Sewing with Liquid Gold

Have you seen the Rowan Tee? It's a fantastic pattern by Titchy Threads and I had big plans for sewing a special tee for Henry's 4th birthday. (My baby is FOUR today!!) But then...I went to the fabric store and couldn't find any fun printed knit for his shirt. What I found instead was liquid gold (the fabric kind, not the Velveeta kind) and I got inspired to do a completely different version of the Rowan Tee for my baby girl. (At what point do you have to stop calling them 'babies'? High school? LOL)

The gold I found is a buttery stretch velvet from JoAnn Fabrics. It's super stretchy and I immediately envisioned it for the stripe on the tee and as leggings. The problem? This is a super expensive fabric. ($28 a yard - yikes) Thankfully I had a coupon and she's still small enough that I can make a pair with only a yard of fabric.

The shirt itself is made from a slightly stretchy fur-like snake skin print with gold stamped into it. It's such a cool fabric. Totally impractical for kids' clothes, of course, but for a holiday outfit I thought I'd chance it.

Tutorial: Make a Fabric Deer Head (or Rudolph)

The Fabric Deer Head (or Rudolph) tutorial has moved to the blog at UpCraft Club! You can find the tutorial and get the free pattern to make the deer by clicking here.

If you love sewing patterns like this deer head, check out UpCraft Club for even more classes, patterns, webinars and tutorials like the deer!

If you make a deer head or a Rudolph I would LOVE to see it! Please share it with me on facebook or Instagram.

DIY a Felt Turkey for the Holidays

I have longingly looked at the adorable play turkeys on Thanksgiving tables in magazines and online for a few years. They just look like such a fun addition to a kids' table or for my littles to play with in their mini kitchen around Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I didn't want to spend the money to buy a faux turkey, and was intimidated at the idea of making one.

Until now.

Creating this turkey was my very first foray into the world of felt food projects and I'm hooked! It's an incredibly easy project to whip up and will make an adorable and fun item for your kids to have for the holidays this year.

Here is what you need to make a turkey:
1/2 yard brown felt (if you find wide felt a 1/4 yard will work)
Stuffing (I used polyester fiberfill - you'll need a small amount)
1 craft square of white felt
Matching thread
Sewing machine
Hand sewing needle
Pattern (download it here)

Steps:
Download the pattern from here. Print and cut it then follow the numbers printed on the pattern to cut your fabric pieces.

First make the wings by placing two wing pieces right sides together and sew around the edges (with a 1/4" seam allowance) leaving a 2 inch opening for turning. Repeat for the other wing.

Carefully turn the wings right side out.

Now take two drumstick pieces and sew them with right sides together (1/4" seam allowance), leaving the bottom straight part open. Repeat for the other drumstick. Carefully turn the drumsticks right side out.

To make the turkey body place the two curved body pieces right sides together (1/4" seam allowance) and sew the curved edge, leaving the bottom straight edge open.

While the body is still inside out sew the bottom piece onto the turkey with right sides together, leaving a 3 inch opening for turning.

Turn the turkey body right side out and stuff it full of fiberfill. You'll also need to tightly stuff both the wings and the drumsticks.

Hand sew the wings closed but leave the end of the drumstick open. You need to also hand sew the opening of the turkey body to close it.

Make the cutlet frills by folding one cutlet frill piece in half lengthwise. Then cut slits about 3/4" deep into the folded side every 1/4" down the length of the piece. Repeat with the other cutlet frill piece.

Take one cutlet frill and wrap it tightly around the end of one of the drumsticks.

You can hand stitch or machine sew across the lower edge where the frill meets the drumstick. (Hand stitching will keep the drumstick more round on the end but I chose to machine stitch it and it worked well too.) Repeat for the other drumstick.

Now you just need to put the pieces together. Hand stitch the wings and drumsticks to the turkey body and you're done!

If you wanted to make the drumsticks removable you could add Velcro to them and to the body.

Hope you love your felt turkey! I'd love to see one if you make it.

Be my Valentine?

I'm kicking off a self-proclaimed 'sewing week' here on the blog with a fun Valentine's project I made over the weekend.

I wanted to make something fun for Elliott and Emma for exchanging Valentine's at school this year. I'm still in love with what we did last year, but it was for the house, not for school. Remember these fun mailboxes?

The kids still love their mailboxes and we used them again this year by giving my mom little trinkets to put in them for each child while we were gone in Hawaii. I checked at Target the last time I was there (last week) and they still had some of these darling little metal mailboxes. I actually bought a couple more because some of ours are dented now from all the 'love' the kids show them.

This year I wanted to try something different. There are tons of cute box and bag ideas on pinterest or floating around online, but nothing grabbed me. I like a lot of the boxes but it's hard for me to spend so much time on a craft when it's just made out of cardboard and will get destroyed immediately after the Valentine's party. The kids are still pretty young so I have to help them make everything...which in this case meant that they get to help make what I wanted to make.

I stumbled across a tutorial for some adorable fabric envelopes. The tutorial actually talks about making a regular sized envelope and then a needlepoint card to go with it. It's adorable! BUT there's NO WAY we would hand sew cards like that. So I took the idea and re-imagined it as a giant envelope the kids could take to school and it would work as their 'mailbox.'

Emma helped choose all the fabric, and both Emma and Elliott helped sew them...mostly by pushing the pedal down on the sewing machine while I fed the fabric through. But they each got a say in the look of their envelopes and helped as much as was possible.

Emma's is pink and frilly...of course!

Here's a closer look. We added a snap but Emma fell in love with this heart shaped button so I sewed it on top of the snap on the front. I hand sewed the X detail and was planning on adding some O's and bigger X's but I'm not good or fast at sewing by hand so it will stay just as it is now. :)
Elliott's is red with some bright stripes. I made bias tape to pipe around the entire envelope and then added a button tab and button. The piping was much harder to get even than I thought it would be. I ripped several seams out to adjust it and it took a llllooonnnnggg time to do. But Elliott is really happy with it! (Emma is modeling it here because Elliott was at school when I decided to take the picture of it.)

 On the inside of Elliott's I put his name in little felt letters.

And here's a closer look at the outside and piping.

So now that the envelopes are done...I guess we need to make some Valentine's to hand out. Or on second thought, I'll probably buy them. 

Apparently they work as hats too!

Welcome 2013!

The recap of the holidays continues...

There's a big family-friendly event in our city every New Year's Eve. We tried to take the kids a few years ago but it was WAY too busy for our little ones. We took one look at the crowd and left.

This year we were excited (and thankful) that the sponsor of the event is a supporter of Elliott's school and opened the doors of the event early for their employees and the families at our school. There were a few hundred people there early but the arena is so huge it hardly seemed like anyone!

The kids had a blast playing on every inflatable. Every.single.one. They also had a bunch of carnival games set up and the kids won lots of prizes! Their prize of choice was pencils and they came home with dozens!

Isa wore the new 'princess' skirt I made her last week (more details to come on that soon). She looked adorable all 'purple-y' climbing up the inflatables!

Snow White was a huge hit!

The superheroes were too...although at first Elliott refused to get his picture taken with the 'spider girl.'

 All that jumping and fun tired the kids out!

Back at home we had our own New Year's Eve party (around 6 o'clock). My parents celebrated with us and we had a whole meal made of appetizers, and sparkling cider in 'fancy' glasses. I had gotten some noisemakers, crowns, and snappers too. We did a countdown and the kids even gave each other kisses!

On New Year's Day we had a leisurely time watching the Rose Parade and getting some use out of the girls' stocking stuffers. Hello Kitty press on nails. :) They are about as impractical as could be for an active 3 and 4 year old...but surprisingly Isa kept hers on most of the day.

Grandpa thought they were beautiful!

My genius-in-the-kitchen husband (remember the grated butter?) made a unique and tasty breakfast for the whole family. My brother had given us a cake pop maker for Christmas. We used it for cake pops and they turned out great. Michael decided to also try putting pancake mix directly into the cake pop machine and out came little balls of deliciousness!

He dipped the pancake pops in melted butter and then rolled them in a mixture of powdered sugar and cinnamon. To top it off he drizzled them with syrup and we added some yummy fresh fruit...MMMMM! (He also made eggs and sausage...it was impressive!)

What a great start to a brand new year! Here's to a fantastic 2013!

Christmas Recap

"It's the most wonderful time of the year."

True.
We had a fantastic Christmas and New Year's. We got a lot done on the house, had a great time with family, and spent lots of time playing with the kids.

Christmas break started out with two snow days for Elliott. He was excited about the snow but sad that he would miss his Christmas parties at school. We took the kids out in the snow a little bit and Henry cracked us up! It was knee deep to him and he couldn't walk in it. Step...flop. Step...flop. 

We spent Christmas at my parent's house. I made pajamas for the whole family (except myself...I didn't get a chance to finish mine) but didn't get any good pictures of them. Oh well. For Henry, I had to make footy pjs because of his crib antics. It was pretty easy and they were cute! I also made him a little robe. It's a totally impractical thing that is just SO cute!

Great Nana (the original Emerald) was there. It's fun seeing the two Emeralds together...and see how close their personalities are to each other too!

Michael gives me an ornament every year. (it's the only present I get from him that I don't just pick out myself) This year he went 'all out' in wrapping it up for me! He rolled it in a Christmas napkin and then cut out quotes from magazines he found (probably all from Martha Stewart Living...my fav). I think he won the award for Most Creative Wrapping this year.

Emma was ecstatic to get this little sewing machine! Sadly...it broke the first time we used it. She was very sad about it but I let her make her American Girl (Molly) a little purse on my big sewing machine.

Isa's favorite gift was a LaLaLoopsy doll she got from my mom. It has crazy hair...quite fitting for my Isa who also has crazy hair! I got a little owl necklace for each of the girls and they loved those too. Not bad for 97 cents (shipped!) from Amazon.

 We all Skyped with my brother and family who couldn't make it to Christmas with us this year.
At some point during the day Emma disappeared and I found her under the tree playing with one of Henry's gifts. Sneaky.

Henry loved this little wood train that I bought at IKEA in Atlanta and carried on the plane home with me after this biz trip. Gotta love IKEA and their super cheap train sets!

Hugs for Great Grandpa at the end of an eventful Christmas!

Hope you had an amazing Christmas too!

And Rudolph jumps over the tree

I had fun this year putting up trees in the kids' rooms. It was pretty early (October, actually) and the kids have had fun with their trees and decorations ever since.

The boys have a small tree set on top of a bookcase. Each year Michael's work gives us a new ornament at their Christmas party. It's usually a Santa but sometimes it's a snowman. We put a bunch of those ornaments on the boys' tree, along with some fun stuffed animal ornaments.

The girls have a 6 foot tree with lots of fun decorations. A contemporary furniture store in our area went out of business a while ago and I bought lots of crazy and sparkly ornaments and garlands from them. Pink and sparkly...perfect for the girls.

And Rudolph looks like he's jumping right over their tree. I can't remember where I got this tree-topper and we've never used it before but the kids LOVE it!

Now, if only we could keep their Little People Nativity set in tact. They played with it non-stop for the first few days it was out...but then baby Jesus, all the wise men, and most of the animals went missing. It's kind of difficult to tell the Christmas story without baby Jesus! I hope we find him soon.