Kiss Me I'm AWESOME

It's the St. Patrick's Day shirt for the {super cute} non-Irish folk.

"Stand here, Lincoln. I want to take a picture of your shirt."

"Put your hands up so I can see the writing...oh wait, that looks awkward." 

"How about you jump up and down waving your arms?  Then you'll have fun."

"Whoa, wide eyes!  How about looking down?"

"Love it.  You're too cute.  Now I just wanna take your picture."

I saw the phrase "Kiss Me I'm Awesome" on a t-shirt at Crazy 8.  We're not Irish, but I sure think my kids are awesome, so it was perfect.  I used my Silhouette to make a stencil for the lettering out of freezer paper.  The shamrock and yellow strip of fabric are adhered with Wonder Under, then stitched around the edges. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bunny Love

I never get tired of making gifts for baby girls.  This sweet bunny is for a little one whose mother loves all things vintage.

Look at those little floppy ears and arms - too cute!  The body is a combination of soft quilting cotton and snugly chenille.

With button eyes and a yarn ball tail, this bunny's not a crib toy.  It's more to play with while mom's around - or at least look welcoming sitting on a nursery shelf.



The pattern is FREE over at Sew4Home.com.  Gotta love free.  If you make one, I'd suggest machine sewing the feet and arms.  I'm not sure why the pattern says to hand stitch them.  No need.  Plus I feel safer being able to secure stitch as many pieces as possible on a child's toy.  (I know, after I added button eyes, right?)

Isn't that bushy tail adorable? Love it.

Hooray for new babies!  Wouldn't this make a great Easter gift, too?

YOU Made It: Taggie Blanket

This totally made my day! I love hearing that a blog reader used one of my tutorials, but usually I only find out when someone leaves a comment or posts their project on their own blog and happens to include a link back to my tutorial. Then if I'm following a link to my tutorial, I wonder if I'm being stalker-ish by going to visit that reader.  (IS that weird?  You'd let me know if it is, right?)

Needless to say I was thrilled when Hanna P. contacted me to let me know she made a taggie baby blanket using my tutorial...AND she sent pictures...AND her blanket's SUPER CUTE...AND she said I could share her project with the rest of you. Like I said, it totally made my day!

Isn't that fabric fantastic?  I love the subtle pops of pink.  The fresh green and yellow ribbons also add a fun touch.

The snuggly-soft flip-side in coordinating pink.

Thanks for sending pictures, Hannah!  The blanket's adorable and should make one special baby feel very loved.

Dinosaur Party Invitations

Lincoln's celebrating his fourth birthday with a dinosaur-themed birthday party.  Two years ago my older son, Brighton, also asked for a dinosaur birthday party.  That made planning this year's bash super easy.  Same games and activities.  Same invitations.  Same food.  Different kids.  Score!

Instead of a card-type invitation, each child received a box with instructions to "dig up the details inside."  (I even had the patterned paper left over from two years ago - it was just too easy.)

For instructions on how to fold an origami box, click here.

What's inside the box, you ask?  A mini dino dig!  I printed the party details on little tags, tied them to small dinosaur (dog) bones, and buried the bones in sand.  Yes, I warned the moms that these would be messy and that kids should open their invitations outside.  But seriously, how much more fun is this than a boring ol' card!?

Speaking of boring ol' cards...  Actually, I like this one.  This was my first shot at making invitations until I decided to do the mini dino dig.  I ended up using this card as a thank you note.

Wish me luck on the party!  Enjoy your day.

Patterned papers from the Archaic collection by Basic Grey.

TUTORIAL: Monster Backpack

Rar!  This monster backpack will keep any fiend away from your crayons and coloring books.  Lincoln needed a new backpack for his birthday, and as luck would have it, MADE featured a fantastic boy-themed etsy roundup, including a Monsterpak from this fun etsy shop.  Inspiration was born!

For this project, grab your stash of scrap fabric...

and a backpack with a fairly plain front.  Lincoln's favorite color is green, so this pack was an easy choice.

If you're adding horns to your monster, you'll also need batting/stuffing.

Remove any labels.

Now you're ready to embellish your monster's face however you wish.

I started with teeth.  I found white vinyl upholstery fabric at my local JoAnns.  I'm not sure why anyone would want vinyl upholstery, but the fabric is sturdy, doesn't fray, and seems perfect for making monster teeth.  A bought a six-inch cut, which probably makes for a lifetime supply of crafty critter projects.

Be sure to steer clear of the zipper.

Stitch in place.

Chomp, chomp.

Continue embellishing however you wish.  To help me decide what size and shape I wanted my tongue and eyes, I set a piece of scratch paper on top of the backpack and doodled until I got a shape and size I liked.  My sketch then became my pattern for cutting each piece.

I sewed the tongue in place.  Fortunately the front pocket on Lincoln's backpack is big and my machine is extremely maneuverable, so I could applique the tongue using my Bernina.  I don't think my old Singer could have handled this however, so don't be surprised if you have to applique some parts by hand.

TIP: When you're working with layered pieces, such as eyes, sew from the top layer down.  For example...

sew the black pupil to the white eyeball...

then sew the white fabric to the blue fabric...

then sew the blue fabric onto the backpack.  See how I never had to sew through more than two layers of fabric?  That's much easier than sewing each layer onto the backpack.

TIP: If you're adding eyebrows, faux fur has nap, meaning that if you look at the fabric, the fur points in a certain direction. Make sure you line up your pattern pieces such that when you cut your right eyebrow, the fur points to the right. Then flip over the pattern so that when you cut your left eyebrow, the fur points left.  Warning: When you cut faux fur, be prepared for a flurry of scrap fur to cover your workspace. Try to only cut the fabric backing, not the fur itself. Still, arm yourself with a Swiffer or a vacuum cleaner. You'll need it.

Stitch in place.  Push the fur aside so that you're only stitching the fabric backing.

To make the horns, I wrapped my fabric around a styrofoam cone and pinned the fabric in place.  I'm sure there are cone patterns online you could use, but since I happened to have a cone, it was faster to use it rather than hunt for a template.  It also helped that my cone was still in its plastic wrapper, so I didn't get styrofoam bits on my fabric.  TIP: If you use a cone to shape your fabric, remember to pin your fabric with right sides together.  The right side of your fabric will face the cone; the wrong side of the fabric will face towards the outside.

Stitch your cone, turn, and stuff with batting/stuffing.

The styrofoam cone was taller than I wanted my horn, so I left the bottom few inches of my fabric cone unfilled.  I gathered the extra fabric and tied the threads to form the bottom of my horn.

Pin the horn to your backpack and hand stitch in place.

You're done!  Congratulations on making your own monster backpack!

Doll Pants: A (non)Tutorial

Remember this little beauty?  I made her clothes without a pattern.  I'm back to give a little how-to, at least for the pants.  It's not a full tutorial, but maybe it will help someone out there in Blogland.

 I started with my naked doll.

Using the body as a guide, I sketched what I thought a pattern might look like.  This was mainly to help me with the length of the pants and the distance from the waist to the crotch.  I wanted my doll to have fairly tight fitting leggings, so I didn't make my pants too wide.  If you look at the photo...

and at the finished sketch (which is REALLY blurry - so sorry!) you'll see where I added length for the hem of the pant leg and for encasing the elastic waistband.  My finished doll was approximately 15" tall.  You can see by how much computer paper I used that the total length of the fabric I needed was approximately 11".

Using my sketch as a guide, I redrew the pattern so that the left and right sides were symmetrical, lines were straight, etc.  Then I cut two identical pieces of fabric for the front and back of the doll pants.

With right sides together, I pinned the inner leg seams...

and sewed them on my machine.  As with all pants, I reinforced the seam around the crotch.  I'm not sure this is necessary for doll clothing, but it's habit.

Then I hemmed the pant legs.  Yes, I know this step is different than traditional pants. Normally when making a pair of pants, you'd sew all of the side seams first and hem the pant legs last.  But for a doll, the leg openings are so small that if you waited to hem at the end, the leg hole would be too small to fit on your machine.  I have a picture father down that will help this will make sense.

 I pinned and sewed the side seams.

TIP: Start sewing at the bottom (hem) of the pant leg and sew towards the top.  This ensures that the hem is even.  The top of the fabric will become the casing for the elastic waistband, so if the two pieces of fabric do not line up exactly, no one will ever know.

See what I mean about a small opening for the leg hole?  Imagine trying to hem in an opening that small.  It would NOT be easy getting that around your presser foot.

Now turn down the top of the pants to make the casing for the elastic waistband.  Remember to leave a hole to insert the elastic.  Insert the elastic, then sew hole closed.  Voila!  Done.

For the tunic, I also made my own pattern.  Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures.  I'll try to describe what I did, but I realize it's hard to follow along without photos.

First, I sketched out what I wanted my finished tunic to look like, then mentally broke apart the pattern to see what pieces of fabric I'd need.  Here I have the front and back of a body, plus two sleeves.  I sewed both sides of each sleeve to the front and back body pieces of the tunic.  (Front of each sleeve to the front of the tunic, back of each sleeve to the back of the tunic.)  Then I hemmed the ends of the sleeves.  As with the leg holes on the pants, I knew the arm holes would be too small to maneuver around a presser foot after the side seams on the sleeves had been sewn together.

With the sleeves hemmed, I sewed the sides of the sleeves together.  Then I sewed the sides of the tunic together.  At the top of the tunic, I made a casing for narrow elastic (1/4") around the entire neck area, added elastic, and sewed the casing closed.  Then I tried the tunic on the doll to determine how long I wanted the tunic, took the tunic off, and hemmed the bottom.

How's that for a non-tutorial?  If you know of a better tutorial, please leave a comment and let us all know where to find it!  As always, if you make anything with one of my (non)tutorials, feel free to ask questions or give suggestions.  I'd love to see your finished work!  Good luck!

Photography Tips for Newbies?

Look what Cupid-hubby brought me!  He started planning weeks ago, getting advice from our talented photographer friend Bekah.  Though I have the camera pictured above, I have two different lenses.  Neither of which I know how to use - really use - yet.

Anyone have tips for me? Websites on photography for beginners? I have no idea where to get started. Heck, I don't even know what the little f means.  For now, thank Heaven for auto settings!

Today I played with my telephoto lens (the long range one).  Lincoln and I had a wonderful five-minute photo session until he had to go potty.

Not bad for five minutes on Day 1, eh?  It helps that I have a stinkin' cute subject.