New Year, New Look, New Dress

Well, today is my little L'bug's first birthday.

What a ride this past year has been... She's now almost walking and this morning she picked up a book and pretended to be reading it to me as she was flipping the pages. I miss her being a baby, but not as much as I love watching her learn new things. My favorite moment of the day is watching her crawl towards and then ram into our pug. He's so calm and doesn't move... so she backs up and rams him again!

Happy Birthday Little Miss!

For her birthday I made her a dress. What girl doesn't enjoy a new dress on her special day? The pattern is Simplicity 7166, and very easy to follow. Awhile back my mom gave me tons of children's patterns and I believe she made this same dress for me when I was little.

The fabric is actually a vintage bed sheet that I found at the Goodwill. Have I ever mentioned how much I love pockets??? If you've followed my blog you've seen it. Every thing has pockets! (lol) I can't help it. They're like the icing on a cake - a must.

Except I don't like icing and I always scrape it off, so that probably wasn't the best analogy.

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Mom and I were going through some of her old fabric that she had and this one made it's way to my house. I don't know if any of you ever have this feeling... but when I finish making something small I'm compelled to start another. Maybe it's just me - who knows!

When I finished her birthday dress I was so excited with how it turned out that I decided to make these overalls.

(which are also a Simplicity patter [6362])

I believe this patter originally came from my Aunt J, however I'm pretty sure that it was passed along a couple of times, because when I started going through it and picking out the pattern pieces that I needed... half were missing.

Oh well! I already had my hopes up, so I was going to make it anyway.

I think I had pieces K and L... the bottom pieces, so I made up the top, pockets, straps, and arm holes. L'bug didn't mind ;o)

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...

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In honor of L'bug's first... and need to freshen things up a bit. I decided to change up the background of the blog. Hope you like it!

Raining Crafts & Dogs

Some people save their spare change for rainy days... others curl up with their hot tea and read a good book. I am neither of thoes two people :)

On rainy days I like to make what I call "fast crafts." You know, the ones that

only take a couple of hour to make.

Instant gratification!

The crafts that follow are my fast crafts from the past couple of rainy days.

I had first noticed these snack bags while baby-sitting for a friend from church. Her son had his

dried cherries in one. Upon closer inspection I realized that these snack bags were awesome!

You can put basically anything in them - obviously not liquids - however all of the

finger foods that kids (and adults) eat can be carried around in these

very eco-friendly bags.

They are lined and have a velcro strip that closes them. What I like most is that the kids can

open and close them themselves. I used fun vintage fabric for L'bugs.

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My next craft came from a picture that I saw online from good 'ol Martha Stewart.
They are flower pins made from zippers!! Thanks to my wonderful mother
I am in the possession of approx. 50 zippers, so I had plenty of colors to choose from.

I glued a hair pin (like the ones that I used for the felted hair pins) on the back.

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Bottle Cap Hot Pad

I know what you're probably thinking.... "really... you don't need to be 'that' person that has everything possible crochetted"

But I found this vintage 50's pattern for a crochet bottle cap hot pad and I couldn't resist

trying it out. The original pattern formed the caps into a pineapple shape, and honestly

that would have called for twice as many bottle caps, so to keep the craft within my

instant gratification range I made up my flower pattern which required half as many bottle caps.

It was a relaxing craft because you can basically just make the bottle cap covers from memory after about the third one.

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My last craft was another Martha special. I wanted to make something for Mother's Day, not only to save some bucks, but to also incorporate L'bug.

She called for a tote which you could color on for your Mother. I didn't have any plain totes on hand so I made my own. I made my mother, mother-in-law, and myself one.

Then I made a flower template and drew a picture for L'bug to color. Since she's only 11 months

I did help her hold the permenent markers, but she did so good and we had a lot of fun coloring together.

I traced her flowers and then put a cute saying on the side.

"I love my Grandmother as the flowers love water & sunshine!"

They both loved them.

If are ever wondering what you could do on your rainy day - instant crafts are the way to go!

As always if you see anything that you'd like me to make feel free to email me! :)

sing_82@yahoo.com

Nesting Dolls with a pinch of Yarn

I have a "slight" passion for Matryoshka dolls. (aka Russian nesting or stacking dolls)

They are by far the most popular Russian national souvenir and I'm facinated by them!

I love that they have pretty much taken on a life of their own.

If you Goggle them you will find not only the traditional style, but also more retro ones. I've even seen ones painting like Star Wars characters!

The first nesting doll was made in 1890 in Moscow. Apparently the name, Matryoshka was a popular female Russian name. The name also stems from the Latin words meaning "mother." That's why the first and largest of the dolls is thought to be the "healthy & portly" looking mother of the large peasant family :)

L'bug and I went to a place in Chesterfield, called the Painting Paw.

It was awesome! They sell unglazed pottery which you paint, they fire, and then after a few days you pick up your finished product. They have everything you can image... I was very close to selecting a fun garden gnome with a mushroom, when I happened to glance up and what do you think I saw??

Russian Nesting Dolls of course!

It took me two trips to finish painting them. L'bug actually did really well with letting me work. Thank you Jesus for Puffs & Mum-mums! I tried to get her interested in helping me paint them, but she only wanted to eat the paint brush... which I thought wasn't the best of ideas.

So, I ended up holding her hand so that she could make a few brush strokes :)

I would highly recommend going!

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I'm alwasy making things for L'bug and I would say that my house is tidy and clean, however I have been known to misplace things from time to time. (just ask my husband *hehe)

Anyways, the other day I was looking for a pair of L'bug's booties.

I looked high and low to no avail!

So, I was going to make her a new pair, however the pattern I used was a collection of a couple of patterns - basically I made it up - and when I realized that I hadn't written the "new" pattern down... I was so annoyed at myself for loosing the booties in the first place that I started looking for a new pattern.

(new patterns always make me smile)

To be budget aware I looked at crochet pattern central for a free one, but I didn't like anything they had.

Next stop... etsy :) :) :)

HELLLOOO CUTE SHOES! and a happy mamma :)

I found this pattern from Hook Candy - love it! And if you crochet, the pattern is totally worth it! Her format is easy to read and has detailed pictures!

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I'm throwing in this last picture because it cracked me up, and you can kind of get a feel for how L'bug plays while I'm crafting :)

Enjoy!

Hair Pins for Easter

Well, the hair pins are officially my best selling item :)

Thank you everyone!

Along with making these cute hair accessories L'bug and I have been enjoying the weather.
We've got some pretty flowers that showed up in our backyard.

I'm in the process of making some cute baby items - but alas... the spring cleaning and beautiful sunshine have been calling my name. So, I haven't devoted much time to my crafts.

I am determinging to be better at that however, and I promise that my next post will have

new and fun things :)

Happy Spring!

A Month's Full of Doings & Makings

*letting out a deep breath*

What have I been doing this past month? Even though I haven't been very up-to-date with my postings I have been quite busy. I wish I could say that I was done with painting my house, but alas I have to confess that I still have the trim in the bathroom and basically everything in L'bug's room... In bettween the poopie diapers, my new wondermus steam mop, and making dinner - it will all get done :) At least that's what I keep telling myself! haha

The above picture is a baby sling that I made for a friend - I want to take this time to say that mommy's do need to be careful wearing the babysling with a new born. I wore one with L'bug and she did fine - you just need to make sure that they can get enough air. If their chin is tucked to their chest the baby could not be getting enough to breath :( After they are around 4 months old babies are usually strong enough to move their heads and the risk of them getting hurt is greatly decreased.

For more information go to: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/09/national/main6282437.shtml

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A couple weeks ago a dear friend N had her baby shower - I made her some hair clips for her little girl, but what fun are clips if you don't have a holder?? Not very fun at all!

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This next project was very close to my heart.

It started out with a book by Thomas Kinkade, "Grandmother's Memories to her Grandchild."

The book was filled with questions such as,"Where were you born? What was your favorite childhood hiding place? Who were the attendants in your wedding?" Personal

questions that give us great insight to the ongoings of our grandparent's lives.

Even though it wasn't my own grandmother, it was very neat to see how,

Mrs. Gladys Kujawa, born in 1912 lived her amazing life.

I read about how she wasn't allowed to ride a bicycle because it wasn't lady like and how her first car was a Model T (as was everyone else's... but still!)

This woman, who has sinced passed, loved her children and grandchildren and this book, in her own, beautifully written cursive handwriting tells it all.

Ok so, now that you know the back story - here's my project.

My aunt wanted copies of this book made. Not just any copies from a big box store, with plastic bindings and such... but copies that would go along with the neatness, shall we say, of these

timeless memories of her grandmother.

I took photos of all of the pages and reformatted them to fit into old books that I'd found at the GoodWill. I make journals the same way... I find books in good shape with interesting covers, remove the original pages, and then rebind them with my own pages. I love how old books can get a second life!

These pages have images... my journals have lined pages :)

Once I have the pages folded and cut. I sew them into the book (as shown below.)

I added a button with ribbon to help close the book and to add detail.

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My last project of this month has been a Crochet Hobo Bag like the multicolored one I did for myself awhile back. I did this one in a more neutral color pallet with punches of red and blue.

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Sneek peek into next months work....