Sewing is Finished!

Whew!

I have spent so many hours with my sewing machine over the last month. It's a love-hate relationship right about now - But Christmas gifts are completely finished (other than a small handful of things still left to buy) and I am feeling extremely accomplished. I wish I could share all of my projects right now, but my family reads my blog :)

This one didn't require sewing, but I made it yesterday. It is a hair bow holder for my niece Kami.

It was even easier to make than I thought it would be. It is just an old picture frame I picked up from the thrift store. I spray-painted it black and trashed the original picture. Trust me, it was um, pretty (Haha)! Then I cut lengths of ribbon about 2 inches longer than the height of my frame. I then used my glue gun to glue the ribbon onto the frame. I didn't measure for my spacing - I decided to just wing it. I'm totally thrilled with how it turned out! If you look close at the flower ribbon, each petal is a flip-flop!! How stinkin cute is that?

So here is another purse - the outside fabric I got from an estate sale for $1. I liked the vintage look of it!

I bought a purse from the thrift store just because I wanted to take the magnetic snap out of it and re-use it. So as I was taking apart the purse, I decided that I really liked the shape of it - especially because it had a flat bottom. (The others I've made don't) So I completely dismantled it and have reused it numerous times now as a pattern! Here is the first one I've made from my new 'pattern' The inside fabric is cloth napkins that were a wedding gift - I don't do cloth napkins so I repurposed them :)

The other night my niece Hollie brought me a card and letter she'd made me. The letter was apparently her Christmas list for me. It said, "Dear Sissy.....I want for Christmas a handmade purse and Taylor Swift CD." She's seen a couple purses I've made so I assume that's where she came up with it (and she knows I like Taylor Swift). How can I not fulfill that cute girl's wish?! So I had to make her a purse :)
I totally had to save the best for last.
Oh my crap! I wanted to make a purse for myself using my new 'pattern' so I found some fabric I liked and made this!
Can I just say it again? Oh my crap! I love it! I'll be honest, I squealed after I sewed the ribbon onto the outside. How stinking cute is this?! I am totally in love. Love, love love! I'm so glad I hadn't picked this fabric for a gift, cause I'm here to tell ya - someone would be without a gift! No joke. :)

Little Girl Aprons

Here are the aprons I've been working on. I didn't use a pattern - I just followed an online tutorial. This is the first one I made, and I followed the measurements from the tutorial.

It was just made with scrap fabric I had. It said this size would fit my Haddie (she wears a 2T) but it ended up fitting my 7 year-old niece. The neck strap was too long for her, even. I also wasn't sure that I liked the pocket to go the full width of the apron.
So here is #2, also made from scraps. Actually, the Dora fabric was a valance that I got brand new at the thrift store for $2. I just wanted it for the fabric :)

I changed the measurements in hope that it would fit my kiddo but it's STILL too big, in the neck strap (again!) mainly. And the pocket hit her knees. The size is about perfect for niece #2 who wears about a 4T.
And #3. I got smarter with the neck strap - I put Velcro on one end so that I could make it considerably shorter and still be able to fit it over her head.

She is complete with binky, bunny and juice! :) This one is my fave of the three. I promise, it's not crooked - It just looks that way in this picture.

1. It fits!
2. I paid attention while cutting the fabric so Dora was centered
3. I like the lace I added to the pocket and the arm holes. It gives it more of a finished look

These are all just a single piece of fabric with the edges turned over. I didn't pay a thing for any of them, so I didn't feel like going to the work of putting a backing on it. Although that would make it look that much nicer.
I will be giving these to 3 beautiful lil girls for Christmas, as they go along quite well with something Grandma is giving them ;) Shh! Don't tell Haddie she was trying on her Christmas present!
AND I have to show off my cute model, who will celebrate her 2nd birthday next week! Can you believe I have a 2 year-old?!

Purses! I Love Purses!!

My apologies! I know I said I'd post these pictures sooner rather than later but alas, time got away from me. I've been super busy lately! My mother-in-law's birthday was on Thanksgiving but we celebrated on Wednesday because this year was my family's year in our rotation (We alternate every-other year celebrating Thanksgiving with mine and Mark's families). So Wednesday morning I made a cake for her birthday, then took her to dinner that evening.
I made pecan pie before I headed to bed, as that was my food assignment for Thanksgiving. Then of course, Turkey Day! Part of that includes Kellie and I sitting down to make our shopping lists from the Black Friday ads.
Got home from Mom's at nearly 10 PM and got online browsing the online Black Friday deals. Finally around 2 AM I logged off and went to bed, only to wake up at 3:30 AM to go shopping with Mom and Kellie. YAY! I love Black Friday. We shopped all day. Seriously. 4:45 AM until 7 PM-ish. Exhaustion!! 1 hour of sleep was certainly not enough. So worth it, though.
So ever since then I've been working on getting my Christmas decorations out, which is a chore! I have a ton - I love decorating for Christmas.
Okay okay, onto my promised blog post! In all of the projects I've worked on lately, one of them included sewing a purse. Seriously, that's the hardest thing I've ever sewn. My skills are very limited. But I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!! Check out those pleats - who knew I could pull that off?!

The blurry picture doesn't do it justice. It's darling. Trust me. :) But it was a little too big for my taste, but Mark's mom liked it so it ended up being her birthday present.
I wanted to try making another one but smaller. So - here's my first attempt at altering a pattern. HO-LY cow, I managed that as well!

The only difference between the two is about 3" in the width. Much better!! So can I just tell you how much fun I've had sewing these? I would love to make like 10 more of them. But I've got a huge list of projects to get done, and I ran out of magnetic snaps so I can't make anymore til I make it to Joann's. Plus, I feel guilty making bunches of stuff for myself.

Next up: Little Girly Aprons!

Crafting In Progress - Do Not Disturb!

I'm SO on a roll here. Seriously, I think I'll be done with Christmas gifts before Thanksgiving! Okay not quite, but I've got a great start on it. I would show pictures, but my family reads this so I must refrain. I have taken pictures though so I can share after the holidays...trust me, I will. I'm totally in the Christmas spirit and I've decided to do mostly homemade gifts. Not just because money is tighter this year, but because I completely enjoy giving gifts that I've made myself. It gives me a sense of pride...I'm very humble, right? Haha!
So here are a couple things that I can share with you. I'm a sewing machine these days. Last year for Christmas I made microwaveable rice bags for everyone in my family. I seriously made 10 of them. And neglected to make one for myself, and I've needed a new one for a couple years now. So I splurged for myself:

Nothing terribly exciting or difficult skill-wise, but I'm personally excited about it.
I saw a tutorial for a plastic bag holder made out of a dishtowel. So Haddie and I made a trip to Dollar Tree and got this dishtowel that matches my kitchen.

I would have hemmed it so it wasn't quite so long but I didn't want to cut off the cute stripes on the bottom. So it will suffice, at least until I find another dishtowel that I like better. For now I love it, though!!
I've made some super cute purses and aprons this last week so those will be in my next post! Watch for them - They are darling! There goes my humility again :)

More Pillows

Remember my curtains from this post?

I've now finished my living room pillows to match them! I've had the material forever, and I even had 2 of them done other than closing up the stuffing hole. Then procrastination set in and they sat in my craft room for 2 months. I've had my sewing machine out lately for some projects I've been doing so I finally made myself finish them. Yay, more things to cross of my list!

Pillows

I have to pat myself on the back. I pulled out my sewing machine and sewed for the first time last night since middle school. Which means I was fairly clueless as to what I was doing :) But I figured it out, plus pillows really aren't that tough.

Here's one side of them:

And here's the other:

Freaking awesome, right? I seriously made them in like, 2 hours. Which I didn't think was bad, considering my expertise (or the lack thereof), I stuffed the crap out of them (I didn't want wussy pillows), and I had some sewing machine problems in the middle of it that took me awhile to figure out and then fix. They're bigger than the pictures make them look - they're just shy of being the same size as a standard pillow. I have 2 square pillows, one red and one dark blue, that these will go great with on my family room couch.

Here's a tile I made for the family room a month or so ago. I used my Cricut and Design Studio to cut the vinyl. Unless I decide differently later, it is going above my fireplace on the mantle. Yes, the 'F' is backwards, but I promise it's the font that did it, not me!

And just because I'm thrilled with all my new Americana decorations, you must endure a picture of it all together:

This is just the new stuff - I have lots of other stuff I've acquired over the last year or so, but it's already in place in the family room. For now - until I get my primer and paint and paint those ugly panel walls. Then I get to redecorate it all over again! Yay!