Pretty in Pink

What little girl doesn't love dress up? Young or old, putting on a pretty dress, or skirt makes anyone feel special! Recently we were invited to a special little girls 3rd birthday party, so I attempted to make a petal skirt for her to play dress up in. I found a cute gittery pink satin fabric and pared it with two shades of pink tulle. For some finishing touches, I put pink rose petals in the skirt, ruffled the top, added a ribbon tie and a cute little pink butterfly. The gift was complete with a pink feather tiara!

I loved how it turned out and I think this little skirt has a proud new owner who will get a lot of use out of it! Don't you just wish you were young and could play dress up in this! Let me know what you think!

-LindzRay

Top 11 for 2011

Better late than never! I have a hard time making things for me and my family to enjoy. I often like to make things for others only. So here is a list of project that do not plan to leave my house!

Goal: complete all these projects (along with gifts for others) by the end of 2011!

1. Dinning room chair cushions
2. Gathered Clutch (like the Christmas gifts below)
3. Suit Clutch (like the one shown below but with a real suit)
4. Living room dog bed of Kona Bear
5. Clothes for Ms. Kon
6. Halloween costume for Kona (theme yet to be decided)
7. Duvet cover for guest bedroom
8. Surfer quilt (already started)
9. Suit pillows for guest bedroom
10. Curtains for sewing room
11. Cushion cover and pillows for day bed Coop will build

I think I that should be enough to keep me busy! Pictures to come!

-LindzRay

More Baby Gifts!

I recently was invited to a family friend's baby shower and I wanted to make something special for the mom-to-be. I bought the onsies from Babies-R-Us and found some cute animal shapes off line and a flower from a sewing book I had for the appliqué. One stop at JoAnn's and 2 night of work and I was done! it was a fun, easy and successful project. 

-Lindz

Christmas Crafts

I thought it would be a great idea to make all my gifts for friends and family for the holidays this year. Fun at first, but after countless trips to Target and JoAnns, 15+ wreaths, and 5 purses later, I started to question my 'great' idea! Don't get me wrong, I still made them all in love and enjoyed each moment, just wished I didn't commit to so much for one holiday! So here they are, 15 (I think it was more like 17) wreaths, and 5 clutch purses (thanks to noodlehead blog). I made 3 wreaths for my house, and have plans to make a purse or two for myself! Thanks to the supply of my dad, I will be able to make a true suite purse that I have had my eye on from here: http://diaryofacraftaholic.blogspot.com/2010/02/suit-coat-clutch-tutorial.html He was nice enough to donate 4-5 nice name brand suits to my craft supply! Pictures to come as that is on my list of to-dos!

-Lindz

Letters

Better late than never! Here is Tristan's first Christmas present from Aunt Lindz and Uncle Coop. I love it when letters are hung all the wall (though we do not have anything like that in our home)...but I think it is really cute when letters are hung in a baby's nursery. So I thought this would be something that no matter where it was put it would be a great addition to Tristan's room for many years to come. How I did it...well I wanted to do fabric covered ones, as I thought I would find them in natural wood. To my surprise, I was able to get white letters, so I went with fun scrapbook paper to cover the front, then I pinned ribbon to the back for them to hook onto the wall. It was a fun project and didn't take that long to do!

-Lindz

Baby Bear

I decided to start a tradition for Cooper and I. Each time we become an Aunt and Uncle, the little one's birthday present will be a stuffed animal from us. Even though my husband didn't cut the fabric, sew and stuff the bear, he had just as much of hand in it with his ideas and amazing sounding board when I wanted to scream. This is my first bear and lets just say I learned a lot along the way! First off there is such a thing as embroidery thread and I can see why the patterned called for it! I started with a thin thread for the eyes. After spending 2 hours on the eyes (one hour per eye) I was about the throw the thing across the room! I then re-read the directions and began to wonder what this embroidery thread was that they talked about. After I found out and used the new tread, I can only laugh at my stupidity! Not to say the free hand stitching the eyes, nose and mouth there easy, but less time consuming that's for sure! I learned to read and understand the directions and pattern better after 'messing' up yet again. I forgot to leave an opening in the back just as the directions called for, so I was left to leave it on the side of the bear under the arm. Well I can see why they wanted it on the back, the fabric stretched too much under the arm and I was afraid it would tear. That is where Cooper came up with the great idea of the 'patch'. I then stitched by hand a little tag with the baby's name (Tristan), his birth date and 'Love, Aunt Lindz & Uncle Coop'. Turned out great! The bear is now sitting in Tristan's crib in AZ. It is a little bigger than him though so he will have to grow into the bear!



-LindzRay

'Knock off wood'

If you know me you know I am all about ways to save money. I thrive on when I can find a similar look for less, or make something for cheaper. One of my latest crafts was inspired from a visit to VonMaur. I thought these tulip wood 'pictures' would look great in the vision I have for my new sewing room. Only down fall is they were on sale for $48 a piece! I thought 3 of them would look great, but I was not about to buy them.

This is where my craftiness and savings came in. The break out of mine are below:

Wood: FREE - Found 3 boards and 3 blocks of wood in our garage
Paper for Tulip: FREE - I used to be obsessed with scrapbooking, I still had a good stash
Twine: FREE - I used twine that came around a rug we got from World Market.
Paint: $6 - $2 per small sample container from Lowe's sale section.

So as you can see mine are not exactly the same, I guess I didn't get the shape of the flower the same, and completely forgot about the tan rectangle, but I guess that is what makes mine unique. Total dollars saved $138! Now if I would just hang them on the wall!

-LindzRay