Little Girl Tutus

Here is a project I finished today. I made a tutu for Haddie for Halloween but she wouldn't wear it - little stinker. But my sister wanted tutus for her 2 girls so I told her rather than teach her, I wanted to make them for Christmas for them.
This is Kambri's:

And this is Hollie's:

I had to borrow little one's bear as a model, as she wouldn't cooperate to model herself.
I had seen a tutorial somewhere online but kinda overlooked it. Til my wonderful friend Tiffany told me I HAD to make one because they're cheap and easy. So we decided to get together one day to do them. One day turned into a week, then my whole family got sick so that turned into a month. Well, I wanted Haddie to have it for Halloween so I finally had to just get the info from her. Here are two tutorial links she sent me:

See Jane Scrapbook Halloween Tutu

KSL Studio 5 Tutorial

I mostly used the Studio 5 one. It was more detailed and easier to follow. Plus the lady gave you variations on doing them, which I loved!
The best way to tie the tulle on is with a slip knot instead of a regular knot, just FYI. It is much quicker and it covers the elastic waistband a little better.
2 more Christmas presents DONE!

Decorating Birthday Cakes

This my 3rd ever decorated cake. She's not gorgeous, but I'm not complaining. I've never taken a class or anything - it's just been a learn-as-I-go kind of thing. I have tons of fun with it, even though it admittedly takes me hours to decorate a cake haha!

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!

Decoupage Gifts

I have had these two projects on my To-Do List forever! And they're finally done :)
This is a shelf my mom gave me when I was an early teen. It was plain, unfinished wood. It has sat unused for years because I didn't know what to do with it. I finally decided to finish it for Haddie's room. I spray-painted it white and originally tried sponging pink paint onto the 3 raised hearts. That wasn't working very well so I decided to decoupage scrapbook paper onto them. I followed it with 2 coats of clear acrylic sealer. It is now ready for use!

These letters I originally bought while pregnant with Haddie. They were plain white and I sponged a different color of pastel paint on each one - pink, green and yellow. They matched her Care Bear bedding and decorations. I've decided that they needed to be re-vamped because I plan to re-decorate Haddie's room. I decoupaged the same scrapbook paper used on the shelf onto these letters and sprayed sealer on them as well.
My camera sucks so the color is distorted. The 'a' is beige, 'd' is dark pink and the 'e' is light pink. The stripes and the 'y' are actually brown, not green. (Seriously need a new camera!)

I want to get a Dora The Explorer toddler bedding set for Christmas for li'l miss. She's thisclose to climbing out of her crib, so we'll be moving into a 'big girl bed' soon. So call me tacky (regifter!), but I'm giving these letters and shelf to Haddie for Christmas as well for her new bedroom.