Just keep crafting

I mostly blog from my phone these days. I need to find time to post photographs of all the wonderful goodies I've been creating.

I am really loving this "homemade" Christmas. Nothing screams I love you more than taking the time to think and devise a gift plan, seek out or design your own pattern, select the perfect fabrics and prints for each person and then create it all with your very own heart and hands.

Anyone can trek to the mall and buy a gift or gift card. Why not think out of the box?

I have some great gifts that I have completed to show you all. I'm hoping in the next couple of days, I'll be able to upload some photographs and share.

My goal is "24 Crafts Till Christmas" with a craft countdown each day until the holiday arrives.

Starting December 1st, so be on the look out for some crafty fun. Of course in true tradition, if I fail a craft, I will still post it. Hopefully a crafter out there can learn from my error and help figure out a solution ( cough::my topiary::cough)

Peace, love and shutter clicks,
Mandy

Thanksgiving.....

As thanksgiving has come and gone, what are you thankful for this year?

I have so much to be thankful for. I could never begin to list every single thing today. I'm thankful year round for all that I have been blessed with.

As I lie here tonight with my husband beside me, I'm most thankful that he made it home safely from yet another year long deployment. I'm thankful that he is here with us after a very rough, scary, emotional reintegration upon his return.

I'm thankful for the health of my family. I'm thankful that I've been blessed with my family to be so supportive especially this year with all the crazy ups and downs and uncertainties.

I'm thankful for the love of my family. All the children, grandchild and furbabies that we have all been blessed with.

I'm thankful that regardless of obstacles, my daughter perseveres and carries on as if there is nothing holding her back. Her smile, her laugh, her constant singing and being silly just shows that nothing will get in her way.

I'm thankful that I am here to be a part and share in everyones lives.

I'm thankful for my friends who stuck by me through thick and thin and believed in me when I needed it. Their strength only helped to prove it was the right choice in the end regardless of what anyone else had to say or create to make themselves feel better. Karma is unfortunate for some. Thankfully I'm on the good side of that.

I'm thankful that my mom (who reads this) has set such wonderful traditions for us all to carry on for our children. Someday your grandchildren will be sitting around their thanksgiving table with their children talking about how Mum did these special things for them.

I'm thankful for being able to be free enough to write this post because of all the sacrifices our armed forces make for us.


I'm thankful for having another year in which I have so much to be thankful for

Keeping in tradition...heres a crappy cell phone pic. I'm thankful that my daughter got to snuggle and watch movies with her daddy thanksgiving morning when this could have been so very different a few months ago.

A successful, Pinterest Inspired Pink Party!

As I had mentioned months ago, I was basing F's second birthday party entirely on concepts found on Pinterst. With a little tweak here and there, modified to my own ideas, it was quite successful and fun!!  The entire family got involved it was amazing. My mom made F a pinterest inspired pink cake. She used her own cake recipe and frosting recipe and not the one on pinterest but she did utilize the concept of graduated pink layers. It was delicious and so cute and pink. My little girl loved it.

Another componant that my mom decided to do was a Pink Lemonade served in little mason jars for the kids with a pink straw and lemon slice. It was a huge hit. My little girl loved it.

I went with Pink chocolate dipped treats from cake balls to marshmellows and pretzels. Candied apples, cupcakes as well as cookie pops.  There was also a Pink Popcorn on pinterest however they used pink tinted butter. I didn't want a greasy buttery treat since we would be outside and I didn't want it to get soggy so I instead made a pan popped corn, covered in a pink tinted Candy bark. That WAS DELICIOUS. Since the party it has been made a few times and will continue to be served on family movie nights, slumber parties etc. It was the same pink popcorn concept but with my own personal twist.

For foods we just went with things my little girl liked and a few things that our family liked to noche on.

For Decor I used a Hot Pink Pop Up canopy with pink tablecloths and pink tulle pinned around the table as a skirt of sorts (in the picture on corner was pulled down unfortuately, I didnt get a picture with it completed).  I used Pink Lanterns, paper poms, TONS of pink balloons, Pink Mums and pumpkins. It was an outdoor party complete with our favorite dogs, and Papa giving the kids a hayride on his little trailer and ride on mower. The kids LOVED it. Even the dogs had a blast with the hay and balloons and treats for them. After all, what is a party for F without her Bff's Dixie, Yankee and Belle?

Here are pictures from the day: She was all ooh's and aahh's, OH MY PARTY!!, Balloons, just everything she saw she had to say ohh look pink, presents..........She talked about it for days. She even tried my mom's cake. Knowing F, You would know how much she hates all things dessert. She doesnt eat cookies, cakes, pies, donuts etc. She is a savory kid. However, she loved blowing out her candles (6 times) and when my mom cut her the first slice, she was in awe of the pinkness. She dug right in and instantly with the first bite explained "OHH YUMMY", which made my mother's day. After all, Mom did stay up until 4 am making that amazing fresh 6 layers of varying shades of pink cake with scratch frosting.

For the joy on my little princess's face, I would do it over and over again.

IT is VERY Picture Heavy!!

Fabric Scrap Tutu

On my previous blog (My Life With One Eye Open), I had a lot of sewing tutorials but regrettably I didn't save them before I moved over to this blog. So we start from scratch in our sewing section. No worries though, with Christmas around the corner there will be tons of sewing goodness.

For F's Birthday party outfit, I wanted something whimsical but also something she could easily move in and play outside. I didn't want a real dress or a pants outfit so after trolling through pinterest I found a scrap skirt. I changed a few of the steps because I like to tweek thinks to fit my needs.

I wanted a pink skirt of course!! I had appliqued and embroidered an adorable 3 tier birthday cake with the number 2 candle onto her shirt. Once completed as I was taking it out of my machine, it got snagged and ripped. My luck is amazing! So I ran to the store and bought an Iron On number 2. This particular one, I purchased at Hobby Lobby. It went with her skirt so I was fine with it and she was none the wiser.

The scrap tutu Supplies:

Fabric scraps ( I used a variety of pink prints)
1 inch wide No Roll elastic
Pinking Sheers


Step one:
Measure your little girl from waist to where you want the skirt to fall.
Multiply by two and add 2 inches. (this is because you are folding the fabric in half and tying around the one inch elastic)
Measure her waist and add 1 inch to that measurement (this is to compenstate for sewing the elastic band end to end)

Step Two:
Cut your elastic band to size then over lap the ends approximately a half inch and zigzag sew a nice secure square crossing over in the center creating a X with your stitches, for stability.

Step Three:
Cut your fabric Strips.
You want a 1.5 inch wide  by your desired length (x2 plus 2 inches). For sake of making things non-complicated. Ex: F's length from waist to knee was 10 inches. I cut my strips 22 inches long by 1.5 inches wide.

I used 11 different types of Pink Fabric. I cut 3 from each for a total of 33 scraps.

Next I would like to thank once again my husband for being such a trooper! He was nice to iron ever single one of those 33 scrap strips as I was cutting them to help cut down on the time. Since this was once again a late night project after the wee one went to sleep.

Step Four:
 Seperate your strips  as you see here into sections in the order your want your prints to appear on the skirt.

Step Five:
Take one strip from each pile and stack them in consecutive order. So looking at this picture from left to right. I took one from each and stacked them into 3 piles in the same order. This way the pattern of prints would repeat in the skirt. Here you see my husband being my model LOL! After they were all cut and ironed it was just quicker to use him to make my stacks. (excuse the cell pic). (as you see a fourth pile, that was for something else I only used 3 for the skirt). However for sizes larger than the 2t that my little girl is, you will need to cut more strips. Just as long as you keep repeating the pattern sequence, it's all easy peasy to adjust.

Step Six:
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of putting it together because I tied the fabric onto the waistband while in bed watching a late night movie.

You want to take your elastic waist band and simply fold your strip in half length wise over the elastic and tie into a Knot on the band...DONE........Rinse and repeat until finished.

Step Seven:
Finishing the skirt. You can leave it as is or you can trim the ends into a rounded trim, or a pointed corner. I Used Pinking Sheers and trimed the ends into a Point.  There will be fraying and that adds to the Character of the skirt but do know if you wash this after being worn it will continue to fray. It is typically a one use type of skirt but I have washed and ironed it and F has worn it a few times since them.


Here you will see her wearing the skirt and how it's Knotted at the waist. It gives it a poofy appearance with a great twirl factor.

Any questions feel free to contact me anytime.

Peace, Love and Shutter Clicks,
Mandy

Cookie pops and various treats!

Another concept we went with for our Pinterest party was lots of chocolate dipped foodie goodness!

While F doesn't eat sweets or any sort of sugary foods, we were still going for the eyes wide open reaction from her. She loves pink and over the top anything. She is quite the girly girly and loves boots and skirts, jewelry and purses, Pink nail polish and hair bows. Anything pretty and pink was going to be exciting for her.

We decided on lots of single serving on a stick types of goodies. I apologize in advance for the stinky cell phone pictures. This was another late night and I had forgotten to get out my camera until we were almost done. 

Earlier in the morning, I let F help with making the cake for the cake pops. Later in the day she was so excited to help decorate the dipped pretzels and marshmallows. It's funny because she would never taste them but had a blast creating them.

We dipped Pretzel rods.............RIDICULOUSLY Easy! You can buy colored Chocolate melt at most any grocery store, michaels, joanns or hobby lobby. I have a fancy smancy baby cakes chocolatier (yeah nothing more than a wee little crock pot).  The good thing about it is that I can leave the chocolate in there and go do other things and come back to the dipping later.

Back to the pretzels...no before pics sorry
Simply take your pretzel rod and dip half into the chocolate then garnish while still wet with sprinkles, m&ms, nuts, coconut...the world is your oyster.

Marshmallows...
Insanely easy. Stick a lollipop stick almost all the way to the top of the marshmallow and dip the top half into the chocolate and again garnish while wet.  We used Pink Strawberry Marshmellows with a standard chocolate and the very top dipped in a pink chocolate with glitter sprinkles.

Cookie Pops... These serve to be a bit more tricky because they melt and fall apart (shockingly the marshmallows really didn't).
I used a chocolate sandwich type cookie. Pushed the lollipop stick into the white center and then froze them. Freezing them helped with the melting process. It pretty much eliminated that problem. Once semi-frozen, I dipped quicking into a pink chocolate and F rolled them in sprinkles

Candied Apples.....Standard Caramel Candied Apple, dipped in chopped nuts. once dry, dip the bottom half in traditional chocolate...Let dry then dip the bottom quarter in pink candy bark.

Luckily, I once again had some help from my husband. He deserves some kudos for staying up late rolling cake balls and sticking lollipop sticks in things.

She had such a great time with her goodies and the guests loved them and took a bunch home.  Sure they could have been prettier or more refined but my 2 year old daughter got to help and I would never trade that joy of us being in the kitchen working on things together for anything. If that means a lopsided cake or partially burned pie crust, then so be it. Togetherness is the most important and they were made with love!

Craft gone terribly wrong.

Another little concept that I had wanted for F's birthday party was Pink Topiaries.............FAIL

Like OMG I hid it in a drawer.......... fail.

We had a bunch of round decorations so we had decided to make some nice pink square topiaries. It was a great idea. It went along quite well  the top portion of the topiary went together perfectly however our construction method for standing it up, in the end was a huge failure.

Here are the step by step instructions on how to construct the top of the topiary. I need to think about how I will construct the base in the future because this bad boy is getting redone so I can at least say that I finished it.

Supplies:  Foam sphere or block in our case
Crepe Paper for a small sphere you will need around 300sqft for our big ole honking block it too almost 600 sqft
Hot glue
wooden dowel
Pot/jar/container of sorts
Patience!!!!

1) First you want to roll out about a million strips of crepe paper approximately 12 inches in length.

2 ) From there you want to fold your strip in half width wise so that you have a narrow 12 inch strip of paper.

3) Next simply start rolling the paper strip from on end to the other. You can twist and pinch as you go if you want more of a carnation type of look but if you want tight rosettes then simply just roll. And glue the little end in place.

4) Once I had a bunch already rolled, then I started gluing them to the foam block in no particular order. I simply hotglued the bottom of the rolled paper and stuck it to the block and held it just for a couple of seconds. Lather, Rinse and Repeat until you are finished covering the foam in it's entirety.

Fortunately for me, after a little kicking and screaming (ok not really) my husband pitched in. Nothing says happy birthday baby girl, like daddy crafting pretty pinkness for her 2nd birthday party.

My down fall was those pink pots right there!! Do you see them??? they are evil. Be sure to get one WAY bigger than your topiary so that it doesn't constantly topple over.  I took terracotta pots and my husband painted them pink. from there was stuffed more foam into them (gluing the foam into the pot for security, hahah was I fooled). Then using a wooden dowel (also painted pink), we gorilla glued one end into the rosette topiary and the other end deep into the pot.

Sounds simple right?  Nope. Once we were outside in a slight breeze.....................................BAM over, off the table. It ended up in the drawer waiting for me to come back to it and fix it for completion sake. I have yet to go tackle it. Which I will.....Someday.

Lesson learned??? After 2 nights creating various decorations for her party, we thoroughly agreed with each other that F will never have another topiary EVERRRRRRRRRRRR. If she wants them at her wedding, we will be hiring out for that service.

It just proves, no matter how crafty you are......Somethings are just not your Forte and should never be attempted again! Lol
Peace, Love and Shutter clicks,
Mandy

Working on my fitness

Well as some of you know I started my weight loss journey back in December 2010. With a desire to lose 80 pounds, I found myself quite successful and lost 50lbs by March 2011. I maintained that loss with the normal flux of a few pounds up on the scale a few pounds down on the scale but never really progressing further.

Since September, I fell off the wagon of sorts. With my husband's return from Afghanistan, some personal difficulties with reintegration, tons of travel, some family issues along the way and working with various physicians for F, I found that I had lost my way. I am sad to report I gained back approximately 13 pounds. Give or take whatever the scale decides. Other than the poundage, I feel like crap. Just tired and bloated and just plain lacking motivation.

Well today is the day. No excuses, I am setting forth to finish what I started. My goal is not only to lose the 13 pounds that rebounded on my ass but also my remaining goal of an additional 20-30 pounds. I'd be happy with 20 as 30 lbs would put me at high school weight which I'm not sure I want to get there so I'll play it by ear once I hit 20.

I'm going back to my original plan of healthier choices and moderate exercise. I'm hoping to lace up my running shoes again and hit the road like I was prior to homecoming. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't run since September.

I also just enlisted the assistance of Miss Jillian Michaels and her 30 day shred. Let's see how it goes.

At the end of my journey, I promise to post before and after pictures.

Wish me luck!!! Any tips are Greatly appreciated.

Christmas old school!

This year I have decided (as well as my mom) that Christmas is not going to be about commercialism. It's about family. Thoughtful gift giving, time spent loving and cherishing the time we have. I'm so tired of the hustle and bustle of making lists, standing in lines, getting pushed and shoved in order to get the latest and greatest gadget to give someone as a gift.

I'm over it. I'm over the insane costs of things these days. Really, does it really cost $0.88 for one little orange? Blech! It's time to protect my ultimate investment. My family. Our retirement. Our way of living. I'm not about to spend exorbitant amounts of money for two seconds of tearing it opened then it gets forgotten about in a few weeks time.

With the state of the economy, uncertainty of our economic future, mounting medical expenses for my little princess it's not time to mindlessly spend. That's not what the holiday season is about. My most important investment isn't a cashmere sweater but my daughter's well being. That's where my money is going and saving for a rainy day for her needs on top of ordinary family savings.

This year, it's a handmade Christmas. I can sew, I can knit and I craft with the best of them. While the kids in the family will still have items on their wishlists purchased, the adults are getting time, love and tradition. Time to search out the perfect gift. Formulate a plan and create it. It takes much more love, thought and sentiment to have a handmade Christmas than to give gift cards with zero meaning.

I'm excited to get started. There's a lot of people to start creating for! Wish me luck. There's only 6 weeks left!

Owl Costume Tutorial

I wanted my little girl to be an owl for halloween. I searched and searched for patters/tutorials on the internet as well as Pinterest and was unable to find one that I felt fit my standard. They are all super cute but I wanted something a little more "Girly" for my princess. I instead set out and devised my own design. I sewed the entire costume from leftovers and fabric scraps.

Warning: I am a super procrastinator so please excuse the AWESOME background of autumn pattern blanket. Since I waited until barely 2 days before Halloween, I had to both design, devise and put together this costume all while keeping a two year old occupied.

I started out by freehanding a "pinnafore" dress pattern on some freezer paper. I have made a ton in the past so It's pretty easy to remember. I made this one in a size 4t. My little girl only wears a 2-3t pinnafore but I wanted lots of room since I had to bundle her up underneath it.  In lieu of a Pinnafore, You can simply trace out one of your childs tank dresses or freehand a tank style dress.

Normally, I would line the dress but since it was a once use time of outfit, I decided to simply sew a single layer dress. I also did not sew a hem since It would be covered with "feathers" and no one would see it.  It makes for a really quick project. The only time consuming part was cutting out the fabric feathers.


For the "wings", I freehanded a cape. I Had F extend her arms out wide and I measured from wrist. across her back to her other wrist and this was the width of my cape. I then measured from the nape of her neck to her waist and this was the length of my cape. I cut out a notch in the middle for the neck and rounded out the bottom for more of a clean look.  Before sewing the feathers, I used ribbon and tied two pieces to each corner of the neck of the cape to be used to tie around my little girl in front to hold it on and in a pinch I used 2 hair elastics sewn to the wrist of each side of the cape. this way I just slipped it over her little hand and it stayed there like a bracelet. This allowed her to flap her wings.

I then simply freehanded a feather like shape. Ok so not really a feather but rounded out upside down triangle that once layered together will "resemble" feathers of sorts.  Here you can see that Olivia and Her family of pigs, found my feathers to be quite the fabulous beds.

After I had all of my feathers cut, I started arranging them to make sure I had an accurate amount to cover the base fabric of the cape and dress.

Once I had the correct number that I felt I needed, then it was sew time.  I assembled the dress quickly with just sewing the shoulders together and two side seams and done. No time at all, Literally.

To sew the feathers on, they are sewn in rows starting at the bottom and working your way to the top. I simply took this bottom daisy row and pinned all the feathers I needed in their correct position to the bottom of the cape and dress and top stitched along the top. The stitch line will be hidden by all the other layers of feathers.  I left the edges of the feathers raw because with the fraying, it adds a little dimension to the feathers.

Just keep repeated each row until you have reached the top and DONE!!.

Here is the finished Cape:

As you see at the bottom of the dress a little bit of the base fabric shows. I just went and sheared those little areas off or you could leave them. Since my fabric was a complete contrast of the feathers I decided it was best to remove it however, I forgot in my rush............procrastination at it's best.



Now for the hat, Sadly I do not have photos. I literally whipped that thing out in under 5 minutes before it was time to give F a nap before we went out.

I used a brown Jersey Knit fabric I had left over. I measured the circumference of her head and cut a rectangle piece of Knit fabric to fit her head and high enough to have extra room for the owl face.

I Cut Two Big round circles for the "whites" of the eyes, Then two smaller circles for the "blacks" of the eyes. and a simple triangle for the beak.  I zig zag stitched the large circles first, then layed the smaller circles in the center and zigzag stitched those as well. Finally adding the beak under the eyes, zigzag and that was done. Then simply sew two seams. The short sides of the rectangle knit together then the one of the tops of the tube that you created...Done. A quick and simple stocking knit cap of sorts.

Here is the finished product. She looked so cute! Everyone adored it. Not bad for a quick sew.

Craftapalooza

It's finally over.....for the moment.

F's second birthday party has come and gone. Halloween has passed yet again. I now have a break from our incessant traveling and crafting, cooking and concocting.

We have an 8 day break from any doctors appointments. For the next 8 days, it's just hanging out and working on F's walking at home. Luckily, my mom and dad help to chase her around the house which gives F some good practice on speed before we go back to the Siskin Hospital (boo the day before her birthday).

Her pink pinterest inspired party was a huge hit. She talked about it for days and my non sweet eater even ate her birthday cake as she exclaimed "Oh yummy!" which totally made my mom's day since she stayed up until the wee hours of the morning making it.

Her Halloween costume was a hit! I couldn't find an idea on pinterest that I liked so I devised my own design which I will share soon once I catch up on party posts!

Happy Halloween! Stay tuned for some pink goodness!

Just a sneak peek. A crapola cell pic of her partial costume.