Halloween craftiness

We had another crafty Halloween!

Kira and I went as Unicorns!

I was a more of a My Little Pony Unicorn and Kira was Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time

For Kira's Costume I sewed the dress on my own.

Now I'm really excited about this because I made her dress WITHOUT a pattern!!!

Now there were some small messups along the way - like not making the neck big enough for her to put her head through!! But we were able to make some adjustments and it was perfect!

I also crocheted her unicorn horn and attached it to a crocheted headband.

back view -- arm warmers were knee high socks we just cut to make them work

Now I found a fun pattern for a unicorn hat that I wanted to use for my costume.

But, it didn't work out so great...

Even Kira agreed it was a pattern fail!!!!

But I was able to use some of the information from the pattern and come up with this awesome unicorn hat.

I really liked being able to tell people that I made it all on my own!!

Homemade Halloween costumes are for sure the best!!

Did you make your costume this year?

It's Becoming a Blythe Obsession!

We might be out of control here on our love the Blythes!!

We have made a few more things and received some more since my last post!!

Kira and I finished our dress for Violet!!

It came out really cute!!

 I still need some work on gathering the skirt just right.  I felt like there was too much fabric for the skirt so I would make some changes next time.

I convinced my sister to make a quilt for Violet :)

She looks so comfy now!!

Kira got the CUTEST package from Becky and Eli with lots of cute miniatures for her Blythe!

(Thanks again my interweb friends!!!)

Kira loves to arrange the snacks out for Violet to eat.  She trades out the different pets for Violet to play with. You never know when Violet wants to play with Panda, Green Kitty or LPS Penguin!!

She hung up her school board and put a purse with it.

Kira squealed over this laundry hamper and small clothes pins!!

AND Now we have Harry Potter books for Kira and Violet!!!

I'm busy putting together each book and getting the pages just right!

Becky also sent Kira some Skull fabric!!

I made Kira another dress for Violet from the new fabric.

I also got adventurous and made Violet some PJ pants from this DIY I found on Pinterest.

This was actually a GREAT DIY that I plan to use for my kids!!!

Kira says I need to make her a sleep shirt next!!

I'll never be done!!

Until the sleep shirt is done she is wearing her skull dress with her PJ pants to bed! LOL

Kira got both her Blythes ready for bed - the littlest is from Littlest Pet Shops and her name is Sarah.

They look so cute all in their PJs!!!

Making a skirt for my girl

Kira has decided that she really loves skulls!!

(I need to post the pictures of skulls she keeps drawing!)

Saturday she saw this bundle of fabric at Joanns and asked if we could get it.

I gave in - I've had a long standing "no skulls" rule because I thought they were too creepy for my baby, but how can you deny skulls on pink fabric!?!?

Kira had some plans for the material that involved making pillows.

I convinced her today to make a skirt with the fabric after we looked at the skirt tutorials on Hickety Pickety and Venus de Hilo

We decided to use all of the fabric and make it into a patchwork style skirt!

This was an easy enough project that Kira could do most of the sewing on.  

Her new sewing machine from her grand-rat works great and is easy for her to use.

We had to add an extra panel of fabric because I miss calculated and it was going to be WAY small!

Thankfully we had enough extra fabric!!

I used the Hickety Pickety idea of the "no hem" skirt and loved how it turned out.  It added some length too and gave it a more polished look without me having to make a straight hem!!

We finished it in a few hours and she had a skirt right after lunch!

She LOVES it and wants to wear it on the first day of school!!!

This is Kira's favorite skull from all the fabric!!

Blythe Craziness!

In June we got Kira her first Blythe/Basaak Doll.  She was so excited and wanted to get started right away on making outfits for her.  Kira has named her Violet because she thinks she looks like Violet from The Incredibles!

The first thing we did for Violet was give her some new hair.  Kira felt that since her name was Violet, she needed violet hair!!

We got this cute purple wig from Blythsim's Etsy shop.  It turned out PERFECT!  I just need to secure the hair better now so the wig doesn't come off so easily.

Last week Kira and I started our first dress for Violet.  We used the VERY helpful tutorial from Olivia on the OHstrumpets Blythes too! Blog.  Seriously it was VERY helpful!

We've only gotten to the bodice so far, but I'm hoping next week we'll get to the skirt too.

Kira did all the cutting and ironing.  She was a little nervous about sewing so I did this part.  I think she will be able to sew more on the skirt!

Kira picked really cute fabric from my collection!

Finally I knitted two hoodies for her from this pattern

The ROYGBIV came out perfect!  

I made this other one while we were on vacation with my cotton yarn I had.

This picture gives you a better idea of what the hoodie looks like.

Now I understand why gage is important!!!

The ROYGBIV was done with the recommended sock yarn and the green was done with some cotton yarn that was a little thicker, causing the hoodie to be A LOT bigger!!! It's huge on her! But Kira still loves it, so it doesn't really matter to me!!

We are sinking further and further into the Blythe world! Kira saw that you can change the makeup!! So I'll be researching that soon!!! 

Passing on the Craft

I love that my daughter shares my love for crafting.

She has always been a creative girl and I'm glad that she is wanting to learn how to crochet.

Of course she was also inspired when she saw that Becky's boy Eli was also crocheting friendship bracelets and was eager to start right away!

Kira has been a fast learner and took off with her chain stitches!

She made a bunch of friendship bracelets for her Girl Scout buds and for her pen pal Eli

Her first "project" was an armwarmer for her puppy!!!

Now she is trying her hand at sewing!!!!!

The world of crafting is wide open for her and I hope to encourage her in this area.

The world will be much happier with more crafty kids!

What kind of crafts are you teaching your kids??

Adventures in Sewing - Bunting

I have always wanted to make my own bunting for my office.

Look how cute this looks in a classroom???

Source: Uploaded by user via velma on Pinterest

I personally have a small office for me to have individual and family therapy for the kids who live at the facility I work for.  I thought it would be fun to make a bunting that would serve several purposes.  One it would make the space brighter and CUTER and friendly.  I also thought I could include my kids in the process to allow them to have a discharge activity where they get to leave something behind for other kids.

I used this DIY but I know there are tons available on the internet if this one isn't to your liking.

Here are the triangles I made

Really you need some good coffee to make crafting really great!!

I wish I had gotten a picture of me sewing these triangles! I figured out what was messing up on my machine! Yeah and BOO! I somehow can't get the tension right for the top thread, so I have to physically hold the thread in my right hand from the top and then with my left hand hold the fabric! Its a challenge, so I'm glad these triangles look half way decent!!!

Now to get to the kid part - I am letting the kids decorate one side of triangle when they are getting close to discharging from our program.  Here is the first one I have.  I marked out the identifying info.  I love that this kid added a mustache to his picture of himself!

(no matter what I tried I couldn't get this picture to turn the right way! I saved it different ways but blogger always made it back to this... sigh!)

So now I am trying to decide if I sew the bunting all together now or do I just add a flag as the kids decorate them?  Either way I'm taking it down each time.  If I put it all together then I can have it in a nice color pattern and the other way it feels a little more symbolic adding them one at a time... Suggestions??

Halloween Sewing Fun

This year my son came up with a costume idea that I was going to have to make!

He wanted to be Ike from Smash Brothers

I'm glad I have a husband who has some engineering skills because I had no idea how I was going to do this one!! He had the idea to make the tunic from a large T-shirt and how to make the "armor" work with just some material and a belt.

I had fun putting it together and working with my husband on it!

So here is the finished product

Craft Apron

I finished my craft apron! Yeah!

 While I am far from being an accomplished seamstress, I feel very good about how this turned out!  I tried to use a pattern but ran into some glitches that made me change things and just go with what I had.  For one thing, my fabric for my pocket ran length wise so it made a smaller pocket then I had planned.  Also I had originally planned to have a smaller inside pocket for business cards and I somehow sewed that on upside down! Thankfully I am best friends with the seam ripper!  This project might have come out better had I been able to find my pins to hold everything together. Guess I'm buying more at the store for next time!

BUT it is still super cute and it is FUNCTIONAL! It will hold money, cards, pens, and I'm sure my phone! 

I got my lovely fabric from the Stitch Lab.  If you have never been there, you should check it out!!

Precious Little Gifts

I have been so excited about my little sister having her first baby! He is going to be born in April and I just can't wait to meet him!  My best friend had a son a few weeks ago and one of my grad school friends is having a little girl in April.  It must be baby season!

What better way to show your excitement then to make gifts!

I made these burp clothes for my sister and best friend.  While I still have a long way to go when it comes to sewing, I still think they came out super cute!

Then for my friend who is having a little girl I made this cute hat.  

I got the hat pattern from Ravelry and the flower is from Ravelry also.

Its so easy to make cute things for girls! I'll have to work some more on thinking of equally cute things for boys!

Getting ready with more time!

So the First Thursday Adventure tomorrow has been postponed due to this CRAZY cold weather! Seriously Austin is staying weird with 80 degrees one day and then 20s the next! So now Marci and I have more time to get ready for our first craft fair.

One thing I want to have is one of these CUTE aprons!  

I've been looking on Etsy and I think I can make my own!

Cindersathome

Aren't those cupcakes super cute??? I think they would make me want to eat cupcakes all day, so I might have to avoid this kind of fabric!!

mrschainsaw

I love how this one ties in the front

anabelfuzz

The pockets on this one are AWESOME! There is one for pens, business cards, and lots of big pockets too!!

originalsbylauren

If I liked owls this one would be super cute (I think owls are stalking me, so I'm not really a fan...) But look at the cute zipper pocket!!

mrschainsaw

And this one is just AMAZING! I can't say enough about how cute these fabrics are!

So I think I have some great examples and I should be able to put one together! I'll of course post pictures of how it all turned out!

Finishing Up Some Projects!

I have been trying to get myself caught up on some projects and have finally finished a few!!

Here are some I just finished up from Craft Academy 

I made this way cute place mat for my supervisor at my internship!

She likes to have picnic lunches with the kids she works with, so I thought this was the perfect gift to thank her for all she has done for me.  

Look at those straight lines and that CUTE pocket for the utensils!

I also decided to retry the water bottle carrier and it turned out just right!

See, the bottle actually fits in this time!!!

I also finally finished this scarf for my friend Alan.  

 

He wanted a scarf that looked like Dominic Deegan's for all the comic cons he is attending and just because he likes that character!  

I think it turned out pretty good! Now to wait for the Texas heat to go away so he can really enjoy it!!!

So what are you working on??