Christmas Gifts

I can finally post all the Christmas gifts I made this year.  At the time it seemed like more, but really it only ended up being a few things.

First up, are the 2 Kindle sleeves I made for my mom and my mother-in-law.  If I only knew at the time that I was getting a Kindle, I could have made my own!  Guess that is my next project.

Front, closed view.  (I used fabric scraps I had to piece these together and I love the final funky result).

 Back view with pocket (diagonal line part is the pocket for the charging cord)

 Front, open view (I used plaid flannel and houndstooth flannel for the lining plus some fusible fleece for extra padding)

 Another view with Kindle inside

And finally, I made a big pile of baby stuff for my new nephew (who will be born in January sometime).  I made a few knit infant hats (from my husband's old shirts), 2 pairs of comfy baby pants (flannel & fleece) using this free pattern, and 2 onesies with matching burp cloths.  I also made 5 pee pee teepee knockoffs.  So simple to make!  Seriously took like 2 minutes a piece!  Guess I need to start making my new baby some of these so that when he comes in April we will be prepared.

Reworking Old Shirts

Ava has a couple of short sleeved t-shirts that are starting to get short and more fitted.  She can still wear them now, but come spring, they will probably need to be retired.  She also has some long sleeved shirts that are WAY too short and she can not wear them.  So I decided to combine the two and make her short sleeved shirts into long sleeved ones and get a little more use out of them since we are now in colder weather.

Here is her Hello Kitty shirt with the new sleeves & extra length.  I love when I buy long sleeved shirts for her and they look like layered shirts so this was a great project.

 And here is her Sleeping Beauty shirt updated.

I also did a third shirt (Minnie Mouse with white and silver striped sleeves) but she was kind of done with the clothing changes and photo shoots by this point.  Great way to get a little more use out of her clothes and very simple!

Latest Projects

I know I have not posted anything in awhile...guess that is what happens when you are pregnant and too lazy to upload the photos.  I have been working on a few projects and now that it is December, I am knee deep in Christmas projects (which will be posted in January since they are gifts!).  But here is what I did in October & November.

Here is Ava's Strawberry Shortcake outfit I made for Halloween (no, I wish I made the hat, but bought it off Etsy).  I previously posted the 1st version (top photo) of the dress but after she wore it out the day before Halloween to a Trick or Treat event, I decided it was too hard to get off and on and it was a bit short.  So Halloween morning, I did some minor alterations (ripped out lining, lengthened dress, changed full bubble skirt to modified bubble by making a casing to put elastic through) and it ended up looking like the 2nd photo.  Still cute and SO much easier to get on and off!

 Then I had a friend request some baby onesies and burp cloths (not pictured since they were the standard giraffe and dove I have done before) but she also wanted me to do a tote bag. I could not find the exact canvas bag that my mom made for a friend this past summer so instead I found a very plain one and decided to cover the entire thing in matching fabric.  Not a great photo but here's what it ended up looking like.

Finally, my best bud is having her first baby (a girl) sometime around Dec 28th and wanted some painted letters to hang in her little one's room.  She wanted to buy some and I told her she could easily make them. She told me "Maybe you could make them but I couldn't." So guess what? I did.  Merry Christmas/Welcome home baby!  I think she plans on hanging them with ribbon in the nursery so I can't wait to see what they look like in the room but here are 2 photos of the letters.

Close up:

 

In natural light:



Strawberry Shortcake

So for Halloween this year, Ava wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake (pretty funny to me since I loved SS as a child growing up in the 80's but apparently she has made a comeback).  I looked around online but could only either find frilly & country versions of the old Strawberry Shortcake or hideous satiny versions of the new Strawberry Shortcake.  And they were all expensive! 

So I did what I do these days...I decided to make her a dress myself.  Of course what I originally envisioned is not what I actually made but that's because 1) Ava really wanted Strawberry Shortcake fabric she saw at the store and 2) when you don't use a pattern, things don't always turn out quite like you want(i.e. it's not as bubbly as I imagined and it a bit shorter than I wanted --good thing there are tights!).  We went with the newer version of Strawberry since that fabric Ava chose was of her instead of Straberry circa 1980.

Anyways, Ava loves the final version (she actually hugged it to her chest and kissed it when I gave it to her) so that is all that matters.  I decided to make a bubble dress that she could actually wear more than just on Halloween, bought her a really cute strawberry crochet newsboy hat off Etsy & some green striped tights.  On Halloween I promised her we would spray her hair so it would be pink/red so she will really look like SS then.

Here is Ava modeling her new costume (which I can now not get off of her!)

 "I love my dress!"

P.S. Someone is excited.  Something tells me she may wear this a few times before Halloween!

Rosemary's Baby Gifts

This past weekend I headed down to Houston to throw my best friend Rosemary what I like to call a "non-shower" baby shower.  Basically, me & another friend of hers took her to lunch and spent a day shopping and having fun instead of having an actual shower.  We did bring gifts and I did want it to feel kind of like a  real baby shower so I made a diaper cake in addition to putting together a little gift basket.

 Close up of her gift basket which includes blankets, towels, washcloths, stuffed lamb, handmade onesies & burp cloths and a handmade dress.

My version of Dana's Warhol dress.  Since Rosemary is from Lewiston, ID, I decided to make her daughter a special little Idaho dress out of some old t-shirts we had saved.

And a close up of the diaper cake.  My friend Michelle made an awesome diaper cake for one of her friends and passed along this online tutorial to show me how it was done.  It really was SUPER easy and I highly recommend making one this way as opposed to the ones I've seen that use rubberbands.  It took around 15 minutes!

I was going to post all these photos last week since everything was done but thought that Rosemary might check out my blog and see them.  Sure enough she told me this weekend she was looking at my blog to see what I might have made her...sneaky girl!

Another Book

Sorry it's been awhile since I have posted anything.  I've actually not been doing too much crafty lately since I was sick for awhile.  But that is going to change as I have some projects coming up in the next few weeks including some baby shower stuff and a Halloween costume for Ava.

I did make another book a few weeks back for my brother-in-law's 40th birthday.  He loved the book I did for my niece Griffin last year at Xmas and said that he would love to have one.  Right then and there, I decided that I would make him one for his milestone birthday.  Of course I did not make it until days before but the end result turned out great and he, my sister and their kids loved it! 

Here are most of the pages (Please excuse poor photos...I was sick while taking these and did not have the patience to get the photos just right.)

Cover

 And inside!

Too bad the laminating causes such a glare.  But definitely needed to be laminated since small children look at it!

Baby Gift

One of my friends, who I have known since 1st grade, just had a baby boy this past weekend. So my mom and I sewed up some stuff to send her way.

Here is the whole set laid out: a baby quilt (sewn by mom), a tote bag (also mom), and 3 onesies a burp cloths (me!).
My friend and her husband are into animals so I decided to do all animal onesies this time around. My go to onesie for boys (and one of my faves anyways), the whale:

A zebra (this one does not actually match the quilt fabrics but I included it b/c the baby's room has zebra stripes on the wall and I just happened to have some fabric left over from the chest I refinished awhile back & from the dress I added fabric too--this is now one of my favorites):

And a duck (because my friend's husband gave her a pet duck years ago!):

And here is the beautiful quilt my mom sewed. I still need to attempt to do a quilt sometime soon but just have not found the time yet. I love that my mom uses a pre-quilted solid fabric for the back and just sews it together like a regular blanket. Much faster than doing the actually quilting and it looks great too!

This is on it's way so I hope she ends up liking it!

I Can't Stop!

Yep, you guessed it. I made yet another tank dress today. This time I chopped off the skirt part of this dress...

and attached it to a black tank top. I really did not wear this dress much before because I always found the top to be a bit awkward. Maybe because I wore it right after I had Ava and filled it out more. Or maybe because it was low cut and not good for everyday wear especially around my 3 year old. So since I bought it 3 years ago for my HS reunion, I decided it was worth it to cut it up and recyle it into my favorite style of dress.

Here is the after photos...I am dork. Did not like any of the photos I took (although I never really do) so thought I would give you all 4 dorky self portraits of me in the after version.

Still think I prefer the ones where you don't see my face. Ha!

Birds on a Wire Painting

This weekend I finished up another painting for Ava's room. You remember the big blank wall space above her bed (here)? Well this "Birds on a Wire" mixed media painting is going there.

I used fabric, doilies, telephone book pages, paint, charcoal, and glue to make this. Here are some close ups of some of the birds.

And here it is in the room (right next to my big Pinkalicious painting -- notice how the colors coordinate? I love that you can do crazy bold colors in kid's rooms).

I thought I was done with her room (and I pretty much am) but have decided to fix some shadow boxes she has on the wall to make the more colorful and to add something to the entryway as it is a little dull too. But it is coming along!

Tank Dress

Once again, I decided to recycle some of my clothes. This time an Old Navy tank top that was WAY too long and kind of boxy and an ill fitting strapless dress from Target. I loved the dress last year but after wearing it a few times the chest part got stretched on one side and was a bit off.

So, I cut off the top of the dress (but kept a few rows of the shirring) and cut off most of the shirt to make this cute little empire waisted tank dress. I love it! These are my favorite pieces of clothing this year (if you can't tell) and I am so glad it is so easy to make them...especially when you are using 2 old pieces of clothing. Very little sewing my friends!

I also think next time I make a dress and have to make the skirt part myself, I will opt to do rows of shirring at the top as it looks better than elastic, is more comfortable and gives it just the right amount of stretch there. The only way this dress could be better is if I had taken the time to take the skirt apart and put pockets in. But I did not want to bother with that since it was already sewn. I'm lazy, what can I say. But I do love me some pockets.

PS. Sorry for the lame photos but no one is around to take my photo so my bedroom mirror & bad lighting will have to do!

Refinishing a Cedar Chest - Done!!

I finally finished the cedar chest I started oh so long ago (see here for a refresher). Here are the final pics.

It's red! With a brown glaze to accentuate the detailed molding. It was funny b/c when I first painted it, the color in the can looks hot pink and I was worried that somehow the oops paint I got was not red. But it dried into this nice dark red. Darren of course thinks it borders on Aggie maroon and was thrilled. Me, being a longhorn albeit a 2%er, was not thrilled with this being called "maroon" or "Aggie" anything. But I still like it!

Side view.

Inside! The front compartment was completely sanded down to nice cedar but the 2 back compartments had a felt of some sort that was glued in and looked old and grungy. So I bought some foam board, cut it to size, covered it in some upscale brown/white zebra print and voile! A modern and stylish cedar chest. Note: the main area below was untouched after the sanding and is just plain cedar. I could cover it with the same print but decided since it was the bulk of the storage that I would leave it alone.

And in case you were too lazy to click on my link above, here is the reminder of what the chest looked like (keep in mind this was already after some sanding...it looked nicer than this but was just not my style). This chest looks light years different from where it began.

The inside...see the felt! Ew! My father-in-law sanded off the glue in the front compartment thought but I still decided to cover it for aesthetic reasons.

One more thing knocked off my list! Strangely enough I really want to start looking into refinishing other stuff. Chairs and other things with cool shapes and molding. We'll see!

Something for Me...Again!!

So I decided to try another project out for me...shocking I know! I have this old v-neck shirt that I bought this past fall for $4 and I really liked the fit of it. I wore it ALL the time.

Problem was, all that wear, made it get these little holes at the bottom...ugly!

I was going to throw it in the trash but then decided to save it to try to make a cute t-shirt dress out of it. I bought about 5 or 6 of this style dress this season (sleeveless instead of short sleeves). So I knew that I would like this style. With a bit of one of my favorite fabrics (from Patty Young's Mezzanine line -- I got the end of bolt at my fabric store for 30% off!), I whipped up this little dress this afternoon. No real pattern, just kind of figured it out. I even added pockets which is my favorite part! In my opinion, dresses with pockets are just all kinds of awesome. What do you think?

And I love how Ava just had to snuggle up to me (in her princess dress of course) for the photo! I think that next time I make this, I can do it more easily and probably even better. Just goes to show you, if you like a tank top or t-shirt and it gets those tiny holes in it, you can save it and make something really cute out of it.

Rodeo Baby Sets

My friend Jennie, who works for Austin Rodeo had me make a few onesie/burp cloth sets for a friend of hers who used to work at the Rodeo...she wanted them kind of rodeo/country themed so here is what we came up with.

One with the Austin Rodeo logo (the upside down A made to look like cattle)

And a cute little cowboy boot.

Ava's Room

I think awhile back I promised to show what Ava's refinished furniture looked like (all of it). Here it is..I tried to clean up her room a bit before I took the photos b/c it never looks this put together.

Vanity & Dresser

Another shot.

Her bed & the Pinkalicious painting. Notice the empty spot on the wall above her bed? I'm busy trying to take care of that now...will post a photo when that is done. I actually was waiting to post these photos once that area was complete but obviously that is taking too long!

And her closet (where most of the clutter ends up). Darren built a nice shelving system in there that holds most of her toys and I was happy he did b/c all of her puzzles and bigger items had no where to go!