Hair clips

So a LONG time ago it seems I was very into making hair clips.  It really has been a while since I made hair clips for babies.  I took pictures for someone's baby shower last month and so I brought a hair thing to give her.  She thought it was so cute she asked for my etsy web address and then ordered 4 more clips from me.  When I showed up at her house with the hair clips she handed me some flowers and a felt cupcake she found in the dollar section at Michael's.  She asked me if I could make her some more clips with the flowers she got.  So I got right to work....okay really it took me about a week or two to get around to it.  haha  The baby isn't born yet and isn't due for another couple of weeks.  I have to show you one of the headbands I made though because it is so cute.

Isn't it cute?  I hate it sitting on my ugly ironing board but I was in a hurry when I took them.  :)  She asked me if a couple of them could be Velcro hair clips.  I hadn't done those before but it was SO easy!

You just open it up and put the one side under a section of hair and then velcro it closed.  Easy right?  And what a great way to do hair clips that aren't going to bug little babies heads, or for babies with hair not quit long enough for alligator clips.

I totally didn't take a picture of the rest of the stuff I made her but oh well.  Now you can see that I HAVE been working on stuff and I haven't just been sitting around all the time not blogging.  I haven't been able to get myself back into blogging after we moved.  Before we moved I was already having a hard time.  Then the internet wouldn't work and now I have just gotten out of the habit.  I really haven't been working on as much stuff either.  What has messed me up the most was I ALWAYS blogged first thing in the morning. That is when I always browsed all the blogs I loved too.  I would get the kids up and get us all breakfast and then we would sit on the couch together for an hour or so watching cartoons while I had my lap top on my lap either writing a blog, or browsing other blogs.  Now we have to get ready for school as soon as I get him up and so there goes my blogging and browsing time.  My sons school starts so late and it kinda kills the morning.  I haven't also started something new I am really excited about.  No it is not ANOTHER crafty project!  I think I am busy enough between the sewing, crafting and crocheting for now.  I have started exercising a couple of times a week with some ladies from church.  My body hurts so bad this week but I don't even care because it would be so wonderful to be in shape again.

So for now, the blogs will continue to be a "whenever I can manage to sit down and write one"  thing.  Some weeks will be better then others but for now it will have to do.

What has everyone else been working on lately?  Anything for Easter?

About Time

Well, now that it is almost March, why not finally post pictures of my sons Valentine's me made for his kindergarten class this year.

Seriously, what is my problem lately?

Here you go

Mustaches and lips!  They were fun to make and not TOO much work.

Mustaches for the boys  and Lips for the girls.

And here is my handsome dude writing in his teachers card.

I realized AFTER he put down his first hand that we faced his hands the wrong way.  DOH!  Oh well, I think it is still cute.

So Happy LATE Valentine's day!  I hope everyone here had a great day.  Did anyone else make Valentine's for their kids class?

Why Hello

It has been almost ONE MONTH since I blogged.  Let me just tell you that I didn't plan that.  IN fact I have at LEAST 3 blogs that I took pictures for and never posted.  Ever since we moved we have had major problems with our internet.  I would get to the end of my blog and hit the publish post button and the internet would stop working and I would lose it.  It was very frustrating, not to mention a big fat waste of time to sit around and write a post to not have to save or publish.  BUT we think we have got it all squared away now.  My problem now is getting back into the habit of posting.  It's not that I do not have projects going on.  I have had many finished projects.  Those I have pictures of I will slowly start to post.  My project for today is an ear warmer.

I made this for my sister using an old Old Navy sweater.  I cut it up and sewed it together to make the ear warmer part.  Then I put two buttons on it which are a pretty pale yellow ( LOVE yellow and grey together ) and then made a crochet grey flower.  I LOVE how it turned out.  She walks daily with her best friend Liz and so I made them both ear warmer's for Christmas.  Hopefully they enjoy them and use them on their walks to keep those ears warm.

Now here's hoping I can get some more stuff up.  My parents and sister and her baby are coming tomorrow and will be here until Tuesday so I am hoping that maybe I can get a bunch of stuff posted today and scheduled for them to post through out the weekend.  Crossing my fingers!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Seriously?

Wow!  I have only been averaging about 1 to 2 post per week for the last month or so.  That is so sad.  Funny thing is that I thought when my son started school I would have SO much more free to time to craft. HAHAHAHA  It has been the opposite.  I haven't sewn hardly at all and I have made nothing for my etsy shop.  I have barely managed to do a few projects for friends or for church.

This last weekend I did a Halloween photo shoot with some friends and friends of friends.  It was lots of fun.  I made a Halloween banner just to help with decorations.  I also brought my halloween quilt that I made a LONG time ago.  A lot of the fabric matched because it was left over from when I did the quilt.  Here is a picture of my son and his friend Lillie ( who happens to be my best friend from high school's little girl )

I was planning on using the Halloween banner across my fire place but I made it SO huge that I would have to cut it in half and so far I have been way to lazy to do that.  Pathetic I know.   The main reason for the photo shoot was to take a picture for my friend.  Her little girl is almost a year old and she is so adorable.  She was looking on pinterest or somewhere and saw a picture of a baby INSIDE a pumpkin.  If you have been looking on pinterest at all you have probably seen the picture.  she sent me a copy and said, "Can we do this, please?"  I told her as long a s she carved out the pumpkin herself I would totally do it.  SO this is what we ended up with

When we first put her in it she balled!  Like big crocodile tears!  Then her momma started singing and all the kids started jumping up and down dancing and we got this little smile out of her.  She never smiled huge but that is okay.  We liked this one any ways.  What a cutie pie huh?!

So there you have it.  Some kind of a blog post from me.  And since today is Thankful Thursdays I am going to say I am thankful for friends.  My friend Lisa not only set up everything at her mom's house and bought all of the decorations for this photo of her daughter, but she then wrote a note on facebook and asked if anyone was interested in coming and paying money to get their kids picture taken!  What a trooper she was!  She worked hard all day too.  I'm so grateful for the few of my friends who are like that and support me no matter what.  Her momma raised her right.  I met her sister and she was the SAME way.  Kept asking me if I needed anything, threw my trash away for me, put my medicine in the refrigerator for me.  It was so nice!  I hope everyone who reads this can find something that they are thankful for today too!

So here's hoping I have SOMETHING crafty to show for my self soon.  I am NOT making any promises thought because we are moving into our new house in about two weeks,  I have one box packed.  YIKES!

New Belts

When I first opened up my etsy store back in March I made a ribbon belt out of white satin ribbon and a white flower that I put a little fake diamond in the center.  It was one of the first things I sold.  I think they are really cute but I never made any more.  Lately I have been noticing them a lot of pinterest ( which I am completely addicted to by the way! )   My friend Katrina is a very fun and out going person.  She loves wearing feathers and fun outfits.  She has a birthday this week and I was looking for something to make her.  I decided to make some belts for her.  Here is how it started.


I started with about 3 yards or so of satin ribbon ( I get mine from the Dollar General and its REALLY nice for only being a dollar! )

Then I decided what I wanted to put on it.  I went with some shabby chic flowers I bought off of etsy about 6 months ago and still haven't used all of them.  They were a little plain though so I added a pearl in the center of both of them

I added them to the ribbon right in the center.  The put just a TINY bit of glue in the center to attach them but I knew I wanted to add some feathers!

I busted out my guinea feathers and started glueing away until I was happy.  The pictures turned out HORRIBLE because it was black on silver and I could not get my lighting right ( did I mention this was at midnight and everyone else in my house was fast asleep? )

I love the way it turned out!  I decided she needed two!  I busted out some new ribbon in a lighter color and decided to do something pretty instead of funky.  I LOVED how this one turned out

So what you think?  I think I need to make some for me for church to wear over some plain dresses.  I don't know if with kids it would stay tied on my back though!  haha

So my lack of posting lately has been due to a number of things.

I had two hard drives crash and thought I lost everything on them ( which was mainly pictures! )  I cried...a LOT!

We are in the process of buying a house.

Our house in Texas hasn't sold yet.

My boy started school which I thought was going to do WONDERS for me.  It has done the opposite.  I haven't had time to do ANYTHING!  I haven't gotten hardly anything done.  My house is a mess and my poor daughters nap schedule is SOOOOO messed up that mainly she just doesn't nap which is also killing me.  She is super cranky and I don't have time to work out or blog.  Boooooo

I am trying.

Here's hoping I can figure out a better schedule for me and my daughter.

good news is the house we are buying is wonderful and we are just waiting to make sure the appraisal goes well and we get the loan from the bank.  Also, my son LOVESSSSS school.

I'll try and blog more soon.  TRY being the key word.  But I promise I will TRY!

Flower Tutorial

I'm not very creative when it comes to finding names for things.  So Flower tutorial will have to do for now.  This is a very simple tutorial and the finishing results is pretty fast and pretty cute.  You can use any fabric you want for this.  I tried two different kinds and I used two different ways.  The first time I tried just using a glue gun.  That was almost harder to do then a straight sewing machine.  Here is what the finish product looks like.

First I took a 37 in by 3 in strip of fabric

Take your strip of fabric and make a long string of glue down one of the long sides...gotta be fast so the glue doesn't dry.

Then fold the fabric in half and press the sides down together so the glue sticks

Next take the new strip and cut on the folded side alllllll the way down to make petals for the flower

Make these whatever size you want.  Try different sizes for different looks.   Then you need to start your flower.  Add a little glue to the end piece and then roll.

Now work your magic the rest of the way down with the gun and then roll.  Glue.  Roll.  Until you get to the end.

You can make the roll really tight for a fuller flower or make the roll kind lose for a less full flower.

I love the way the end roll looks!

And there you have it!  I think it looks really cute by itself or you could add a pretty button or some ribbon in the center

Next I tried it with sewing instead of glue for the first step.  I think it actually went faster and was less messy.  YOu can do it by hand by with a machine.  I'm lazy so I used my machine.

For this flower instead of doing one long strip I decided to do a bunch of shorter strips with different coordinating fabrics.  Mess around with the lengths and don't worry about making then too long.  You can always cut them if they are too long when you roll them!

I love how colorful it is!

Then I added something to the middle.  This is actually a brad for scrap booking but it had great color!

I then decided to make a wider one.  I took a piece of thick interfacing and started with the OUTSIDE circle and sewed it down using my machine.  You could use the glue too because that would have been just as easy or you could sew it down by hand.   Once I was done with one color ( if there was extra I just cut it off ) I just grabbed a new color and started sewing/gluing again!

The center I took the part of the green one I had cut off because it was too long and rolled it and glued it in the center.  Again it looks good by itself or with a colorful button in the center!

These are SUPER easy and can look really elegant or really fun depending on the fabric and button you use for the middle!  I haven't had time since I made these last week to try new ones with different fabrics.  I also want to make some more with a much wider petal.  The wider the petal the more the flower kind of looks like a flower you would buy in the wrapping paper section!  I love them.  Oh how I wish my daughter would let me put things in her hair!  Now I either need to gift these or put them in the shop.  Someone please convince my daughter to leave something in her hair!  Pretty please?!

Input

I know I do this a lot but I always second guess myself when it comes to creating things.  Do you guys think I should turn these flowers I just made into hair accessories with maybe some white or grey feathers coming off of them?  OR do you think I should leave them as is and turn them into shoe clips?  My original plan was shoes clips but now I am not so sure.  Any advice helps.  Thanks y'all!

The picture is not that great because it is from my phone but you get the idea!  :)

A Tooth

My friend Cari wanted me to make her son a tooth pillow.  Not sure what I mean?  It's a pillow for when your kid loses a tooth.  There is a pocket in it for them to put their tooth in for the tooth fairy.  I got the idea from MMMMCrafts.  I fyou go to her blog she has a free template you can print out and use.  The boy versions she has on her blog are things like, a police officer.  Cari wanted me to do a pirate one and I thought that sounded like a great idea.  So I drew a sketch of what I wanted it to look like.

And this is why I TAKE pictures rather then draw them.  haha  I am NOT an artist.  SOOOO this is what I came up with.

I think it came out cute.  Cari sent me a picture of her son holding the pillow smiling.  Hopefully that means he likes it.  If you have a kid who hasn't had any teeth fall out yet you should check out the tutorial and free printable here   

In The Mood

I have been WANTING to sew lately but have had several other things going.  My sister was here visiting along with my other friend Kevin.  We had lots going on while they were here.  My house, when they left was a MESS.  Like horrible mess.  Kayla was best buddies with her cousin Jacob who crawls.  She would crawl on the floor with him and says, "Come on baby Jakey"  It was so cute.  Then he would smile and laugh and follow her.  She would also dump out EVERY little thing she thought he would like to play with and spread it out all over the floor.  You could barely walk in my living room.  I have no idea how they were crawling on it.

Any ways.  We had lots going on after they left too.  I FINALLY got about 25 clips to the shop here where I live.  I am both nervous and excited to have something in a store for sale.  I have no clue if any of them will sale.  If they don't sale, then it will be kind of disappointing.  The good news is that I am in no contract or anything and my first month of rent space is free.   Take my advice people, if you have a skill you are good at always ask if someone is willing to trade services.  The shop I was going to be selling hair clips at was having problems taking pictures and getting them on facebook.  I told them I was a photographer and asked if they would be willing to have me come do pictures for them and I could get rent space free for the first month.  They said yes!  WOO HOO  Here are some pictures I took of their shop

It's a pretty cute shop!  The good news is that no one else sales hair clips either so the only hair clips in there are mine!  I made some cute stuff for the shop too.  But because I have been doing hair clips like crazy, I am not in the mood to do some for my etsy shop.  Maybe in a week or so I can duplicate some for my etsy shop because some of them were really cute.  Here is a picture of all of them together.

I have more crafts to write about but I don't want to write them all in the same post so I'll write more soon.  I need to shower and go over my lesson for church today.  It's a pretty intense lesson that I am praying I can get through.

Happy Sunday everyone!