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?

Grandma

My mom and dad came to visit along with my sister Kim and her baby Jacob. We had lots of un and ate way to much food.  It was great.  While they were here we went to go visit my Grandma who lives a little over an hour or so away from me in a nursing home.  My grandma wears a wig and she used to always wear a fake flower in it.  SOOOOO  my sister thought it would be fun to make her a bunch of flower clips to bring her.  The night before we went to see her we put the kids to bed and then made some hair clips for her.  We also made some for her roommate because we didn't want her to feel left out!  :)

Check out what Grandma scored.

The white one with the blue in the middle and the pink felt one were for her roommate but the rest were for grandma.  My favorite's were these three 

Kim made the last one.  So we are hoping she is wearing them and that all of the other old ladies are jealous!  haha  Hopefully we can get grandma a man.  Love ya grandma!

GIVEAWAY

Well I was a little discourage this week because only ONE person responded to the need for a giveaway.  BUT  I decided I don't really care and I am going to do one anyways!  HAHA  I really need to get rid of some things from my etsy shop and so why not give a couple of them away right?  So starting tomorrow I will be posting the info about that.  Amanda if no one enters then you will win everything right!?  haha  So we'll see how this goes everyone.

Going along with the giveaway I am going to feature a hair clip every day.  Either one of mine or maybe someone else's.  Do you have a hair clip or flower tutorial on your blog you want me to share next week?  Let me know.  My email is on the right hand side of my page.  Also, if I can figure out how to use the linky thing Thursday I think I will do a linky where you can link to your blog with any hair clips you have made using one of the tutorials I will post or just making your own.  This week goes perfect for my personal life because on Wednesday we are having craft night for the ladies at church and I am in charge of teaching everyone how to make flowers!  I can't wait.  So we'll see how that goes and I'll keep you all posted.

So until tomorrow....

A Few More Projects

My son owns a Leapster Explorer.  He loves it.  He has to earn games by trying to new foods ( which pretty much NEVER happens! or by doing things around the house. ) Basically we bribe him which I am TOTALLY okay with.  You do what you gotta do sometimes.  He really needed a case for it but I REALLY wanted his case to be able to hold the games as well.  All of the manufactured kind in the store only hold the actual leapster.  BOOOOO  I finally got around to making him my own.  I even did a tutorial for it!  However, after just a couple of hours of using it I found it's not very practically.  It would be an easy fix but I haven't had time to fix it yet.  Here's what it looks like.

The Leapster goes in the main pocket to the left and the little pockets to the right are for the tiny games.  There are 9 pockets and right now we only have 3 games so we have room to grow.  The part where I messed up is that I didn't close off the pockets with velcro.  this means that when my kid goes to close it, the games slide out very easily.  Not good.  I will fix it one of these days but for now we are just happy we have a case for everything.

The only thing I have worked on this last week was some wedding accessories.  I get request for wedding garters on etsy a lot.  Here is the latest

I made a tutorial for garters too!  Hopefully sometime this week I can post it.  Garters are actually SUPER easy to make.  I usually use satin ribbon and then it makes it even easier.

Then I made two hair clips for weddings. These aren't for anyone specific, I made them just because I thought they were cute and they have been getting a lot of people in the shop I am selling hair clips in looking for wedding stuff.  Not a single one of my hair clips has sold so I figured I'd better change my strategy.  I dropped them off today and the owner thought they were SO cute!  Hopefully that means someone will buy them.

So we'll see what happens.  I HATE not having time to do things.  I have so many hair clips in my head that I want to try to do but I am having a hard time managing my new time schedule with my son in school and my daughter needed mommy time.  I have also been trying to work out everyday which is proving to be difficult.  I know this isn't new.   Every mother struggles with time management and I know it's just a matter of time before I get into a good groove.  I am telling you that I am ADDICTED to pinterest!  I know this isn't knew to anyone yet either but I have been finding the GREATEST stuff on there.  Since we are going to be moving into a new home in 2 plus months I have been trying to find good decorating ideas and things.  Here's hoping everything goes well with the house.  The bank did not choose to foreclose since we had already gone into escrow.  Now we are going to do the inspection and hope things go well with that!  Cross your fingers for us.

Is anyone thinking about Christmas already?  I am NOT one of those people who start playing Christmas music at home or getting out my decoration before December 1st.  In fact, I don't listen to Christmas music at home at all.  I get enough of it when I go out.  I am annoyed that stores are already stocking up on Christmas stuff.  I DO however, start thinking about what I am going to MAKE people for Christmas.  I am hoping to make a lot of fun "green" things for people this year.  We shall see what happens.

Getting Crafty

I have been not the craftiest person ever, but I have had projects going non-stop it seems through out the last week.  I was asked to do some hair clips for someone's wedding.  They wanted some different colors then usual weddings which made it slightly harder to get the stuff to make them. They wanted black and red flowers, with feathers and netting.  I bet this wedding is going to be styling!  Here is what I made

The black flower is for the bride and the red flowers are for the bridesmaids.  You have NO idea how hard it was to find black flowers that were NOT roses.  I finally found a "bush"that was black leaves and I took those apart and glued them all together to form a flower.  Then the red flowers I had bought were bigger then the black flower.  I couldn't have that seeing as how it was the brides hair things, so I call ALL of the petals off and then glues those all together to form smaller flowers. It was a lot of work!  But I think they turned out great.  I also did a garter and some other wedding hair things this week.  I'll post later.

I had some drama when on Thursday my husband got out my external hard drive to get a picture off of it that someone had ordered on canvas from my etsy store only to find out that the hard drive was not responding.  It was the back up to my lap top which fried about e month ago.  So my back up to my lap top and the lap top were both gone.  This means I probably lost 10,000 pictures and most were from pregnancy with my daughter on.  So pretty much all of her baby pictures.  I was CRUSHED!  I balled myself to sleep.  We are hopeful that we are going to be able to retrieve them.  I'll let you know how that goes.  I'm crossing my fingers and SO GLAD, I was a good blogger on my family blog during those years so I know I have a lot of those pictures SOMEWHERE.  I am still pretty depressed but we'll see what happens.  I gotta run for now but I'll be back soon with more projects to show you !  Hope evryone is having a great Monday!!!

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?!

CRAZY Week

I have had kind of a crazy week! My son started kindergarten and we also had company.  I have completely turned my life all upside down and have changed our schedule.  I have also started up the south beach diet AGAIN and have so far lost 6 pounds since Monday.  WOO HOO

I have had little time for anything at all.  My house is pretty messy and I have laundry stacked up.  Sheesh. I did manage to get a tutorial done but now I am having difficultly finding the time to actually post it!  The pictures are shrunk ad ready to go I just need a half an hour or so to write it.  I am crossing my fingers that I will be able to before the day is through.  Here is what the tutorial is for

New very easy hair clips!  Or brooch pins.  Whatever you want to use them for.  Now I must go because my daughter is telling me to put down my computer.  haha

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!  :)

New Things

I am adding some new things to the etsy shop.  I have been doing the bow ties here and there and I FINALLY decided to make some for the shop.  SOOOOO I ordered some bow tie hard ware so they could be adjustable.  I have only made two so far but they are CUTE!  I decided to also start adding some girl ones on both hair clips and on lace stretchy headbands.  Here are the two boy ones and the one girl one I have made so far.

I have lots more fabrics I can't wait to make bow ties with!  Now here's hoping they sale!!!  haha

I am in Utah right now, I am post dating these.  I hope everyone is having a great week!  I am SURE we are.

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!

Making

I have been making flowers.  I haven't really taken any pictures of them.  I don't want everyone who actually reads this to get sick of them.  Don't you hate that when someone blogs the same stuff every time.  I feel like that has been me lately so I have been debating on not blogging at all or blogging the same three crafts.  Hmmmmm

This weekend my in laws decided to come surprise us.  It was lots of fun.  My husband smoke us some ribs and brisket and I am telling you it was GOOOOOOD!  And I don't even really like meat.  I made some of the Brazilian Cheese Bread I blogged about.  SO good you guys!  If you have not tried the recipe yet I AM TELLING YOU DO IT!  You will NOT be let down.  My mother in law went home with the recipe and a bag of the tapioca flour so she could make some.  :)

They came to church with us too.  Church was really nice yesterday.  One of the lessons we had was about how our most important calling in this life was that of a spouse and a parent.  It hit home for me.  Who cares what we do in this life we were terrible at raising our kids and were terrible at being a spouse!?!  I mean, really.  With that in mind, I have had a pretty good day with my kids.  Things that normally would drive me crazy have not.  I haven't yelled.  I haven't ignored them so I could craft.  In fact earlier today I had some craft I wanted to try and it just so happened to work out that Kayla could do it too even though it wasn't a kid craft.  You'll see what I mean when I post it in a day or two.  We sat at the table and painted together while my son was playing a computer game with us.  It was nice.  I REALLY don't want to be a failure as a mom.  I want my kids to look back and cherish the times we spend together.  I am working to improve myself all of the time.  Today Tyler told me I was the best mom he ever had!  haha  It makes me laugh because of course I am the best he ever had because I am the only one he has ever had!  But hey...I'll take it!


Here's a quick picture of a clip I just recently made.  I love it

Maybe tomorrow I'll be back with something other then hair clips

Seriously?

I have MORE flowers to post on here tonight.  I know what you are thinking.  SERIOUSLY?  Yes.  Sorry it isn't something more exciting but I have NOT had much time this week to craft.  My husband has been home on vacation so I didn't really have time to myself to do things like that.  I did however, get to go to the town thrift store by myself for like 45 minutes during nap time on Wednesday.  I SCORED!  I got a couple of vintage ( or at least REALLY old ) pillow cases and I have started to turn them into some pillow case dresses for my daughter.  The one I bought to actually turn into the pillow case dress I am having second thoughts on it now.  I am thinking instead of maybe making me a skirt.  We shall see.  I also found a SUPER cute skirt for me in a size 18.  I am not a size 18 however so I must take it in before I can wear it.  Hopefully that doesn't take me TOO long to do.   It's SO cute that I am hoping it helps motivate me enough tot get it done so I can wear it.  I never seem to want to wear any of my dresses or skirts to church.  I also bought a flat sheet and some other pillow cases, some AWESOME stretchy knit I am planning on making a skirt for me with ( it was 1 1/2 yards for only 1.50! )  a wallet, a leather ( well fake leather most likely ), 4 books for my kids and a basket to do new born pictures with and I got it ALL for 11 dollars.  YYYYYYYESSSSSSS! ( said just like Napoleon Dynamite )

Any ways.  Here are the flowers I made the other day using some tutorials I found in blog land.

The first one is kinda plain but I think I will add a leaf or two too it to add just a little something else.  I tutorial I saw put some leaves off of the side and I didn't think it needed them until I tried it without.

I LOVE how this one turned out and it looks so hard but it really wasn't complicated at all.  It didn't take that long either which is a plus for me.  You do have to sew and some people don't like that but it was worth it in my opinion.

This one was EXTREMELY easy and yet looks so elegant if you use the right ribbon.  I think I am going to be adding some tule, russian veiling and/or some feathers to it.  It's super cute now as it is but some other stuff added might make it pretty darn cute too.  And since my girl refuses to use clips or put anything at all in her hair I will most likely be putting these in the etsy shop.  I have been thinking about doing another giveaway too so maybe I'll use some for that!

I hope everyone had a great Friday.  I got to see two friends I haven't seen in forever and have lunch while the kids played.  It was nice.  That's twice in one week I got to hang out with old friends.  Life doesn't get much better than that!!!

PS We also put in an offer on a house.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  It is a short sale and they were asking more then what we offered.  We are hoping they counter offer and don't just flat out tell us know. We'll see what happens.  I'll keep y'all posted.  EEEEEEE