Ever so patient...sort of.

There is a little mouse waiting patiently to see the after wards of the purse swap! I am dying to see what everyone created...

PRETTY DITTY

WHAT CUTE NAME FOR THIS ADORABLE NEW APRON PATTERN AVAILABLE AT

PHAT FABRIC.....I LOVE IT!

book cover tutorial

It's time for another tutorial. I made this book for Christie to keep her FHE lessons in, since she let me borrow & make copies. Anyway, I thought you could make it for lots of great uses. A journal for your kids, photo album, collection of favorite stories from the web or Christmas stories. I get so many "art" projects from my kids school and I thought this would be a great way to store them and not just toss them in a box. Just add a few clear sheet protectors and voila! Personalized coffee table book to show off how brilliant your children are.

I bought a 1 & 1/2 inch binder and started to get creative about what I could repurpose instead of buying batting. I came up with an old towel. I cut it just larger then the book. You can trim it down.

I also grabbed my bottle of spray glue (really makes this project easier!)

Here is yet another idea for a batting alternative. I found some flannel left over from a baby blanket that was the perfect thickness for what I wanted.

Spray the cover of your book and wrap the fabric abound the entire book. 

I cut the edges on the sides, but left about an inch on the bottom & top to wrap around.

Try to smooth out any air bubbles as you are placing on your batting/fabric. Spray adhesive is not so permanent with fabric you can pull it up a few times to smooth it out without loosing your stickiness.

I use spray starch to make sure my cover fabric is nice and flat.

Wrap it just like you did the batting/fabric. Use the spray adhesive to secure it to the batting/fabric (unless you are sewing an applique, otherwise you will use this as a measuring step - wait to glue until after you sew on your applique)

This time I overlapped it about an inch on all four sides to fold over.

I figured out what I wanted for an applique and figured out placement on the top of book.

I used scraps to create a tree and leaves for my applique.

I'm a crappy artist so I traced the basic idea on the back of the fabric before I cute it out.

I placed everything on the top of the book to get a good idea of how the final product will look.

I sewed enough to hold the leaves in place.

I sewed the tree in place and outlined the leaves.

This is how the backside looked with my pieces stitch to it.

I sewed on ric rac to finish the edge and frame my applique.

Next I centered my fabric and spray glued it in place.

This is how the inside looked.

I cut a piece of cardboard to fit both insides of the folder. Sprayed them with glue covered them in the main fabric.

The spray glue isn't strong enough for cardboard so I used my handy dandy glue gun for this part. Just squeezed out a ton of glue to hold it in place.

I glued the corners down & placed it over the inside cover.

This is how it looks finished on the inside.

Here is the finished product. Hope you enjoyed making it as much as I did... 

Giveaway Winners

The winner of the Key Lime half apron is...Catey!

#121 Catey said...
Currently my heart desires Coconut cupcakes. yum. And to get over strep so I can go running again.

But I'll take the cupcakes for now!

Congratulations Catey! Hope you are feeling so much better. (Hopefully the apron will help!)


The winner of the child's Cherry Limeade apron is...Deb!

Deb said...
And finally, I think my favourite summer time drink is a toss up between bubble tea and lemon, lime and bitters! Two very different drinks, I know, but that's just me...eclectic in tastes.

Congrats Deb! A huge thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway!

Sweet Sundress Stitchin'

I've been itching to sew Myla a sundress and took the plunge when I saw this tutorial from Lil Blue Boo. It was so easy...only took me about an hour to sew up, once I had the pieces cut and ironed. I thought it needed a little something extra so I made a flower pin to go with it, that way I can detach it when the dress needs washing (which it already does and Myla has only had it on 3 hours).

I love how the purple flower doesn't match with the lavender-y color of the coordinating fabric, but matches the accenting violet-red color in the main fabric.

Myla loves it when I make her things. I feel bad because Cade feels left out. I asked him what he would like me to make for him and he said something with Transformers on it. Then he said, "Transformers shorts!" So we went to Walmart this morning, actually found some Transformers fabric, and I will be attempting my first pair of boy shorts this evening. I've never been very fond of homemade shorts...so we'll see how this works out!

Mom's Sweat Shop

My mom called me up a few days ago and asked me to come up with some baby shower presents for some showers that she has coming up. She said she would pay for them and the material if I would do the work, hence the title. I became my mom's own personal sweat shop. Which is only fitting since it is 100+ degrees outside and our A/C is stilling dying a slow and painful death (hopefully this will be fixed this week); I was literally sweating while working these. I have been dying to make these booties from On Pins and Needles. Christie made Elsie a set a months back and I looooved them!

Side note: Don't you love how Elsie looks like she is flying an airplane in the picture? This always makes me laugh. But back to the sweat shop...
So, I started looking through my fabric stash and looking for applique stencils and got to work. We were supposed to go to a family bar-b-que and swim party tonight to celebrate the 4th of July but Elsie has been sick for three days now with a nasty fever and was in no shape to be out in the heat and with other children, so I stayed home with her and Ty went and celebrated for all of us. So, I sewed and created and watched lots of movies (while Elsie slept the day and night away) and this is what I came up with:

How adorable is a plaid and polka dot elephant? I'm going to hand sew a little hair to his tail and give him an eye to complete the look. Can you believe I found this fabric at Michaels? Yeah, who knew Michael's had fabric? You learn something every day.

Have a mentioned that I LOVE argyle? I do, I can't get enough of it. I can't decide if I should leave the diamonds like this or add the diagonal lines to give them a true argyle look. What do you think? Oh, and bonus, there is a little argyle diamond on the bum. How cute is that?

And...

you can't do a baby onesie and not have one with a cupcake on it. That would just be crazy, right? I love the button for a cherry on top!!

SSC Celebrates 2 years of sewing bliss

Yeah!! We just passed our 2 year anniversary and to celebrate we had a Karaoke party at Nikki's cute house. Sorry for the pictures but I took them with my phone and was trying to be as incognito as I could. Here is Carrie bringing out that inner Celine (actually I think she might have been singing 'Born to be Wild').

Jessie entertained up with some Garth Brooks country. I thought about videoing it with my camera, but didn't want my house to get tp'd or worse... my sewing machine to get kidnapped and held for ransom.
I think if we gave a prize for most natural in front of a Karaoke machine it would definitely go to Jill. She is the Karaoke Queen. There is no 80's hair band she can't rival.

Rachel is probably the only one who could sing out of the group and honestly we didn't hear enough of her (me. yes... Frank Sinatra's voice is lower then you'd think, I'll stick to Cyndi Lauper next time)

We decided instead of swapping aprons like last year, this year we will swap the bag. This is the Buttercup Bag made by Rae. It is incredibly adorable and according to Jill & Christie super easy to do. You can find the pattern here. (Thanks Rae for letting us use your images & pattern. It is too cute to pass up). Anyway, we will be posting pictures from the swap August 1st.

Partners (updated 7/9/09):

Rachel has Beka
Jessie has Christie
Nikki has Abbey
Beka has Jessie
Carrie has Rachel
Aubrey has Jill
Christie has Nikki
Martha has Carrie

Abbey has Martha
Maren has Aubrey
Jill has Maren

I just wanted to say it's been a great two years with my best bff sewing sisters and through this blog we have met so many amazing and talented women. Thank you SSC ladies for making the last 2 years fun and helping me to enjoy the ride and thanks to all our online sewing sisters for inspiring us and making us feel united as women, mothers, and friends.

What Can You Do With A $2 Sheet From The Thrift Shop?

Use it as lining for a cute summer bag.
Oh, Fransson Tutorial found here.

Make a sundress for your adorable daughter.


A relaxed skirt for mom.
Polka Dot Cottage. Tutorial found here. I made the skirt less-full than the tutorial calls for. I wish I would have kept it more full.

Another CELEBRATE banner

Do you remember that "Celebrate" banner that I made a few years back? Here is a picture to help you remember.

First off, I have to laugh every time I see this banner. I remember adding that yellow ric rac and thinking I was really adding such a perfect detail to the whole banner and the ric rac was what brought the whole thing together. Whatever! The its three small pieces and actually don't do anything for the banner. The banner would have been better off without it. It just makes me laugh to think how far I have come. I still have a long way to go in my sewing skills (like actually make something that requires a zipper or buttons not ties and straps) but I really was funny about that yellow ric rac.
Anyways, this banner has been pulled out of storage quite a few times and really does make us so happy to have it hang in our house. I have decided that this one will be Ty and mine. And I want to make on for each of our kids. This means that for Elsie's first birthday coming up in a few days (holy crap, where did this year go?), she will get her very own banner. Here it is,

I love that I was able to use scrap pieces of fabric from my every growing fabric stash and that I had patterns and colors that actually coordinated. I didn't think I had become "That" person. You know the person who sews so much that someone can say, "Hey do you have this color?" and I can say, "Let me go look in my stash." That's me, I can say that! But, I digress. I think the pink and green and especially the cream trim suites Elsie perfectly! Now whenever she has a big event in her life, birthday, recitals, good grades, graduation, wedding reception (okay, just kidding, we will NOT be hanging this banner at her wedding reception), she can know it is her special day because her very own banner is hanging up in the house! And the same will go for the other kiddos that will be coming later on...in the future...in the far future.