Dinosaur

Last week, Ayden pulled out his dinosaur that I made for him before Spencer was around. Poor little Spencer, he saw it and he came up to me with the most pitiful look on his face and the saddest sounding voice, "I don't have dinosaur....You need to make me green dinosaur" Well, who could ignore a special request like that?!?

So, I had to find some green material that a) I didn't mind looking at since Dinosaur will probably be accompanying us everywhere we go for a while and b) doesn't look too Christmas-y because that is about all the green I have, since it is probably one of my least favorite colors....yet my children love it....hmmm... I ended up pulling a green t-shirt out of the scrap box and I found some rainbow-ish blanket binding to make the "plates" out of. (My oldest son Ayden corrected me when I said spikes ;p smarty pants... )

Here is Spencer with Dinosaur - we tried to get him to name him something else, but he insists Dinosaur is his name ;)

I think Dinosaur turned out pretty cute...for a dinosaur...

(not very good pics, but maybe you can get the idea)

PIllowcase dresses!

A couple of weeks ago, Spencer and I had a playdate with "Miss" Mindy and Caroline. Mindy and I were chatting about my Etsy shop and she asked me if I had ever tried making pillowcase dresses. I hadn't because I didn't have any little girls to sew for, so we went over to my fabric stash and Mindy picked out a piece of pink and orange polka-dot fabric and the rest is history, as they say!

I posted it to Bug's Hugs page on Facebook just to give Mindy and Caroline a preview, and the response has been great! Thanks to all of my followers who have placed orders! I will make some more out of my stash and post them on etsy soon. If you haven't seen your color yet, just let me know what you would like to see, and I will accomodate!

Save the Earth! No more plastic bags!

With Earth Day just around the corner (April 22), I have seen so much buzz on TV and the internet. It seems as if everyone is going green these days. One of the simplest ways to go green, in my opinion, is to bring reusable fabric bags instead of paper, or worse, plastic.

Go here to see an interesting perspective on the life of a plastic bag. It is a long video, but even if you just watch a couple of minutes, you will get the gist. When you have had your fill, come back and check out the new fabric grocery bag listings in my etsy shop!

A Little Late...

...but I just had to show you a pic of one of my sweethearts!
The "messages" are fabric paint, but the whole time I was writing, I was thinking, "Gee, how handy an embroidery machine would be!" (The yellow one in the middle says "I *heart* U")

Maybe one of these days I will catch up on blogging and actually post pics of what I made for Christmas gifts!

The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care.......

A couple of months ago, I got an email from a friend at church asking if I could make Christmas stockings. I eagerly sent back my reply, "Sure!" I had wanted to make some for my family anyway, and this would just get me started on down that path. See, she had ordered a set of stockings for her family in the 2008 Christmas season, and she LOVED them! Then, in January, they got a special delivery - they were able to adopt another little baby boy! When my friend started pulling out the Christmas decorations, she realized poor little Graham didn't have a stocking!

She sent me this pic from the site where she bought them and said she would bring me the ones she had so that I could make some more to match, since this particular style had been discontinued. She brought me the felt and everything, even some little pom poms for the tips. I managed to get a couple of them done before Christmas, with just enough time to take it across town to get Graham's name monogrammed so he could hang it up for Santa ;)
I finally got around to the last one today. (She wanted extras to have one hand, just in case....) I really like the way this last one turned out - maybe I will get ours done sometime this year....

Old News

This post is just to show an example of a name applique.


FYI the eye and mouth were fabric paint, not embroidery ;)

Trick-or-Treat!

Usually around the end of summer, we start talking about Halloween costumes. That's also about the time of my husband's birthday. (side note: my oldest son LOVES to plan parties of all types, so everybody (Mama, Daddy, grandparents.....) gets a "theme" party, no matter how old or young. This year, my husband's party was themed "Batman meets Scooby Doo". Thus, about the same time, my oldest son decided on Batman as his Halloween costume, and he also decided that his little brother had to be his sidekick, Robin. (We like matchy costumes around here- 2007 Lion and Lamb, 2008 Penguin and Polar Bear, 2009 Batman and Robin)

Anyway, I bought Batman t-shirts for both boys at Target for the Batman party, and I had made the Batman cape last year when my nephew was into Batman (and picked up the Bat-mask at Wal-mart somewhere along the way), so all I had to do for this costume was make a yellow belt and construct some gray pants to match the shirt. Do you know how hard it is to find plain pants for little boys?!?! Especially in this small town.... Anyway, I went to Roses (a discount store chain, but not sure how wide-reaching it is) and I bought a 3XL men's T-shirt in almost the same shade of gray to cut up into a 5T boy's pajama pants.

Robin's costume was a little more involved, meaning I had to start basically from scratch. He is almost 2.5 yrs old, but he only wears 18-24 mo clothes, so I was lucky to find a plain red onesie at Roses, although it was a turtleneck. I also found a green Land's End T-shirt (men's Small, also at Roses) that I used to make Robin's pants and sleeves, so they are super soft! For the cape, I had a remnant of yellow satin that just happened to be the right shade, and I just used the pattern from the Batman cape and a collar from one of his everyday polo type shirts. It turned out very well if I do say so myself! I finished up the last touches with just hours to spare - the belt and the "R" monogram patch.

But, since I had a few hours to spare, I decided to get crackin' on those Scooby Doo PJs I had promised ever since we bought a piece of SD fabric to use at their Daddy's birthday party. So that was their treat that they received when they rang my doorbell, supposedly for a photo op.

I also threw in a Ty Scooby beanie and some Mickey crayons and coloring book, and of course, self-charging flashlight that requires no batteries! Here they are all packaged up in Halloween treat bags, that I never got listed on Etsy....