Stroller Blanket

Necessity is the mother of invention. - Plato

And a stroller blanket, I believe, is a necessity.  I came up with this little blanket because I hate picking the blanket up off the ground and putting it back on the baby (yuck!). Maddy seems to be a little kicker and is good at kicking her blanket off every ten steps.  However I can't let her go blanketless or else her legs would fry in the Southern Utah sun.  Anyways, I made this while the girls were down for a nap.  If anyone wants to make one let me know and I'll give you the dimensions and such.  Yay for an easy and useful project!

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Anniversary Present

This was my anniversary present to Justin.  It's a scrapbook called "100 Things I Love About You."  After about 70 my things that I love about him got a little creative, but I made it to 100.  This wasn't the easiest thing to do with a three year old and a three month old around, but I'm glad that I did it because he loved it, and even got a little teary eyed.  It was nice to let him know that the little things that he does for me don't go unnoticed.  The album is a 5x7 one that I picked up at Roberts and then I made and saved the pages in photoshop and had them printed at Costco.   I thought we were on a budget this month so I was trying to be all creative and thoughtful with his present and then he goes all out and buys me this.  I love it, but I feel like such a spoiled brat.  But not so spoiled that I'm going to return it or anything.  There are soo many fun projects than can be made on this baby, I can't wait to get started. 

Bean Bags

Sometimes the simplest games are the funnest.   I got this super squeezy-easy tutorial off of this blog. It's not like I really need instructions on how to sew a square, but her top-stiching idea is good because then you don't have to hand sew the opening shut.  I made the bean bags yesterday while Macey was at the dentist and then when she got home I showed her how you stand behind the line (the line being legos) and then toss them into a bucket.  Well, she thought it was funner to toss them NEXT to the bucket, just to be difficult.  Maybe today she will throw them INTO the bucket.   I don't know what to do with that kid sometimes. . . .

Teaching My Girls

We've always done some sort of family home evening on Monday nights, but it usually involves DOING something rather than LEARNING about something because of Maceys short attention span.  Last Sunday in church the talk, Mothers Teaching Children in the Home was retold and it reminded me that it is MY responsibility to teach my girls.  I knew that before but for some reason the way the talk was told it really hit me.  So from here on out I plan on preparing a spiritual lesson for our family home evenings and maybe once a month doing a fun activity.  These pictures are from last night.  Macey loved the visual aids and loved learning a new primary song.  I really need to be focusing more on teaching her and less on my projects.  The lesson I gave was on loving our families and is in the Nursery Manuel "Behold Your Little Ones."  This website has a whole section of flannel board stories that look really fun, but Macey is still a little to young for those right now.  I can't wait to try them in the future though. 

Library Bag

I have been thinking that I really need to take Macey to the library more.  I hate going there because I end up picking out the books while she sits and plays with the germy wood puzzles.  (Gag!)  So I made her her very own book bag to carry and put books in.  We tried it out this morning and she loved it.  It was two dollars very well spent.  (The bag was one dollar on clearance at Joanns and the fabric paint was one dollar.)  It was soo nice to have her pick out books and put them in her bag and she had fun doing it.  She felt like such a big girl when she walked up to the check-out desk and handed the librarian her (my) card and pulled all the books out of her bag.  And then after the librarian scanned all the books and handed them back she handed me the receipt which Macey intercepted and put in the outside card pocket.  Although, not as neatly as it is shown in the picture.  The front is just a freezer-paper stencil and the back is a vinyl pocket with ribbon sewn on the edges.  Easy, cute and functional, that's my kind of project!

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Piggy Bows

That picture of fabric scraps was driving me nuts, so I took a picture of my latest little project, piggy bows for Macey.  I bought her a bunch of those "Ultimate Tees" by Cherokee at Target awhile ago and have been meaning to make matching bows. Well, I finally gave my sewing machine a rest for the day and made the bows.  When I find a shirt that's comfortable and that I like I buy one in every color, so why not do that for Macey?  Hers are a lot cheaper though. I wish I could find shirts that looked cute for only five dollars for me. Anyways, now she has bows to match her shirts.  Nothing fancy, but sometimes simple just looks better.

An Old Quilt Along

My favorite quilt blogger is starting another quilt along.  I was soo excited when I read about it.  Then I remembered I didn't finish the last quilt along.  Crap.  I can't buy more fabric and start another one when I haven't finished the last one.  After I started it I got morning sickness and then started on baby projects and just hadn't got back to it.  So last night I dug the box of scraps out of the closet and whipped out another three blocks.  There is supposed to be 70 blocks total (that's a lot of nine-patch blocks!).  I don't have a purpose in mind for this quilt.  It's not really a little girl fabric and it will only make a twin size quilt.  But I am having a fun time putting these blocks together with my patchwork foot and knee lifter.  It really makes a difference in efficientness (is that a word?).  Sorry, didn't mean to brag about my sewing machine, I am just loving it soo much it's hard to not talk about it.  So this is my project for now.  It's nice to have a little something to work on after the kids go to bed and the house is all cleaned up.

Made by Momma

Madisyn was blessed yesterday.  She looked soo adorable in her momma-made blessing dress.  It fit her perfectly.  That's not to say the dress is perfect.  It has some flaws in it. I just hope that when my girls are older that they will look back at their homemade blessing dresses and feel the love that their mom put into them.

Finished

Denim backside

Fluffy flannel front side.

Bring on summer.  I'm ready for picnics and camping now.

Fridge Magnets

As seen on TV.  Well, for about 3.5 seconds.  I entered these into a contest on Studio 5 (a Utah craft/lifestyle show) and made it onto TV, but didn't make it to the final 5.  The contest was you enter a picture of a craft you made for under $5 and if you win you get a Silhouette machine.  I wanted that Silhouette soo bad, oh well.  So anyways, I made a few more magnets so I could give some to my sister tommorow for watching my girls while I go to sewing class.  These are super easy to make, so I thought I'd share.

Step numer one: hot glue or crazy glue magnets to the back of the clothespins.  They are adhesive on the back but it's not strong enough to hold on for more than a day or so.  A pack of magnets costs 98 cents at Walmart and you can make a bazillion clothespins magents with one pack.

Cut some strips of scrapbook paper. Just wing it, I didn't measure exactly what size they are.  You can draw an outline of the clothespin and then cut a little smaller than that and use it as a template.

Brush some Mod Podge to the top of your clothespin and then put your paper on top of that and brush another coat of Mod Podge on top of that to seal it on.  Let it dry.  And your done! I told you it was super easy.  You could add some matching flower on top or buttons or whatever ya want.  So cute, easy and cheap.

I'm making some progress on my denim blanket.  I got the "sandwiches" sewn together.  Now I've got to sew them together in rows.  This is going to be the tricky part.  I've never made a rag type blanket before and I'm kinda nervous!

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