Giveaway II

Hello!  Thanks for posting and following and fanning and etc. etc.  My littlest boy broke his arm in two places yesterday afternoon - from a very minor fall off the couch - hmmm.  well, it was more of a "let's see if I can walk off of the couch onto the back of my little push motorcycle and ride it around the room."  So after the evening at the ER and lots of holding him, I didn't get to choose a winner.  Right now he looks a little like he's been beat up and is, "starving" so I'm going to take care of him some more and hopefully choose a random winner this afternoon.
Since I know you are all sitting around waiting and tapping your fingers, you should *totally* go over to Tip Junkies and print out these smiles and mustaches.  They will make you laugh.  Or at least it will look like you are laughing while you hold up your smile!

West Elm Has Free Holiday Printables!

West Elm has free printables! So great!  This is the Botanical Suite for gifting:

 

 There are four suites:  Botanical, Animal, Snowflake, and Graphic, and all four come in the gifting option like I've shown, as well as an entertainment package with menu cards, labels and place cards.  Great idea!

A Pillowcase Craft for the Girls.

A princess who is about to sit on a pea, really needs a pillow.  And a princess who is going to have a pillow, really should be able to decorate it herself so she will always remember the super fun party she attended with her darling friends.  I thought, "how EASY!  I'll just whip up a simple pillow case for each girl!"  It turned into more of a project than that, but I think they ended up great, and it was worth it!  A simple pillowcase just wasn't enough, so I found a pattern I had in a book here to do a "flange pillow cover" sort of like this.  I have a ton of extra muslin, so I made all of the pillows out of it.  I didn't have as many large pieces as I thought, so I ended up sewing strips together to MAKE the large squares... = time consuming, but free.  We bought 10 little blue pillows from IKEA that are about $1 a piece.  These say they are 14"x14" but the ones I used were 13" square if that is possible.  I made one 19.5"x19.5" square, and two 19.5"x13" rectangles for each pillow.  The two rectangle pieces each got a double hem (that is my term for pressing 1/4" under, then again, and sewing a line down the second turn), then the two hemmed pieces are sewn right sides together to the large rectangle, and that is it!  Here is the "double hem":

I pressed all of the remaining pillows (after my prototypes) at once, then sewed all of the hems:

After sewing all of the pieces together, the directions said to mark a border around each pillow to sew along for the flange, but that is way too complicated for me.  I seemed to have trouble remembering that half inch on the 19 1/2 inch side, so the pillowcases were all a little off.

I solved that by making a template out of muslin the size of the pillows and pinning it to each finished case - I just eyeballed the placement, then topstitched around it for the "flange".

First I thought we'd use some puff paint sort of pens, but they were SO gloppy and sputter-y and would take SO long to dry, so I went for these great pens instead.  I found glitter pens and solid colors and they were very easy for them to use.  The pens said it would take 4 hours to dry, so we did them first thing (after a couple of minuts, though, they were fine to touch.)

Here is sweet Miss T. showing her finished pillow.

And here is a final pillowcase WITH a pillow inside.  A friend of mine said she had girls decorate pillows for the birthday girl - so the birthday girl got to keep them all and adorn her new day bed.  I think that is a great idea, too!

A perfect pillow for a princess to avoid any errant peas.

Princess Party Crowns: A Craft Event.

In order to be a proper princess, even one who is only recognized after sleeping on a pea (see invitation below), one really must have a crown. I don't like to ask anything TOO, too much of party guests - the idea of someone feeling left out for any reason is too much for me, and the thought of someone feeling inadequately dressed is the worst. I DO, however, love dress up parties! (My son's birthday is 3 days before Halloween, so we've had LOTS of fun dressing up!) Therefore, my favorite thing to do is have the favors and crafty events help dress up the guests. This time I found these darling crowns on etsy. The price of $5 each was just too good to pass up - and FREE shipping! Lisa is a professional costume creator and has lovely crowns, capes, and is listing party packs, too! I usually try to stay around $5 a child for "favors" but as I've lost my mind somewhere a couple of kids ago, I planned a fun craft, forgot about it, and started a new one. Once I remembered the first, I was too in love with them both to let go of either one! I'll post about the other craft later. As I was over budget, I went with these sparkly, glittery foam stickers for decorating our perfect crowns. I wish I had splurged for something a little nicer (and smaller) but they were easy for the little 4 and 5-year-olds to decorate to their hearts content.I put the stickers in these little silver and crystal dishes I have trouble using for anything else, because, you know... they are PRINCESSES making CROWNS.I bought a couple of rolls of tulle from our local Fabric Depot in pinks and purples, and a roll of black for my son - his is below. I cut lengths from the rolls and the girls tied them to the back of the crowns for the proper cascading royal effect. Here are a couple of the darlings trying them on PREtulle.

And these are the finished products one princess, one prince of darkness.

It was a joy to work with Lisa at Fairy Godmother For Hire, I was SO happy with how the individual crowns turned out, I love that the girls (and boy) got to take home special crowns that will last forever, I love that I spent money on something that won't get thrown away in a week, I love that a mama made these crowns!

A Princess and The Pea Party Invitation

My daughter's 5th birthday was this weekend. We had a lovely Princess and the Pea Party. I am incredibly lucky that one of my favorite people in the world, and the mama of my daughter's good friend is a fantastic photographer! She took the most gorgeous photos - they made me cry. It was two hours of crafting and story telling and good girl friends - those first girlfriends at 5 years old - yummy food and some more crafting and general celebrating. For ME it was worrying that everyone was having fun and happy and not escaping through a back door or something, and before I knew it, it was over. NOW, though, I look at her stunning photos and my memories are of a magical, almost slow motion, perfect two hours of princessy fun! (We also took some photos, but ours pale SO much in comparison, that instead of showing them, I'm going to wait for hers to post here.) I'll share the "getting ready for it" parts, though.

I'll start with the invitation. I ADORE using sewing and fabric in different media. I've made a few invitations this way, but this is by far my favorite so far. Here is a close up of the PEA.(I know it looks funny to blur out our info, but I'm still leery of all of that.) I love the imagery of the towering bed with loads of different fabrics. I knew I wanted the invitations to be tall and thin. Paperzone here in Portland has a line of blank invitations that I keep going back to. The colors are perfect, the weight is great, and I love all of the different proportions they offer. It is called PZ facets. It seems you can't order anything from the website, which is too bad, but if you have one near you, GO.

Here is the first sketch I did:The gorgeous font I used is from Dirt 2. He is SO talented! All of the fonts are free for personal use, or available to purchase for commercial use. I used The Quickest Shift. SO scroll-y and perfect without being too sweet. He also has gorgeous photoshop brushes!! I used a few of the Secret Garden brushes for the details in the bed posts and feet - you can't really see what it is, but I know they are there, and I love them. I can't wait to figure out what to REALLY use them for.

I did a bit of a tutorial on flickr if you are at all interested in making invitations like this. If you want ANY other information, I'm always happy to share.

*Stephanie's photography page had her old blog as the link.  I've updated it to the real one:  http://stephaniebryanphotography.com/ **

Tissue Paper Hearts

Miss Mae and I made these for a couple of her friends for a party she went to today. I saw them on Crafty Crow, and they brought back so many memories of when I was young!We used leftover pizza boxes (that I, AHEM, found), lined one side with some pretty valentine-y paper, glued the tissue to the other side, punched a hole in and tied it up with a pretty, spring-y green ribbon.

The party was a KICK! She actually went to TWO Valentine's parties this year! What a lovely idea to have a Valentine's party. I hope we can do this in a couple of years when things slow down a bit here... I hope to get the pics of the parties up tomorrow - so incredibly sweet.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Everything is all ready to go for making Valentines:Miss Mae's friends: Mr. H's: and:

I believe I have a glitter/glue/horrible-scissors-that-hurt-my-hand/tissue paper hangover.

Happy Valentine's day to you all! (is it St. Patrick's Day yet?!)

Group Quilt Project

I finished our group quilt! It is based on Denyse Schmidt's pattern for "What a Bunch of Squares" from her Denyse Schmidt Quilts book that I STILL adore.
I gave each parent a pattern for one block (number 1, 2, or 3), they chose their fabric based on the colors "Lake Blue", "Cloud White", "Limeade Green", and "Lemonade Yellow", and each child personalized their block. I sewed them all together and this is the finished product! I put more photos on flickr. I'm so, so happy with it. I hope our dear Kindergarten teacher will wrap herself in the warmth of all of our thoughts and prayers and know how very much we love and appreciate her!

Feltique

Oh my do I want this book!!! This fall when it is cooler out, I'm going to felt again. I ADORE felting.

What to do with the kids when you are trying to organize the house and they want to play? Give them your scalloped square paper press cutter thing and show them how to make tiny books! Miss Mae was happily pressing, drawing and folding for almost an hour and a half!

Happy Fourth of July!

These are my $58 paper pinwheels. I have a knack for making things myself to save money and spending twice as much... In this case we could have bought pinwheels for about $1.00 a piece, but it was great fun making them! The $58 was not JUST for the pinwheels - I can't seem to stay on task in the craft store. We found great stickers and sticker books for our summer activities, and so many beautiful papers!

For the pinwheels, we used Martha Stewart's instructions. I think this is aimed at a little older children. My kids are 6 and 4, so I did most of the steps. They did do the cutting parts, and loved the final products!

Happy Birthday America!

I am a HUGE fan of Denyse Schmidt. She is a RISD girl - I just love saying that... and so immensely talented and gifted. She makes quilts perfect. Not perfectLY, but makes them PERFECT. She is hosting a new batch of classes that I would adore attending - alas, making it to Bridgeport, Connecticut for a class is a bit beyond my capabilities at this point. If you are closer, GO!

My mom gave me this book when it was first published, and I went through and did a good number of the projects.

I'm not a fantastic sewer, and I learned SO much by working through them. I think they are still relevant today - isn't it funny to think they wouldn't be 2 years later? Seems things really come in and out so fast these days.

Handmade Birthday Gifts

Miss Mae and I went to a birthday party for two of her sweet little friends last weekend. The invitation asked not to bring gifts, but Miss Mae wanted to draw them a picture. We took it one step farther and made these little notebooks for them. Since my husband's office has boxes and boxes of paper for recycling, we used it, the drawings, some lovely paper Miss Mae picked out, a plastic cover, and had it all spiral bound on the top end. We tied one end of a pretty ribbon to the end of the spiral binding, the other end to a pencil, and we have a great "to go" notebook. When the pencil is tucked into the spiral, the ribbon forms a handle - perfect for little ones to carry along.

Christmas Sewing with "Sewing With a French Twist"

I did make some lovely things from this beautiful book:Simple Sewing with a French Twist: An Illustrated Guide to Sewing Clothes and Home Accessories with Style
The reviews seem to really be mixed about the book. Some say the projects are too easy, some say it is great inspiration. I've not sewn many things from patterns, so I'm not a good judge of the easiness factor, but every page is just dreamy - her style really is impeccable. I wish I were the sort of woman who wore trench coats with butterflies aloft, and berets, and had cafe table linens... I admit, though, that it surprises me that someone would write out how to take the cover off of your EXISTING market cart, lay it on fabric, and make a new one, but I guess if you are trying to fill a book... Coming from my architectural background, I wish that the instructions weren't her chicken scratched drawings, although they are better than some I've seen. And the four things I've made seem miniature compared to her photos. I thought the bean bag chairs I was making for my kids would be BEAN bag chairs, when really they are sort of bean bag STOOLS. They actually use them more as propped up pillows when lounging.

My parents do a lot of traveling, so I made the "his" and "hers" laundry bags for them. I thought they could roll them up in their suitcases, and use them as they go. The "hers" bag is the one below with the sort of ruffled top. I'm very pleased with how they turned out. They each took me about 3 or 4 hours start to finish. To have a stack of fabric and two days later these lovelies is a wonderful feeling!

Let's Stay Home and MAKE things!

We've been a bit house bound since before Christmas due to our "Arctic Blast 2008". I'm not kidding. That is what the news channels were calling it. My husband and I are always making up names for little things like this: Family Ski Trip 2007, or Visiting Family STORM 2005... I even threw a shower for my friend one year and the whole thing was "Sinsel Baby Shower 2006". I couldn't wait to hear what they would call this, "Arctic Blast" 2008 was SO great - much better than the "Snow Storm 2008" I was expecting.

I'm from Alaska, but I still wasn't interested in driving in the mess of our streets. Where I grew up the streets were plowed before we woke up in the morning, and my dad would plow our driveway while we were getting ready and before we left the house. Here a dusting of snow causes people to freak out. We had 19". NINETEEN INCHES. i think they make a big gulp that tall. We did have some pretty amazing drifts from the snow, and there seems to be no system for clearing the streets here as it is basically NEVER necessary. We've lived here over 12 years and have only seen it snow a couple of times, and it is almost always gone by morning. Our nineteen inches of snow basically shut down the city. People were driving down the streets the wrong way, driving down the MIDDLE of the streets, blowing through red lights, WALKING down the middle of the road with cars stopped behind them, then later driving 50 on the freeway with their CHAINS ON. For REALS.

We stayed in and made things! Cookies, ornaments, Christmas presents, cards... We had family with us, lots of bustle and hustle and NOISE and fun and love. Here are a few of the things we made. The cookies were SO good. They are from my all time favorite cookbook The New Basics Cookbook
Everything I've made from this cook book over the last 20 years has turned out perfectly. I'm obsessed (yes, I'm sick of hearing people say they are obsessed with things, too, but it is late and I can't think of a better way to describe it) with refrigerator cookies right now. How great is it to have a roll of dough in the fridge all ready to slice and pop in the oven? I don't have to spend the whole afternoon baking, I can just bake one sheet and be done. I also made these a couple of weeks ago, and rolled them in candied ginger, brightly colored sugars, and rolled them out and layered them with yummy jam.
We also used Martha's instructions for making Cinnamon Applesauce ornaments. As we were decorating the tree, my 3 year old daughter was reading the names on the ornaments, and there were a disproportionate amount with H names to the M names. H made some of these in his preschool class two years ago, so we made lots more, had a great time doing it, and Miss Mae will have lots of ornaments made by her on our tree! Obviously we didn't use the bird templates.We'll run some ribbon through them and have them ready to hang on the tree next year. They were very easy to make and smell wonderful! The instructions say to roll them to 1/4" thick, but I think 1/2" would have been better. And make sure you keep flattening them as they tend to curl!