Scrap: Bibs & Burp Cloths

My friend Tiffany and I decided to only use fabric and trim we had on hand to make a few bibs and burp cloths. It was so fun to sew for a little girl!

The bib pattern is one that was traced from one of my son's bibs. The burp cloths are some nice thick cloth diapers and we simply embellished the centers.

Light pink flannel was used for the backing of the pink bibs. The pink bibs have snap closures.

Jumbo Ric Rac is a great way to cover edges on the burp cloth.

Simply quilt together your coordinating fabrics until you have a chunk large enough to trace your pattern on. Such a great way to use up cute scrap fabrics.

These bibs were backed in yellow flannel. I tried Velcro on this bib and trimmed the burp cloth with pink Ric Rac that is peeking out from under the fabric center.

This bib has a ribbon closure. It was by far the easiest to put together but I still prefer snaps for boy bibs.

And, of course, I had to give a lovey!

We can't wait to meet Claudia's baby girl Isabella!

She is due today. Wonder if she will have a Memorial Day baby?

Cowgirl Birthday Invitation

My daughter's 5th birthday is coming up. In my mind this is a big one! The one that sends her off to school. Next will be 8, then 12, then 16, then 18........but for now I'm just trying to make it through the 5th.

She loves horses and dinosaurs and dolls. We did a dinosaur cake last year. I thought we would concentrate on having horses in our party somehow since there will be boys at the party. We can throw some dolls in there for the 6th party. Maybe a retro Barbie party?

So I needed an invitation. Nothing cutesy. Something with a rustic feel. I scoured Google Images (love that!) for some ideas and stumbled across this invite from Roxter Designs'. She has an Etsy shop and sells some very cute invitations.

But I want to spend my money on the party and not the invitations so I opened up Photoshop and scoured my digital papers to see if I could make it work. I also took my daughter to a friends place for a little photo shoot. I'm a very amateur photographer. All of my shots are in auto mode. I took over 200 pictures and managed to get 47 that I liked.

Digital Paper: Dana Zarling's Average Joe No. 2 (no. 5, 8, & 9)

For the cardstock under the photo: I cut a blank card in half. Then I used CTMH stamp pad Barn Red and Desert Sand to dress it up a bit. My local craft stores were closed so I decided to just dig around my craft room to come up with something on the cheap.

My friend Samara suggested I use some of my straw (rafia) for the top of the invite. I didn't have any straw left but I did have some red mini rafia. I punched two holes, threw on some grommets, threaded rafia through and then unwound it. I also stuck a tiny bit of double sided tape under the ribbon to help it lay a little flatter.

I had to match the envelope and why not since I had the stamp pads out. You can see the shape of the stamp pad on the envelope. This is where those spray inks would have come in handy. But the lines don't bother me one bit. Rustic, right?

Hand stamped 'Cowgirl Up' on the back of the envelope.

Front of envelope needed a little something also. I had borrowed a friend "Paper Dolls" cartridge to cut out the cutest clothes for a baby shower the other day. I cut out cowboy hats and then added a silver brad for the Sheriff's star. Wish I had a star brad to put on the hat but I was going budget friendly with the invitations.

I also stamped each child's name above the hat.

This invitation cost me less than $2.00 to make because I used items that I already had on hand. I printed the photo that is on the invitation at Costco.

Happy Trails!

Craft Stores

I live in a smaller town but we do have Michael's and Beverly's for craft items plus a fabric store called Betty's. There is not one single scrapbook store but you can find most items that are needed at the craft store. But today we got Jo-Ann Fabrics! I was pretty excited because it is the closest craft store to my house. This is important when you need something 10 minutes before the store closes for something that is due the next day before the store opens.

Jo-Ann Fabrics also has an app for iPhones so you don't have to clip coupons. That was fun to use today! I took a little cash and a paper coupon for my daughter to use. She loves to pick out her own craft project.

She fell in love with the birdhouses. She picked one out for $1.00 and another for $7.00 plus a dowel to put them out so they could stand up in the garden. She used her 40% off coupon and was out the door at $7.16. I had to give her the 16 cents.

As soon as we got home she immediately picked out paints and set to work.

I have been saving several gift cards to purchase a dress form. My mom had one years ago that she passed on to me and we wore it out. Now that I'm sewing again I have been dreaming of buying one. I bought the Dritz "My Double" that was regularly $219.00. I used a 50% off coupon plus several gift cards and she came to less than $40.00. WooHoo!

My 21-month old decided to tackle her as I was putting her together. He didn't seem to bother her once she was up on her stand. Now what should I call her because "Dummy" just doesn't seem nice?

How does your garden grow?

I spotted my first artichoke of this season! Now if I can just keep the bugs off of it I might get to eat it. :)This year I have not gotten the garden together quite as quickly as I would have wished. I got sick during my normal planting weeks and then took off on a two week vacation. Luckily, my friend Samara has been a great help with the weeding and planting. As of right now we have planted red and green bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, red and yellow onions, 1 zucchini plant, 1 yellow squash, 4 cucumber plants, 4 tomato plants, 2 types of watermelon, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries. I still have my plum, pear, apple, and lemon trees. I would like to plant beets, snap peas and green beans, carrots, and pumpkin.

Dress-Up Dress: White/Blue Version

I found not one but three dresses that I planned to revamp for my friend's little girl. Here is dress #2.

Again, I got this dress for $1.00. The zipper was not sewn in. It did have a zipper attached to the dress however, I discovered that the zipper was not usable. Luckily, I happen to have a stash of zippers.

For this dress, I unpicked the waist line partially. Then I created those Cinderella poofs on the sides out of a blue chiffon fabric. I place a netting inside of the blue chiffon to help it keep its poofy shape.

After basting the poofs in I reattached the skirt to the bodice.

I think this is her favorite dress so far. I have just one more to make!

Dress-Up Dress: Gold/Red Version

My friend's 6 year old daughter loves to play dress-up. The only problem is that she has been blessed with tall genes so the normal store bought dress up is too small for her. On a trip to my favorite fabric store in Solvang, CA I had planned to buy a formal and revamp it for her. Their formals run from 6-20 dollars each! Pretty cheap. Looking around the store I found an even better deal. 1 buck! The only catch was that these particular formals were unfinished.

I found this gold dress for $1.00! The zipper just needed to be attached. It even came with the zipper it just wasn't sewn in yet.

I nabbed this top for $1.00. It was missing a skirt bottom.

Then I headed to the fabric store and picked out a sparkly red netted fabric. Like something you would use for veils, over skirts, etc. I bought a yard for about 5 bucks. If I had been smarter I probably could have bought less fabric and it would have been even cheaper.

I removed the top from the gold dress, attached a red sparkly train, attached the red top to the gold skirt, added a zipper, and then used a fabric scrap to create a flower for the back.

Not too bad for under ten bucks!

Scrap Tag Blanket

I knew I would have fabric left over from the blessing blanket I just made. So when purchasing the fabric I also bought some jumbo ric-rac, small rick-ric, and polka dot ribbon to match for a tag blanket. I was able to make two. I still have enough of the Minky Swirl fabric to make two more.

Blessing Blanket

My best friend was pregnant with baby #6. I asked her if there was anything she needed for this sweet baby and she said the only thing he was lacking was a blessing blanket. She was set on clothes because she had twin boys (baby #4 & 5).

I headed to the fabric store in search of the perfect fabric for a blessing blanket. In my mind a blessing blanket is white. My poor sister came with me and kept offering suggestions of various fabrics. I really just needed her inside my brain so she could see exactly what I was picturing. It was one of those "I'll know it when I see it" kind of days.

After spending about 30 minutes looking through all the minky fabrics I found some fabrics I was in love with. And they were not white. I thought this blanket might be used for more than a blessing and being for a boy I should probably avoid white. I went with a blue minky dot, a tan minky stripe (almost like soft giant corduroy), and a cream/brown minky swirl for the backing. Have you ever felt minky swirl? It is sooooooo soft. Like rabbit fur. Makes a big fuzzy mess when you are sewing too. :)

The only picture I got of the finished product before shipping it off! Silly me!

When my bestie called me that she was heading to the hospital to be induced I hadn't even started the blanket! She was four days past her due date. I'm a bit of a procrastinator. The race was on. Who would finish first? Working on this blanket kept me from bugging her about how things were going, hahaha!

To begin, I started out with a basic 9-square pattern block.

I needed three of these 9-square blocks for one row.

Then I kept cutting and mapped out the rest of the blocks for the blanket.

I ended up with (9) 9-square blocks.

I didn't want just a checker board topper to this blanky so I took 1 block and cut it into quarters.

Just cut in half one direction and then in half the other direction.

Should look something like this once you pull the block apart.

Do that to all the blocks in your rows.

Then you simply give a few of the quarters a 90-degree turn until you are happy with how it looks. It is a quick way to make it look a little fancier. Once you like the placement then sew it on up a little at a time. Now this is not my idea by any means. I wish I could remember who taught me to do this or where I learned this trick. Aunt Marianne maybe?

I did not have enough of the topper fabric and I did not want my blanket to be a giant square. I added on a small section of the backer fabric in between each row of blocks. This helped to extend my length of the blanket just right.

Once you have all the rows together then add on the backer. I did sew across the entire blanket so that the front was attached to the back. Not traditional quilting but to keep it together better. I used the backing as the front binding as well. Just tried my best to miter the corners.

It is the softest baby blanket I have ever made!

I can't wait to see pictures of baby Ezekiel wrapped up in this blanket.

By the way, she had Baby Ezekiel before I finished the blanket.

I finished the blanket two hours after she had him.