Gobble Gobble

One of the crafty blogs that I follow posted a link to this turkey shirt tutorial. I fell in love with it! I ended up finding a $2 tee and used some of my scraps. I ended up needing to "find" (aka buy) some extras too...I didn't have too many fall colors quite yet. For the turkey body, I dug into my giant felt stash.

Genevieve was so excited about this shirt when it was done. Her exact words were "Oh WOW!" Another success in the eyes of a toddler! She has wanted to wear this shirt everyday since I made it a week ago.

What a fun project for scraps! Now I'm just thinking of all the other holidays and what shirt I can create with scraps next!

Hooded Towel

Genevieve is growing out of all her hooded towels. So when walking through Tar.get one day, I spotted some clearance towels. I picked up a bath towel and two matching wash clothes. I would have ideally picked a different color and a hand towel vs 2 wash clothes, but orange was the only bath towel left. It worked out fine, Genevieve loves the color and loves the towel! And it only took me 15 minutes to whip up. I'd say that's a success!

Homemade Halloween

This year I decided it was going to be a Homemade Halloween. Growing up I loved that my mom made our costumes. So this year I decided to start the tradition to make Genevieve's costumes homemade from here on out.

So here we are:

Genevieve is a little lady bug and I am a skeleton (baby and all)

Our little lady ready to go to the special zoo event

I made a no-sew tutu skirt for the costume. I opted not to put spots on the skirt, it just didn't seem to need them. (there are so many tutorials on the Internet if you are interested in making a tutu for your little one)

For the antennas, I found a package of three headbands at the do.llar store and purchased some pipe cleaners and fuzzy craft balls....add some hot glue into the mix and there you have it! Genevieve and I had so much fun making the lady bug one, I let her pick from the other two color headbands and pipe cleaners and we made a second set for her to play with...we call them her funny bug.

And those wings...oh my, they were a little more challenging. I used wire hangers to shape the wings. I first made them too big and had to redo them. Trying to figure out what to use for the red of the wings was the challenge. First I tried tights...I even purchased 1xl-2xl and they wouldn't stretch. They I tried more tulle that I used for the skirt....well that was too see through. SO, finally I remembered that my husband has a red tee shirt and it was the perfect size! He was a little hesitant to let me cut up his shirt...but we convinced him otherwise. Once I had the tee in hand, it was all hot glue gun from there! The little black spots are felt circles I cut out. Then add a little elastic and there you have it! The cutest little ladybug there is!

In September I started searching for a Halloween maternity shirt and found a few, but most importantly saw a skeleton one with a baby fetus...but I was not willing to spent over $30 on it! So I just blew it off and said I didn't need a special shirt. Then one of the blogs I follow, G.et Your Craft.On, posted this....it was that same skeleton I saw before. But this time it was just the iron on and much more reasonable. Well, It was too late for me to order something to iron onto a shirt. So again I just blew it off and said oh well, I don't need a special shirt. THEN another bog I follow, M.ake It and L.ove It, posted this. PERFECT! I already had a roll of freezer paper sitting in my pantry waiting for the perfect project to try out stenciling with. So on Friday I went to the store and purchased a men's long sleeve black tee for $7. I burned the midnight oil Friday night, 1:30am to be exact, to create my skeleton shirt. It was a lot easier then I thought to use the freezer paper stencil idea. You should try it! I LOVE the way it turned out!!! And it was dry just in time for us to go trick-or-treating at the zoo.

I really do love how both of our costumes turned out. We had SO many compliments at the zoo and trick-or-treating the next day. I was so proud to tell people I made both costumes when they asked. I even had several people tell me that Genevieve's ladybug costume was the cutest one they had ever seen...better then the ones at the store. Love it! We will defiantly be doing homemade costumes from here on out!

Trick-or-Treat Halloween Bag

It's almost time for all the kids to get dressed up and go trick-or-treating! Last year I made Genevieve a special trick-or-treat bag that she will be able to use over and over again. I love the way it turned out and we got SO many compliments on it last year. Next year I will be crafting a 2nd one for baby #2...can't wait. It's such a fun project to do.

Trick-or-Treat

Inside detail of the bag

Halloween Boo Sign Tutorial

My friend Melissa from Sippy Cup Mom asked me to take part in her "Mommy's Little Monster Bash." I created a Halloween BOO Door Sign. If you would like to learn how to make it too, just head on over to The Life of a Sippy Cup Mom and check it out!

Color Me Wonderful

More Coloring Folders! These are so much fun to make. A fellow mommy, Jenn, commissioned me to make two for her children, Mia and Lucas. I of course said yes. This was also the perfect time to make one for Genevieve too. Genevieve jumped for joy the other day when she saw hers. She has been wanting one ever since I made the original coloring folder for a birthday gift.

(L to R) Flower Power for Mia, Mod for Lucas,
and Garden Love for Genevieve

And here they are all opened up


Are you loving the coloring folders too??? Want one for your child? Contact me at thatsjustcrafty@yahoo.com for pricing information.

Car Roll Up

My newest creation is the Car Roll Up! I love how it turned out, especially since I was up until 3am the night before finishing it...for a party the next day. Talk about last minute. There are a few things that I might add to the next one. But for now I love it! It has a parking garage for five cars, a road to drive around town, a mud pit/construction zone, a car wash, a gas station, and a pond. Let your child's imagination run wild with this one!!! I can't wait to make another one for Genevieve!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Soren, I hope you have fun playing with this!!!

Strawberry Field Dresses and Shirt

I love this strawberry fabric I got...perfect for the summer! And I love doing the shirring technique. Out of the yard and a half that I got, I was able to create a shirt for Genevieve, a dress for Mikayla's Birthday and a smaller version of the dress for Baby Addison.

Genevieve showing off her shirt

I love it as a shirt

Baby Addison's Mini Strawberry Field Dress

Strawberry Field Dress for Mikayla's Birthday

(it's about a 24 month size)

Mikayla showing off her dress

Coloring Folder

What is this nifty little folder you may be asking...

All folded up

It's a traveling Coloring Folder! Isn't it so cute!

The inside of the Coloring Folder

I've been throwing around the idea of making these for a while now. I know Genevieve would love having one of these when we are out a dinner somewhere and we need a little time filler while she's waiting on her meal. They fold up so perfectly and fit right into the diaper pag or even your purse...it's only 7 inches tall.

This specific coloring folder is for a birthday gift for one of Genevieve's little toddler friends. We have quite a bit of Birthdays coming up and I have decided to make 90% of the gifts. At least I'm going to attempt...I'm about to start classes & have 4 this summer!

Detail of the Left Crayon Pocket

Detail of the Center Notebook Holder

Detail of the Right Note Pockets
There are 2 pockets, perfect for bringing along stickers or
placing finished works of art!

I just love the way it turned out and hope our little friend enjoys it! (And I hope their mommy doesn't see this...and if she does, she can guess if it's for her little one ;) )

Smocked Summer Dresses

I recently learned how to do smocking or shirring as seen in my premade fabric that I used on the sun dress I made for Genevieve. Now that I know how to do this technique...it opens up the fabric possibilities for making this style of dress. I've had my eye on this fabric at Hobby.Lobby for quite some time now and decided to use it to test out my new technique. I made a dress for both Genevieve and her cousin Margot with matching headbands.

Felt Egg Carton

I love, love, love felt play food! There is something about it...maybe that you are able to make it so realistic and it's washable (most of it!). I would love to be able to make all of Genevieve's felt play food...but I just don't have the time for that right now. I picked up a felt fruit and veggie set at Wal.Mart for around $10. They also have a few mini sets of felt food like pizza, snacks, sandwiches, hamburger, and ice cream. Genevieve got a few of those for her birthday.

So at the present time, I feel like we are pretty well stocked on felt food. I just now want to add a few accessory pieces. And then I saw this tutorial and bookmarked it a while back while I was researching free felt food patterns. Genevieve got a shopping basket with a few plastic food pieces and cardboard boxes (which are almost all destroyed) for Christmas. The thin, cheap plastic egg carton the eggs came in was gone almost immediately. In the mean time, I've been cutting our used egg cartons in half for her to store her eggs. But after a few weeks they are destroyed too. That's why I knew I need to make this felt egg carton! And I LOVE the way it turned out...and so does Genevieve!

• I followed pretty closely to the tutorial, except we already had eggs.
  
• I liked her color combo and already had the felt. (A local store was going out of business and I got 3 large bags of felt for $1 each...a steal!) You could have a lot of fun with the colors on this one!
  
• I did not purchase the special felt that she recommends, because I already had the felt (see above). And instead just cut out some super strong interfacing that I had from a different project and used that to make a few spots a little more sturdy & attached it with hot glue.
• I did not do a velcro attachment for the lid. I'm not convinced it needs it...but that may change.
  
• This project is TIME consuming!!! I have slowly been working on this project for about a week or so in my free time. I'm not sure I ever want to tackle this one again.
  

Just a little Sun Dress

Today I threw this little number together. A cute little sun dress perfect for my 2 year old! I purchased the fabric that is ready made for a dress.... cop out, maybe, but I loved the pattern too much not to make it. I added the little ribbon to hold it up. And then created a little bow to match. She just looks too cute not to share! And it only took me 30 minutes total for both the dress and hair bow...perfect!

Reusable Snack Bags

I had a great find at the fabric store the other night...sample indoor/outdoor fabric pieces for $1 . They were the perfect size for a project that I had stored in the back of my mind, reusable snack bags(I got 2 pieces, each make 2). While at the fabric store, I also picked up some nylon for the inside of the bag. Nylon is a great fabric for this project since it's a nice slick surface, durable and washable! And again, I already had velcro at home. To make 4 reusable snack bags it cost me very little to make (the nylon was a little bit more than I would have liked & not on sale) and will save us a ton in plastic baggies that I have been using for Miss Genevieve's snacks when we head out of the house.



Project Completed: 4/15/10

Skinny Mini

I have such a skinny daughter...she is 2 and tiny. She was outgrowing 18 months pants...the length, not at the waist. I am excited that spring is here and we can now pull out all the 18 month shorts we have. We still had the issue of her shorts or capris falling down all the time. After investigating into some belts, I knew I could totally just make her some myself!

At first I was going to mimic a belt that my friend Jaime has for her twin boys. I even brought it home with me to study. This belt included a snap to go around the last belt loop. After looking at all of my daughters pants, capris, and shorts...I discovered that the snap was not going to work for us with the way hers are designed.

All I did for this project was go to Hobby.Lobby and pick out everything for the 2 different belts. The two belts were very inexpensive to make. The webbing was only 99 cents a yard, the ribbon was 50% off, and I already had velcro at home. To determine the length of the belt, I literally put it on miss skinny mini and used pins to mark my measurements. I then added 3 inches for the velcro, I want these belts to last for a little while. It was fun picking out which ribbon I wanted to use with the webbing. I wanted something fun, but practical that would work with many outfits. I am so happy with how they turned out.

And the best part, they are reversible if we wanted them to be

Project Completed: 4/15/10

Twirly Skirt

I found some super cute fabric on an outing with my friend Jaime and immediately had a vision. I wanted to make a fun skirt, have our other friend do an embroidered shirt, and make some sort of flower headband. I searched the internet and found the perfect skirt tutorial here. I knew it was the perfect skirt for my vision. Mine is much smaller then the one in the tutorial since I have a two year old. But I definitely know that this is a skirt pattern that I will be remaking several times as Miss Genevieve grows up. And I knew I needed to find the perfect flower to complete my vision and found that here. Instead of using a regular button, I wanted to incorporate my 2nd fabric and purchased a covered button kit- and hot glued it all to a round piece of felt & an alligator hair clip. And thanks to my friend Christie, who has an awesome embroidery machine, she helped my shirt vision become a reality.

I love the finished look of all three items together. Genevieve will be debuting the outfit for her 2nd Birthday pictures this weekend. Can't wait!

The Twirly Skirt

All three together

Fabric Flower

Project Finished: 4/14/10 skirt & 4/10/10 flower

A Hug

Hug Pillows that is! That's what I call these pillows that we put on our bed. I have been meaning to remake new hug pillows for quite some time. I've even have had the fabric pinned together for months...just never made the time. I broke out the fabric today to test out my new sewing machine I got for my birthday in March. I figured this was the perfect project to start on with my super cool new Babylock Sewing Machine. I must say that I love my new machine...it works much better then my mom's super old hand-me-down machine that I was using. I think this will be the start of a new friendship!



Project completed 4/11/10

Couch Pillows

I didn't follow a pattern and I didn't have instructions...I just went for it and created 4 couch pillow covers with a zipper on each one for easy cleaning. I am extremely happy with how they turned out. They are the perfect addition to our couch.

Project Completed 10/8/09.