Happy Mardi Gras...Merry Mardi Gras...

My son made this mask at the library. Sort of the helper lady, was a little controlling, but I think he still enjoyed himself. I think he did a good job of making a manly mask. I was impressed, he picked out the feathers, beads and other embellishing, its just the lady helping him decided where he should glue.

I don't like paying taxes, but if we have to pay taxes I'm glad some good for things like parks, public library, and free crafts for children at the public library. My husband said something to the effect of, I don't like taxes either, but if we are going to have to pay they should go for things all people can use, like libraries, and roads. I love the free crafts that my son gets to do at the library. I've learned he has skills I didn't know he had. Like beading, I would have had no idea that my son was naturally an excellent beader.

Not Candy Canes but Valentine Js

Lets not forget the cookies. Is there anything so pretty as a shinny cookie sheet covered in cut out cookie dough.

This was J's first real experience frosting cookies. We cooked the cookies before we frosted them.

In case you are wondering, that platter says, "Smart Women crave good company", the back says, something to the effect of children make good company. Some how its all tied to the boys and girls club, I don't quite now how, ask my sister it was my Christmas present last year. And well its great advice, plus it came in a huge box, with stickers with the same picture plastered all over it. Not only that its very useful, its my only light weight platter.

Love is not over

I have more valentine's fun to post. It was just so fun the pictures, and treats never end.

Boy were those cupcakes tasty!

Cake updated

Here is a shot of the cake the correct direction. My son though the feet were very exciting.

He was so happy to get to celebrate his birthday. He loved that he had birthday plates and such.

This is why it was a full morning. Cell phones, cookies, other birthday cupcakes. Seriously the top of the cupcakes took me two plus hours. It was insane, I don't think I'm cut out of this cake decorating business. But yet, I'm sure all my children will have equally time consuming disasters.

He was so happy to have his Uncle Daniel come, he talked for weeks about Uncle Daniel coming to his birthday. And he was also glad to have his cousin from down the street come, so he had someone to play with.

Vee gifts

Long story, short, or not told at all. I decided it was high time to make my son the goldbug I've been planning to do for a year. You know goldbug, from Richard Scarry's Busytown.  I had no idea what I was doing when I started. I just randomly cut, and sewed. Then I unpicked, and sewed some more. His antennas have a pipe cleaner in them to give them shape. One leg is quite a bit longer than the other but that's what you get with homemade toys, made by me. Not to mention his head/face is lopsided. I was laughing about it to my husband, and he said that's ok that how he looks in the book.

I decided to give it to him as a Valentine present, because for one he already had enough birthday presents. And for two, I wanted to try my hand at making doll rattles for the girl. And I thought he would appreciate getting something handmade when she got something. She isn't quite old enough yet, but soon. They are kind of ugly, but it was a first attempt, without a pattern. Sadly enough I made the green one second, but yet its the worst. They match her baby quilt.

Then I felt bad, that my husband didn't have a valentines present and the kids did. Since he is quite literally my valentine (his birthday), I decided to just make something stupid and stuffed for him, like the kids got. Sadly, his present is made with scraps. But true nonetheless.

Lastly, I made myself a present, but I didn't wrap, mine up. A valentines apron. Once again, I didn't buy trim so I had to look at what I had, and what I had was left over pink satin quilt binding trim. So that's what won.

A holiday of homemade. I should take the handmade challenge for valentines I could accomplish that! J is going to think that February is just as excited as December. Cake, cookies, presents multiple days in a row. And snow! blah, that's the most depressing part of Valentine's Day. By the way, I do think Valentine's is a stupid holiday. But I do love the valentines candy, much better actually than Christmas candy. Other than the candy and cookies its good for nothing. I never once celebrated Valentine's Day with a boyfriend, I never even had a date on Valentines until I got married. But part of the fun of kids is doing fun things on all the holidays I think. Anyway. By the way, since my husband's birthday is on the 14th, we've always celebrated valentine's day on the 15th. Some may wonder why we even celebrate, after 4 years I do, seems like his birthday is the perfect excuse to ignore it. I think it has something to do with being newlyweds 4 years ago, and just be so excited to have a date on Valentine's Day. I really couldn't tell you why, I can't even remember why. Probably has to do, with I really wanted these kissing frogs from Hallmark, so my husband planned to buy them for me, but on Valentine's Day we got about 4 feet of snow, so even with skipping class, and only going to work, he spent the whole day other than work, and pie shoving the neighborhood. Ahh, to be young and in love, I doubt my husband would still go down to the hallmark store to pick up stuff animals, and I doubt I would even ask for them anymore.

Happy Valentine's Day

Really I did not post these pictures for the holiday. I'm posting to show off. I made a matching hair bow to match her dress. Plus I made the shoes, remember. I thought she looked so cute, with the whole matching outfit for church. Which is slightly ridiculous, since she likes to be swaddled, and stays covered in a blanket the whole time.

She cries just like me and her brother. If our next child does not have my sad genes we won't know they are upset, because Brent never looks upset, only the rest of us. She has the same sad lip that J has, that they get from me. My brothers use to tease me when I was little say, oh we've gone too far, here comes the lip.

Ha, I didn't mean to post this one. But heck, isn't she cute?
Incidentally her second cousin has the same dress.

Birthday Sewing

This crown is roughly based off of this lady's site. I decided I needed to make something for my son to not steal his three year birthday thunder, and I immediately thought of a picture of me in kindergarten with a HUGE pink construction paper Birthday crown on, holding cup cakes for my class. I thought yeah a birthday crown. I didn't actually read the tutorial, I just printed off the patterned, then barely used that too.

The whole reason we needed the crown was because I made the birthday apron. I am so excited about this. About a year ago I saw an birthday apron for sale for $40, a little much in my opinion, although it was quite fancy. Ever since I have wanted to make one, but you would be surprised at how hard it is to find birthday material at JoAnn's. Maybe you wouldn't, and I wasn't about to start searching quilt shops, for $15 a yard material. This was made for less than $8, plus my time. Anyway, I found this material a few days ago, and bought it, not only that it was on sale. Its not the cutest birthday stuff I could ever imagine but, beggars can be choosers. I've been looking for a year.

When I came home to cut out my material, I realized I didn't buy an trim for my apron. I had to scrounge around to see what I had. I think it turned out well with the scraps I found, it reminds me of frosting decoration. Plus since it was scraps it was paid for months/years ago. I love the pockets, I used elastic in them to make them feel/look 50's-ish.

When I was in the middle of making the apron, my son said, "whata doin mom?" I said making a birthday apron. He said "for dee?!" I said no for me. He totally didn't understand why his mom need an a birthday apron for his birthday, and you know I can understand why he didn't understand my logic. That's where the crown came in. I wanted to embroider a cupcake on above Happy Birthday, but my son said no a star. See I had shown him the website with tutorial, and he said yeah, a birthday crown with a star, for me. So I had to go with what he wanted and not with what I wanted. But I had to show him the site because there is no way I was going to make a birthday crown if he didn't want one. It was pretty easy to do, I didn't use wool felt, because well wool felt is expensive, and I only had white at home. And I was not about to go buy any, I used fabric scraps, that my son picked out.
Hopefully in a few years my son will not think I'm stealing his birthday thunder by wearing a birthday apron, but instead be excited when he sees it. Oh its party time, the birthday apron is out. Yes, I know I'm weird, frumpy and old lady like, did we already have a post about that.
But at least I have mad sewing skills.
Moral of this post, I don't imagine anything, I just copy everything.

a dollar and half

I bought some clearances long sleeve onesies with christmas phrases on them for 75 cents each, and crafted them.

Well because.. a girl needs her glam

(whether that glam be a crafted clothes, diamonds, or a plain black t shirt)

But my husband liked this one better. "Green is the new Pink" that's a throw back to Gilmore Girls, season three episode six for all you who don't know. My husband knew what it was from.

The camera makes it hard to see the pink on the green. Not to mention I picked a light pink.

headbands

I have had a bad case of cabin fever. I've wanted to get out of the house, but haven't wanted to make my infant leave too much during the winter. The park is too cold, the only places warm enough are stores, or the library. And as anyone of multiple children know, each child doubles the shopping time.
To help prevent cabin fever, I have gone back to my crafting ways. I wasn't going to do any projects the first couple of months of my daughter's life, because I didn't want too much on my plate. But there is only so much reading and watching movies I can take as a shut in. So I've started making stuff again. Girly Stuff!
I made HEADBANDS! (Some people I'm related to, do not like little girls in headbands. I love them! Assuming they don't leave read elastic marks on their head, I think that is sad.) I made the fat nylon headband.
And we also have the skinny elastic headband. I had planned to make headbands before she was born, but christmas crafts were more timely.And all sorts of different flowers to attach to the top.
Here is the purple collection. Obviously she does not have hair for the plain clips, but I was in the mood.

I bought all these pretty gerber daiseys at Michaels, unfortunately I didn't measure her head in comparsion. They are the same size, they will have to wait.

The best for her head size, are scrapbooking flower embelleshments. Here are some solids I made.

Here are the poka dots!

Unfortuantly none of them match with the dresses that fit her now. I need to go back out and find some that do.

baby crafts

Before my baby was born I made a nursing cover up for myself. The positive thing about this past year is after at least six aprons, and six nursing cover ups, and probably ten or more baby blankets, I vastly improved the straightness of my sewing. I'm down right impressed with this. (Things made in the first 3/4 of the year left no such impression on myself.) I have yet to use this cover up, and probably never will but I loved this material and wanted to use it, and had the exact amount for a cover up. I could have made a purse with it, that was my original intention, but a cover up is so much easier than a bag.

Gingerbread House

yes this post is a little late, but I had a baby. My son and I decorated a gingerbread house, before Christmas.

Like all fun things, it needed to end in tears.

My son lost interest near the end, and I did wood panneling on the back, it was my favorite part.

Homemade Presents

I always have dreams about taking the hand made only Christmas pledge, so I start early and plan ahead, but I never make it. This my attempt for the gift exchange family, on my husband's side.

I ended up really loving this apron by the end, and wasn't sure she would like it. I made it back in November or October, but then by December she kept mentioning that I had never made her one, so I ended up making the perfect present.

Best part, I sewed so straight! and the pocket magically lined up with the other material.

Her daughter got a flower tutu. I had no idea what I was doing when I started out, I just had a picture in my mind. I was happy with the results.

P.S. The Pledge doesn't quite work for me anyway, because I'm a cheapskate so I don't buy handmade, I only make handmade, and the site is buy not make.

Apron Craze

If you haven't noticed I've sort of been on apron kick. I made one for my son, he picked out the yellow material, yellow is favorite color right now. And he picked out the button and told me to put it on the top, and picked out the ribbon I used for ties.

I probably should have not used it for the trim on the pockets. My husband said oh well he will use it twice then his sister will use it all the time. I have been planning to make him an apron for a while now, I use to make him wear bibs when we baked but the bibs were all put away when we moved since he had boycotted them for eating. (Which is fine because now he doesn't need them.)

Here is my latest apron. We have quite a few roosters/chickens in our kitchen when its not christmas time. Not to mention it goes with the color scheme of my plates.

Close up now, Teresa might start charging me royalities, with as many aprons as I have made.

another one bites the dust

I recently acquired another sister in law, to go along with the other ten I already have. I made her a lovely apron for her bridal shower, which I did not attend since I was in the hospital. I have only met her twice so it was hard to pick out material because I don't know her. My husband told me after I went shopping to get pink, I said does she like pink? He said have you seen her of course she likes pink. (He in no way means that as a derogatory comment, he often picks pink things out for me.) (Although I am pretty sure I don't like pink as much as some of his family thinks I do. I'm much more a purple girl.)

Here is the matching card I made, because I'm a cheapskate and don't like to spend $3 on a piece of paper. Which is the whole reason I make presents in the first place.

Homemade

I wanted my son to have a big brother shirt, because it seems like an exciting thing to have for a two year old. I was right it was exciting, he loves the shirt-- his badge of honor. I didn't want to spend $15 or more on such a shirt, so I made one. My son picked out a black long sleeve shirt for $3, and then I used a scraps for the rest. I think it turned out well.

When he first came to see his baby sister, after a few minutes I said baby sister has a present for you. And he looked at her, and looked back like a present for me?! It was cute. Although a shirt was slight anti climatic for him, he later liked it.