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Archive for the ‘Crafts’ Category

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So to celebrate the upcoming holiday season Sweet Peanut has asked me to make her a fourth of July outfit.

So cute. She thinks mommy sews better than she does.

So I had a pattern and fabric for some cute pants (pic coming) although my brother-in-law did mistake them for pyjamas….

But I was at a loss for the top.

I still am at a loss but I happened upon some cute free tutorials that might help someone else out.

Makin’ it Immakulate: This was SOOO cute! I might try it later. I’m awed by her talent to just whip this up from one of her daughter’s t-shirts. Very cute and she makes it seem easy.

A Little of This, A Little of That: This is from last year but is so quick and easy you can make it in time for this year’s celebration.  A 4th of July t-shirt.

~Enjoy!

Yes I’m late with this. What else is new. With Father’s Day, gradauations, and vacations happening I’ve been ubber bizzy.

Okay so this week’s link’s are Father’s Day and Graduation crafts you can make in a jiffy and also some delicious treats to eat. I know you can make them in a jiffy because I did. So without further ado…

Door Hanger: Help dad find his keys in the morning. This easy to craft together door hanger organizer can be put together with a small amount of fabric that you may have lying around already. Make in an hour or so. I made three.

Scrapbooked Graduation Card: We attended a very special Homeschool High School graduation ceremony this week. Not being on the same page I made this card while my husband bought a card…what??!!! Anyway all were impressed. It is really very easy and looks quite nice. In the hands of the graduate right now and since it just dried as we were headed out the door. I’m sorry I have no pics.

S’mores Whoopie Pies: I need to lose 10 pounds and these are not helping. I’ve made these twice so far and they are delicious. I do use all butter and cut that back in the filling so as not to be overwhelming. The cookies are delicious by themselves but with the chocolate etc. yuuummmm!!!

My goal is to link to just a few nice sites I’ve visited and partaken of during the week. If you have some that you think I might like send me a note (contact) I hope you enjoy.

From looking on my blog and sites you may get the idea that I’m not all that crafty.

I’m not.

I craft when need be.

And now the time has come that I’m fed up with what I find in the store to clothe my little girl (I have to dig up my modesty button for the blog) and I’m going to attempt to sew up what I can for her Peanut self.

As my daughter gets older I find that the clothes in the stores become more inappropriate and the ones that are appropriate make it  not cost effective (is that a sentence?) to buy something she will grow out of in 6 months. She is growing very fast and I’m having a hard time keeping up. While fabric is expensive I have a bunch already purchased and my mother has been throwing fabric at me. She doesn’t need a whole lot because it she will grow out of it quickly.

What am I looking for? Simple dresses for church mostly. I like things below her knees not gracing her behind (pardon me). She is very active and I like her to be clothed enough to help keep her modesty. I’m also looking into making her some pants one I find a style I think fits with her.

I learned to sew in middle school. Tabled it until sometime in college when I wanted this beautiful jumper from Laura Ashley that I couldn’t afford on a student part time working salary so my aunt took me under her wing and helped me fashion one closely resembling but in a heavier fabric. I still have the jumper to today and added 3 more to it.

So fast forward about 10 years. I have an old Singer Slant machine and a Singer serger (recent purchase) so I thought I REALLY should use these and do what I did years ago. Make what I couldn’t buy.

So….

I recently found a very cute pattern. Oliver + S Music Box Jumper Pattern . I liked the simplicity of this style. We (Peanut and I) like jumpers. She LOVES pink and I like that it comes in various sizes.

Oliver + S Music Box Jumper Pattern

I made it in pink corduroy .

Pink Music Box Jumper in Size 6

My issue is button holes.I have an older Singer so buttonholes are not the quick and easy press a button method. BUT I did find that there is this buttonhole machine for sewing machines such as mine. I found one on eBay and IT WORKS! This was so marvelous I can’t tell you. So easy. I just sat there and watched the buttonhole sew!

I really liked the blue on on the Oliver + S blog so I found the fabric (kind of hard since it’s an old pattern and the new spring stuff is out) and so I’ll make her one for Spring/Summer in the light blue fabric.

The Oliver + S Music Box Jumper Pattern seems true to size. I made size 6 for my daughter. The length is nice and mid-calf. The bodice just fits her so I’ll be making the 7 with the light blue.

So what do you do when you have a multi size paper pattern and you want to use it for several sizes? Trace the size you’ll be using on pattern tracing paper or even butcher paper or something.

What patterns do you use to fashion clothes for your child?

This is an updated version of a post I did last year around this time…okay a bit later than this.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It’s a good time to start fine tuning your plans if your home is THE home this year.

Listed below are some links to free downloads and printables to help you pull off a great Thanksgiving dinner, a memorable holiday time and new traditions to try out.

CRAFTS

Favecrafts free Thanksgiving Crafts ebook

Free Natural Health Ebook: The Big Guide of Thanksgiving Crafts: With some holistic health thrown in here is a big book of crafts for the coming holiday season.

FOOD

Paula Deen – Paula has a great Holiday ideas pdf. Complete with recipes, gift ideas, and decorating tips. Nicely put together. Pick up your copy here (downloads the pdf).

Martha Stewart – Martha Stewart’s Hotline cookbook. Another 7 mb of recipes and a few entertaining tips. Get your copy here.

Ocean Spray – This is a really cool one. Ocean Spray make your own holiday ebook. Just select the features you want and click ‘create’. Get yours here.

Our Own Vintage Thanksgiving free ebook (the download is on the sidebar) : You know I like vintage, victorian, what have you. The old days. I won’t say ‘good’ because I DO know they were hard. Anyway here’s a cute little Thankgiving download with some recipes and tips from the past.

Related articles

• Thanksgiving Side Dish Recipes (suite101.com)
• 200 Creative Thanksgiving Day Ideas (momblognetwork.com)

How do you wash your dishes?

There is some debate whether to use dish cloths or sponges to wash dishes. I’m of the dish cloth camp myself. Probably due to my love of vintage homemaking stuff.

I also have a fondness for ordering my household tasks by the days of the week. Some time ago I picked up some dish clothes with the days of the week on them. I’m not necessarily completely happy with them but I have yet to find the perfect days of the week dish cloths (you etsy crafts people hint, hint).

I also wanted to pick up some dish cloths with the days of the week on them. I found one pair but didn’t like the look of the cloth itself.

You see I was in need of some new dish cloths. My previous set had disintegrated rather rapidly I thought. I browsed the internet looking for that perftec dish cloth. What I did find was some information stating that linen dish cloths are the best. They apparently last a long time in addition to doing a fabulous job on the dishes. So I went to see if I could find some. They sell the fairly cheap overseas in England but the shipping made a purchase like that prohibitive. I found them here in the states too but the shipping again made the cost rather high. I like seven by the way.

So my crafty aunt came to the rescue and knit me a lovely (in my favorite) linen dish cloth using a pattern from her copy of Knitter’s Stash

The cloth is pretty to look at and has a good texture to it for washing dishes. Many dish cloths feel like slipper somethign or other but not this dish cloth. I’ve asked her to knit me a few more.

Wanna see?

Linen Dish Cloth

Linen Dish Cloth on Dish Cloth Rack

Reusable Felt Duster Before Washing

About two weeks ago I got this big lovely package in the mail from Right at Home. Inside were cleaning supplies in a nice big white cleaning caddy. I was in love!

One of the items included was a Pledge brand duster. You know like the Swiffer ones. I went right to work using it to tidy up my badly neglected blinds. It works really well for this and even better if you spray it first with Pledge or something.

So I happily used my Pledge sprayed duster to clean up the blinds but then it was all icky and I knew I needed to get a refill. As I was in the slow process (I looked for them if I happened to be in the store) of searching for refills I looked online to find out if any experimenting soul had tried rewashing these. Instead I landed on etsy where people were selling handmade felt or knit reusable Pledge/Swiffer refills. The thought intrigued me and I was just about to whip out my credit card (I’m quick to pay for a cleaning product) when I noticed that a lot of the ones I liked were all made out of felt.

Well still having a ton of felt from my daughter’s birthday presents (she says her house needs stairs, and a chimney) I thought it would befit me to see if I couldn’t use the badly neglected sewing machine in our home and do some of this myself.

So I did! You can see the picture up top there before I tossed it in the wash to beat up some. The instructions were via Sew Much Ado (thank you to her great instructions).

The only thing is now my daughter has claimed the duster as her own and I don’t get to use it much.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner…I mean just! So what are you doing? Lavish gifts? Dinner out?  None of the above? Well if you’re like me and like to acknowledge all the mother’s you know, just not as lavishly as you do your own mother, then here are a few links for small crafts and cards to make for the special mother’s in your life.

Take Me Home: Printable Mother’s Day cards.

Mother’s Day Tissue Paper Card

Make Handmade Sachets for Mother’s Day

Spring Bouquet for your Mother’ Day table.

Darling and Cute Eco Mother’s Day Crafts

Mother’s Day Crafts for Kids to Make

Mother’s Day Cup and Saucer Flower Holder

So our daughter’s 5th birthday has past. Sort of. We like to celebrate things month long so we still sing “Happy Birthday” and come home with the occasional balloon etc.

But! How did the Felt Dollhouse finish up, finalize and go over…

So if you didn’t know our daughter has been hinting for sometime that she needed a dollhouse with a family. I spent a good amount of time online looking for ones I thought might work out but then I decided I wanted to make it. I made dollhouses with my mother’s help when I was a child and I thought this could be a nice mother/daughter experience for us too.

Turns out it was a great grandmother, mother, aunt, daughter experience.  We all got in on this one.

The Doll House:

Peanut and I had originally saved one of the boxes you get when you visit the warehouse clubs and were doing our best to make a dollhouse. We sort of lost steam and ideas mainly because we used it flat with the the divider down the middle only giving us two rooms.

In my browsing of Etsy to find felt food and patterns I landed upon a dollhouse felt pattern. I bought this not realizing it was a very small scale. The patterns were actually for a house about 11 inches tall. Too small. So….

We snuck the original flat house out of Peanut’s sight and my mother came over and helped me to revamp it to be upright and three stories. She added a roof which gave us an attic and shored up the side to enclose the house on both sides. I proceeded to cover the whole thing with felt and she flet tiled the roof. We wallpapered the ceilings.

The Furniture:

We started off with a Peanut activity trying to make paper mache bathroom and kitchen appliances. While it was fun everything ended up too big for the dollhouse.

Back to the patterns I bought from Etsy. I blew them up on the printer and sewed two beds, a tub, sink, toilet (complete with toilet paper), refrigerator, and stove/sink combo for the house. I fashioned a couch and a small table from odds and ends and a bit of felt and my aunt added some Michaels’ mini furniture she stained.

I did all of the sewing by hand and I was up many a night with a tiny needle and oodles of felt. I still have a few items I want to sew up and my husband has been making jokes about this being folk art and to make sure we sign it so years down the line it can bring a lot of money at auction (we’ve been watching  Antique Roadshow).

We add a family from Ryan’s Room.

How did it go over:

Well since I was the one bringing the dollhouse downstairs I did not notice the air pump little Peanut apparently gave. This was the gift she REALLY wanted. She’s been playing with it non-stop.

This house was made with complete love and was so much fun. We HAVE to add on to it but I have to finish up a few projects first and gardening calls too.

This is the front of the dollhouse. The picture isn't that great but after trying to make it better for so long I decided to post the bad pics anyway.

Here is the first floor of the house. Note the leaning sink/stove and the leaning fridge.

Here is the second floor. Bed with hand crochet throw, thread spool table. The sink and toilet paper in the bathroom are anchored to the wall.

P.S. -She’s asking for chairs and a chimney

I bought all this fabulous felt to make a ton of play food for my daughter but as usual the thought had more energy than the actual application. I have made a nice set of items to present her with on her birthday (which will have to have pics later when she has seen them) but found myself with much more felt than I cared to turn into food.

Then my little Peanut had been really trying to play with this sorry dollhouse we attempted to make together a few months ago. I knew it needed a renovation but was fresh out of ideas. We had started it with one of those boxes they give you at the warehouse store for your purchase. We had a two sided on and I had (genius) made the dollhouse to be one level with two rooms. I wanted better for my Peanut.

I had been looking at the different ones online but with all we were putting into her play kitchen I kind of felt that buying a new dollhouse too was just too much.

By the way if you are looking for a nice store bought dollhouse Pottery Barn for kids has a nice cute one for younger children that is about %50 off.

Sooooo. I called my mom, artist extraordinaire, and she hopped over to help me out. We ended up turning the doll house on it’s end and she fashioned a gabled roof and patched up the sides with rogue cardboard I had been begging my husband to get rid of.

While she did this I started to felt and wallpaper the inside and outside of the house.  And made a diving wall for the upstairs.

A while ago we had papier mache’d a few bathroom items that are now too large for the new house’s proposed bathroom so we’re thinking of making the new attic room the bathroom. We also papier mache’d a couch which I covered with felt and made a big fat cushion for. I’m in the process of making a bed frame for the bedroom and figuring out what else to do around the house.

This sounds probably much better than it looks. I’ll have to take pics another time as the family has come down with a cold and I find myself with limited energy.

In the meantime dollhouse making with stuff around the house is nothing new.  So here are a few links to inspire you.

• Dollhouse Furniture With Everyday Objects
• Wood Built Handmade Dollhouse
• Make a Dollhouse Dining Room from Recyclables (so cute to see the little girl working on this)
• Make a Dollhouse Dresser
• The Perfect Dollhouse This was just amazing. The stuff the came up with!

I can’t believe this! Where have I been! I mean I have a child! I’ve cared for several (foster)! Why wasn’t I told!!!

I’m talking about this new obsession called felt play food. Well actually felt anything. You can make so much stuff out of this! It’s amazing!

Check out this amazing refrigerator with food!!!

This is by DearMyKid’s Shop on etsy.

Then she also has this darling farm set up which I wish I had known about eons ago!!!!

And follow this link to see a great magnetic cantaloupe slice with rind! Now that is cute!

But this is only some of the felt play things I’ve seen. There is so much my eyes are bugging out. I’ve found several doll houses. Another kitchen set up that included the stove along with utensils and food (that was a book). Now these are all patterns but the stuff is easy to make (just not so easy to design).

Apparently this stuff has been around for a while and I’m just now finding out! What else is out there that I’m missing??!!!

I’ve been struggling with what to make and buy for my daughter. Her whole Thanksgiving dinner has taken a bit of a turn. The main dish is still the same but I’m trying to figure out what to round it out with. I also want to make some of it myself.

Anyway enjoy!