Altoid Box Make-Over

I saw an idea similar to this on Pinterest. I applied the fabric to mine with modge podge. The problem I ran into was the text showing through the fabric. I added a few well placed appliques to cover it up. On the pink tin, I added glitter to the modge podge. The sides of the tins are decorated with washi tape. It is the perfect width. I plan on filling these with crayons or bandaids to put in our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. 

Birthday Cakes

I children's birthdays fall on the 10th and the 11th. We celebrate with one party, two cakes. The castle cake was baked in a bundt pan, not hand sculpted. If it were hand sculpted by me, it would look more like something that came out of the south end of a cow rather than a princess castle. The other cake is the Discovery Space Shuttle. While painstakingly frosting that sucker, I realized two things: a) I will never get good at this, and b)making fun cakes is much funner with my sister.

Zippered Pencil Pouch

I made this pencil pouch for my son. I used Noodlehead's tutorial here. She has a lot of awesome tutorials over there for various zippered pouches, wallets, etc. I added piping between the different fabrics, and made sure the horse's face was on the zipper tab just for fun. The bottom part is from an old pair of jeans. :)

Very Hungry Caterpillar Outfits

I recently had a two-for-one baby shower for two of my friends. Due to conflicting schedules, we waited til after the babies were born to have the shower. That meant there were two babies to snuggle! It was hard, but someone had to do it. The theme of the shower was the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I love his illustrations. At some point, I decided to make outfits to match the theme. Since the shower was for a baby girl and a baby boy, I thought I could use the caterpillar and butterfly as my motifs. The pattern is Simplicity 5374, which I have gotten a TON of mileage out of. The Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric is from fabric.com 

I really tweaked this pattern to make it how I wanted. The original pattern has crisscross overall straps like the overalls, but I didn't like them for the dress. I redrafted the back piece to include the fold-over straps. The butterfly I cut out freehand and kept cutting bits and pieces to add to it. Can you spy the pickle, lollipop and ice cream cone? I used a narrow zigzag stitch around the edges and it should fray softly after it is washed. I covered buttons with tiny scraps of the fabric. It is hard to tell from the picture, but the top edge of the jumper is edged with tiny points of purple rick rack.

The only thing I did differently on the overalls was adding a cuff of caterpillar fabric on the legs. I discovered snap tape, and I wonder where it has been all my life! It is expensive ($10/yard) but worth it. It is basically snaps on twill tape, and all you do is sew in the twill tape. The applique is made of wool felt, which holds up a lot better than el cheapo plastic felt (which also has its uses). I sewed the appliques on with black thread to add a sketchy look, and the feet and caterpillar fuzz are hand embroidered.

Michael Miller Gnome Dress

I have a confession to make: I love garden gnomes. I used to hate them. I thought they were cheesy. Well, I still think they are cheesy but maybe that's why I love them so much. Over a year ago, I spotted this fabric on fabric.com. I loved it, but it was on back order. Forever. Seriously, it was on back order for about 6 months. When I went back to check, they had moved the date out even further. When they finally got it in stock, I ordered some! I was really surprised that my daughter loved the fabric as much as I did, but she was thrilled to have a 'mushroom dress'. Here it is:

The collar is out of a thrift store sheet and....rick rack! Are you surprised? The buttons are these super awesome green flower buttons that really made the dress. I begged them from Mom for my birthday and have been holding on to them for the perfect time. And the accessories? Brought to you by Fruit Loops and her Sunday School teacher.

Embroidery

Here is a tea towel I finished a few weeks ago. The transfer was a good ol' Aunt Martha's found at a yard sale. At first, I had no intention of using fill stitching. The petals just didn't seem very interesting, so I decided to fill them in. Then, I thought the leaves looked left out so I filled them too. The petals are split stitch with stem stitch and back stitch details. The leaves are filled with chain stitch. I gave it to my mom, along with the threat that she'd better USE it! None of this 'its too pretty to use' business. :)

Another Bag

Here is the prototype I made for the bacon bag. I drafted the pattern myself and wanted to see if it would come out the way I expected before I used the bacon fabric. It is fully lined and made of upholstery weight canvas I found at a garage sale. I can't decide if it is vintage-funky-awesome, or borderline my-aunt-had-curtains-out-of-that-hideous-fabric. This bag is also going into our shoe boxes. It is big enough to carry quite a bit.

Airplane Shirt

I finished this one few months ago. He has worn it a lot but I never got a good picture of it. Anyway, here is the little man cranking out apricot jam, sans pants. The shirt is very basic. There is a placket in the front with snaps. The fabric is from Obi's, of course. Where else could you find awesome airplane fabric?

Fold and Zip Bag

I am so behind posting my crafty projects its not even funny. Maybe one of these days I'll catch up. Here is a bag that took me embarrassingly long to finish because I got annoyed with it and put it in a drawer. The tutorial is from Sew Mama Sew. Here is my beef with this and other fold and zip style bags: it is usually difficult to squeeze them in to the zipped pouch. I omitted the lining called for on this one, and it was still a tight fit. Also, the bag gets very wrinkly in the pouch, which I suppose doesn't really matter too much. Anyway, I did have fun using some fabrics that didn't necessarily match in the name of 'funky'.

P.S. I am saving this to put in one of our Operation Christmas child shoe boxes. It is compact, and bags are always useful.

Easy Ribbon Headbands

I love headbands so I decided to try to make some extremely quick and easy ones from random ribbon I had lying around my stash. I measured my head from the top, behind my ears and all the way to the base of my neck. I took that measurement and subtracted about 1 1/4 inches then sewed on a 2 inch piece of elastic with a 1/4 seam. Next time I would make the ribbon shorter and add a longer piece of elastic to make it a little easier to put on. I practiced on cheap leftovers but plan on getting some elaborate (and wider) beaded stuff soon to make some headbands that are less Thanksgiving related and a little more work friendly :)