Sewing Stuff

I've been sewing some stuff for my littlest daughter, fondly known as "the fourth daughter." These dresses are made using a pattern I purchased from Lil Blue Boo - The Sienna Dress.


The best part about the pattern is that the dresses are made from old t-shirts! What a way to recycle.



The Popeye one is pretty cute! Although she doesn't know who Popeye is, and keeps asking "Who's this guy?" Three tells her that his name is Adidas. Hmmmm.......


This last one is totally random, but I like the way it ended up. My next experiment is tie-dying some to see how that looks.

Making More Stuff

Here are some more things I've been making:This one is for my df Karen (out of her own beads.) Now I did add some of my own, but the beautiful blue ones came from her. (I would like everyone to disregard the ray-gun in the background. It was a gift to my son from my sister and it just won't go away. Note to D.J., this was the best dollar you ever could have spent. It is perfect for cowboys, robots and superheroes.)

I made this bracelet and earring combo too:

This one also for Karen. Like it?

Lastly, this one is a gift for my niece:
I really like how the stones and crystals contrast. The big grey ceramic hearts were a find too! You can't really tell from the picture, but I found some nice gunmetal toned findings for this one too. It is really sweet. I've been doing a lot of "test wearing" of it to make sure it isn't pokey. Riiight.

Making Stuff

I've been busy making stuff today. First, I made this for my dear friend who lives in Florida:

Pretty cute, huh? Just the thing for slipping on with a pair of jeans, and a cute top and being warm!

Then, I made these for me.



Which, if you've been to my house would totally make sense, since I have this thing about elephants.

Lastly, but not leastly, I made these yummy things!


They're super easy, and really delish! Plus they look like they took some work (which they so didn't.)

White Chocolate-Pecan Candies

1 1/2 bags white chocolate chips
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
Some pecan halves (about 30)

Empty the white chocolate chips into a microwave-safe bowl. I used my Pampered Chef Classic Batter Bowl (love it!). Microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave it for another minute. The chips should be melty by now. Mix in the butter and oil. Mix in the chopped pecans.

Use a small scoop (about 1 Tablespoon) and drop by scoops onto a sheet of waxed paper on a cookie sheet. Press a pecan half into each while it is still soft. Put in the fridge (or cold garage!) until firm.

Makes about 30.

Creating Jewelry today

I spent the day putting some beads on wires for some special gals in my life.

For Mia, my eldest niece. How old is she? Sheesh! 20 or something like that. I've blocked it out, it makes me feel too old.This necklace is made from a bunch of lovely leftover beads that I had from another project that I made for my sister-in-law. The disk ones are actually in two different colors - you don't really get that from the picture, and the whole thing is tied together with the iridescent fire wash on the beads.

For Ava, Mia's lovely youngest sister. Happy sweet fifteen kiddo!With this one, I used some vintage wooden disk beads, alternating with red jasper. The round beads are also jasper, and then the little ones at the top are khaki glass cubes. The whole thing went together really easily and looks so harmonious. I need to leave out milk and cookies to the beading gods for this one.

For Christie, who has filled a hole in our lives, we love you!These are turquoise dyed howlite nuggets that have a really neat shape and feel to them. They are alternated with Swarovski crystals in a deep blue-black, and with little silver rings with clusters of 4mm glass cubes. The little rings were really a pain in the fingers to make. By about the second little ring I was ready to alter the project significantly, but I stuck to it, and it looks really nice.

and for Sweet Lily who is also celebrating her birthday, happy happy day!This simple strand is made of glass pearls, crystals, some gold filled disks, and some vintage gold cylindar beads. I probably strung and re-strung this one five times trying to get the right balance of gold to glass to pearls. I think its pretty nice, and simple for a little girl. I had Deuce wear it for a while, and it looked so sweet on her, I'm tempted to make another one so that she has one like it. The gold disks are pricey, though, so we'll see...

A Really Green Bag.

Dog Food Tote Tutorial

We have two dogs, and they eat a LOT of dog food. These bags are really strong, after all, they are designed to hold 50 pounds of dog food. Sadly, they are not marked for recycling, so our recycling co. won't take them. I figured, as long as this bag was destined for the landfill, why not see if I could do a little recycling of my own?

Here is my Dog Food Tote Tutorial. (Oooh, alliteration!)

Step 1. Begin with an empty dog food bag. Be sure you wipe out the inside pretty well, or your bag will smell like kibble.

Step 2: Cut the bag down to a nice, manageable size. You can decide where the best size is. Also, cut off the binding from the bottom of the bag.

Step 3: After you cut off the bottom, sew a double seam along the bottom of the bag. After some trial and error I discovered that the best needle for the task is a vinyl/leather needle. The stuff doesn't seem really tough, but I guess the plastic is enough to make it not work too well with other types. Also, I apologize for the blurriness of this photo, Deuce was my photographer, and the light was not optimal in my sewing area for a good shot. I think she did pretty well, considering. Anyway, because I wanted the bottom of the bag to be squared, after I sewed the bottom seam, I also sewed perpendicularly across the bottom seam on each edge to make square bottom corners. No photo of that, sorry.

Step 4: Now you have a basic bag shape, so turn it inside out (or right side in, if you prefer) so t hat the seams are on the inside, anyway. I didn't want my tote to scream "DOG FOOD!" so I put the label and stuff on the inside of the bag. If you have a really

pretty bag that you are re-using, like some of the bird-seed bags have lovely designs on them, or if you really like the funky look of a dog-food bag, by all means, flip it around before you start to sew, so your design is on the outside. Your bag, your choice. Fold down the top edge, in any event.

Step 5. Now we come to the (sorta) tricky part, the handles. Cut a couple of strips from the leftover dog food bag. I eyeballed them, but I think 4 or 5 inches wide is probably a good guess.

Fold one side in and finger press it, then the other side, then fold the whole thing in half. Note: An iron on this is really NOT a good idea on this sort of plastic. It gets all shrinky and weird. Please learn from my mistakes! Fortunately, I didn't ruin my iron.

Finally, sew along the edges to close up the strap.

Step 6: Now take the folded up strap portion and cut it into straps

that are a nice size. I found that the right size was half of the strap that I had just made. If you need it longer, you might need to sew another piece of strap. To attach the strap, you need to slip the ends of the strap under the folded down edge of the bag, then sew around the top of the bag. That will attach the straps, and finish the edge of the bag. When the top is stitched down, flip the straps up, and sew across the top of the strap, so they go the right way. You can also reinforce this connection with a little square of sewing. Your choice, although I've never had one go on me before, on the other totes I've made, They do look good, though.

Tada! Finished tote!

SSDD

The baby is sick. Not throwing up sick, but the runny-nose, coughing, fever, grouchy out-of-sorts, crabby sick. I was up with her all night last night, just trying to comfort the poor thing. Tylenol can only do so much. It seems like she could only sleep so long as I was willing to sit in a vertical position and hold her just so.

Today I'm dragging my tired butt around the house. Thank goodness it's Saturday, and I can let the kids play on the videogames guilt free, (like we don't have to do school work. Although we will still probably do some art - there's a homeschool art show coming up, and we have sort of let the electives slide while we focussed on the essentials. A bit like the public schools, eh?)

Speaking of art, the art book we are using is "Art Adventures in the Home." Level 2, although I think it is adaptable for multiple ages. Another one we use has the unfortunate name of "Let's Discover Crayon" but it actually covers the basics of art very well.

We've also been learning about Monet. Here is TOH's "Waterlilies" torn paper collage. It is from an Usborne art book.

Making Cookies with My Boy!!

So for the cookies - we made Black Forest Cocoa Crinkles today, which are sort of like the normal cocoa crinkles, except they have chocolate chips and dried tart cherries in them. Jack helped me out. He really enjoyed the mixing, and the rolling the dough in the powdered sugar. Midway through making them, he told me, "I like cooking. There's good stuff that I don't even know what it is." I think this reference was to the powdered sugar. I found a little lump and put it on his tongue.

Anyway, here is a picture of the little chef rolling the dough in the powdered sugar.


The most important part - the testing!!












I've been putting the recipes to the cookies on my cooking blog: ChefShari

Diapers

We've been cloth diaper users for a long time. As a result, some of our diapers had been sent to the rag bag. They had seen better days. I tried, as an experiment, to make some contour diapers using two of the more raggedly diapers, and some flannel from the fabric stash. I don't think I did too badly:

The pattern I used is from Mama Bird's Free Diaper Pattern. It was pretty easy to put together. What do you think?

Handmade Holidays - Update

Well, I've finished a couple of gifts. Not telling right now what or for whom, but I've done some nice work, if I do say so myself. So nyah nyah nyah. Yep, that's me. Mature.

Handmade Holidays

As you can see by the little button on the left, I am going to attempt to give handmade gifts this Christmas.

Here is a site that has lots of great ideas - in case you are short of good ideas as to what a person can make for a handmade holiday. I'll be posting more, but I don't want any of my friends (and you, mom) to know what I am giving them for Christmas.

http://www.sewmamasew.com/blog2/

Fun, fun, fun!!