Back in a Bit

Just thought I 'd show off another project in real life. This is the dress I made for Maisy's birthday. Sadly, I made it WAY too big and she has to wear an undershirt to keep things modest.
Along with her dress is the fantastic tote that Lori made for Maisy's B-day.
She loves wearing her dress and carrying her bag. She adores how everything matches.

Well, folks, that's about it for right now. I'm going to take a brief hiatus for about a week so I can get some things done. Hope you all have a lovely end of July and I'll be back soon!

Nothing Much

1.) An actually picture of the little man wearing his tie shirt. We were at a birthday party and wanted to look spiffy!



2.) For the two lovely ladies, Geri and Lightening, who were brave enough to enter the Crafty Pay It Forward, please email me with your addresses at microuse1407 at yahoo dot com
And thank you for de-lurking!! :)

3.) Now I have been working on lots of stuff, unfortunately they are all gifts for some lovely people who read my blog and I don't want to ruin the surprise. (especially since I found out my sister-in-law peeked and saw her finished bag before I gave it to her. From now on, all gift pics will be kept under lock and key!)

Well, that's about it. Hope you're all doing well and have a wonderful Monday!

okay, so I've been a little busy

But for some very good reasons.... The first is a good friend of mine celebrated her birthday today. So what do you get a woman who's not really into gifts for herself?? Why you make stuff for the darling children in her life. That's what.

First I made another comfort blanket from some of the great fabric Jenny gave away at the last blog ladies gathering I was able to attend. I also used a scallop stitch instead of a zigzag and I have to say I love the results.I also made a few shirts for her son. I couldn't resist using my sock monkey fabric to make a tie shirt.

And I threw in a train shirt and another sock monkey, because what little boy doesn't love monkeys and trains.

And while I was at it, I made another comfort blanket and matching onsie for Matt's friend who is expecting.

And a Tie Shirt for Arlo.

And I finally ironed on the Monkey Patch I won from Lori a couple of months ago. Maisy will be so excited when I show her.

Oh and speaking of Lori, I am now a part of the Crafty Pay it Forward. The first 3 people who comment on my blog will get a lovely homemade gift in the mail. The only catch is that you have to post the Crafty Pay it Forward on your blog and make 3 gifts for the first 3 commenters.
So to quote Lori "let's make this painless and please don't make me beg. :) "

Woo Hoo! It's done.

This tote is for my lovely sister in law, Erin.
She recently turned 20 and I'm only a month late with her present.

When I asked everyone what she wanted, they said a bag like the one I had made for my mother-in-law but with polka dots or stripes. Well, I had a heck of a time finding any polka dots I liked. I think I spent 30 minutes in the dot section and couldn't find anything that was just right. Giving up I started walking around and found this adorable fabric. It's the "Prints Charming" collection by Free Spirit.

I immediately snatched it up and went looking for some stripes.

And turns out, the stripes from Heather Ross' "Lightening Bugs" collection worked perfectly.

I'm sure glad it turned out well. Now I just need to make a matching zippered pouch and tissue holder, then I'll officially be done. And ready to move on to the next project......

The girl has got mad skills.

Not a lot to say today. Just wanted to show off the purse Maisy made all by herself. (well, I threaded the needle & sewed on the ribbons but she told me where.) She's been really interested in sewing so I gave her a sewing box and found a bunch of cross -stitch fabric on sale. The holes make it easier to sew and then we can work towards regular fabric. I do have to say that I love the decoration on the bag, Maisy felt it needed a "little something". And that "little something" was a picture of herself. Next is my current work in progress. Hopefully I'll get it done this week. I'm kind of excited about it because it's gonna be really pretty when it's done. (dang, hope I didn't jinx myself)

It's not stealing if you asked first.

So I haven't been working on much lately. I think it's because I have a huge list of to do's. Too many projects make me feel overwhelmed and like I'm slacking. Oh, well, a couple more nights of mindless T.V. watching (you know you've been working too hard when just sitting and watching T.V. is a novelty:) and I'll be back in the swing of things.

But here are two little gifts I've made recently and both ideas were stolen from the lovely Lori. Well, stolen is probably not the right term because she was kind enough to give me instructions for both.

This is a simple little tote for one of Maisy's friends. Have you ever worked with a fabric that you really disliked in the beginning but by the time you were done you had developed a fondness for it? That was me and this Tinker Bell fabric. It was left over from Maisy's birthday and I just wanted to get it out of the house. Now I'm kind of sad that I only have scraps left.
Also in the spirit of using what you have the other fabrics are a light purple from the birthday party and a purple gingham that used to be the crib bumper for Maisy.


Here's another project using what I had on hand, a comfort blanket. I should have put a lot more ribbon on but ran out midway through.

This was originally intended for one of Matt's friends who is expecting but then my friend, Molly told me about a darling little girl who was in the hospital and well, I sent it her way instead. (and that would be why my To do list never gets any shorter)


And since I depleted my meager supply of ribbon, I just had to go out and stock up. Right?

Little Oddities

One of the awesome things about being married is that I have really lovely In-Laws. My Brother-in-Law and his wonderful girlfriend spotted these finds at an estate sale and thought of me. So now I am a proud owner of .....A huge box of snaps.
I love it! I'm always having to run to the store for something, especially little things like snaps and now I'm set.

I also have a equally large collection of hooks.
I don't know what I'm going to do with all of them but I've been having fun thinking of all the interesting things I could make.

Now here is the neatest and oddest thing they found... An entire box of homemade belt buckles.
We just thought it was a second box of snaps and were completely surprised when we found these cuties inside.

I love them. They're kind of strange and I want to know HOW this person made them. (Also why would be a good question.)
They are just so quirky I feel that they need to be used and displayed. I'm thinking of using them as decoration on bags but after that I'm stumped. Any ideas?

Lazy, lazy, lazy

Gee, I wish that's all we'd been doing this past few weeks. But sadly, we've been running our tails off. When did summer become such a busy time?