A Christmas Dress

finished just in time. Probably because there were so many pieces to this dress it became more of a chore than a fun project! I still can't say I love it, but it will look very festive with her red and white tights. I used a Simplicity pattern that was inspired by Project Runway. The pattern gave different variations so you could customize the dress with short or long sleeves, bubble skirt, appliques, etc. It sounded like a good idea in the beginning, but ended up requiring too many steps! Anyway, it's done. Christmas is here. We're excited.

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!

a lucky little boy

because his mama is so great! Finally a gift I can post about because it's been received! This little ensemble is for the baby of my cousin, Emily. Emily and I grew up together, both being the only girls in our families of boys. She is the big sister I never had. She is expecting her first baby around the same time I am and now I just wished we lived closer.

I decided to stay away from light blue, figuring that she'll get enough of that. I made the little guy my favorite pair of baby shoes, a soft blanket and appliqued onesies. I kept the baby's daddy in mind when choosing the appliques. A true outdoors man, I thought Daniel might appreciate the fish, dogs, longhorns and namesake initial. I'm envisioning Daniel putting the little guy in his fish onesie, strapping him in the baby carrier and taking him fishing.

Baby gifts are a lot of fun to make. I can't wait to meet this little guy and I'm so excited for his parents!

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!

leaf garland

Only 10 more days until Thanksgiving! This leaf garland was a fun and very easy Sunday afternoon project. Outside most of the leaves have fallen and turned brown so it was great to see these vibrant colors again that surrounded us only a few weeks ago. I got the idea to make this garland from a friend and I love decorating for free! We collected these leaves about a month ago and put them away in heavy books so they would dry flat. We pulled them out yesterday and they were in perfect shape. I used some thread and a needle to sew through each leaf and hung them with thumbtacks. The entire project took about 20 minutes. Kate tried to help, but mostly liked crunching up the extra leaves. I'm sure older kids would love this project. I really like the way it looks hanging in our house and it's getting me very excited for Thanksgiving!