Craft Show this Saturday in Keller, TX!

We are down to t minus 2 days until the craft show. I am working on my last item as I type (letting the paint dry) and then I am ready to go! If you are in the DFW area, the craft show is at Central High School in Keller, TX from 9-5. Free admission and free kid activities too!

Here is a taste of what I will have at the booth. Hope we get lots of visitors!!

So Excited...and tired...

So, our lovely fat cat Gracie woke us up nice and early yesterday morning. Apparently her food timer hadn't clicked over and she was STARVING at 5am and needed to eat. (Yes, we have her food on a timer otherwise she will eat it all at once and then puke it up everywhere. She has no self control when it comes to food...kind of like me!) Anyway, I had time to catch up on my google reader and I click on this random post from one of the blogs I follow, Wallflower Grown Wild.


And wouldn't you know that I was a featured link! How exciting! I am so glad I didn't skip over that post...and almost glad Gracie woke me up early so I had time to read up on my google reader. If you haven't set up a google reader- it is awesome but so addictive!!! :)

Thanks Wallflower Grown Wild!

I {heart} Mom shirt!

Mother's Day is just around the corner! I hope my husband remembers so he can help John plan something fun for that day. {Hi Brad! I know you read my blog!!} So, in honor of Mother's Day, I made a new shirt for the craft show that is THIS WEEKEND! (Live in the Keller area?! Come see me!!)

I started with this:



and ended with this:



This was all done with just a t-shirt, freezer paper, a small piece of scrap material, and a sewing machine. Easy! Here are the steps for those of you who want your precious kiddos to show some love for their mommy. {Please excuse the different color shirts in the pictures. I made two of these at the same time!)

1. Use freezer paper to make an 'I' and 'MOM' stencils. I used a Cricut to cut these out, but you could use an x-acto knife to cut out the stencil. Then iron the paper to your shirt (shiny waxy side down!).



2. Place some sort of protection layer in the shirt. I used an old magazine. This is so the paint doesn't leak through to the back of the shirt. Use fabric paint to paint in the letters. I used about 4 coats of white, waiting for each coat to dry completely before adding the next coat. This does take a little while, so I just did lots of random things around the house in between coats. Obviously, after the paint dries, take off the freezer paper to reveal some super cute lettering.





3. I made the heart using the reverse-applique method. (Is that really a method? Sounds fancy.) Use a coordinating material to prepare the heart. I used my marking pen to draw a heart on the back of the material.



4. Turn the shirt inside out and pin the material in place so that the right side of the heart material is facing the wrong side of the shirt. I pinned both inside and around the heart tracing.



5. Sew along the heart you drew or slightly outside the line.

6. Turn the shirt right side out. Use small, sharp scissors to CAREFULLY cut away the shirt inside the heart. Be sure not to cut the material you just sewed on the inside of the shirt! This will now leave a heart reverse-applique! How fun! (Sorry that I don't have pictures of this step. oops!)

7. I threw the shirt into the dryer for about an hour to heat-set the fabric paint. I did this with a load of John's laundry and it turned out fine. Some people use an iron to heat seat their fabric paint, but I haven't had good luck with that so far.





The blue one I think turned out cute but the red one has a very oddly sized and oddly placed heart. Obviously the red shirt was my first try at sizing the heart. Oh well- I am all about trial and error. My sister suggested adding some ribbon or ric-rac around the heart to make it look better so we will see if I can make that work.

And how cute would this be to make for grandparent's day with I heart Nana or something?

Check It Out!

I just won a great corsage wristlet from Sweet Charli's Boutique! Check them out at sweetcharli.blogspot.com. (sorry- I can't get it to link up!) I am so excited since I never win anything and can't wait for it to come in the mail!

A new tutorial is coming soon- just in time for Mother's Day!

4th of July Shirt...in April

The craft show is in just TWO WEEKS!!! YIKES! Since the show is May 1st (come out to Keller, TX if you are in the DFW area!), I wanted to make 4th of July shirts to sell since that will be the next holiday. I was trying to come up with at least one style that didn't scream '4th of July' so hopefully a little kiddo could wear it for more than just one day out of the year. This is what I came up with...



...and here is how to make it!

1. I used a Cricut to cut out freezer paper stencils to make the diamonds. For this shirt I cut 2.5" squares. They ended up being a little big, so next time I would probably make 2" squares. (This step actually took FOREVER because the dang Cricut is all out of whack. So, if anyone knows how to fix a Cricut that doesn't want to cut all the way through paper without tearing as it goes, please fill me in! And yes, I replaced the blade, changed the pressure setting, changed the blade length, and the speed. I tried it all over the past couple nights and I am about to scream!)

2. Iron on the stencils. I did the center stencil first all by itself and painted the white diamond. (sorry...no pic of that!)Don't forget to put something in the shirt so the paint doesn't bleed through to the back of the shirt! Then after it was completely dried, I removed the center stencil and then I ironed on the two side stencils, making sure not to iron over the paint. I was pretty sure it would smear if I touched it with the iron!

To get more instructions on how to cut and use feezer paper, check out a previous post HERE.






3. Paint the blue and red diamonds and let dry completely. I used two coats of paint for all diamonds.



4. After removing the freezer paper, it looks like this...kind of blah.



5. Add a little detail with embroidery floss and you have a cute argyle 4th of July shirt! This was my first try at embroidery floss so it isn't perfect.




These shirts were SO easy to make, which is good since I am running out of time to get all my stuff done for the show. I am secretly hoping one of these shirts doesn't sell so John can wear it this summer in July! :)

Cute Baby Ribbon Balls

I had saved instructions for a soft ball several months ago and put it on my list of 'things to do'. I finally tried to make them this weekend and think they turned out really cute!



I used the pattern found here. I just modified to insert folded ribbon in between each section of material. I used the biggest size and they are pretty small...perfect for younger babies so they can hold them easily. I love the girl version because the fleece material really helped to give it a nice round shape when I stuffed it. The boy version was a little lumpy, but still cute.

The best part was as I was stuffing the balls, John immediately came over and wanted to play with the balls before I could finish sewing up the opening. He LOVED them! So these are kid tested and kid approved! :)

I liked up at

Weekly Date Night- Picnic in the Backyard

First of all, I had to share with you that I was featured for a THIRD time this week for one of my crafts I have been working on. I am so excited!! Check out It's a Hodgepdge Life.

Back to the task at hand- my latest date night! So, we kind of let two weeks go without a date. Oops! We can chalk it up to me being sick all the time and us being busy. Anyway, after John went to bed tonight, we had a little picnic in the backyard! All we needed was a blanket and our gourmet dinner of Chick-fil-A. (We actually cooked tonight but didn't like how it turned out and had to supplement!) Another easy date night and especially relaxing when the weather was as gorgeous as it was tonight.



What has been your favorite date with your loved one?

Car Roll-up Caddy

I have made a couple crayon rolls before and they were easy enough. So I wanted to see if I could modify that design to make a little roll-up caddy for little toy cars. I knew I wanted to make the top 'flap' long enough to sew on a road for the boys to drive the cars on, so after some thinking, here is how it turned out...




Want to make one yourself? Well, here an amazingly long tutorial to show how I did it. (this might be hard to explain so bear with me!!)

Supplies you need: coordinating fabric, material for your road (I used an old black t-shirt, but you could use felt), ribbon, marking pen and fusible stuff like Wonder Under or Pellon. If you are anything like me, you will also need a seem ripper. :)

1. Cut your coordinating material. I used 4 small matchbox cars, so I decided to make one piece 7x6 inches and the long piece for the road was 7x34 inches. {However, if I did this again, I would make the pieces 8x6 and 8x34 because it ended up being too narrow for the cars}.



2. Fold each piece in half, wrong sides together, so that they are now 7x3 and 7x17. Iron to make a nice crease at the fold.



3. Time to make the road. To do this, I used an old black t-shirt, cut out the curve, and followed the instructions that came with my Wonder Under to fuse and iron onto the long piece of material. Then I unfolded the material and sewed around the edges of the road. (If you don't unfold the material, then you will see the stiching of the road on the final product which will look UGLY!!).





Then I repeated the process with yellow material to make the stripes on the road. I did a quick zig zag stick down the middle of each stripe after ironing onto the road just to make sure the stripes don't start peeling off.





4. Take your shorter piece of material and sew along the folded edge. This will just make a nice, neat edge on the pocket.



5. Keeping the longer piece of material unfolded, pin the shorter piece to the bottom of the longer piece, lining up the edges. Sew around the three sides of the shorter material, leaving the top open for the cars to slide in.



6. Here is the tricky part. Well, if you are smarter than me, it may not be tricky. You need to mark off where you want to sew to make individual pouches. I took my space and divided it into four sections, since I was going to put 4 cars into the pouches. Using my marking pen, I marked where I wanted to sew those lines. It ended up being around every 1.5 inches. Like I said before, it ended up being too narrow so you will have to play with your measurements depending on the width of your material and how big the items are that you are putting into each pouch.



Once your material is marked, sew vertical lines without going past the edge or your shorter material. This will create the individual pouches.

7. Pin two pieces of ribbon to the center of the edge of your material.




8. Take your super long piece of material and fold it over so that the right sides of the material are togther. Kind of like making a sandwich around the pockets you just made. Make sure the ribbon is tucked in nice and neat.



9. Pin around the edges, leaving a hole to turn the caddy right side out.

10. Sew around the edges, starting here (sewing towards the left in the picture)...



and ending here...



11. Turn right side out, iron, and then pin the opening. Top stitch around the entire caddy, making sure to close the hole as you sew.

12. At this point, now that the entire project was done, I realized my cars wouldn't fit into the individual pouches. I had to walk away a minute because I was about to be upset that this hour long project was wasted. Then I just decided to improvise and I ripped out the stitching on the pouches to make two big pouches instead of four little ones. The cars then fit perfectly and my quick thinking saved the day! yeah!!




So this project wasn't terribly difficult and turned out cute. I would say it took about an hour or so, which isn't that long considering I had to think about how to make it without directions. Hope the directions make sense for anyone who is wanting to make one. Let me know if you have questions or if I need some major edits to my directions!

Girly Bib

Remember my last stab at using old shirts to make a bib? Well, we can't leave out the girls for cute bibs, now can we? So, here is bib #2! This one actually turned out super cute, if I do say so myself, and I can actually try to sell this one at the craft show. Here are the steps to make this bib using an old shirt, ribbon, and a towel...

1. Use a bib on hand, trace the shape onto your material. I used an old shirt that didn't fit anymore. Side note...why in the world did I ever wear a shirt with this pattern?! How ugly for a shirt! Cute for a bib though! :)



2. I looked through my messy stash of ribbon and decided to use hot pink and brown dot ribbon for embellishment. I also tied a cute little bow in the top pink ribbon to make it a tad more girly. Pin the ribbon in place and then sew along the edges of the ribbon.





4. Pin the bib to your backing material, right sides together. I used a towel that had matching colors. Perfect for a messy baby!



5. Sew around the edges, leaving a hole to turn the bib right side out. I always forget when to stop sewing, so I make an 'x' with my pins to remind me to keep that hole!

6. Trim around the edges of the backing material and then flip right side out. I used a pointed stick thingy to get the neck pieces nice and neat around the corners.



7. Pin the opening and then top stitch around the entire bib, making sure to close the opening as you sew. I used hot pink thread to put a little more color on the bib.

8. Add in some velcro (or snaps). This time I used thread that would blend into the bib- a light beige color.



Done and done!!! Super easy and super cute! If this doesn't sell, then it goes to my sweet niece, Bella!