A sneak peak

I have started working on making a blessing dress for my baby that is due the end of November.  I saw this cute idea on homemade by jill and kept it in the back of my mind that if I were to have a girl, I would make a blessing dress with this cute pintuck design.  So I bought a remnant to try it out on and now I am excited to make the cute dress for my baby girl.  I will post pictures when I finish.  (I have to wait to use my 50% off coupon to buy the fabric since it isn't cheap, so it might be awhile.)

FLAG blocks

We made these super easy flags out of 2x4's. We found the idea at How does she? and we both fell in love with it. We mostly followed Alison's tutorial, except we omitted the vinyl letters and ribbon and did 4 little stars instead of one big one. LOVE how they turned out. We made our paper match our USA Blocks so they could go together in the same room. Super EASY fun 4th of July craft.

U*S*A Blocks Tutorial

Liberty and I are part of a craft and sewing group - actually we are the head ring leaders.  We are just crazy enough to put this all together.  This month is our craft month and we are doing these way cute block letters for the upcoming holidays.  I thought today was the perfect day to post this since tomorrow is FLAG DAY. 

I have all the pictures for the steps to make these - although you could probably find how to make them all throughout the blog craft world.  But I will attempt to put together a tutorial of sorts.

What you need:

• 5 blocks cut from 2x4 at 3 1/2 inches x 3 1/2 inches(width of board)  I cut these myself so I don't know how much or if they would cut them at the depot or lowes.
• white acrylic paint
• mod podge
• vinyl letters or paper letters - cut from a cricut machine
• red and blue scrapbooking papers
• embellishments to make them cute - bling, buttons, stickers, etc
• sandpaper, paint brushes, newspaper to protect area

Mine are a little different and are what the tutorial is made from.  So as to not confuse you - here is the picture of mine.

(Isn't my husband funny - he noticed that my blocks weren't exactly even and so he couldn't just put the stars on top normal.)

To begin after the blocks are cut and sanded real good.  You need to paint the blocks - I white washed mine to give them a more rustic look.

Next I cut the paper to just a little bit smaller then the block and mod podged them on.

The next step is to sand the edges of the paper and the blocks to the desired amount you want of distressing.  Liberty likes hers really roughed up and I am a little bit more conservative.

After that, sit back and enjoy your work.

Next add on the vinyl letters and stars.

Then you can embellish to your hearts content.  Liberty had these great rhinestone/bling red dots that we put on the stars.  We also added the buttons and stickers.  It is an easy project and we know that our friends in our craft group will enjoy making them.

Ruffly Shirt

I like wearing t-shirts, but I don't like to look like I'm in a plain old t-shirt...so I LOVE these tutorials from Made by Lex. {she has lots of other good ones!} I just used a t-shirt that already fit...so I didn't have to cut it down. I wanted to end up with 2 shirts, bought 3 pink shirts and used the extra 3rd one to cut up and add the ruffles to the other two.

I used some of the strips {about 1 1/2" wide} and made rosettes for the front of the shirt. Just ruffle up the strip a little {see below} and then start in the middle and roll up your rosette. Don't make it too tight, or it won't lay flat on the shirt. I sewed on the "hearts" first and then hand stitched the rosettes in place.

{the little circle in the middle is the trim from the other shirt, I just rolled it up and hand stitched it together}

Ruffle Camera Strap

I wanted a red, white and blue summer strap...and I saw this cute idea HERE. Then I saw that this is June's "Craft with Me" project at U-Create. So here is my super cute camera strap. I don't use the old hardware, I use these straps and just square off the ends and add ribbon. ENJOY!

And if you make one, make sure you email a picture to ucreatecrafts at gmail dot com!

Flannel Raq Quilt

Last year our church did a service project to make quilts for several different organizations...and so began my OBSESSION with sewing. {making these rag quilts was the first sewing I've ever done}.

Since that time I have made dozen's of these rag quilts. {all shapes and sizes}. These are the best instructions I have found online. You can find some measurement information here.

here are a few....



Thanks Amy for getting me into this OBSESSION!!!!! {I really do LOVE it!}

Flag Wall Hangings and Wreaths

In celebration of Memorial Day, Flag Day, 4th of July and SUMMER we have created our latest wall hangings.  Since we did exactly the same pattern we decided to join our pictures together and show you how excited we are that we have them done.  These wall hangings are ragged and we found the pattern in the Sew Easy Rag Quilting Book, the pattern is Allegiance.  It took us each a couple of hours to finish since there are not too many pieces.  We redesigned the pattern to drop off the extra edges and also to just use a regular star shape we took off the computer.  We also added Warm and Natural to give it a little more poofiness {is that a word?}  The effect is amazing.  Liberty's has dark blue, red and cream and Amy's has blue, red and white.

Of course when we were done we had leftover scraps that made a wonderful star door hanging.  It took some fiddling with the hanger or hangers (in Liberty's case) to get them to stay together.  We didn't tie it the same as our other two wreaths.  I (AMY) did the whole thing the last way and when I got done it looked just like my other two wreaths and not at all like the star I had formed.  After removing all of the pieces and starting over I figured out if you tied them by pulling the ends through the loop it made it so there was definition and you could see the star.  I'm not sure if that makes any sense but if you are interested please leave a comment and I can try and explain or do a demonstration.

Activity Bag

I made this for an older boy {mine is 11}...and finding fabric was a little tricky, they don't make much for older boys.

I used the idea from Moda Bake Shop and re-designed my bag for an older boy. I used the same basic idea as this tote bag tutorial {minus the ruffle} and added the marker/colored pencil slots on the outside of the bag. I made the pencil slots 3/4" on one side and 1" on the other side. I wanted colored pencils to fit nice and snug and not fall out. The sides are also pockets, so the pockets on the outside go all the way around. There is one small pocket on the inside, just a left over scrap piece.

I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Teacher gifts - pretty aprons

I have been busy the last couple of weeks with sewing projects.  Although I haven't been posting all of them because I haven't had time. We have also had a lot of rainstorms which make for pretty crappy pictures and so I wait for a sunny or not so cloudy or windy day to take pictures.

I made these last week for my daughter's preschool teachers.  I have really appreciated all the hard work they do for her and the other kids in her class.  So I decided to do something fun for them and maybe a bit different then most mom's might do.  I know I have this cute butterfly fabric that I have used for other projects and so I cut out some aprons using Liberty's instructions.  I made them with different fabrics so if they choose to wear them at school they won't be exactly the same color.  My daughter got to pick what fabrics went to which teacher.  Pink for Mrs. M.  and Purple for Mrs. W.  Hopefully they will enjoy them and know of our appreciation for all their work.

Capri Pajamas

Okay so here is an attempt at making something without a pattern.  The top I mean.  I have tons of patterns for Pajama bottoms.  I used one of my patterns for the capri pajamas.  I also used my serger to make the ruffly (is that a word?) edge on the bottom.  It is just using the rolled hem and since the fabric is stretchy I just pulled on it as I serged it and it made it ruffled. 

For the top I used a shirt that Kirsten had.  I only had a small amount of material and so the shirt was going to be really short.  I had a 2 inch section that could be used as a ruffle and so I added the ruffle.  I don't love the neck but I didn't really do much to it an the original shirt had an elastic in it and I didn't use it.  I tried to add a small gathering in the front but it is still a little large on her neck.  It is just for pajamas and so I won't be fixing it.  She likes it and that is all that is important.  Now we just need to work on the weather here in Chicago so that it warms up enough for us to wear capri's again.  It keeps teasing us with warm weather and then it goes down to way too cold.