Butterfly Shirt

So one of Savannah's best friends is having a birthday party today. They are actually only one day apart, and she just loves the two sisters ... so I wanted to make something special for Shalee.I whipped up some pants using this tutorial. The pants that I made for 4th of July using the same tutorial have held up really well, except for Hunter's. But he's gotten to that rough & gruff boy stage where he's ripped a hole in every single pair of jeans he owns. Then there is a template for the butterfly shape that I put on the shirt at this blog.

Finished!!! (well, almost ...)

First, can I go on a small rant? Did you know that when you make a comment, blogger doesn't add in your e-mail address so I can respond??? It's so frustrating wanting to respond individually to someone and not being able to ... ugh. It almost makes me want to switch to typepad ... but that costs money ... so it's probably a no go. Anyways ...

I have made 14 pairs of pj's for the kids now!!! :) It is so addictive, and the best part was when they were picking out which pair to wear last night ... Hunter chose his golf pants & Savannah chose the blue with flowers (but fell asleep before I could get a pic) ... the only thing left to do is check Colton's length & trim his bottoms ... which will take less than 30 minutes today!!! :) YEAH!!! Hunter got 4 pairs, while Savannah & Colton each got 5. The only thing that REALLY bugs about the patterns I used were for Hunter's. They turned out like boats on him .... but thankfully he doesn't mind. Next time I'll try slimming up the sides to the size 5 or a bit smaller, rather than following the lines for a 6. Blogged about here and here. Now to start on this week's goal ... finishing the cowgirl quilt. :)

Total out of pocket expense for 14 pairs of pj's: About $25

• $20 (for flannel) and $4.72 (for elastic)

Ballerina Purse

So my daughter was begging to be a pretty little ballerina dancer. So we enrolled her in a tap/dance class this summer. She's in absolute heaven. But, we keep losing her shoes. So she had to have a pretty ballerina purse, right? :) And since she's in the class with two of her cutest, best-est, best friends I told her Mom I'd make some for them to. We used a pretty ballerina print for the inside and then I put ric rac on each of the girls purses' so they could tell the difference between them.One hot pink, one green and then I used the leftovers strips for Savannah's purse. There was enough leftover flannel ballerina print that this week's goal is to use up the flannel I have and make some pj's for the kids ...

Last Week's Goal

So last week I had two goals. To make another butterfly artwork for a sweet little girl who was having her princess tea party and the other was to finish the last three throw pillows for our bed ... and here's the pillowcases I made also with this tutorial. I was so excited as I was finishing the final stitches on these pillows. I looked at my husband and told him, "isn't it awesome?!? Now we won't have the plain pillow forms on our floor anymore!" To which he replied, "Yep! Now we'll just have the covered pillows on the floor."He's such a teaser. LOL. But it's true ... at least now I feel more motivated to "think" about making the bed. ;)

Savannah's Blanket

I realized I forgot to post finished pictures of Savannah's blanket! I did the super simple 9 patch with sashing between the squares. I wanted it to be something that would look nice, have all the fun, different prints in the ginger blossom set and still be okay to be used. I know she'll color on it with something permanent at some point, or put her dirty feet on it. And that's okay. It's her blanket, for her to love and destroy.I used the stripe print for the sashing and the backing is just the sheet that came with the sheet set I got for the mattress. My kids never really use the sheets anyways and the coloring looks perfect. When I gave it to her (all finished), she hugged & kissed it and kept telling me, "thank you mommy!" :) (Blogged about: Here, here, here and here.)

Finished Wedding Gift

So I promised myself (and my husband) that I wouldn't buy or start new projects until I finished a few of my WIP's. Something about the summer makes me make that promise each year ...

So last week, the goal was to put the three hours into this blanket. Which literally took me all week long, and was only finished with a few hours left until my self-imposed deadline. It's a gift for a friend that got married a couple weeks ago. The fabulous Miss Mati did a great job quilting in the description I asked her to. And now, it's off my list, and in the mail to the newly married family. I hope they love it as much I do. :)

Tile Wording

I keep meaning to post this, and now is as good a time as any! My friend Lacie had a cricut and cut out all the vinyl lettering for me and Ryan painted the board & put the knobs on while I was pregnant (and couldn't paint). The tiles were only 20 cents each and I picked up a box of 48 of them. I have lots of cute sayings, but for the everyday, be kind seemed the best idea & reminder for our home. I also have boo, gobble, joy (for christmas), love and a couple others. Thanks Lacie for the darling cut outs!!! :)

Princess Dress

My Dad & Mom bought this fabric for Savannah for me to make her a dress with. Since it was already bunched up on top & finished on the bottom, it took less than 20 minutes to make & I added ribbon for the arms to hold it up. She loves to twirl in it. :)

Our Improved Front Room

Nothing like a baby blessing to get my butt in gear and get some UFO's done! Here's the before: And here's the after:The fabric was all only $3 a yard from a local home fabric store. The rug ended up being the "inspirational piece" for all the coloring ... reds, greens, browns, & yellows.

I used the thrifty decor chick & nesting place's ideas for curtains. Upholstery tacks were only $1.47 at Wal-Mart and look at the awesome pleated windows as a result!Seriously the whole window "mistreatment" took about an hour from start to finish ... love it! :)

Then I did a knock-off version of the temples from the cultural hall website. I was able to photoshop a similar looking version of the St. George temple (where we were married) and even to personalize it for only $3, the frame was $17 ... a lot cheaper than the $200 on-line price tag ($140 at Costco). The rest of the odds n' ends were picked up from Tai Pan Trading (in St. George ... love that place!). It helps complete that odd little corner ...

Then the family tree I picked up (for only $2.50 from a Hallmark clearance center a couple of years ago) was put on that little section of a wall on the window. I love the gold frame that frames it all in. It fits and fills up the space perfectly. And here's the throw pillows (I stole the stuffing from the other pillows). We pretty much already had everything, but the total spent was around $100 for all the throw pillows, curtains, frames for Ryan's diplomas, everything! LOVE IT!!! :)

Butterfly Artwork

So this was the inspirational piece ... and this was my version ... and my friend Christy who did one on the same day with me. (I like hers better)An awesome friend of mine cut the circles out for us using her cricut. Then it took us most of a day to lay out the pieces, and get the shapes we wanted. We hot glued the buttons down. And we stitched the paper pieces, then spray glued them down. The process of actually adhering the pieces all down took less than an hour. And the best part is, it's a LOT less than the $150 price tag of Pottery Barn Kids! :)

Price Break Down:

Scrapbook Paper - $1.20 (Bought @ Jo-Ann's for 5 sheets for $1)

Canvas Board - $9.00 (size is 24" x 24")

Buttons - $1.50 (found in the bead/craft section at Wal-Mart, one bag is 4 oz & was enough)

Three finished projects in one week!!!

Holy cow this has been a GOOD six days ... lots of sewing and finished projects ... yeah! I'm trying to get pictures of it all to post now ... but it's pretty overcast today so it might have to wait until tomorrow. Project #1 is a baby wrap. I found a tutorial here & here. Until Savannah turns 4 in August, we have three kids, three and under! It's crazy when I try to go out & Colton really isn't ready to walk, so this has been a lifesaver already! I got a 95% cotton/5% spandex interlock weave knit from Jo-Ann's for only $4 a yard! SCORE! :) I picked up enough of it to make two ... I really like the olive green coloring. Hunter was nice enough to take the pics for me ... so half my head is cut off in them ... but you still get the idea. Then here's a pic of some of the home decor fabric I picked up in the last couple of weeks for $3 a yard ... can't wait to show the cute curtains off this weekend when our friends come over for a bbq!

Mother's Day Aprons

Baby #4 is very colicky, so not much has been happening here. But I wanted to share the aprons I made for my Mom & Grandma for Mother's Day. I used this tutorial and loved it! I want to go get some zebra print fabric now (I saw some at Jo-Ann's yesterday) and make myself one with a pink tie ... it'll be cute! Unfortunately, the flash photo isn't the best, but the close up detail shows the colors for my Grandma's better. This apron took about 40 minutes to make for me, and that included a major jam up/bent needle and de-fuzzing the inside of my machine. Definitely want to do this again! :)

Thanks you guys! It's not a finished project ... there's still curtains, the bed quilt & a bed skirt to be made ... but it's been a slow work in progress (I've been collecting the stuff for over a year) ... so I'm not too worried. I'm hoping to find more odds n' ends to put on the shelves as time goes on. It's fun doing it with her though. :)

I never posted the pic of the kids in their shirts (mainly because there still isn't a 100% wonderful pic of all three with their shirts to show) ... but here's a pic taken at Kiddie Kandids the other day that kind-of shows them.

Then I completely spaced a gift that is due next week! Oops!!! I already made the quilt top ... but I haven't been feeling well enough to actually sit & sew ... guess it's time to suck it up and get to work on this sucker, she's getting married next weekend and I wanted to give it to (on time).

**Sorry for the bad pic**

Just a simple patchwork of one of the mary englebriet charm packs. I loved how bright & happy it was ... just like the bride-to-be. I pulled it out last night to at least pin, but fell asleep ... maybe today instead of a nap I can get it at least pinned???

Hair Bows, hair bows, hair bows!

Okay, these are completely addictive! I spent almost four hours making these ones for Savannah for her Easter dress. It is two strands of a basic pink ribbon underneath in the shape of an x, two sets of the perky butterfly loops bow, two colors of the korker bows and then just a simple tied ribbon in the center.It wouldn't have taken so long, but I had to make three sets of the korker ribbons for the middle (the first set of colors were all wrong, the second set I accidentally burned/set off the fire alarm on ... at 10:30 at night, and the third set was finished at midnight on Easter). Either way, she loved them ... and so did I! :) Then last night I made this set for Savannah's big sister shirt ... not my favorite set, but it's done and we're moving on. Now to get to work on this project for the night ...

The Tooth Fairy

So my son had a cavity, which we had fixed. But, the dentist didn't drill deep enough, and as a result, the entire tooth beneath it rotted away and yesterday he had to go to the dentist to have the tooth pulled. Now, our new dentist is awesome. He has been really great with Hunter and took his time, slowly working up to this procedure. And I've been so obsessed with explaining it to Hunter and making it not a big deal (he was awake for the whole procedure) that between that, getting ready for baby and some guests we have coming tomorrow ... well ... that's pretty much all I've been focused on.

So imagine my surprise when Hunter, innocently looks at me and says, "You made me something special to put my tooth in for the tooth fairy, right?".

Oops.

Of course I didn't admit that that had been the last thing on my mind ... and the fact that my little boy still thinks I can make him just about anything lickety-split is a ego-boosting, wonderful thing. He won't always think I'm so cool.

So after dropping him off at school, I hurried home and printed up this tutorial (which I had ear-marked well over a year ago). There were a lot of other things that needed to be done ... but this definitely trumped all of that! I had some fleece that I used & fabric laying around and it really wasn't hard and didn't take too long (just every free moment of my entire day) ...

And since it was a tooth that the dentist had to pull, and he was such a brave boy (and he had a REALLY hard time ... oh my) ... the tooth fairy brought him $10 ... compared to the usual $1 that he'll get for just losing his teeth on his own.

37 Weeks & Nestin'

So the last few weeks have been exhausting ... for my husband. LOL. I'll have to share pictures of Savannah's pink new room ... it's a work in progress ... or the cute new end tables my husband painted up for our bedroom ... but first! I've actually got something that is finished to share!

There are a couple of adorable women that I go to church with that ALWAYS have their daughters in the cutest hair bows around. Seriously ... I have bow envy. So a friend and I got together last week ... my first attempts were sorry & pitiful. But last Friday a bunch of us got together and I like these new ones a lot more!I've got cute ribbons to match every new spring outfit she's going to wear ... now to just work on them one night at a time. It's so nice to take a break from the sewing quilts ... this is a much more "instantaneous" gratification type thing.

And Savannah LOVES the bows ... now to teach her now to rip them off the clips ...

First Quilt-a-long Finished (finally!)

Everyday last week (except Friday) was absolutely gorgeous. So, the kids were outside playing on their new swing set, having lunch on their little table and soaking up the sunshine. While I enjoyed a bit of a break, set up my sewing machine on the kitchen table and watched them while finishing up a very old WIP.

I made this quilt using a pile of fabric gifted to me from a dear friend (who has taught me everything I know about quilting), Jeanette. She had made a blanket for her niece & didn't like the color scheme requested for the blanket ... but I did. I finished just a few weeks behind that first quilt a long and then ... nothing. I took it out a couple of times meaning to finish it, in fact I even promised it to my Mom for her last birthday ... which was near the end of February. Then life happened, Ryan leaves town multiple times, I get pregnant, the holidays ... well, you know how it goes! The quilting only took me a little over a day to do ... with lots of breaks to care for the kids of course. I just did each block's design, but I like the way it makes the designs poof out a little.Then I finished binding it up this weekend. And I just love the way it turned out! :) Makes me wish I hadn't promised it away ...