Mother's Day Crafting

What Mother's Day would be complete without flowers?


And what lovely bunch of flowers would be complete without a vase to rest in?


One for my mom.




And one for Luke's mom.




Happy Mother's Day to all the lovely moms out there!

Baby Goodies

I went to a baby shower this week, and made these treasures for the mom-to-be. This is the "circus elephant" from More Softies Only A Mother Could Love.


Isn't he a cutie?!


He's a skinny elephant :)


And this cozy swaddling blanket with a hand-stitched "Y" for their last name will be the perfect fit for a boy or a girl, since they don't know yet what they're having.


This adorable flannel animal print is sooo soft! I love it!


What good is a hand-made gift if the wrapping isn't equally pretty? I repurposed a hot pink box I had, covered it with brown craft paper, cut out and glued on part of a card that I actually received for Patrick's baby shower, tied it all up with some lace from the stash and a piece of turquoise paper twine, and slipped in a berry sprig. I think I had as much fun, if not more, with the wrapping as I did with the actual gift.


And a sewing day is never successful until you have made a sufficient mess. Happy sewing and crafting!

For Baby

My sister-in-law, Kelli, is expecting a little one in a few weeks, and her shower was this weekend. What better way to welcome a new baby than with some handmade goodies...

I started with this Noah's-ark-themed blanket. Jacob and Kelli are waiting to find out the gender of the baby until the birth, so I went with a mix of bright colors and patterns.

The yellow back is a very soft flannel.

This little guy, as well as the ball, are from a pattern book called Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, though I think their definition of "last minute" is probably a little looser than some would care to use. I guess in the world of quilting and sewing, where projects can take months to finish, a few days or hours seems like last minute.

He's called Peanut the Wee Elephant.

This one and the dog rattle are from a book called More Softies Only A Mother Could Love. I sort of went to town on his eyes. I love doing hand stitching and embroidering. There's something so organic and personal about it.

I just love his little feet.

This little cutie is crocheted and stuffed and has a little rattle insert in the head. I couldn't find rattles at the craft store, so I just repurposed one of the kids' old rattle toys. They have so many; they're not going to miss one. The parents-to-be have two dogs and one of them is a silver lab named Romeo, so I thought this little pup should have a silver coat as well.

This one is called a Puzzle Ball. It's the perfect size and shape for itty bitty fingers to grab onto.

Homemade Playdough

I made a batch of playdough for Patrick the other day. It took him a minute to figure out what on earth was in front of him and why, when he was sitting in his "eating" chair, he could not eat it.

But once he got warmed up, he really seemed to like it. Yay for creative entertainment!

A Stocking for Olivia

After making Patrick's stocking last year, I of course had to carry on the tradition for our sweet Olivia.


So, I have been busy stitching lots of teeny tiny beads onto this felt stocking, which is ornamented with a holly wreath...

...a beaming angel...

...a sparkling ornament...

...and four shimmering snowflakes.

I am so excited to have one more little person gathered around the tree with us this year. Merry first Christmas, Olivia!

Happy Headwear

I had found a pattern for a baby hat but could not for the life of me figure out how to read it, so I just made up my own pattern. I basically just made a large circle, and then once it was big enough, started adding rings of the same size, causing it to curve downward. I then found a tutorial on how to do a scalloped edge and added that to the bottom. The flower pattern came from here. The yarn for the hat is cotton and doesn't stretch much, so I really hope it fits!

I also made this little headband from this pattern and then made up the flower myself when I couldn't find a pattern that I liked. I can't wait for Olivia to wear these, and I'm sure I'll be making more hats and headbands for her as she grows.

Creative Gifting

For lack of better ideas this year, we got gift cards for our family members. But if you know me, I can't just give a gift card. It seems so impersonal. So I did a few other things to spruce up the package.

I made these little gift card wallets out of card stock and scrap booking paper. I glued two pieces of card stock together back to back and then attached a smaller piece of decorative paper to the inside for a pocket. I then machine stitched around the perimeter to reinforce and attached an elastic band through two little eyelets to hold them shut.

They make for nice little envelopes for those gift cards that would otherwise be somewhat impersonal.

Everyone who got a gift card this year also got a dozen of these Crunchy Dried Cranberry-Chocolate Chip Cookies wrapped up in these beautiful boxes. I got the plain white boxes at JoAnn's, carefully disassembled them, and glued them to the wrong side of this elegant fabric. I then just cut out around the box and reassembled it with a bit of glue. The cookies inside were wrapped up in red cellophane, and the boxes were then tied up with this beautiful gold ribbon and a sprig of sparkling berries.

I wrote out the recipe for the cookies on these little cards and slipped them under the ribbon on the back of the box.

For my mom, my grandma, and my aunt, I baked these chocolate banana tea loaves inside of these fun ceramic pans, wrapped them up in more of the red cellophane, and included a hand-written recipe card.

I guess it turns out that our not-so-personal Christmas ended up being quite a bit more unique than expected.

A Stocking for Patrick

One of my fondest memories of Christmas as a child was opening up my stocking on Christmas morning and pulling out all of the little treasures inside. My mom made stockings for me and my brothers for each of our first Christmases that we continued to use throughout our growing up. Mine and my brother Sean's were made out of felt with little appliqued felt cut-outs and our names stitched on the tops. For Troy, she made a beautiful cross-stitched stocking.

Well, I thought it only fitting to carry on the Christmas tradition and give Patrick a hand-made stocking, because a store-bought one just wouldn't do. I didn't have a pattern for this, so I just bought several different colored pieces of felt and started cutting out pieces until I had the look that I wanted.

The base is made out of a sturdy felted wool that will hopefully stand the test of time through many Christmases to come. The rest of the stocking is made out of synthetic felt.

All of the cut-outs are appliqued and top-stitched on, leaving a raw edge around each of the pieces. Everything was then embellished with many - I repeat MANY - teeny tiny little beads. I think my favorite part is the little snowflakes.

Merry First Christmas Baby Boy. We love you!

Studio Makeover Part Four

Over the weekend, I completed another portion of the studio beautification project. I made a little collage of wall hangings to fill up the empty space above the couch.

Two of them are set in these fun metal frames that I found at an estate sale over a year ago. I just wrapped a piece of embellished fabric around a cardboard cutout and slid them into the frames. I used a little metal pin and a piece of rick rack for this one.

This one has another fun metal pin and some more of those cute little blue buttons that I used on my cape.

The rest of the pieces are wrapped around art canvases and stapled to the back. I embellished each of these with various buttons and ribbons. On the one above, I attached a crocheted flower out of my collection of items that my great grandmother made.

All together, they add quite nicely to the increasing amount of vibrant color this room is boasting.

My Protest to the Never Ending Summer

Despite the fact that it is depressingly still going to reach 92° on this fourth day of November, I do have hope that one day it will indeed get cold here. And so it is in that hope that I present this hat as a symbol of promise for all the overheated Arizonan's out there... and of course as a symbol of devastatingly precious cuteness.

This hat is another pattern by Leila and Ben, and one that I just couldn't put down. I started and finished it in one day.

And thanks to fun hobbies, gratifying finished products, and this heartbreakingly sweet face, I still smile... despite the moral wrong that is this weather.