Photobucket... how I hate thee

Yeah, so I finally have a few spare minutes to upload my newest and greatest creations and what do you know? Photobucket has gone and completely changed they way that they are organized. Nothing is loading and every time I click on a link nothing loads. It just sits there and makes a busy signal. Annoying. I'm going to give it until tomorrow to fix itself, otherwise I'm looking for a new photo host. Any suggestions?

Marble Mazes

This is a quick and dirty sewing project. I saw some of these on pintrest and thought what they hey? I sewed three of these in less than hour. The hardest part was working around the marble.











Lesson Learned: Sew the actual "maze" in a contrasting color, so that it is easier to see.

Felt Food

So I've wanted to break into the area of felt food for a while. To be honest, I never really understood the appeal of felt food until LM was born. Then I thought about all the uses and fun pretend play that can happen if we had felt food in the house.

So yesterday, I finally broke down and decided to make felt food. I started with something really, really easy. No seriously. Cheese Its. SO easy. While a tutorial may not be necessary, Shannon Makes Stuff provided this awesome tutorial that saved me from sewing each tiny cheese it one by one. Easy Peasy Tutorial Here

So without further ado, my venture into the crafty world of felt food.





During LM's afternoon nap, I will probably sit down and tackle another easy felt food item, such as bow tie pasta. I'll keep it simple for now.

My First Crafty Love

My first crafty love will always be cross stitching. I used to watch my mom cross stitch all the time when I was a little kid. One day, I begged her to show me how and I stitched my first little cross stitch. A pair of ballet slippers (I had a thing for ballet). It was horrible. The stitches went all different directions and I stitched until I had too few threads left, but that was the end of it. I was in love. I haven't stopped since.

I've been working on these Jungle Critters for LM's room since before he was born (OMG). Actually, I've been working on these for the last year and half. I have two more down, and only one to go!





When we had decided to do a jungle theme in LM's room, I purchased a baby sampler for his bedroom. My awesome friend Emily offered to stitch it for me. Needless to say she was done with this puppy long before I finished mine. She did a fantastic job.



Yes, that is a photo of the top half. The bottom half contains his name and poundage. :)

I Spy... Perry!

So I've wanted to try these little things called ispy bags since I first saw them out on the internet. I adored them. Simply and completely. However, one thing always bothered me about the "themed" bags that I saw on etsy. Someone would be a selling a bag that they claimed was Cars themed, but only the bag itself was made of Cars fabric or had a Cars character embroidered on it. The little items to find inside were unrelated to Cars. It bugged me.

So I thought about it. I've slowly been collecting odds and ends (Target, Michaels, etc.) to put in my ispy bags and then I had a thought. Why not make my own? So I went to Wal-Mart and looked for stickers for my son's favorite cartoon characters. Boy did I find them... and they were cheap. So started with the tools I had on hand: cardstock, laminator, the fabric, etc. and went from there.

I stuck a sticker on a piece of card stock and cut out the cardstock as close to the image as I could. Then on the other side I stuck the same sticker (the packages come with upwards of about 100 stickers a package - most packages only cost 97 cents). I then cut out a piece of cardstock in the shape of a rectangle or square and stuck another stick of the same image on the square. I fed all of these through my laminator.

Then not only did I have my list, I also had my items to stuff the bag. I started with, of course, the Phineas and Ferb bag.





The rest of the steps were the same as any other ispy bag. I then beat the living crap out of the bag to make sure that not only was my sewing secure, but that the laminated stickers were going to work. Boy do they ever.

The one thing that I really like about the way my bags are constructed is the way in which the find list is attached. Its laminated so kids can write on it with a dry erase marker when they find what they are looking for. The list is also removable. So if you have a younger child or a child that wants more of a challenge, you can simply say, "How many items can you find?"





This project was easy and fun. I can def. see why people are addicted to this little crafty item. The Phineas and Ferb was easy enough. Cutting squares. So I decided to up the ante in the next one, if you will. I traced a spool of ribbon to cut out a circle and then stitched is using one of the fancier items on my sewing machine.









What I liked most about these two items were the themes. I just think its so stinking cute. I find it a fun challenge to dig through the sticker isle or the foam area, or online clipart to find theme related items. My next challenge, I think, with these ispy bags is to create holiday themed ones filled with appropriate items.

Oh! And this is my 100th post. Wow. *throws confetti* That is all.

Birthday Madness

Trying to plan a birthday part for a one year old was painful, considering I've never even attended a birthday party for a one year old. However, Party City and the fact that the only cartoon my LM will watch is Phineas and Ferb on netflix, made my life a little easier. Add to that some wonderful "Where's Perry" cotton fabric that I found at JoAnn fabrics and you have yourself a one year old's birthday party!



























Albertson's grocery saved my bacon with this birthday cake. I was really getting scared that I was going to have to make my own.



Everything was commercially bought (hangs head in shame) expect for the high chair kit which you see in the picture above. The only ones we could find were boy or girl themed. So using the "Where's Perry" fabric I found, I created the birthday cake kit. I sewed a flag banner that got taped to the table, cut out a large square for a floor mat (no sewing involved, I was a working mother in a hurry!), and made a bib (complete with snaps.)

And yes, everyone had a great time at the party. Of course my LM wouldn't eat his birthday cake. It wasn't until two days later, he actually tried a piece. Good times.

Fabric Books... Easily Addicting

So my little man really likes trains. At a year old, the boy loves trains. I think nit has a lot to do with the fact that his father likes trains, but who knows? My cousins (bless their hearts) passed down to us a Thomas the Tank Engine train table and all the goodies that go with it. That boy is always playing with those trains. Since he's a boy he's also starting to collect Thomas the Tank Engine toys and even a book or two.

Well imagine my suprise and joy when I was digging through fabric at Wal-Mart (I know, bad, bad, bad) and I stubmled across a Thomas the Tank Engine fabric book.

















This next fabric book I actually purchased (from JoAnn's) and put together LAST YEAR, before Christmas. I'm just not sure why it never got posted.















My final item for this post is an idea that I ripped off Lakeshore Learning. The item below I made exactly like Lakeshore has them, well more or less. This was not a very tough concept.



You'll find the orginal Lakeshore item here. You know how much they wanted for these? $39.95! Seriously? I know that they are in the business of trying to make money and that you get 30 of them, but what a rip off. You know how much I paid for mine? $0.

Well at least $0 that day. I had everything on hand that I needed: velcro, snaps, buttons, and felt. Somone that does a lot of sewing or at the very lest some sewing, probably has most of these items on hand.

I think hacking Lakeshore products has become one of my new favorite pastimes. It was a thrill, I'll be honest. I'm going straight to see the guy with the horns for sure. But I figure, as long as I'm not SELLING these and using them for my own personal use, what's the harm? Right?

Right?

Do have any idea how much

Halloween... my favorite time of year

For the longest time I have wanted to quilt. It just looked hard and I got frustrated just trying to learn. Today, I'm not sure what motivated me, but I basically said screw it. I'm going to give it a try. So I got out my fabric stash, too LM to JoAnns and picked up some more Halloween fabric. After he went to bed, I started cutting, ironing, sewing, and basically just flying by the seat of my pants.

I had ten different fabric prints. I cut out a 6" square out of each print four times. Sewed them in a pattern and viola. Then I cut strips of green with black dots (used all I had, which is why its only on the sides and not the top and bottom). I made it for my LM so I got out his animal quilt that came with his bedroom set (that we don't even use) to get an approximate measurement. This blanket is a little bit bigger, but I don't mind. He'll grow into it.



I'm positively in love with this blanket. I'd make a Christmas one if I had the time (this puppy took 5 hours. Seriously? I am slow...) and the fabric stash on hand.







All in all I'm pretty pleased for a project that I sewed blindly on, had no experience, and it something I've wanted to try for a very long time. Its by no means perfect (an experienced quilter would be horrified by some of my mistakes, I am sure!). However, I still find it stinking cute. I'm a long way off from those dozy of quilts that you at stat fairs and the like, but I feel that this is a good start.

Next Halloween craft (finished a few days ago) was a steal. I saw this Halloween fabric book at JoAnns back in July. I thought it was cute. I bought it on impluse. Sticker price said $8.99. When she rang it up? 99 cents. The lady at the register double and triple checked it, but it kept coming up as 99 cents, so that's what they sold it to me for. SCORE. Doesn't get any better than that.