Fabric Hair Rollers

Here are the hair rollers I made using this tutorial. I made them a little differently because I thought my way of doing it was a bit easier. I will tell you what I did differently after I show you the pictures. I loved that I could use my fabric scraps for this project.

This is after she slept on them all night and are a little loose.

This is right after I took them out and sprayed them

From the front

I wish they made her hair curlier. I am not sure if her hair is just too long or what. There are some tips found here on how to use the rollers. I might try to find some of the same mousse that she uses to see if it makes a difference and wait for her hair to dry a little bit more. Also I think Wonder Woman Creations made her curlers a little bit smaller. If I ever do this again, I would like to make them smaller. I still think her hair turned out cute. I have actually used them on my hair and liked the way it turned out as well. It was soft and wavy.

For anyone interested, here is what I did differently from the tutorial mentioned above.

Once I had my piece cut out and folded in half longwise, I sewed all the way down the long end and across one short end instead of just sewing part way. I then flipped it right side out took my disappearing ink pen and marked 4" and stuffed it to that line and then sewed it on the line to seal in the stuffing. I kind of bunched it all up too as I was sewing across the line to get the gathered effect. Let's just call that lazy gathering.

I then ran all of my curlers through my serger to serge the raw ends. Yay for sergers! Alternatively, I would have folded in the the end and sewed it shut. Then I sewed on the button. To make the button end rounder I stuck my needle and thread into one corner and  then the other corner and pulled it tight bringing the corners in and making the end rounder. I then continued to sew the button to the center of that end.

To make the button hole (I actually like mine better horizontal) I folded my unstuffed end up towards the button and using my trusty disappearing ink pen I marked exactly where the button hole should go and because I used a lot of different sized buttons I made my mark the same length as the button so when I did my buttonhole on my sewing machine I knew exaclty where to start and stop. I hope that is understandable without pictures. Basically I just marked exactly where I needed my button hole to go and exactly how long it needed to be. Then I got my ol' seam ripper out and cut open my button hole. Tada! Pretty simple.

XO
Maren

Shirred Dress

This dress was made from the Zinna pattern from Kustom Kids Boutique which has now closed their doors. I like the dress but once again I am not a big fan of the fabrics I put together. I love the main fabric but I don't love how it looks with the blue here. Oh well. And I have to find some better elastic thread and redo some of the sewing on this dress because some of the elastic has already broken because I used some cheap-on-a-plastic-spool-kind of elastic thread. Don't make that mistake. If you are going to shirr, make sure you get the right kind of thread. See LeAnne's tutorial on shirring. She even has a great picture of the RIGHT kind of elastic thread. I also did another dress from the Kiera pattern also from Kustom Kids Boutique. It is basically the same thing except instead of a ruffle it has a contrasting band across the bottom and no tie. It turned out a lot cuter than this one, but I haven't taken a picture of it yet. I also have to redo some of the stitching on that one.  Shirring seiriously is ridiculously easy. You can pretty much make a dress like this in one afternoon. Check out LeAnne's Sweet Summer Dress Tutorial for a simple shirred dress, easy to change up however you like.

XO

Maren

September Challenge

Hi! It's Maren here and I am going to post our challenges for this month. I can't believe it is September already!!

I am so glad that Celia included LeAnne's Trick or Treat Tote in the challenge last month because that is on my list to do before Halloween. I was scrolling through some of her tutorials and remembered that she also had a cute felt Halloween banner which would be another fun Haloweeny thing to whip up for a decoration this Halloween season.

Since I have girls I am going to post a few links of some girly things that I have been working on or that I have been thinking about working on. They are great for either the little girls in your life or for yourself.

First: Fabric Hair Rollers from Life with Monkey. Have you ever tried those pink foam ones. Well check out this little girl's hair using rollers from this tutorial. WAAAY better results. I think I will be wearing these to bed.

Second: Shirring. I have been hit by the shirring bug. And I have LeAnne to thank for this! She did a tutorial for a cute little summer dress and tipped me off on some patterns that were for sale on etsy. I manged to snag a few patterns before the shop closed forever and I really have enjoyed them. I'll post more about them later. I think that LeAnne did a great job with her dress tutorial and the great thing about shirring is it is so easy and so cute and so versatile. You can add wide hems of coordinating fabric, ruffles, different types of sleeves. wider strips for cap sleeves, ribbons, spaghetti straps etc. You can even make a top for yourself as well!

 LeAnne also did a great tutorial on shirring. I am so glad that she included a picture of what the elastic thread should look like. Months before I started shirring I picked up some elastic thread at JoAnns because I knew at some point I wanted to give it a try. My thread was on a plastic spool. I kept hearing that it has to be on a cardboard one. I went back to JoAnns to find the stuff that I needed and could NOT find it. I even asked someone and they were pretty clueless as to what I was even talking about. The label on the thread I got said it was meant for shirring so I used it. And it worked. However, The first day my daughter wore her dress I noticed that some of the thread broke and now I will have to go back and do it again! Not Fun. So I will be finding another way to get the proper elastic thread. Just a word to the wise.

Third: I have really been wanting to make my oldest daughter some cute flower hairclips/headbands to wear to preschool. I love these kinds of projects because they don't take a lot of time and you can make a whole bunch in one sitting. Here are a few tutorials. These flowers can be used for anything - brooch, clip for a purse or bag, gift topper etc. No sewing machine necessary! (sorry I was not able to get any of the pictures up - but go ahead and click. You won't be sorry)

Felt Peony
Felt Flower - the scalloped roll method
Felt Flower - the glue method (love the button center)
Satin Flowers - the candle method - I soooo want to do this one
Rolled Fabric Flower
Fabric and Paper flower roudup from Little birdie secrets -I love the painted newspaper flowers. It would be a fun one to do with  kids to give away to someone special (Mother's day, Valentines day, birthdays etc)


 Recipe: Triple Layer Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love fall desserts and I love this one. I made this on a couple of different occasions. Once for my son's first birthday and now that I have an October birthday I think I am going to make it for my baby's first birthday next month. It is very yummy. I have done it with three layers, but it would also be yummy as cupcakes or made in a regular old cakepan. Delish!

XO

Maren

July Challenges

Seasonal: 4th of July

Yes, yes. It's a bit late to do anything too intricately crafty for the 4th, but it will be here archived for next year if you're interested.

Lots of fun and easy 4th of July crafts to do with kids by No Time for Flashcards



Wooden Liberty Wall art by Knock-off Wood


Self/House: Chore & Routine Charts
Lots of ideas at Tip Junkie and even more ideas from Tip Junkie
Morning routine chart by Living Locurto
And though it's summertime, I wanted to include the after school routine chart to have it in the same place...


Kids: Road trip survival

Kid's travel pillow by Maya Made



Neck pillow by Make it and Love it



Travel bag with car games and item list for an enjoyable road trip by Prepared NOT Scared!




Recipe Recommendation: The Best Buttermilk Banana Bread by Mel's Kitchen Cafe


This stuff is seriously yummy. I've done it with wheat flour, half wheat flour, reduced sugar, and with some applesauce subbing for some of the banana when I only had one brown one, and all of the variations have turned out delicious.

If you want it to be extra yummy, instead of flouring the pan, dust it with sugar. Matt said it made it way better and I agree!

June Challenges

Seasonal: Father's day
Dad rocks plaque (a fun craft kids can help with. You don't have to actually make a plaque, but you could paint rocks/make a rock family or rock dad paper weight and have a card that says Dad Rocks)

Oragami shirt card
Retro labels to go on a gift he actually wants

Self: Make it, wear it challenge at Sew Mama Sew

If you make an item of clothing this month and submit a photo of it to Sew Mama Sew's photo pool (follow link above for more details), you have the chance to win a new sewing machine. I've been wanting to make some skirts since my church attire is severely lacking, so here are a few skirt ideas:
5 minute skirt
Bohemian skirt
Jeans refashioned to skirt
Tiered (girls' or womens') skirt

Kids:
Crocheted Amigurumi Critters
The first is not actually a tutorial, but it has pics of the other creatures you can make. Get the free patterns (and a lot of other free crochet patterns) from Lion Brand after signing up for their site.

Recipe recommendation: Flour Tortillas
Per Lisa Wheat Flour Tortillas
Per Celia A better (white) flour tortilla
(The second is an improvement on my old flour tortilla recipe that I used for 8 years. I combined mine with another recipe and the texture is much better than my original. I imagine you can use wheat flour, though I haven't tried it.)

*tip to making tortillas: if your dough is too elastic and keeps shrinking back in, cover it with a cloth and let it rest 5 min. Come back and try again.*

May Challenges

Seasonal: Mother's Day

See April's challenge for links and ideas for presents.
Free customizable Mother's Day card print outs


Self: Reduce Recipe Clutter
Recipe cheat sheet (another found here)
Essentially puts the ingredients of your "go-to" recipes on one sheet

30 Meal Plan
Step by step directions to finding 30 meals your family loves and getting them all in one place for easier shopping, menu planning, and pantry stocking

Everyday Meals
(you have to register and enter in your recipes online, but once you do that you can easily create menus and it will calculate and create grocery lists for you)

Kid: Prepping for pre-school
Basically the challenge is to find, print out, and organize activities for your preschool aged children. Here are some sites you might find helpful.
Letter of the week
File folder games
ABCTeach
Learning Page
Kidzone
If you're feeling really ambitious, you can build a Kid's Picnic Table or a Bigger Kid's Picnic Table

Recipe Recommendation: Dough-ntcha wanna try some?
Tried and true: Vanilla Pudding Cinnamon Rolls

These are divine. I've made tons of recipes of cinnamon rolls, but this is the best I've made yet. I've also used this recipe for orange rolls and used lemon pudding (since I didn't have vanilla pudding in my cupboard).

Something old: Wheat Bread (good enough for sandwiches)

Something new: Ezekiel Bread
What is Ezekiel Bread? According to info barrel, "The bread itself was said to be a recipe given to Ezekiel from god while his people were under siege and he was forced to live in the desert for two years. The bread is said to be nutritionally complete, containing more protein

than your standard wheat bread."

Their recipe is found here.

This recipe from Urban Simplicity looks superior, but it's more involved and takes longer than the other recipe.

Montessori Apron Modified

I had always intended on making Bella a full apron but when I saw this tutorial I couldn't pass up. That is the apron I posted here. Anyways, so I thought I would delay making her a full apron. However, one evening before Easter when I was working in the kitchen I told the kids to go grab their aprons so they could help me. Bella so badly wanted to wear Buddy's apron. She loves being able to put it around her neck. She cried and cried when I told her that it was for Buddy. I promised that I would make one for her as well and we pulled out my fabric stash and chose some fabric.




The week before Easter I tried to sneakily work on the girl's Ruby Lou dolls but if Bella caught me at the sewing machine she would say "Are you working on my apron?" I would say "yes". I know, I totally lied. So after Easter I knew I had to whip that baby up. I knew I wanted a full apron and I knew I wanted it girly with ruffles and cute pockets but I kept coming back to the Montessori pattern. I love it! So I adjusted it a little to make it more girly. I rounded the edges, added a ruffle kind of like in the half apron I used before, and added two cute pockets. I have had my eye on this market skirt pattern for quite awhile because I LOVE the pockets on it. So I tried to make some pockets similar to the ones in the skirt pattern. I love the two buttons and the green ric rack ribbon on the pockets. And like I said before, my kids need pockets. I also love how vintagey this apron feels with the red and white gingham and the yellow floral.




Needless to say Bella loves it and wears it all the time. And I am getting even more help in the kitchen!




XO
Maren

April Challenges

Seasonal Crafts: Mother's Day

This blog is all about homemade bath products and is a great place for ideas. She has a cool tutorial for whipped shea butter and a new post on lip gloss. She also lists places you can buy things like essential oil and all that stuff.

This is a cool site for the the advantages of handmade lipbalms with some recipes. It is a project that is easy enough to do with kids

Vanilla lip balm, hand/feet scrub, facial mask

Bath salts

A few more fun bath recipes



Self (and possibly child) Craft: Refashioning and Publish Something

Here are almost 30 posts on the Make it and Love it blog on repurposing. She has dresses, skirts, shirts, leggings, pants and stuffed animals for boys and girls

The ever popular men's shirt-to-little-girl-dress
button up the back with ruffle (seriously cute!)
Made did two versions here and here
Two super cute jumpers, love the first one especially here and here

This girls shirt is so darling and it is made from an old men's t-shirt

I can't wait to make this cute ruffle skirt from an old tee.

And for the boys a sweater vest and boxer shorts!

Sorry, most of these are for kids! There are lot of ideas online for refashioning or embelishing clothes and blogs that are dedicated to refashioning alone. If you want to make clothes last longer, tweak them to your liking etc etc, give refashioning a try. It really is pretty fun and the possibilities are endless. I have started looking at our wardrobes in a new light. I think twice before I throw anything out or give it away.
------------------------------------------------

Blurb books and Lulu.com are great places to self publish. They produce high quality books of all sorts (photos, cookbooks, family history, journals, you think it up and you can print it up!) for a reasonable price. I've done two books through blurb so far and am in the middle of my third!


Child Craft: Quilts
I love myself some Crazy Mom Quilts.
She no longer blogs (so sad!), but her blog is still up and she has some wonderful ideas and tutorials for modern quilts. If you need ideas for the actual quilt, head to her site.

Straight line quilting tutorial


Free motion quilting tutorial video

Binding tutorial


Doll quilt tutorial

Grid quilting tutorial


Recipe Recommendations:
Resurrection Rolls (Easy Easter cooking with Kids)

Crash hot potatoes

These are delicious. I also made them with sweet potatoes, and I almost think I liked the sweet potatoes better (though the red were quite delicious too!). Oh, and I used crushed dried rosemary because I didn't have fresh handy. To make sweet potatoes I just peeled them, chunked them into big pieces (about the size of the red potatoes, maybe a little larger since the tend to cook faster than regular potatoes) and boiled them with the red potatoes till they were fork tender. Then I followed her directions after that. YUM! It was a nice, new way to have potatoes.

Maren's Bunny Baskets

I'm finally finished with my bunny baskets. I used this scrap fabric basket tutorial for the construction. I wanted it to be bigger though so I made it bigger. I figured out how big to cut my main squares and then how big to cut the corners. It is really simple to figure out how big you want to make it. I wanted my basket to be 7" so I multiplied that by three (bottom and two sides x the desired length/height - 7" in this case). So I cut a 21" square and cut my corner squares 6 1/2". Anyways, not that I needed to explain all that, but it took me a couple of minutes to figure it out so I thought I would share.

I also opted for long floppy ears to tie up to be used as the handles. I saw that idea last year and LOVED it so I thought I would give it a whirl. Unfortunately I bookmarked it on my old computer and can not find it anywhere online.

Things I would do differently. One. My interfacing is not nearly as stiff as I would like it to be. I tried to find just the right thickness but could not find it at my JoAnns. I should have done two layers of the interfacing for this size. Two. Try linen. I LOVE the look of linen and am starting to look for it in the remnant section every time I am at the fabric store. I would have loved to have done some in gray too.





Now for headbands!!!

XO
Maren

March Challenges

Seasonal craft
Easter/spring day baskets and/or eggs: Tutorials and inspiration

Square basket
Bunny Basket
Another Bunny Basket
Patchwork basket
Fabric covered eggs

Self Craft
Reversible Head band

Child Craft

Embellished onsies for girls
Tie onesies or shirts for boys

Recipe Recommendation

Oatmeal Pancake Mix
This came from one of my favorite food blogs. I made this up this week for the first time and it was great. Makes pancakes a piece of cake...hehe...on a busy morning. I stored the mix in my fridge. It makes a lot, so I suggest if you're not sure you'll like them, cut the recipe in half. I do think they're better with buttermilk as opposed to the half yogurt/half milk combo. I tried it both ways. Since I always forget to buy buttermilk I did as she suggested and bought a large thing of buttermilk and am freezing it in one cup freezer cups.

Clumpy Granola Celia Style

This is my third or fourth time making this granola. Every time I do something a little different, but try and keep the proportions the same (i.e. substitute 1 cup of walnuts for 1 cup of pecans).

This time my final recipe ended up with a walnut substitution for pecans since I didn't have any pecans on hand. I had whole almonds that I did a rough chop on . I added a little splash of coconut extract (but still used vanilla) and OH YUM!! I also substituted wheat germ for the sunflower seeds. In one batch I put in some dried fruit the last 15 min. of cooking. It's good, but definitely not necessary. You can always add it after, too. It didn't really get incorporated into the clump during baking. I put it in a gallon bag so you could see about how much it makes. The bag is open in the picture because I kept on snacking...

This is a little on the sweet side, so you can reduce the brown sugar a little. I did that the second time I made it. Still turned out yummy, but not clumpy since the sugar helps bind it all.

Tool Belt and Tag Blankets

I finished Dean's tool belt and three tag blankets last night. I made a few minor modifications (can I make anything without doing this??? maybe it's my way of feeling like I've created something on my own...). I liked the idea of the velcro strap from the aprons so he could put it on himself, so I widened the strap a little and did velcro. I added his name using this template for the letters. I used fray check on the edges of the letters. I tried doing the no-sew iron on stuff, but it didn't stick well in some areas, probably because of the fray check. So I did end up sewing the letters after I took this picture.

When I asked Matt what he thought he said, "Nice craftsmanship, but it doesn't look like a tool belt! You need leather looking material." So, maybe one day I'll make a "real" tool belt instead of this "cutesy" monster one. If I do make another, I'll probably shorten the hammer loop a little.

Maren's Card Organizer

Yay! I'm finally finished with my card organizer. Well, almost. I will need to buy or make envelopes at some point. I went with the binder route although I liked Celia's idea of the accordian file.



In the binder I included a birthday calander and list of addresses. I have all of our family birthdays listed on my wall calander so I know when they are coming up but I like having them all written down in one place so when I sit down to make cards they are right in front of me. I also included some notes on what sizes to cut the cards and paper to go on top of cards.

It took me awhile to get into the grove since I haven't really made a lot of cards before, but once I got started and found the best size I was able to really go to town and I think I made over 30 cards - enough for the whole year! I followed Celia's advice on card sizes (folding an 8.5x11 in half and then cutting it in half).

I am soooo glad I did this project because I am normally pretty good at getting birthday cards out, or at least I try to be pretty good at it, but I have hated spending the $2-$5 on each card. In the last year or so I decided I wanted to make cards because I figured it would save a lot of money. Over the past year I bought an acrylic stamp set at Costco, a couple of those scrapbooking paper pads, cardstock, and my favorite - I found double sided cardstock with matching border trims at Sam's Club, all with the intent to start making my own cards. It probably sounds a little overboard, but over the next year I will have made up that in cost by making my own cards plus I will have the stamps and paper to make cards for the next several years! And it was a lot of fun!



For some cards I just used double sided cardstock, but I think my favorites are the plain colored cardstock with scrapbook paper. I found that one piece of scrapbook paper can be used for several cards.



Here is the original link.

XO
Maren

Jessica's been sewing!

These are the tool belts I made.  I think I'll present them for a spring day basket (Easter weekend) and I want to put some thing cute in the pockets, but I'm not sure what yet.  I am thinking about making it a cleaning belt and putting a duster on the side where the hammer goes, etc.  Any other ideas?

I also followed Maren's idea of a double sided skirt.  It was so fun and simple to make and my almost 4 yr. old has worn hers 4 days straight now (she does switch sides each day though).  I know it needs to be washed, but its just so fun to see her appreciate and enjoy it.  My 2 year old loves hers but has a hard time with spilling and is in the final stages of potty training.  I think skirts are a good idea for potty training girls b/c they're so easy to pull up and down, but girls that age aren't aware of appropriate behavior in dresses, so I'll probably have her wear shorts underneath anyway.  I'm planning on making them each another one for spring day too, only the next one will have sparkles.  wowzer!

Celia's Card Organizer

I'm not 100% finished, but I have the majority done. Some of Matt's are going to be store bought "funny" cards, and I haven't bought those yet.

Here's what I think will work best for me and my organizational personality.

An accordion file folder labeled "blank" and Jan-Dec.



In the front I have one sheet of paper (printed up in word without anything fancy) that has all of the birthdays and events.

In the blank slot I have thank you cards and unclaimed birthday cards (in envelopes) so I can easily grab and send them if something arises.

In each month slot I have a card inside an unsealed, addressed, and soon to be stamped envelope for anyone with a birthday I chose to send a card to (mainly brothers and sisters and parents with a few in-laws and nephews on Matt's side...my side there are just too many people to send a card for every birthday!).

Then on google calendar I typed in each birthday and set it to send me an email the week before the birthday so I remember to drop it in the mail so they get it on time.

Hopefully I can get my Christmas cards made early in the year too and add it to this. I'm just all papered out to do it right now.

About 2 years ago I went through a paper crafting phase and bought quite a few double sided cardstock sheets on sale. Shortly after I bought them I switched to fabric and haven't done anything paper since!! I tried to keep them all simple with similar elements so I didn't have to think too much. But because I was using up what I had, they don't all match exactly. Here are a few of the cards I made. (inside the bird one it says "happy bird-day")