Two Cuties in Tutu's

Well my good friend Karen just welcomed their second sweet little girl into their family. Big sister Jadyn now has little sister Ziara. (Zee-are-ah). I know... I needed help pronouncing that one too! (just kidding Karen). Karen and I have been friends for over 10 years. She was my manager at Old Navy, my first real job. I love her. I love her kids. She has spunk.

I had hoped to plan Karen a little "Sprinkle" to welcome in her newest addition, but with her working a gajillion hours (true time span people) right up until her water broke, it didn't happen. Instead I worked on two applique outfits for the biggie and the lil girl.

Aren't they cute? I used my Cricut to cut out the letters for both on fabric using the Schoolbook cartridge. I then ironed it on mirror-image style to the wonder under and sewed it on. I had red and light blue tulle and I thought the black and white polka dot material made a great contrast. I used the basic concept from Joy's Hope to do the tutu part.

Here is Jadyn, proudly modeling her tutu shirt. I am told she loves it dearly and likes to dance around in it. I am anxiously awaiting her first recital. :)

So cute huh? Isn't she yummy? She still has some room to grow into it- but last I heard she has been growing lots!

These were SUPER easy and fun to make. I am glad the girls enjoy them. Congrats Karen and Darren! I love you guys and am so happy to see your family grow with God's great blessings!

Carter's Birthday Shirts

To go along with his Thomas chair, I made Carter two applique shirts. One is Cars themed to wear to his party tomorrow and the other is one of those cute tie applique ones. The Cars one turned out super cute:

I bought the t-shirt at Hobby Lobby for $3, the Cars patch there too for $2, and got the race flag fabric there for $.50 for 1/4 yard. I already had the red, black, and Wonder Under. I simply cut rectangle sized pieces of each fabric I was using and then ironed on the Wonder Under to the back (on our couch while watching a movie), I then made templates on cardstock and traced them onto the Wonder Under once it had cooled, cut, and ironed. I used my machine to stitch a red zigzag stitch through out the entire thing. I got excited because it looks pretty darn good for a beginner sewer.

The tie one was SUPER easy. I got the template for free offline and just expanded it since he is 3 and not wearing a onesie like the original template called for. I got the gray shirt at Dollar Tree (its Hanes though), and the fabric at Wal-Mart $.50 for 1/4 yard also. I followed the same steps, just switched to a bright blue contrasting zigzag stitch... I really like a good zigzag.

I have all of my Valentine's projects done and put up... but as you can see from most all of my blog pictures- I need to wait until daylight to photograph them. Since my average arrival time home Monday-Friday is 6:30, I never hit daylight. But, I will take some pictures of Carter's big party tomorrow. Hopefully my mom can take some deep breaths and chillax some. Geez- I don't know where I get my type A tendencies... It's so weird. Well- more to come.

Talk soon!

P.S. Hit up the Salvation Army today for some bday gifts for Kara. Got more new projects to start! I love the SA!

From Purple Monster to Cuteness

Carter, our adorable nephew, will turn 3 on Sunday. With his birthday being just a month away from Christmas I found myself in the usual gift giving dilemma. Do we get him MORE toys... well since my dad was taking his unwrapped Christmas gifts to save them for his Birthday since he got SO many, I think not.

Instead, my friend Kim gave me this chair...

Which I lovingly dubbed the Purple Monster. She had got it Savers for $7 and had planned on re-covering it for her daughter, but never got around to it. Since she loves me and I give her son the gift of wisdom each school day she bestowed it upon me.

Now- I won't lie. It sat in my garage for over a month... collecting dog hair from the broom and looking pretty sad. But, I was scared. What a BIG project... a scary project. But- with his birthday looming closer, I sucked it up and started getting to work. I bought my Thomas fabric at Wal-Mart for $4.44 a yard. The kid loves his tank engines... he was Gordon for Halloween and must own at least 50 of them. I started optimistically with 1 1/2 yards... and went back for another yard later.

It was horrible ripping everything out. Whatever sweat shop made that sucker did a great job! After two bloody cuts and lots of cutting and ripping- I was ready to reattach. That part was fun. It was so easy to transform something not so cute into something great. I started with my Dad's staple gun... which is what I call a man gun... it was horrible. After hearing me grunt and watching me use my body to get the torque to push the staples in, Mr. P mentions we own a staple gun! A nice, sleek, girl gun. So- after a week and a half of pulling staples out of my hair, here she is!

Total Cost:

Chair- Free (thanks Kim)
Fabric 2 1/2 yards - $10.00 even
Staples- already had

Felt for Bottom of Chair- already owned

All said and done- SO worth it to see a smile on his face! Years from now any toy we would give him would be at Savers- but I am sure he will remember the time his Aunt Ashee made him a special reading chair (complete with book pocket).

In case you're wondering about this AMAZING Halloween costume- yeah I made it... just saying! And he's Gordon the Tank Engine... NOT Thomas!

**Disclaimer-- I look like a wildebeest in this picture- uh! I was so brokedown that day!

I will show you the rest of his handmade gifts tomorrow- I am tired and have staples to vacuum up!

To Die For Pillows Sort-of Tutorial

I had to redo that title 4 times because it was too long to accurately describe this so here goes the real one:

"Super Cool VERY Big Pillows That Are Too Cute and Made Out of Napkins"... if that doesn't just intrigue the crap out of you I don't know what will! And here they are...

So I saw on another blog someone stitch some cute pillows out of little dinner napkins. They were really bright colors and pretty small. I thought that this would be a great idea for my first all by myself sewing project because napkins are already measured, seamed, etc. So- off to Kohl's I went in search of some napkins.

I found four of the black napkins in the Clearance section. They are plain black, but were for Halloween, only the inside tag says this. They were 44 cents a piece- take an extra half off! So- 22 cents a napkin or 44 cents a pillow. The khaki and black were still cheap at $1.29 each take half off.

I then went to Joanns and bought some black, white, khaki, and patterned fabric. I got a half yard of each, but it was WAY more than I needed. If you are doing this on the cheap and don't want left overs, just do 1/4 yard.

I decided to use the patterned fabrics for rosette pillows and the solids that match the ruffled ones. I cut all of the pieces using my rotary cutter and mat. I cut the ruffle strips into 2 inches and the rosette pieces into 2 inch or 3 inch depending on how big you want them. I cut 8 khaki strips for one ruffle pillow and 8 black strips for the black one you Have to make sure that your fabric for ruffles is double the width of your napkin so you have room to ruffle it. I cut 8 pieces for the rosettes.

Here's the part where I call it a sort of tutorial... I got so excited to bust a move that my directions (and photos) get challenged here. :)

I took all of my piles of rosette fabric and pressed it down the middle and followed this tutorial http://madebythemamamonster.blogspot.com/2009/09/see-im-not-totally-worthless.html

I chose to do 4 rosettes on 2 black napkins, so 8 total. I then handstitched them on the top corner of one napkin... see the first picture and it will make sense.

For the ruffles I did a baste stitch through each piece of fabric. I then pulled on my string to ruffle it until I liked the look of it and placed them across the top of the napkin so that they stretched across and looked right. After I did all 8 of them I pinned them evenly on the top of one napkin. I then straight stitched them onto the napkin.

After you have the tops of all 4 napkins (almost pillows) stitched on the way you want them, you are ready to stitch your napkin tops to the bottoms. I simply lined them up, pinned them every 2 inches, and straight stitched about 2cm away from the seam the napkin already had. I left a 5 inch hole in the bottom corner of each to allow for stuffing.

Now here comes the genius part.... get ready:

I was looking for stuffing at Wal-Mart and was being super cheap... hey, we got tuition and books to pay for... I was about to get the big box of poly fill for $10 when my GENIUS of a mother pointed to the 50% off clearance snow. It is the SAME thing as polyfill. So I paid $1.50 a bag, which would be about $4.50 for the same amount as the box. I simply stuffed all 4 pillows (which are really big pillows) and used 2 full bags ($3 total). (sidenote: don't worry about my supply running low... when they went to 75% off I bought 12 more bags... just in case).

After they were pretty full I simply picked up my straight stitching to finish them.

I put one black with rosettes and one khaki in our guest room on the window seat

Two pictures... just because I am THAT excited that we no longer have a junk room but a real guest room!

The two black ones that were the first picture, now sit on the once naked white couch in the bay window of our bedroom.

So that all said this project cost me exactly $2.35 a pillow. Can't beat that with a stick!