can find more information about my classes here Sewing Lessons FAQ's

Stringy Easter Wreath

This is a messy but fun project.  I recommend it for ages 5+.

Materials:

Elmer’s Glue (watered down a little bit)

1 long skinny balloon (I had to use 2 balloons as I wanted mine thicker but I would recommend if you can only using one)  I found my balloons at a dollar store in an assortment bag

Yarn cut into strips I would recommend around 24 inches long.

Something to fill the wreath (I used Easter eggs)

Ribbon

Dip the yarn in the glue and squeeze off the excess. Wrap the yarn around the balloon in all directionsOnce the glue dries then pop the balloon and remove it from inside.  Allow it to dry a little longer as some of the inside may be a bit wet still. Once dry fill whatever you want I used Easter eggs and tie a ribbon on.

Side note:  Mine started to droop and looked more like an egg after a little while so I re did the ribbon to pull from about 4 inches on each side of the center so it wouldn’t droop anymore.  Mine was pretty flexible but I bet if you did way more yarn it would probably be stiffer!

 

*I learned the use of string in glue from a magazine article a few years ago.  I’m not sure which one but I think it might have been “Parenting”