Halloween 2012

So, we've had a lot of fun around the Todd household this Halloween.  Dylan & I dressed up as gender swapped old people.  He even rigged up some saggy boobies for his costume.

Sadie was Marceline the Vampire Queen & Claire was Princess Bubblegum, both are characters from Adventure Time.  I sewed Claire's dress & made her crown.  Dylan made Sadie's ax guitar.  I really, really, really dislike sewing costumes.  But I'm always happy with the results & for this one I learned to put in my very first zipper.  So yay me!  :)  But I'm not that awesome, cause I can see in this photo that the elastic gathering in one of her sleeves came undone.  Oh well.  It's a costume.  They were both over the moon with the end results.  That's what matters.

Finn was an ewok.  This costume was made by my sister-in-law for her little boy a few years back.  I had the hardest time getting a photo of Finn.  That boy won't hold still for anything!!

Good times.  These girls ended up with way too much candy though.  Like way too much.  We'll see how that all goes down!  :)

Painted Canvas Curtains DIY

This summer we moved into a little home of our own, after living with my parents for the past few years, and I've caught the decorating bug bad.  I've never been much into decorating.  I think because we've always rented & I've always felt like we didn't have the extra funds for it.  And even though we are still renting now, I feel so much a desire to make our space beautiful & comfortable & nice. 

In our living room, I knew that curtains would make a big impact for a small price.  I'd seen a few DIY painted curtains on pinterest & loved the look of big stripes!  So I bought a canvas drop cloth & picked out a nice mustard yellow paint color at the home improvement store & set out to get these curtains made!

I measured my panels & cut them down leaving one side on the drop cloth hem intact (less sewing later).  Then I measured my stripes (mine are 10 inches tall) & then taped them off.  Next step was painting.  This took more time & paint then I originally thought.  But a few days of work during school & nap time & they were done.  The material sucks up a lot of paint, but it is also really easy to get nice clean lines on the canvas.  I ended up using about one quart of paint on these curtain panels.

For the unfinished edges of the curtain, I just folded them under & ran them through my sewing machine.  I would suggest doing this before you paint as you won't want to use your hot iron on the painted sections.  I painted first, but luckily the canvas folds over really easily & it wasn't difficult to hem without ironing.  You could also just hot glue the hems if you didn't want to sew.

I made hidden loops on the back of the curtains for hanging.  And because I was so excited to get them up, I didn't take any photos of that process!  I used this method here.  My loops are spaced about 5 inches apart.  I think all curtains that I make in the future will be done with these hidden loops.  They are so inexpensive, and easy & make the curtain hang so nicely.

These curtains took more time to make than I expected, but it was totally worth it!  I spent about $35 to make them & I got the exact look that I wanted.  I love them! 

Paper Bag Skirts

I was asked to make skirts for 4 little girls (my two + two cousins) for my sister-in-law's (Dylan's sister's) wedding this past weekend.  Did you catch all that?  Anyway.  They turned out super darling!

It was a really busy day with a jam packed schedule & because Dylan & I were passing the baby back & forth throughout the day, I totally forgot to take photos until we were tearing down all of the decorations.  These girls had danced so hard!  They were looking a bit worn out at this point!

So I used a tutorial that I had pinned on pinterest a while back.  It's the Paper Bag Skirt pattern from Make it and Love it.  The tutorial was so easy to follow.  I just adjusted the measurements to make the correct sizes for all four girls.  I'm so happy with them.  The great thing is that the sash hides most of your sewing.  So it's a very forgiving pattern.

I love how they turned out & I'm happy that my girls each have a cute new skirt to add to their wardrobes.

Happy Birthday Banners

Guess what!?  My Happy Birthday Garlands are now available for immediate shipping!  No more preorder on these puppies!

I got my big roll of fabric in the mail & I've been cutting & sewing away!

I'm still so excited about these flag garlands & I'm happy to announce that they are now a regular shop item!  Yay!  :)

Shop Update

Hello, Friends!  I've spent a lot of time updating the etsy shop today!  I'm super excited about all the new colorful cuteness that can be found there.  So ch-ch-check it out & let me know what you think!

Behind the Scenes: New Tooth Fairy Pillows

I'm so very excited about our newly designed tooth fairy pillows!  I adore my old version with the sweet little hand embroidered tooth, but the fact of the matter was that they were taking me too long to make for what I felt was reasonable to charge for them.  I didn't want to make them anymore & well, you learn in this business that if it's not enjoyable to create the items, then you end up unhappy & you lack motivation & it takes you even longer to make everything because you loose that excitement & that pep in your step.   (That last sentence was too long, but you get what I'm saying.)  Also, I didn't want to stop making the tooth fairy pillows altogether because I can see in my shop stats that they are very highly searched in my shop.  Which means that people want them.  And I want to give people what they want.

Since coming out of my pregnancy funk, I am feeling more inspired these days & well, I'm riding that wave & taking my products to the next level.  I've become a bit obsessed with Spoonflower & decided to have Dylan design my tooth fairy pillow pockets so that they could be printed onto fabric that I could simply cut & start sewing.  So we made it happen & my fabric arrived in the mail last week.

I love his design!  Sadie & Claire really love that the tooth has teeth & so do I.

I spent the last few days getting to work on these puppies.  I've got a local craft show coming up next week (I'll post the info on that tomorrow) so I need some for that & I just was excited to see them made!   So I have them sitting around the house in various stages of completion.  They've all been cut & paired up with the pillow fabric:

Some are now sewn together waiting to be stuffed:

And a laundry basket of pillows that are stuffed but waiting to be sewn shut:

Oh, I'm so excited about these.  I'll let you know when they're up in the shop.  Soon!!

Sewn: Highchair Seat Cover

Made a new seat cover for the old high chair last week!  This is a project that was supposed to be done before Finn was born, but I never got around to it.  Also, I think I was a little intimidated by the project & not really sure if I could pull it off.

We received this high chair as a gift when Sadie was born over 7 years ago.  When we pulled it out of storage this time, the cover was useless.  It had been exposed to too much heat so the fabric on the back was just disintegrating.   Since it's come time for me to start feeding Finn solids, I had to get a new cover made. 

Of course I could have gone out & bought a whole new highchair (a more modern & well designed one), but I like to live by the use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without rule.

So I just jumped into it, using the old cover as a pattern & a thrifted blue striped sheet as my fabric.  It has a layer of batting on the back & I used yellow double fold bias tape for the edges.

I'm not going to lie...I am really proud of myself for sewing this.  I felt awesome when I finished it.  I guess I shouldn't doubt my sewing skills.  :)

And here is the big boy sitting in the highchair:

He really is such a beast.  Here's Claire in the same chair (with the old cover) at 5 months & at 7 months.  She was my 50th percentile baby.  Finn will be 6 months in a little over a week.  :)

New Happy Birthday Banners

I have some new Happy Birthday Banners for sale in the etsy shop! 

I've made a few Happy Birthday garlands in the past & I loved them, but they were just taking me too long to make.  So I hired my graphic designer sister, Kimberly Church, to help me design some flags & I had them printed onto fabric.

I am super, super happy with how they turned out.  These can be reused over & over so they can be hung up for every family members birthday!  Isn't that fun? 

Makes me think about my Mom's nativity set.  All of us kids want it.  It reminds us of such happy holiday memories from when we were kids.  This Happy Birthday garland could be the same for your kids if you brought it out for every birthday.  I guarantee it will last that long!

I am offering these banners for preorder right now & plan to ship out any orders within 3 weeks.  You can go grab one for yourself here!

Top Knot Hat

How do you feel about chunky little babies with big bright eyes in little hats?  I love them & I particularly love this one.  Finn is 3-1/2 months old now.  He's filled out quite nicely, wouldn't you say?  He's a little over 14 lbs. now.  He talks up a storm (or coos, rather) & is working on grabbing toys.  Pretty soon he'll even be rolling over, we think. 

Finn needed a hat to wear out on Christmas Eve, so I quickly made him up a top knot hat using one of Dylan's old t-shirts.  I chose a nice thick one with good stretch & it turned out perfect.  I need to make a few more so that we have them ready to pop on this baby head throughout the winter.

I used the Top Knot Baby Hat Tutorial from Prudent Baby.  I sized mine up just little bit to fit Finnegan's slightly bigger than newborn size head.  :)

Little Girl Aprons

I made these cute little half aprons from my vintage sheeting fabrics for Sadie & Claire.  Can you believe that my girls don't have their own little aprons to wear in the kitchen?  Well, I had to fix that problem & now they each have one more gift to open on Christmas morning.  One made just for them by mama.  :)

Last Year's Costumes

I was thinking back to our costumes last year.  They were the best!  This was the first year that we had a family theme & it may very well be the last. 

I had fun making these costumes.  This year I told the girls that that I wouldn't be making any costumes & that they could choose anything they wanted from the costume aisle at the store.  They didn't seem to be disappointed.  I do love handmade costumes, but I don't feel the least bit guilty about going store bought this year.  I'll show photos of this year's costumes after Halloween.  :)

Finn's Quilt

Here it is!  Finn's baby quilt.  I am in love with this quilt & am so happy that I finished it before he was born!  I started out with the idea that I would make a patchwork quilt out of solid squares of fabric.  Then I saw this tutorial for half square triangles by Christina of The Sometimes Crafter and I knew that I wanted to try it out!

Now this quilt is not at all perfect.  I can see where many of the squares don't link up or the stitching is the complete opposite of straight, but I love it anyway.  The color combination makes me happy & it totally shows my love for triangles right now.  It's modern & crisp & colorful & awesome. 

I hope Finn likes it too.  His own quilt, made by hand by his mama before we even knew him.  :)