girly purses

Santa was a little too ambitious this year and didn't get started early enough. That is my excuse for a few of the planned projects that went unfinished. Fortunately, I don't think anyone noticed but me. These girls purses, however, I did find time for! I made 4 of them, for my nieces and little cousins. I glued sequin trim on the front as a monogram because I always love a little sparkle and filled them with treats my little girl likes to find in her purse. I've used this tutorial before and it is very simple. One day I will get around to making a large one for myself!

Holiday Baking

A quick, simple, cheap and eco-friendly way to share your holiday baking.

Instructions: Save tin cans. Remove labels, wash in dishwasher and dry before they can rust. Grease can. Fill half way with quick bread dough (I tried both pumpkin and banana, both were delicious). Bake as usual, maybe a little less time. Let cool. Cover with fabric square. Use rubber band to hold down fabric while tying with twine/ribbon/string. Attach gift tag. Give. Or eat. I got the inspiration for this idea here. Happy baking!

Turkey Finger Puppets

Thanksgiving is here! I'm hoping this last minute project will be another distraction to keep our little ones in their chairs at the "kids table". We'll see. At least they were fun and easy to make, and hopefully will become useful at some strange time when kids need distracting. Like waiting in line at the grocery store or at church. I'll add it to my finger puppet stash. I saw the idea here and went with it. Just a little sewing and hot glue. I had all the supplies on hand after a random (but very discounted) shopping spree at discountschoolsupplies.com. 25 cents for a bag of 100 googly eyes... who can resist. (Obviously not too many people. Looks like they are sold out.) Anyway, I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with good food and good company. And of course gratitude.

family pajamas

You know when you get the catalog with the family all in matching pajamas? They sell them everywhere at Christmas. Well, I always feel kind of sorry for the dad in the picture. It's usually some cheesy model, but still, does he really want to be wearing those red plaid flannel pajamas that his wife, son, daughter, dog and cat are wearing? I doubt it. And if he does, he still looks kind of ridiculous. Despite my opinions on matching holiday pajamas I thought it might be a fun and easy project to make our family pajamas. I wasn't going to have them all be some red plaid tackiness, but had a hard time finding a print that would be cute for Kate and Paul. So I decided we could sort of match. Sort of. I made Paul plain black pj pants, for myself I used a printed cotton and I made Kate's a red flannel with a ruffle made from the left over material from my pants. I like them...ok. I guess I should have gone with my instinct and skipped the "sort of " matching idea. I think next year I'll just make pj's for the kids. My girls. (Wow, that sounds weird.) Because kids are allowed to match and not look silly. They can wear as much plaid or flannel or crazy bird fabric as they want and I'll still think they look pretty cute.

Pilgrim Party Hats

Thanksgiving is 4 days away! Where has this month gone? I am really looking forward to the party that Thanksgiving will be--and hoping my turkey comes out ok. We are doing a kids table this year, mainly because of our lack of space at the adult table. We may have to tie them to their chairs to get them to sit through dinner... so I thought I'd try to come up with a few things to distract them while the adults are chatting away. I saw this pilgrim hat idea to store treats in and thought I'd modify it to be a party hat. They are a little elementary looking, but I didn't want to spend too much time on something that will likely just get stepped on and ripped apart. But maybe it will hold their attention for a few seconds? We'll see. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving preparations are going well!

Advent Stockings

I am so happy, excited and relieved that this project is finished! These stockings will serve as an advent calendar for our family this year, and hopefully many years to come. The original inspiration for this calendar came from a mittens advent calendar I saw in a catalog last Christmas. I loved and if it weren't so expensive, I probably would have just bought it. I waited for it to go on sale but never did, instead sold out. I considered this year (for a brief moment) to knit mittens for all 24 days and quickly realized that the calendar probably wouldn't be finished until 2020. I then searched around and was inspired by this and this stocking advent calendar and decided stockings it would be. I love a little sparkle in holiday decorating so that's where the sequins and trim ideas came about. I used corduroy for the stockings and made 2 different patterns. The stockings are small, they will just hold slips of paper with different advent activities that we will do each day leading up to Christmas. Maybe someday I'll incorporate small gifts or tokens, but for now I think we've got enough stuff. Kate is still a little young to get really excited about this but I'm hoping in the years to come the kids will really look forward to each day's activity. And if they don't, I know I will. I do love the holidays!

Paper Pumpkins

For a quick and easy craft project to spice up your Halloween decor click here. These would also be great in red for Christmas and made to look like ornaments. Kid friendly too... although maybe not for the under twos. :)

Halloween crafting

I made these witches brooms for a few of our little friends and still have some to give out at Halloween. I filled them with toddler friendly treats (animal crackers, suckers, stickers) but you could fill them with candy or whatever the receiver would like. I originally spotted these here and here. For another Halloween craft idea (that is a lot of fun) check out a project we did last year (and will repeat again).