Color Book

As I mentioned earlier, my friend's daughter, Izzy, turned one this past weekend. Izzy is so sweet and just has the sweetest smile and cheery disposition, so I wanted to make her something special. The funny thing about all my friends having children is that I feel like I have about a hundred nieces and nephews! It's wonderful! Anyway, back to the task at hand. I looked around on different blogs and came up with my version of a color book. Here it is!







I used different fabrics and textures for the book to add some interest for Izzy. I used different fabrics and ribbon and sewed each onto pieces of felt while leaving the raw edges of the fabric showing. Then, I sewed the pages together to hide the back of the felt pages and connected them together with binder rings. The book is probably around 6x8 inches or something like that. Izzy seemed to like it when she opened it up, so that is a bonus! I hope you like it too!

Birthday Party Game

My friend at church has a daughter, Izzy, who turned one this past weekend (ps-I think that all my friends' babies should remain in the baby stage until I have them so my children will have playmates! ha!). She had a wonderful party with a monkey theme and Lindsay, my friend, asked me to make a pin the tail on the monkey game for the party. We looked at her invitations and all it showed was the monkey's head. So, instead of making up a body for the monkey and trying to make it look right, we decided to play "Pin the Flower on the Monkey". You can see the invitation in the picture above. I drew the monkey as close to the invitation as I could and then used a template to make all of the game flowers uniform in size and shape. I think it turned out pretty cute. Lindsay liked it too, which is all that really matters!

Check back later for my homemade gift to Miss Izzy.

My Sewing Project: A Car Mat!

I'm so excited to finally show you my fun sewing project from a few weeks ago! I have some sweet friends from college who recently adopted their first child from Ukraine. Their son is so adorable! I wanted to make him something special that he could use both now and in the future. I decided to try my hand at a toy car mat.


I saw some on various blogs, but they all just had one straight stretch of road. I wanted my car mat to have a little more action, so here is what I camp up with:


I'm not really sure why that picture is showing upside down. Anyway, you get the point. I found some cute car fabric at Joann Fabrics and got to work. This mat used a half yard of fabric for each piece. I cut the fabric on the factory fold, so you could potentially get two mats out of one half yard. I didn't even think to take pictures of the process because I don't use a pattern and make things up as I go along. Anyway, I used two pieces of fabric (inner and outer fabric), felt for the interfacing, and gray felt for the road. I drew a pattern of a road on a piece of paper and then cut it out of the gray felt. Then, I laid everything out and sewed it up! The mat has a velcro fastener to keep everything snug. I'm going to make another one soon for someone else who has ordered one, so I will be sure to take pictures again and write up a tutorial for you. I am still just beginning to sew, so if I can do it, anyone can do it!

Here are some more pictures of the finished product:

The cars in their homes...

And on the track!

The best part about it is the mat folds up so the cars can always stay with it! I think it would be great to use as a quiet toy to keep little ones occupied during meetings and other times where they don't need to be running around acting wild and crazy. I really hope that my friends' son likes his gift. Welcome home Artem!

Quick and Easy Curtain Update

A few weeks ago, I bought some new curtains for my bedroom. They were the style and color I was looking for, but there was one thing wrong with them--they had copper grommets at the top. This would not be an issue if my furniture didn't have all silver knobs. So instead of leaving them on the shelf at Kohl's, I bought them anyway with a plan.

Here is the before picture of the curtains with the copper grommets:



I got some Folk Art metallic paint (sterling silver) at Walmart and painted the grommets to match the rest of the hardware in my room! It only took a few minutes and was pretty simple to do. It does require a pretty steady hand so you don't get silver paint all over the fabric. I didn't tape off the grommets, but you could definitely do that if you are worried about getting paint everywhere. My new and improved curtains are definitely not perfect and there is a tiny rim of copper all around the grommet, but I figure that people aren't going to be inspecting my bedroom curtains very closely. And if they would like to, I will just pretend that the copper rim is supposed to be there!

Here are my curtains after two coats of paint:


You can barely see the copper rim around it!


I think I like the silver grommets better than the copper ones! What do you think?

Scripture Memory Booklet

My accountability partner, Shanna, and I meet each week to share with each other the ways that God is working in our lives and what He is teaching us. We discuss various topics each week, including goals we each have. One of our shared goals is Scripture memory, but we are not the best at getting verses memorized each week. One night, I had an idea and decided to make each of us Scripture memory booklets.


I bought one of those spiral bound index card booklets at Walmart and pasted some scrapbook paper on the front in our favorite colors. That was it! It literally took me only a few minutes to make each one and they only cost $1.25 each (the cost of the booklet).

Here is the final product!

Shanna loved her booklet and I love mine as well! I carry mine around in my purse so that I can just get it out and look over it. And, bonus, all of my memory verses will be in one place so I can easily review them.

Question Mark Cookies

I'm back! Sorry for the week-long hiatus. It has been a little crazy around here...sickness, busyness, etc. Here is one thing I've been working on!

I am preparing to make some cookies for an upcoming wedding, so I immediately went to Bake at 350 and got some recipe ideas! I love Bridget's blog and all of the fun and creative cookies she makes!

This past weekend I made a test batch. I tested out her Lemon Cut-Out cookie recipe along with her Vanilla Almond Cut-Out recipe. She also has some great tips for cookie beginners on making royal icing and cookies for decorating.

I didn't want my test batch to go to waste, so I used the dough to make cookies for a mystery themed luncheon at church. I cut them out in the shape of an Easter egg, turned them upside down, and then drew a question mark on each of them with the icing. Half of the cookies were iced in red and the other half in black.


Looking back, I wish I would have covered the entire cookie in white first and then drew the question mark on top. But I was very impressed with the taste of the cookies! The coloring of the icing, on the other hand, still needs some work. I got a different brand of food coloring to test out, so hopefully things will improve for the next batch! Do you have any suggestions for me on coloring royal icing? I need the icing to be red and navy blue.

A Baby Shower Gift

I am going to a baby shower on Tuesday night and wanted to make the mommy-to-be something special for her new little one. This is what I came up with:


A wreath made of onesies and socks! Perfect for a beautiful baby girl! And bonus, it was very simple to make! Here is what I did.

I took some onesies and rolled them like I would roll fabric flowers. First, I laid the onesie out flat on the table, front side up,


folded the sides to the middle,


then folded it again.


Then, I started at the neck end of the onesie and began rolling. I rolled it with the open end of the fold on top because I liked the way it ended when the flower was finished, but you can do whatever you like.


Then, I twisted the onesie (twist toward the center of the flower) and kept rolling until I ran out of material. I got about three twists for each of the flowers. Then I simply pinned the fabric at the end and I was finished! See? Easy! Here are some more pictures of the rest of the process:


And the finished flower!


After that, I took a styrofoam wreath form, wrapped it in pretty pink ribbon, and pinned the flowers to the wreath. I used four pins for each flower to help hold each one in place. After that, I used cute little socks that I bunched up to look like rosettes and filled in holes. Two pins were used for each of the socks.

To make the sock rosettes, I just unfolded the sock, ran both thumbs down to the toe, and then pulled everything together. The cuff of the sock holds the bunching in place and you can hide the pins in the middle of the socks when you attach them to the wreath. A close-up of the socks:


Here is another look at my finished present. I can't wait to give it to my friend at her shower!



I am linking this project to the following blogs:

Tatertots and Jello
WhipperBerry
Tip Junkie

Jeweled Letter

Recently, I saw a tutorial on Tip Junkie on how to make jeweled letters. I didn't think much of it until I found a box full of old pins from my aunt, grandmother and great-grandmother. Immediately when I saw them, I knew this is what I wanted to do with them! Here is the final result!



Please ignore my reflection in the pictures. Here's what I did:

1. I bought a wooden letter "A" and a shadowbox frame from Hobby Lobby. (I stuck with my first name initial because I want to be able to still display it after I get married, and you know there is a good chance I won't marry someone with a last name that begins with "F")
2. I painted the letter black.
3. I hot glued the jewelry to the letter and then attached it to the back of the shadowbox.

That's it!

I think it's a great way to display all of the pins and jewelry that were so dear to my grandmothers and aunt. Even though they aren't my style to wear, I love how they look when they are all put together! And it also jazzes up my decor! What could be better?!

Here are some closeups of the finished product along with what it looks like on my dresser next to my favorite picture of my brother:



PS: If you like what you see, follow my blog! Once I get to 25 followers, I will draw a name and give something away that I make especially for the winner. You could win!

A Valentine's Treat

I have a new obsession for making things. I like to blame, at least in part, my friend Sandra for her beginning influence in the world of homemade things. She has a blog, you see, and I love to read it. In her blog, she posts ideas she finds online along with other fun things that she makes. Also on her blog is a list of other blogs that she reads. This list is full of crafty people with wonderful ideas, most of which I would never even dream up if I tried.

Now, at least partly because of her, I feel the need to make people things. Holidays, special occasions, and random gifts are now all about the newest ideas and how I can put my own spin on them.

My latest project has been for a member of Refresh, my young women's group at church. We exchanged names and were responsible for sending our person a Valentine's card with some encouraging words enclosed. Of course, I wanted to make her something special, too. So last night, I worked with my friend Shanna to make something to make our "Refresh Valentine's Friends" feel loved this Valentine's Day. This is what we came up with:

Hot Chocolate on a Stick!

(sorry about the bad lighting...this pic was taken with my cell phone)

I found this idea from a blog called Whipperberry (you can find the recipe here). This blog is great and has tons of ideas from event planning to recipes to gift ideas.

Shanna and I had a wonderful time making these treats for our friends. We cut them up, stuck them in a treat bag, and tied them up with a ribbon! Shanna made some cute notes to include with the treats with instructions on how to make the hot chocolate, too. And, of course, we had to include some yummy marshmallows! One of these days I'm going to learn how to make homemade marshmallows...that candy thermometer is pretty intimidating.

My Valentine's Friend loved her special treat! I even got a text message from her saying that the hot chocolate was yummy. That's why I love giving gifts...I love to help someone feel loved and appreciated.

The best part about this treat idea is that it makes TONS of treats! We had lots of leftovers to share with family and friends (and some to enjoy ourselves!). We even mailed some to a mutual friend.

How about you? Are you doing anything special for someone this Valentine's Day?

Cardboard Crafting: Finally Finished!

Whew! It's been a long week of working on my cardboard project, but it is finally finished!

It went from this:



To this!



I made this dump truck for my cousin who will turn four on Monday. He is one of my favorite kids in the whole world! The truck is almost as tall as him! His birthday party has a construction theme and he got a preview of the truck last night as we were decorating for the party. He loves it!! I made 'rocks' out of wadded up newspaper, but he just calls it trash. That's okay by me...as long as he liked it. The back end also lifts up so he can dump the rocks, or trash, out of it. Anything became trash last night...even my shoes! It was a big hit!

Cardboard Crafting

If you know me, you know that I love making things out of cardboard. Really, though, what's not to love? You get to take something that will just be thrown in the trash and make it into something really cool. And bonus, it doesn't cost you anything! I also love a challenge, so figuring out how I will turn something into something else is pretty neat, too.

My most recent cardboard creation was a pretty simple one, but cute nonetheless. I made a port-a-potty for a "County Fair" for the senior adult group at my church.



What can a few cardboard boxes become? Check back later to find out!

My First Project: A Kindle Cover

As a person just learning to sew, I have been looking for any excuse to make things. I have made a few things so far and I am slowly sharpening my sewing skills. So, here is my latest creation: A Kindle Cover!



My cousin got a Kindle for Christmas, but she found that the covers sold for them were very expensive. I went to Hobby Lobby, found some super cute fabric that fit my cousin's personality, and went to work. I do not use patterns, mainly because I wouldn't know how to make something with them, so I made it up as I went along. I plan on making another one soon with a step by step tutorial so you can make one for yourself.

The camo is one of her favorite patterns, so I had to make it a part of her cover. Then, I glammed it up a little bit with the huge button and bow on the front. Here is a picture of the inside.



Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the result. And, bonus, my cousin LOVED it. This 'pattern' could also be used to make a cover for an iPad (with adjusted measurements, of course).

Do you have any sewing projects for me to try?