Keepin' busy...

Although I haven't been good at posting for quite a while...we've still been keeping ourselves busy. Thought I'd do a whole post just on all the stuff I've been sewing on the last couple months. I'll catch you up on the kids and some of the stuff that's been going on around here in some future posts (and I promise not to make you wait too long).

I've made a couple totes over the last couple of months.

 This purple and teal tote I made for my friend. She got the fabric and I just put it together. I love how it turned out! If you wanna make one of these yourself you can find the instructions here.

 A cute little tote. Just the right size for date night! And I love the pockets on the outside. Instructions for this one here. I'll be posting more about this little bag in a later post.

 Nathan decided he needed a satchel like Flynn Rider from Tangled. How could I refuse that? So I pulled out some of Chris's old work jeans and this is what I came up with. No pattern, just did it as I went.

And a new bag for me! Found the instructions here. Only thing I wish I'd done was make the handles longer...other then that. Love it!

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Some sewing for Audrey...

A little summer dress made with some cute bunny fabric. Bought the fabric for $1 a yard and the buttons came from my mom. Love making stuff for pretty much nothing. 

A cute little dress made from some of my favorite fabrics. I just LOVE the cherry fabric. So summery and cheerful! Not quite finished here. Needed some lace on the bottom.

 

 And of course had to make some matching bows/flowers for her hair!

Here's my cute Audrey wearing the finished dress. She doesn't look so happy in this picture, but was really excited to put the dress on when I showed it to her.

Made some jammies for her for the summer. Can anyone guess what I used???? It's a vintage sheet I bought at the DI for $2.00. Made 2 sets of these jammies with enough let to make at least 2 more if I wanted to. I'm planning on making me some sleep shorts to match. :)

 And a little wallet for the little girl. She picked out the fabrics, that's why there's puppy and fishes.

The outside.

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A little mix of different things I've done recently.

 3 matching afghans. A friend in my ward had triplets and so made her matching afghans for them. She had 2 girls and 1 boy. So cute! Love the pattern used. Will definitely be making more of those.

 For Father's Day I decided to make Chris a little something...did some applique and a little freezer paper stenciling. Chris thought I bought it, so I guess I did good. :)

 Made a CTR towel for my nephew that got baptized. Love how it turned out. Gonna make more of those too. Instructions here.

 An oven mitt...a Christmas present for my brother and SIL.

And some necklaces for my cute nieces.

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And last...but not least, some new quilt blocks....

 Bow tie blocks.

 Starflower.

and the Rail Fence.

I've made other stuff too, but that's all the pictures of stuff I could find!

Sorry that was so long. Come again soon, I'll be posting again...I promise!

Things I wanna make...but not til next year!

So, I've been seeing some really cute things that I REALLY want to make, but seeing as how we are getting ever closer to Christmas and I have other things I am working on...I will not be making these things this year. I thought maybe some of you who do read this might be interested in seeing some seriously cute stuff that you too might want to make for Christmas next year. So here they are...

Really cute finger puppets, found here.

Or how about these cute reindeer gift tags/ornaments.

I also think these flower ornaments are pretty cute too. 

I'm gonna get me some power tools so I can make me some of these cute things.

I do need a cute wreath, or two, or three. Ok, it looks like there are four wreaths I've been looking at! Guess I'll make one for every room. I am SURE I have enough scraps to make the wallhanging!

A little something for the kitchen table, some reversible place mats. I like that these could be made for any holiday depending on what color you use! 

Since I'm taking you to places with stuff that I want to make, how about I show you something I did make! I decided the kids needed some cute T's and had a few ideas, but when I saw this I knew what I would do.

I LOVE being able to make things with stuff I have on hand. The T's have been kickin' around for a couple months and I had the felt on hand from other projects. 

For Audrey's I added a bow and a cute button that I had bought for 'something' who knows when.

 And to jazz up Nathan's, added a little bow and button around Rudolph's neck.

I LOVE how they turned out!

Of course I'll also need some new ideas to make the kids some cute holiday shirts.I think these might do. 

And how about some simple Christmas tree bows for a cute little girls hair.

Yep, cute stuff! Better get busy early next year. :)

Feelin' Crafty...

I've been feeling like I needed to do some sewing but didn't really want to since I had a curtain that I had been needing to finish since July. I finally decided to finish it and get it out of my house and so worked on it this last Monday and handed it off to it's owner on Tuesday. Now that that was off my list of "to do's" I felt like I could craft/sew again for me and my kiddos.
I had Wednesday off to get prepared for Thanksgiving and while Audrey took her nap, Nathan and I got to work on making 2 paper chains (one for each) to start counting down to Christmas. I figured with these being so visual it would help them better to know how long they have to wait for Santa.

I had also been blog hopping and saw a really cute turkey barrette and decided that Audrey had to have one! Luckily I had everything...well almost...that I needed. Only thing missing are some googly eyes, but I still think it turned out darn cute! If you want to make one for next year go here.

Then this morning we woke up to it snowing...and it hasn't stopped all day. I found instruction a while ago for some cute winter hats here and decided that since they're gonna need to keep their ears warm I'd better make them quick. Nice thing was they really were a quick sew up and both kids really seem to love them.
Of course Audrey loves dino's just as much as Nathan does, so they both got dinos! So cute!! I LOVE how they turned out.
Trying to figure out what the spiky things are on top of her head...

 Daddy distracted her on this pic so I could get a side view. Love her little smile!

I made Audrey's first since I wasn't sure if it would fit Nathan too and could make his bigger if needed. When I went to make his he decided he wanted green with yellow spiky's. I said "I can do that!" and then he 'patiently' waited for me to get his finished.

And can I tell you how much I love to do projects when I don't have to buy anything new! I had the green and yellow left over from Nathan's first Halloween costume (he was a dino, go figure). And the pink and purple for Audrey's came from Grandma Johnson's on one of my trips to visit. I had forgotten all about the pink and purple, I was going to make hers red but I'm glad that I found it!

Wonder what other things I can get to work sewing. I think I'll work on some UFO's (unfinished objects) that I can finish up for Christmas this year! We'll see what I can get done. I'll keep ya posted!

Fun with friends...

So this year I decided to do something fun for the kids and throw a little kids party for them and some of their friends. I probably got a little carried away with some of the stuff, but the kids all seemed to enjoy themselves. We had the party for them the weekend before Halloween, October 23rd.

Here's the invitations I made...

I also made some candy pretzels...

 And some gift bags...

For the party, the kids decorated picture frames and made masks (didn't get pics of the masks)...

We played a beanbag toss game. I got the instruction here if you want to make one next year...

Also played Pin the Heart on the Skeleton (he's a nice skeleton)...

And decorated sugar cookies (should have got a better pic of all the candy they had piled on them)...

They also had a lot of fun dancing around to the music that I had playing. 

Here's the gang...

Kingston, Nathan, Sydney, Whitney, Tali and Audrey.

I also wanted to show the decorations I had up. I saw somewhere (can't remember where) someone had done silhouettes of some Halloween shapes. I thought it would be fun to replace the kids photos on the mantel and put up pictures to represent them Halloween style...

 Not sure if we'll do another one next year (it's a lot of work) or not, but glad that I decided to throw one this year for them.

At it again...

I've been doing some more sewing lately and it's been pretty fun. I found a cute little dress pattern that I decided would make some cute dresses and nightgowns for Audrey and so bought some cute light weight fabric, it's called tutti fruitti, and made her 2. Same fabric just did them opposite. I love how the turned out and I'll probably be making some more soon.

The shoulder straps are a little bit so I might have to tweek them a little, but other then that, they turned out great 

(at least I think so).

I also finished a couple more pairs of shorts for Nathan to wear to bed. Here he is modeling them off. He doesn't want to stand still lately when I pull out the camera, he's a little goofy.

He really likes his shorts, they are also tutti fruitti with little fishies on them. Nathan really likes them, just don't tell him half his fish swim upside down (OOPS!!).

If you sew for kids and haven't used tutti fruitti before, it's really cute fabric. I love it! It's really soft and they are cute and bright colors. I've even got some more pieces to sew with. Yay! Unfortunately they don't always have stuff to use for boys so I was really happy to find the cute fish fabric.

So I'm off to work on some more sewing. I've got some things to finish in the next 3 weeks before Audrey's birthday at the end of the month. I'll fill you in when I've completed more!

Look who's 4...

Nathan turned 4 on March 17th. Yep, St. Patrick's Day. 

Here's my boy showing you how old he is...

For his birthday I made some rainbow cupcakes to take the day of his birthday to daycare. They turned out so cute! After dinner that night, Nathan got to pick and he chose McDonald's or 'Donald's' in Nathan terms, we had a little family party with the 4 cupcakes that were left. 

I found the instructions for the cupcakes from the Family Fun magazine, which is a really fun magazine with lots of cute kids craft ideas. I think they turned out great, although they were a little time consuming to make.

 Audrey enjoying her cupcake. This is her "cheese" face. She give it when the camera is pointed her direction and then says cheese. 

 Friday I took the day off and the kids, Grandma Johnson and I were planning on going to the zoo. Too bad it was too cold. Someone suggested going to the Museum of Natural History up at the University and since they had a dinosaur display...that's where we went.

 

 

 

The kids had lots of fun...until Audrey got tired. They both fell asleep on the way home. 

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For Nathan's birthday party on the 20th, Nathan asked for a Bumblebee cake (Transformers). I looked on line to see what I could find and....um, no. Much too difficult. I did find an Optimus Prime cake pan, but my sister suggested doing the Transformers logo. So that's what I did. 

Nathan seemed please with it, but keeps asking for an Awesomus Prime cake. Maybe next year. :)

Here's Nathan with his cake.

 And Audrey checking it out too. There's that cheese face again!