Embroidered Butterfly

I recently taught Zoe how to embroider. She absolutly loved it too. I let her draw a picture and I transferred it for her. She sat for four hours on one of her many snow days and stitched and stitched until her butterfly was all done. We are trying to decide what her pretty buterfly will become... a pillow? an applique? a doll blanket?

Play Ball...in style!

I recently made up a couple of tie shirts for a friend. Her nephews are children of some big baseball fans. I was lucky enough to have just a bit of baseball fabric leftover from Steve's jammie pants I made him last year. I even have just enough left for a shirt for Hayden.

Tote-A Bag-A *revisited*

Zoe attended a birthday party this weekend. I decided the book loving birthday girl needed a library tote bag. The pocket on the front is for a library card. I'm thinking since she rushed through most gifts but stopped to squeal about her new bag and book that it was well liked! I also got a big thanks for the mom. Apparently they go to the library each Monday and check out 14 books for the week...this little girl seems to like books even more than my little reader! If that is even possible!

The following is from the original post I wrote when I made Zoe's library tote bag.

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I sewed up Zoe's Library Tote Bag last night. She found it this morning resting on a door knob with her library books inside. I think she really likes it! Now Mommy won't have to juggle keys, wallet, books, and a certain little 2 year old all the while trying to walk down the library stairs anymore! I didn't use a pattern. I just pulled out a really big children's book and added a couple of inches in every direction then cut out two in the ABC fabric and two in the stripy fabric. I sewed up the sides and bottom on each stuck the liner in and turned down a hem added the padded handles and sewed around the top of the bag. If you noticed I turned the ABC fabric down a bit further than the other so the stripy would peak out over the top. If any of this makes sense to you you must have some sewing knowledge. If it doesn't then I am truly sorry you read my ramblings...lol. I should have taken pictures as I was making it...ahhhh live and learn.

Tote-A Bag-A... that's Zoe lingo for Tote Bag!

This post has been added to and was origianlly posted on My Zoe Bug on 9/14/07.

Never too many hearts

When your five as long as it is pink or has a heart on it it matches right? Here is Zoe in her "hearts galore outfit". Her words not mine. She was never more tickled than when I bought the shirt and socks for her. I told her to put her jean skirt on with it and when she stepped out of her room I thought...nope, no way, not my daughter! Let's just say the skirt had finally become too short and the knee high socks where more like thigh high socks! She has been wearing this jean skirt for two years now. I like it because it has the shorts under it so I was determined to get lots of use out of it. Well, in my determination I thought I should just add some pink fabric with hearts on it and then it will last yet another year at least! Woo Whoo! She loves it. I love the length. Daddy approves too. Win win! She is all set for Valentine's Day!
Please note there are hearts on her socks, skirt, shirt, a necklace, and a hairclip made by mommy :)

Handyman Hayden is Two!

For Hayden's 2nd birthday we celebrated together as a family and threw a slightly bigger party for extended family the following week. I decided on a Handyman/construction sort of theme. Here are a few of the handmade items I threw together for his big day.

Invitations- original idea from here. I couldn't get the files to work so I just drafted my own patterns for everything. The paint brush was a favorite of min e because of the "bristles".

Happy Birthday banner-just paint chips with cut out letters, double sticked taped on, two holes punched and attached with string. Easy.

Door sign. I sketched it out from images of constructions signs I found on a google image search, and just added a party hat. This gave pleanty of chuckles to the adults at the party.Tool box party favors. That hold animal crackers just right. I will work up an animal box favor box pattern...soon...hopefully :)

Hayden's "2" shirt and hard hat

The cakes-cupcakes for his actual birthday and a cake for his party. I used Wilton's candy clay recipe for the yellow and green details on his tape measure cake. I also used this Cake Boss frosting recipe...Best. Frosting. I. Have. Ever. Made...yummmm.

I also tied balloons to some cones I found at the party supply store.

All in all I would say this was my favorite birthday party we have hosted. Simple and inexpensive.

Felt Food

In '09 when my littlest niece turned one I made her oodles of felt food. I made eggs, toast, a pat of butter, bacon, I made a complete bologna sandwich, a bag of chips, strawberries, bow tie pasta and sauce, I made a steak and broccoli, a cupcake topped with a cherry, and a candy cane(she got that on top of her Christmas gift) , AND completely forgot to take any pictures of any of it...I may have even forgotten a thing or two here. Phooey. This year I added to her felt food mostly because I never got around to making the piece of pumpkin pie I reeeaaallllyyy wanted to make for her last year. So this year I made for her...

A movie snack set- based on this tutorial plus I added a pretzel.

I love how the Hershey bar opens. I used this font for the letters. I also added some grey felt for the foil part of the packaging, plus it hid all of my stitching from the letters.

Cinnamon roll- sewed down some white yarn for the frosting.

A popsicle

And of course the piece of pumpkin pie- Which btw Hayden thought was real and kept pleading with me to give him the "cake". Once I handed it to him you should have seen the utterly confused look on his face...priceless.

No more pink

I have a niece who is getting older and is getting harder to come up with ideas for handmade gifts. This year I made a (sort of )bath set.
Bath wrap based off this tutorial, instead of Velcro I used buttons and a matching hair tie for closure. In the end I think it was still a bit too big and some buttons needed moving over.
Eye mask
Tissue holder-because I had some terry cloth leftover :)
I bought loofahs and some bubble bath to tie it all together.

Oopsie

Another Christmas gift... when I found this pattern I knew exactly who I was going to make it for. The only thing was I didn't even know if it was for a boy or girl! We welcomed 5 new babies into the world last year and these parents to be were absolutely perfect matches for this sweet little octopus. And when they found out they were having a girl and decided that the nursery decor would be an oceany under the water theme I literally squealed! I had already started Oopsie in a red, teal, and green color scheme, but when I found out about the nursery I had to start over in the nursery colors. This was my first stuffed animal. Even though I made several mistakes along the way and it is a bit wonky I still loved it and I think the little 1 month old sweetheart I gifted it to might just love it one day too.
The pattern can be found here. The only changes I made were simply skipping the cheeks and mouth. I liked it better without.

My SUPER big long project

I started this Christmas gift way back in July.
I was so very proud of myself.
Everything but a simple bag to put it is was finished!
THEN, sometime around October I went to show it off and for whatever reason the modge podge decided to adhere everything together. I had waited a week before packing it up being sure to let everything dry and not be sticky anymore.
This had never happened before!
I think I had a bad batch of modge podge.
So, after doing some sanding, exacto knifing, re papering, paint touching up, and modge podging it all over again- I still loved it.
It was ten times more work and took ten time longer to finish than it should have, but I think the Mom and Dad to the little 10 month old were pleased. Especially when they saw the little Super Hero personalized for their little "A".
I found inspiration for this project from all different places. Here and here. The word blocks was my idea- if it's already out there I have no clue.
I bought the wooden blocks and little people here and used this pad of scrapbook paper.
I tried to keep the blocks super-hero-esk (yep that is totally a word). All in all this was my favorite project to gift this year.

phew! After looking back through this post I think I should have titled it My SUPER big long post!- I just loved how all the pictures turned out and wanted to share them all :)