The weather yesterday was beautiful here, I took the baby for a long walk in the stroller, walked to pick the kids up from school and spent the evening working in the yard. I was a wonderful day, really, except I didn’t finish the project I was working on for today.
Have a super crafty weekend!
I love the pockets and yoke details on the three skirts on the left of that McCalls 5113, the three pattern pieces of the super jiffy Simplicity 9032 are great and who doesn’t need a terry cloth tube dress?, full and half slips on Simplicity 9115 (can you even buy slips anymore?), and the last two Simpliciy 7345 and 6653 are 70’s chic and such high and modest necklines!
I was super excited when I saw this Barbie pattern, those little dolls outfits are amazing and all of the pieces seem to be intact, although they are all cut out, I bet someone’s Barbie had an awesome wardrobe! There are even instructions on some embroidered embellishment for one of the skirts. There are 10 full outfits, the other five are pictured on the back of the patten or you can see the back views of them in this picture.
This little man pattern was too precious and when I peeked inside the envelope I found another treasure, there was a letter, some clippings with appliqué examples, and some colorful corduroy fabric swatches.
Some lovely sewing and embroidery books also found their way home with me. That center one has the most delightful, kitschy projects! 
I HAD to have this one, I have never seen anything like it and surprisingly some of the projects look really modern, not the windmill sculpture or the owl plaques, but the pendants are nice.
These pendants are definitely unique! I’m wondering where exactly you find horseshoe nails these days? and are they comparable to nails of 1974? The introduction says this is the perfect hobby for a man <snort>. Another fun fact, this little pamphlet was published right here in Nebraska!
I sewed the strips together and made alternating patchwork in the designated lengths. I wish I had a serger, it would have made the process much faster. I used my handy cording foot to zigzag over dental floss to gather the layers up. I honestly would not recommend trying to gather this up in the traditional way, with two rows of stitching, pulling the bobbin threads. She suggests using elastic and I’m sure that would give you a nice, even gather. I like using denatal floss because it’s cheap and it slides easily through the zigzags to make gathers and it is impossible to break, once each layer was sewn together I removed the floss and then finished all the edges.
Here’s the finished dress all laid out in a circle. That purple tier took forever, it was over 12 feet long. This is great beginner pattern, really, it’s almost entirely straight sewing, except for the curves on the bodice. Seriously, I LOVE this dress and now I want one in my size. I’m not kidding, I’m going to be sorting through my massive stash and cutting squares as I go, but first I need to do some math (ugh) and figure out how many squares and tiers I’m going to need.
Here are the action shots from yesterday’s egg hunt. There was a lot of spinning. I really need to make her some matching bloomers to wear under this, she is not very lady like ;)
This was a nice easy crochet pattern. The most difficult part was making the double treble stitches, and they weren’t THAT hard. I did make a few tiny changes, I only did two rows for the ribbons, instead of three, I was a little sleep deprived and didn’t realize I missed an entire repeat until I was almost finished with the edging and there was no way I was ripping that all the way back! I have decided to not add the pockets for now, I want to display all of her cute accessories, the hair elastics are not cute and they can stay in the drawer. I would also note that the braids take quite a bit of yarn, so beware if you’re using leftover yarn.
Finding the perfectly sized Hello Kitty ribbon was a bonus, look closely she has rainbow butterfly wings! Little Miss has just recently starting like rainbows, I have a lot of rainbow projects in the works for her, now I just need to get her hooked on unicorns and we’re set!
You will need:
Random tip: do not try to photograph a red plate on a lime green cutting mat using the automatic setting on your camera, it really freaks the saturation out (sorry). 
I hung it above my shelves and stepped back to enjoy the view. I LOVE how it turned out. I really need to get going on my other projects, this turned out so cute I’m super motivated to finish up another.
Start by mixing 1 1/2c. cornstarch with 1 c. cold water in a saucepan and heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Really, keep stirring it will only take a few minutes and it goes from liquid to solid almost instantly. Using a whisk will keep the mixture from getting lumpy. Once the mixture thickens and becomes shiny you will want to whisk in some more water to thin it to the consistency of white glue. I had to add quite a bit a water at this point, if it is too thick your project will be one big, sticky mess and all the spaces between you string will be filled with starch. Allow to cool slightly, I used cold water to thin my mixture and that cooled it down quickly. 
Once your balloons are wrapped they will need to dry overnight. I hung mine from my pot rack (a shower rod works good too). They are ready when they are dry to the touch and feel stiff. 
Pop the balloon and cut a hole it the side of the egg. You can also just leave them as is and display them or cut them into a basket shape. It’s hard to see in the photo, but the opening has already been cut. I traced around a lid to get a perfect circle. The thread cuts easily with regular scissors.
I made stands for my eggs using a strip of cardstock taped into a ring shape. Decorate and embellish you eggs and stands using hot glue. I always like to add some sort of embellishment or trim around the cut edge. I used gathered fabric on these two. I also like to use rick rack, ribbon, or eyelet or lace gathered trim. I have three more to decorate and that yellow one needs a little more decoration, I’m thinking a crocheted flower. |
| This tutorial is included in the Fave Crafts Blog hop. |
Finally spring seems to be here! All I want to do is spend time outside, we’re been decorating our sidewalk with chalk, cleaning up our yarn, going on walks, and raking leaves, lots and lots of leaves. My husband is on vacation this week and we have a lot of cleaning and organizing projects on the to do list. I have several crafty projects going as well.
I have built my new giant cardboard wall organizer and I will start doing the paper mache sometime this week. I can’t wait to finish it and get my command center under control.
I also have a few new patterns to work on, one is going to be an Easter Dress for Little Miss. She needs a whole new summer wardrobe she has filled out so much none of her summer cloths from last year fit. Little Sir has grown up and not out, so a lot of his shorts will still work and, of course, all of his pants have holes in the knees and will be made into cut offs soon. I will need some stuff for Little Man too, onesies (<-I have no idea how to spell that) and rompers, I’m thinking tie dye and appliqué.
I have been collecting some great projects to do with the kids this summer and the Children’s Zoo reopens on Friday. We have tons of stuff going on this week. I am also hoping to do some painting in Little Sir's room, I have promised him an orange wall. Now that the weather is nice there is tons of fun stuff to do.
I am sooooooo addicted to Pinterest, I could spend hours and hours just looking at everything. I happened across this granny triangle bunting and fell in love, how great would that be on my porch?!? I found these instructions for making the granny triangle and started crocheting on Wednesday. I didn’t do the final row of picot stitches.
I used acrylic yarn because it’s going to be outside in the elements and acrylic yarn is almost indestructible. My triangles needed to be blocked, acrylic yarn is blocked with steam, um the steam doesn’t work on my iron. I know I’ll just spray a press cloth and put it on top of the yarn and iron, sending steam through the triangles. FYI, to get steam your iron is going to be hot enough to melt the yarn.
Have a super crafty weekend!
Here is my brand new witch’s boot, isn’t it stunning! I had requested black cats or skeletons and she did both. I can’t begin to describe how beautiful this is, the pictures aren’t doing the boot justice at all, I had to use the flash (ugh) and a lot of the little details are lost. 
I had also asked for a Teesha Moore styled binder cover. There are so many rich and textured fabrics, it feels really nice and she embroidered my name on the back, isn’t that great?!? It has a tab that buttons on to keep it closed, I really like that I can take it all the way off if I want to, now I just need to decide what to use it for. I originally wanted it for a journal, but I want to display it and I know I couldn’t stand anyone casually flipping through my journal. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
Here is a beautiful ornament that she calls a ladybird house. Doesn’t it look like metal or maybe polymer clay? She made it out of card stock, cereal boxes to be exact. I think she needs to be selling tutorials for this technique in her etsy store. It’s really funny that she made one of these for me, I had seen one she made for a different swap and was disappointed that I hadn’t seen it in time to ask for one.
And here are the final pieces. An adorable jack-o-lantern wearing a witch’s hat polymer clay sculpture. It looks old and very delicate in person, the leaves look real, I thought they were until I touched them. The box that the Ladybird ornie came in that her daughter decorated for me, aren’t those birds sweet? And finally a polymer clay embellished pen. I love it so much I’m kind of scared to use it (afraid I’ll break it).
Swing those arms open and take the skirt clips off (I bet we can find something else to do with them) and slide your ribbon on. 
My husband just informed me that his Mother used to do this. Um yeah, thanks for telling me, I could have been storing my ribbon this way for years!!! His response was, “I’ve never seen you really work with ribbon.” My reply was, “I have at least one of every craft supply known to man, you should have known I had ribbon.” So if you have already heard this tip, sorry :) Seriously, organized ribbon makes me happy. Now I’m wondering if there is anything else I could store on another one of these!
Hula Hoop Dome Tent from Obsessively Stitching FYI she did a whole week of tent tutorials.
Hand Sanitizer Holder from A Lemon Squeezy Home. Make sure to check out all of the purse week posts.
Embellished Tee with Multi-layer Flowers from Make It and Love It. I love her decorate my home series too.
The Warhol Dress from MADE. I can not get enough of her all about the boy series, good boy DIYs are hard to find.
