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.

Catching up: Part 2

In the previous post I mentioned that I had been crafting, but not posting. This is the second part of my "catch up" post series. Hopefully the last catch up post. I'm sure I've got all the photos tthat I need off of my husband's computer.

Here is the remainder of the diapers I made for my little man. I made these using the Babyville Boutique PUL with the dinosaurs, monters (my personal favorite), and yellow.















After making the diapers I had a bunch of extra PUL so I went onto Babyville's website in the hopes of finding some projects and I did. So for my little man I made some cubes (which I stuffed with filling). I made one with 5" squares and another with 3" cubes. For the 5" cube uses the dino PUL and the 3" cube uses the owl PUL.











Onto other things...

My mom had this tradition at Christmas that every year each of kids got a Christmas ornament (she still does it). Back in the day she used to cross stitch our ornaments every year. So I've started this tradition with my son.


I wrote his name and the year 2011 on the back with a fabric marker.

For Christmas, I made my son a monkey out of yo-yos. (Love those things!). I used a simplicty pattern that I picked up during a JoAnn's 99 cent sale. On the top it said "Simplicity Archive" on it, so I have a feeling this has been around for a while. He's bigger than my son:









... and that my friends, wraps up all the crafts I completed in 2011. What a year!

Picture Dump

I have been very busy crafting, however, I've been very bad about posting. However, I feel that being a full time mom, wife, teacher, and part time student earns me a little bit of a reprieve. Life has been busy!

My husband and I took the little man up north (where it was about 27 degrees outside) and he needed a winter hat and mittens! So on the drive up (it helped that we got stuck behind an accident - no one was hurt - that shut the freeway down for two hours) north I completed two hats and two pairs of mittens for him to wear on his adventure to see Santa.





Both of the above hats were done on the pink KK loom. All the blogs and tutorials online for knitting baby hats on the loom said to use the small one, but sorry, my son was born with a 14 inch head, there was no way this loom was going to make a big enough hat. It took some experimentation to finally figure out which size was good enough.

Next was the challenge of having to create mittens for the little guy. I couldn't find any decent pattners online for making infant mitts on the loom, so again I experimented and are quiet proud of what I created. Simple, but very effective.





I will draft up a pattern eventually for the mittens. If you've worked with the looms before you can probably figure out how I did it, it was really simple. Mittens were completed on the flower loom.

After all that, then I had to tackle Little Man's stocking for his first Christmas. I was just going to buy one, however, my husband instisted that I make his, since I made everyone elses.



A close up of the super cute fabric:



I made him several stocking stuffers (in addition to what I bought - he is such a spoiled baby!). The first batch is three different taggie toys:







The letter "A" is his favorite one I think. He's always grabbing for that one.

A few weekends ago I went on a diaper making craze. I wanted to have enough diapers to at least get us through a day. So I made several diaper stuffers and a few diapers.













I have many more photos to post but first I have to get them off of my camera.

End of Line

Whew... caring for a little one is exhausting! I haven't had much time to post, let alone make anything. However, here are some things I've been working on in the last few weeks:

Dinosaur Ribbon Rattle:


I googled "dinosaur images", printed one out, traced into fabric, sewed it to together (with the ribbon), and stuffed it full of stuffing and jingle bells. My little man loves it. He holds it around the neck all time (because its the easiest place for him to hold it) so it always looks like he's strangling it. :)

I've continued to work on those diapers. I made him this orange one, using the same Babyville Boutique pattern as before. It leaked out the side a bit so we added extra snaps to make it smaller in length and it seemd to hold up okay:


He doesn't nap much during the day so I haven't had time to get any more of them done. (He does sleep through the night except when he wants to eat, so one must be grateful of that!)

Next up is my "mystery project" that requires lots and lots of yo-yos. Below is the first yo-yo that I made and I've fallen in love with making these things!



This "mystery" project also includes the following:



Care to take a guess as to what I'm making????

That's all I have for now to share. My little man just fell asleep is his swing so I'm going to take these few precious moments that I have and go clean up my kitchen!

Mom Days...

What do you do when you have a 3.5 week old baby, you're exhausted, and you need to make dinner? You dig through your pantry and see what you make with what you got. Here's what I ended up making for dinner last night. Simple, easy, and best of all it is something that my husband will eat again!

Chicken Alfredo!

Here's what you need:
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 egg
Bread Crumbs (I used Italian)
Noodles
Alfredo Sauce

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Dip the chicken breasts in the egg and then in the bread crumbs. Drop them in a 9 x 13 baking dish (I always line mine with foil first so that the clean up is easier). Drop them in the oven for 20 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, cook the pasta, drain. Cut up the chicken breasts into smaller pieces, drop over the noodles, and cover with Alfredo sauce. Voila. Dinner in less than 30 minutes.

Onto the savings! As any good money saver/crafter knows, JoAnn Fabrics has fantastic deals over the holiday weekends. This weekend (being Columbus Day weekend) they had Simplicity patterns on sale for 99 cents. This time I was smart. I went into the store on Thursday (the day before the sale started) and wrote down the pattern numbers that I wanted. I went in Friday morning as soon as the store opened and while all the other ladies were digging through the books, I dug through the cabinets! Bwahaha!



Total spent: $10.98
Money Saved: $124.90

Woot! Woot! McCall's patterns go on sale Thursday. I've got the pattern numbers I want, so when my hubby gets home from work (or rather before he goes in) I intend to hit up the cabinets!

Earlier in the week I made a few bibs for the Little Man:


I had leftover fabric from his tummy pillow:


I had some Cars fabric in my stash that I picked up over a year ago at a Hobby Lobby and now I finally had a use for it:


I also had some snowman fabric left over from last Christmas.

I certainly won't be making any more bibs for the little man. Not that I didn't enjoy making them or that I didn't like them, but because he has so many of them! We've gotten bunches of them in the mail from family over the last few weeks, and bibs are certainly one thing he doesn't need anymore of!

Last but not least, some binky leashes:



These were made using ribbon I found in my stash and suspender clips (which were actually a pain in the neck to find! I thought for sure that stores like JoAnns and Hobby Lobby would carry them, but apparently not...)


And I put my new snaps and snap plier to good use:


I don't know how much use we'll actually get out of the binky leashes though, because so far he really doesn't use his binkys.

Okay, whew, I think I'm all caught up on things that I have completed and finished. My husband goes back to work tomorrow so I doubt I will get any crafting done while he's at work. Although Little Man has more or less slept through today, so here's hoping he sleeps most of the day tomorrow. I need to get his diapers done!