Yarn wrapped Christmas trees

Every year, the moms board of which I'm a part does a holiday gift exchange. It has to be something handmade and cost under $20. 

I remember the first year I participated and shook in my shoes thinking that I had to make something for someone else. Something that didn't suck.

I've survived without hitting up Etsy so far, but this year, I drew Gail's name. 

Now, Gail is the queen of craft and beauty. Her photography is art. She can sew anything without a pattern. She makes amazing things from paper.

If you can dream it, Gail can make it.

I was nervous.

I commiserated with our mutual friend, Constance, who gave me some wonderful ideas, but best of all, reminded me that Gail would love whatever it was because it was made by a friend.

With that reminder, I settled on something that I thought at first was too modest and easy.

Yarn wrapped Christmas trees. 

I found the tutorial on Pretty Ditty awhile back and have been dying to make these ever since.

They are so simplistically beautiful. The texture, the muted colors, the bright pop of the berries. I just love them.

But they are SO EASY to make. I wasn't sure it was the right gift for the woman who can do anything.

I think though, that she likes them. She took this picture of them, and makes them even more beautiful than they really are.

Then again, that's what her gift is. She brings beauty to the ordinary. Every day.

Merry Christmas, my friend.

Big Butt Baby Pants

I am in LOVE with this pattern. Made By Rae designed the most adorable wide leg baby pants with a special panel in the bum for cloth diapered babies. It's amazingly brilliant, and I can't stop making them.

When I needed something for Colin to wear at his baptism, I went shopping. I only had a couple of days to figure it out, and all I found was a sweet little cardigan. So, I made some pants. Voila. I'm telling you, this pattern is awesome.

A few months ago, I bought some of this brown and blue collection, not having a pattern in mind, but knowing that I wanted to do some cuffed pants for Colin with it. I think this was the perfect pattern for it. And quite by accident, it coordinates cutely with this elephant sweater that I found at a consignment sale. 

The picture of him wearing the outfit? Is the best picture I could get. That child would not be still. Plus, we all know by now that I am a terrible, horrible, awful photographer. Which isn't a great quality in a craft blogger. At least this time I remembered to actually take pictures. Bonus.

You can buy the pattern licensed or unlicensed so that if you want to make the pants to sell, you can. You just have to give Made By Rae credit for the design. You can add pockets easily, and if you've got a little girl, you can add ruffles to the butt panel. It's the cutest! 

Something else I love about this pattern is that it only takes a half a yard to make Colin a pair of pants. Less, if I'm doing a contrasting cuff and bum panel. So I'll be able to destash a lot of fabrics that I have just because they are adorable.

I've made some monkey pants with a polka dot bottom, and I have several other combinations picked out and waiting to go. I'm obsessed. Baby bottoms are already cute enough on their own, but these pants just send me right over the edge. Darling.

Teacher Gift Rose Arrangement

I admit. I saw this in a magazine with fake roses, liked it, and thought I could do better with real flowers and a lot less money than $130. The best ideas are often ripped off, are they not?

These arrangements were put together with roses from Trader Joes, some moss and flower foam stuff from Joann, and some tin containers from the dollar section at Target. I paired them with gift cards to Starbucks to make end of year gifts for Christopher's preschool teachers last May. What? I know I'm awfully behind on things here. Forgive me.

Anyway, super affordable, and i think they turned out kinda cute. Not sure I'll be delving much further into flower arranging though.

 

Personalized Signs for the Boys' Room

One thing I don't do is draw. As in, most first graders can draw better than I ever will. I have a few doodles in my pocket, and I can do some decent lettering, but I DON'T draw. Seriously. Terrible at it.

I always wanted to paint though. I love paint. I love the way oil paints smell. I love the way watercolors dry on the paper. I love all of the metal tubes of acrylics. On Saturday mornings, I used to forgo cartoons in favor of Bob Ross and his happy little trees and the mountains they lived on. I wanted to cut in with some Burnt Sienna and highlight the crests of the waves with whatever magical mixture of blues and whites he used that day.

Alas, I also suck at painting. Who would have figured? Of course, Bob Ross isn't actually that great of a teacher. He goes too fast (lightening speed if you are 10), and he doesn't ever answer any questions. And he's dead, but that's not really his fault.

Yes, I do actually have a point. Or a project to share.

These personalized signs for the boys were fun and a great way to release my inner painter in the form of my outer doodler. That sounded a little ick, sorry.

I bought the wooden letters from a shop online that I'm too lazy to find right now. They were super nice though, and had great prices. So if you need wooden letters, ask me and I'll find them for you.

The canvases are 30x10, which is apparently a weird size. It fit the letters for Christopher perfectly, and when I bought it in 2007, I didn't plan ahead for Colin. So, when it came time to make Colin's sign, I had to special order a whole box of that size canvas, leaving me with 5 extra. I guess I'll be blogging about what I did with those at some point.

The painting was done with acrylic, and I used regular wood glue to adhere the letters to the canvas. For around $30 (not including the extra canvases I had to buy), we ended up with what I think are some cute name signs for my boys.

Any ideas for those extra 10x30 canvases are welcome.

Family Christmas Stockings

This is a re-post from Don't Take the Repeats. It's the origin of the massive amounts of felt that I now own, and by far my favorite project to date. I just wish I had kept the pattern I made so that I could easily add another one for Little Butterbean next year. Oh well.

Over the past year or so, I have developed a love of handmade things. Esty is a website that should be banned from my computer. I've spent entirely too much time and money there.

Those who know me in real life know that I am not creative outside of music or cooking. It's just not in me.

Or so we thought.

I
now present to you, the family Christmas stockings, made by moi,
because I was too damn cheap to purchase personalized stockings. Well,
that, and the ones I found that I liked wouldn't allow the 11 letters
in my son's name.

I do believe I am officially crafty.

Felt Tree Garland

This adorable garland has been tempting me for a couple of years in the Land of Nod catalog. However, being the cheap cheapo that I am, I refused to drop $30 on some felt tree garland.

Thus began a valuable lesson in crafting. Sometimes, it's worth the money to just buy the darn thing.

I had a ton of felt left over from my Christmas stocking project last year. I'm not so good on the estimating, and since I was making them from my own imagination, I bought "a little extra" just to be sure. I could now wallpaper our family room with felt, but that's beside the point.

I figured the felt wasn't really a cost, because if I didn't use it for this, I was just wasting it anyway. However, I probably spent $15 on sequins and other decorating doodles for the trees. Then there was the expense of the ribbon and glue.

Not to mention, the expense of the time involved. It was time consuming. Just ask Lovely, my stepdaughter. She spent about an hour gluing the trees onto the sequin strands.

So, meh. Felt tree garland. It's cute, but I would just buy it from Land of Nod.

Zipper Pouches

This is the first year that Little Bird has had teachers. He goes to Mothers Morning Out one day a week at our church, and he has four teachers. Halloween was my first excuse to try something handmade for them.

I found some very cute fabric on sale at Hancock's one morning - just so happened to be on my "Morning Out." I bought a couple of yards of each because I didn't know how much I would need. Let's just say that Bird's teachers from now until he's in middle school will likely be getting the same zippered pouches for Halloween. Ahem.

My friend JC told me about these pouches and gave me the link to the instructions.  My first two attempts were quite disastrous. What I have found about sewing though, is that if I don't give up - if I plow through and finish something, that I will usually figure out what I've done wrong and how to do it right the next time.

Since I didn't take a picture of any of the pouches, I cannot offer any proof that in fact, I did figure it out and whip out four of those puppies in about 90 minutes. But I did. I just had to get the knack.

What I learned in this project is that I can cut out a straight line to save my life. I have a cutting board. I have a self healing mat and a rotary tool. I have the right tools I think, but I always end up with a random rhombus. Lovely.

Another lesson for another day, I suppose. But you would think that I could cut out a straight friggin' line.

We put some Halloween candy and a gift card to the brand spanking new Trader Joe's in each bag and gave them to his teachers the week of Halloween. Again, I may be setting the bar too high to live up to in the future, but that's alright. I'll just keep doing what I can when I can.

Halloween Costumes, the Pirate Family

Last September, I decided that I should make Halloween costumes for the family. Little Bird and his daddy would be pirates, and I was to be the pirate maiden. It was the biggest undertaking of my short career as a sewist.

I cut the taffeta for my dress wrong the first time and had to buy more. The whole affair probably cost me more to make from scratch than it would have to buy it, but it was a very satisfying venture.

I also made the pattern for Kevin's vest from an old dress shirt of his. That was a first for me, designing something without a purchased pattern.

The biggest mistake I made was setting the bar WAY too high for future Halloweens. Kevin was such a good sport last year, that I didn't expect him to be eager to join in again this year, but he was. Unfortunately, I'm just not up to taking on the whole family challenge again. I'm planning on making Little Bird a little bear, and that will be that.

Handmade Gifts

One of my favorite things about learning to sew is that I can make things for other people. There was a time not too long ago that I never would have dreamed I would give a handmade gift. Now? It's the first thing I try to give.

My friend Nicole had a baby boy in December. Drew received this tassle hat and scarf to wear next winter.

The mom board I'm a part of sometimes has swaps. You can make a gift or buy a handmade gift. Now? I can make a gift. It's so much more fun now! We recently had a love themed swap. I found some adorable fabric (once again on Pink Chalk Fabrics), and made this apron for my friend Tara.

Here's a close up of the fabrics. The little scooters are so cute!

And because I always like to use a pattern more than once, after all, the first time I'm blindly making my way through, I made another apron for my friend Trish's birthday. The fabric wasn't as nice, seeing as how I waited too late to order it online. I popped by Joann's and just went with "cute." Other than the spot on the bottom where I left the iron on it while I rescued Little Bird's fingers from the drawer he had closed them in, I think it turned out well.

My most favorite gifty project lately though, is this birthday shirt for little Pippi. She turned one this past Sunday, and she is sporting a cutie pie birthday shirt. Her mom picked out an adorable little t-shirt from Old Navy and the two pink prints for the "1" I think from Joann's. I thought the shirt turned out well, but I am probably mostly looking at the model. She's such a sweetie.

First Birthday Party

Even though I thought that the whole of my craftiness lay in sewing, my friend Boo has proclaimed otherwise. She is due with her first child next month (we are holding out for me and LL sharing a birthday on Fat Tuesday!), and I have assured her that the maternal hormones are where craftiness lies dormant until you become pregnant.

Boo said to me this past Saturday at Little Bird's first birthday party, "You are so crafty!" I blushed, and wondered if it were true. Maybe, but I have to acknowledge much help and inspiration from my 12 year old stepdaugher, Mallory. CC's party would not have been possible without her assistance last week.

The party started with a dog theme. We made the invitations with some Microsoft clip art and Publisher. However, we did this on my desktop, and I cannot figure out how to get it onto my HP Mini. Of course, I could get up and go into the other room, but the invitations weren't inspiring enough to warrant actual physical movement.

Mallory and I made these cookies for party favors. The instructions came in the February issue of Parents as an idea for Valentine's Day. We thought they would be perfect for a doggie birthday party.

We looked for a cake pan that was shaped like a dog bone, but couldn't find one. I was alright with that because in reality I didn't want to spend the money on it. However, I am so not a cake decorator, it's not even funny. I can't write on a cake at all. It's horrible. We decided that we would make a puppy paw cake, and even though I had to tell several people what it was supposed to be, I was still please with it.

I also made little puppy ears out of some of the miles of felt I have leftover from our Christmas stockings (don't even get me started about how wrong I was about how much felt I would need for that project. It's embarrassing). We bought children's elastic headbands and sewed the ears onto them. Here are a few of the fabulous models:

And just because I am so pleased with how it turned out, here's one more shot of the birthday boy in his birthday shirt:

Tassle Hat Distraction

I needed a distraction yesterday. Since it is about to get colder than it has been in several years, I decided to tackle a tassle hat project I had been saving for Little Bird.

Last year, I worked on dog coats for my two girl pups. One turned out way too small, and one turned out a little big. Both left me with scraps of fleece, perfect for Little Bird's hat. I also had enough of the red fleece with stars to cut out a matching scarf this morning. I didn't sew any of it; I just fringed the edges and went with it.

All in all, this was a simple project. I'm not happy with the finish around the base of the hat, but I'm sure I misunderstood something in the instructions. I do that often. I'm planning on making some more of these and working out my own way to finish the seam at the base. My stepdaughter, Mallory, and I have plans to make some fleece blankets when she gets here tomorrow. Maybe there will be some more good scraps from that project.

I love good scraps. I love my little scrapper down there too.

Birthday Shirt

Little Bird is about to turn one, as is his little friend across the street. I have seen cute birthday shirts on several websites. A simple knit shirt with an adorable "1" appliqued on the front.

"I can do that," I thought. Many a disaster has begun with that thought.

Setting out to create cute birthday shirts for the two little ones, I googled "applique." All of the hits I found were about quilting.

I turned to my online girlfriends, and the advice and help came pouring in.

Girl, from Memoirs of a Mommy, recommended a link from Etsy Labs and recommended Lite Heat and Bond. Which I thought were two different products at first. Doh. Christina and Michelle also chimed in with wonderful tips.

I used scraps leftover fro
m a purse I made for my friend, Tonya, for Christmas. I found these fabrics at Pink Chalk Fabrics, a site that I really love.

My main concern is how the project holds up through the washing and wearing. I guess though, a birthday shirt won't really get that much wear. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the result. I have Little Bird's applique cut out and ready to go. I just have to find the time to stitch it onto his onesie. Time where he is not in the room because he's decided that helping me run the foot pedal on the sewing machine is the most fun ever. Fun,

maybe. Helpful, 
not so much.

Learning to Be Specraftular

I have been known to make fun of crafters. It wasn't until I started surfing through Etsy and made some new friends who considered themselves "crafty," that I began to understand that gaudy sweaters and piles of scrapbooks weren't the end of the road for crafting.

There are artists out there.

While I don't aspire to become an artist, I would like to learn how to use my new serger, and how to sew in a straight line. My craft aspirations center around my sewing machine and learning to make things for my family and friends. Things that they won't pack into the back of a drawer five minutes after receiving them.

I began sewing in October 2007. Perhaps I shouldn't admit that, since I don't feel like I have gotten much better since then. I've made a handful of baby clothes, a couple of purses, a half dozen rag quilts, Halloween costumes, and my proudest accomplishment, our family's Christmas stockings.

When I think back on all of the projects I have tackled, I wish that I had been chronicling what worked, what didn't work, what I would like to try again, and most of all, I wish that I had been taking more pictures.

This space, then, is not a "how-to" craft blog. It is simply a blog to document my projects. My failures and my successes. It is a place to collect ideas and hopefully connect with other ameteur sewers. I dare not call myself a seamstress.

I am simply someone who sews.