Check . . . and Check!

I'm a list girl - always have been . . . always will be. But for me it's a good thing. I love to make a list and check things off as I accomplish them. So for this week, call it check and check!

1. Fabric bookmarks - these are still my favorite fabric bookmark pattern. I've made a few already and whipped these up yesterday for teacher gifts for the end of school. Little Birdie Secrets has a great tutorial for these on her blog. Fast . . . easy . . . and very cute!

2. Charm pack baby quilt - And the top is finally finished. Cluck Cluck Sew made hers a little while back and I wanted to whip one up. Now that I finally got over not having every little intersection perfectly aligned, I think it looks great.The flower was fun to work up and create. I think I'm going to try machine quilting this one on my own. I've been working on piecing the back this afternoon. More to come!

Here is the next project I have in mind for this week . . . a new summer tote bag from Noodlehead. Here is her version. I have some perfect scraps waiting to be used for just this bag. And for some reason I feel some pom-poms coming on for this one - we'll see.

Projects in Progress

Well its been one of those weeks where life just took over from my "best-laid crafting plans". Work, family, yard work, and a Sunday nap have kept me busy. I do have a few projects in progress . . . I hope to get a few of them checked off on my list of projects to finish soon.

#1 - Fabric bookmarks: I want to have a couple of cute but relatively inexpensive teacher gifts on hand for the end of school in the next few weeks. Being a teacher myself . . . and being married to one . . . I know that practical gifts are THE right gift for teachers. We have a kitchen full of mugs and a counter full of candy that I don't need to each at the end of every school year. So "we" voted and I will be making some more fabric bookmarks to be given along with a gift card to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble (where ever I manage to get gift cards purchased) for each of son #1's teachers.

This is my current favorite bookmark tutorial - from Little Birdie Secrets. I've made a couple already but given them away before I remembered to take pictures.And then I found this fabric bookmark over at Creation Corner. Cute and easy!And another similar variation from Funky Polkadot Giraffe.

Finally a cute version from The Small Stuff - simple and easy.

And then there is my continued love-hate relationship with this charm pack baby quilt. I have about half of my rows sewn together . . . and I've just not had time to go sit back down at the sewing machine to finish it up. This is the inspiration quilt from Cluck Cluck Sew. I didn't want to lose the link so I'm linking here since I still need to hurry and make the applique flower.In big news though - my flower containers, flower beds, and garden are all turned, composted, AND planted! Ya hoo!

Above and beyond my typical craft projects - I am up to my neck in getting caught up on digital photo books for my boys. I do one for each of them documenting their year in pictures - from birthday to birthday. I got behind this year and am playing catchup. I'm not going to finish son #2's in time to use the big coupon that MyPublisher.com is advertising right now. But I'm sure they'll have another sale soon. I'm about half way through. Then I'll play catch up for son #1's book and then . . . . maybe I'll take another nap next week!

Felt Birthday Banner

I've been wanting to make a birthday banner for my boys for a very long time. I've been looking all over blogland for cute ideas and tutorials. I thought I had settled on a paper one - bought myself all of the supplies even . . . . but I just never got around to it. Then I blog hopped over to AmeroonieDesigns a few weeks ago and found her super cute felt birthday banner. She even had a tutorial - so I went out and bought all the supplies to make it. Well it seems that birthdays come around much more quickly for me than they do for my boys and what do you know, son #2's birthday was coming along very fast. Too fast, in fact, for me to get a banner made. So I quickly emailed Amy to see if she happened to have one that she would sell me (please, please, pretty please!). And guess what - she did.

(Source: AmeroonieDesigns.blogspot.com)

She popped it right in the mail to me (we actually don't live very far from each other, but with varying schedules we couldn't arrange a meet and sell). And here is my new absolutely adorable felt birthday banner and son #2 on his third birthday. I am so happy with it! It will now be an official part of every birthday celebrated in our house. My boys were so excited to see it magically appear on birthday morning. Great idea - wish I had thought of it! Glad I have one to use from here on out. Even for my own birthday!

A Growth Chart

I've been looking around for "the perfect" growth chart for our boys for a long time. My friend had a really cute one that was a full 6 feet tall that she found at a local craft store a few years ago. It was simple and just right. But . . . I couldn't find anything like it. So we spent hours and hours looking through ideas and samples on the internet and finally decided to go with something simple and full-sized.

We went to Home Depot and bought a 6 foot MDF board already primed white. After a very lengthy debate in the paint isle about just the right color, my husband finally gave in and let me get this Rustoleum satin spray in Nutmeg. So glad - I love the color! He kindly painted it for me.

I ordered some vinyl from a cute little Etsy shop - Abbie's House. It was super easy to put on. And wa-la . . . we have our perfect growth chart.We'll be going back through all of our medical records and recording the boy's heights at various times throughout the past years. And we'll start marking their heights this week on son #2's third birthday. The boy's are so excited!

In other crafting news . . . I'm having a love - hate relationship with a baby quilt I've been working on. I found a cute pattern while blog stalking awhile back and decided to whip one up. The pattern used two charm packs - I just happened to find a clearance sale on a couple of cute packs and picked them up. Well - no wonder they were on clearance. I don't know who cut them, but none of the squares were the same size and piecing them together has been a mess. I finally have the rows done and need to sew the rows together. I've almost given it up a few times - and I'm not a novice quilt maker. We'll see how it turns out.

Screen Siren Necklace - Another Anthropologie Imitation

When I was surfing around the Anthropologie website not too long ago looking for jewelry ideas, I came across this beauty - call Screen Siren. I loved it! But for $168, it wasn't on my short list of things to buy. (It isn't even available anymore.) I wanted to try my hand at copying it - as best I could. I've been searching for weeks for beads to even come close to it. The large one on the right middle part of their necklace was impossible to even kind-of duplicate - it was my favorite too. And I couldn't find any crystal clasps (for a single strand of beads) that I liked either. So this imitation will have to do. I do quite like how it turned out! My version is about 19 inches - theirs is 20 inches. My clasp isn't as pretty as the original, but my total cost was probably under $30.
I think it looks best on. Most jewelry does. Love it!

Tic Tac Toe Roll-Up

This is an idea that has been percolating in my head for awhile now. I have a son who LoVeS Tic Tac Toe. Yes, we can use a pencil and paper, but why not craft up a portable Tic Tac Toe board? I love the crayon roll-ups I've made and so a Tic Tac Toe Roll-Up seemed both easy and logical - my son is very, very happy! Want to make one too? Here's how it works:

Tic Tac Toe Roll-Up

Materials:

One 9 1/2" x 14" piece of fabric for the back

One 9 1/2" x 14" piece of fabric for the inside

One 5 1/2" x 6 1/2" piece of fabric for the inside pocket

One 2 3/4" x 6 1/2 " piece of iron-on interfacing

One square of black felt

Scraps of felt (two colors)

Heat and bond (a small piece will do - I prefer the heavy weight)

Button

Hair elastic

Instructions: 1. Cut your fabric pieces and interfacing as stated above . 2. From your square of black felt, cut four 1/2" strips the width of the square. On the paper side of your heat and bond, draw five "O"'s and five "X"'s. I cheated and used a large font I like and traced them. Iron all of the O's on one color of felt and the X's on the other color of felt. Cut the letters out on the lines. 3. Peel the paper off from the letters and now iron them on to the black felt. Cut them out leaving a 1/8" black edge on each letter. Set the letters aside for later.4. Iron your interfacing to the wrong side of half of your pocket piece. This is just to give it a little extra stability for all those little hands taking the pieces in and out of the pocket. 5. With right sides together, fold the pocket in half along the long sides (like a hot dog - teachers, you know what I mean :-)). Using a 1/4" seam, sew down one short side of the pocket and part way along the bottom. Backstitch and then with your needle up, move the pocket about 2" down and pick up sewing again along the rest of the bottom and up the remaining short side. Basically we're using the fold for the top of the pocket and sewing up the other three sides, leaving a small opening in the bottom for turning. Clip the two bottom corners and turn right side out. Press flat, being sure that the unsewn seam of your opening lines up evenly.

6. Top stitch along the top edge of the pocket.

7. Now sew the pocket on to the inside fabric along the shorts sides and bottom. Be careful to sew the opening down so that it catches the seam, in effect sewing that opening closed. I centered the pocket about 1 1/2" up from the bottom of the fabric.

8. Now place your black felt strips up on the top part of the inside fabric. Find the center and then move the strips around until you have the spacing you like. I centered my strips 1 1/4" in from each edge and left about a 1 1/4" space from the top of the pocket. Trim the felt strips as needed. Using black thread, sew the strips down along each of the four sides. Hint - pin your felt well and remove the pins as you sew so that the felt doesn't move or stretch or you sew.

9. This is what you should have now.

10. Pin your hair elastic at the center of the top - be sure that the big part of the loop lies toward the center of the fabric. With right sides together put the inside and outer fabrics together. Sew using 1/2" seam allowances along all outer edges leaving a 3" opening at the center bottom. Be sure to backstitch over the elastic (quite a few times).

11. Clip the corners off and turn right side out. Use chopsticks or another device to get your corners sharp. Iron flat and be sure your opening gets pinned closed so that the edges are even.

12. Top stitch all the way around, being sure to catch the opening and sew it closed. Just for good measure, I backstitched another couple of times over the elastic.

13. Roll up the game board and figure out where your button should be. Sew it on as you marked.

14. Add your "X"'s and "O"'s and off you go.

Shhhh - It's a Pirate Quiet Book

Well this little pattern has been on my list of projects to tackle for a long time - since the day I saw it. We have a nephew who's son was turning one this week and in addition to the car racetrack carrier that I made, I decided there was no better reason to make one (or two) of these little pirate quiet books.

I ordered the pattern from Everyday Celebrations. Then I started the task of cutting everything out - that is really the "hardest" part. So I present the finished Pirate Quite Book.

My goal was to use scraps. I only needed the red and brown ric rac to match.

Here is the pirate.And the cannon - Boom!And the treasure chest. The pattern called for little pieces of colored felt to represent the jewels. But I knew that I had seen colored jewels at the craft store so I hot-glued a nice variety inside the chest.The pirate ship.

The treasure map - I added the cute little palm tree. Every treasure map I've ever seen . . . and goodness knows I have seen a lot :-), has a palm tree on it.A parrot - a pirate's best friend.And the back of the book.So while I was making one, why not just make a second at the same time. Give one away - keep one for my boys. Here is our version. I ran out of pirate scraps so I did have to run out and find some cute pirate fabric for the front and back of ours. They really are very cute. Mostly touch and feel - the pages don't really "do" anything. But I love it - we will be testing it out at church tomorrow. Everyday Celebrations did a nice job creating this one. She has some holiday books and other themed small quiet books I'll be trying.