shop update {The Curtsay Cloche Matching Sets}

You can now get matching sets of crochet hats in my shop. I started making hats for my nieces and thought it would be so fun to have coordinating colors for them. So here's what is available in the shop so far:

What do you think?

Great Etsy Find

I love to sew, but I have really only ever done little projects. Besides the pajama pants I made in Home-Ec in high school, the only piece of clothing I've ever made is a Jon-Jon/Romper type thing for my nephew. And, it didn't even fit. So when I see people that can sew great kids clothing, I am in awe.

I'm a big fan of Etsy, not because I have a shop on their website, but because I could sit there and shop around for hours looking at the amazing handmade goodies. So, while doing a search for local artists I found {JOEY AND ALEETHEA}. Wow. They have some amazing clothing for kids. Everything looks so professional and I love the monster theme! It's so easy to find cute frilly things for girls, but not often do you find such great pieces for boys!

Here are two of my favorite things in the shop:

{Monster Hoody}

{Half Pints}

Make sure you check out Joey & Aleethea for dozens of great outfits like these!

Vacation!

VACATION...
ahhhh....

We are visiting with my husbands family in Utah for the next couple weeks. Ande is loving every minute of it! He is having so much fun with his 13 cousins on this side of the family. He is learning so much from them. So far he's started talking more, he finally figured out how to go down stairs, and he even got to ride a horse! {look here for pictures}

All this fun means not so many new crafty posts for me. But don't lose hope, I am going to try and post some great finds throughout the week and I also have tons of stuff lined up for when we get back mid August! So stay tuned!

I don't have anything new to share but here are two pretty things to feast your eyes upon:

{Frugal Life Project- Cool dollar store wall art}

I love the look of this so much. I am definitely going to try this, especially now that I have gotten my Mod Podge out from hiding. I have been wanting creative ideas for wall art other than pictures, pictures, pictures!

{Adventure in [new] Mommyhood- Painted vaises}

Yet another great decorating idea. I love these! As soon as she gets her new shop up and running, I will be purchasing these beautiful vases!

Haynie Family Reunion

Ande and I are in Utah right now having a grand ole' time. The girls + 12 kids ventured over to Sanford Colorado for a few days for a little Mortensen family fun. Here's evidence for all of our husbands of the fun they missed:

If you want to see these pictures a little bigger, just click on them.

{The annual July 24th Pioneer Day Celebration in Sanford, Co}

{The Sand Dunes in Colorado}

Fabric Frame Mod Podge Redo

Am I the last person in the crafty bloggisphere to find out that you can mod podge with fabric?

I had no idea!

This is amazing. I am so glad I found this out. I had this not-so-chic wood framed mirror that I found in a dark corner in my sister's room (we have an understanding when it comes to sharing things...usually with clothes, but I don't think she knew this mirror even existed. So, we're all good!).

Anyways, I wanted to put it up in our room. I knew that I didn't want to put it up "as-is," but I have found out the hard way that I am THE WORST painter! Luckily, I saw a blog post about covering a picture frame with fabric (sorry, I don't remember where I saw it, but thanks!).

So here is the original frame...

And this here is all you need to turn blah into Ta-Da!

I used these fabric squares that I got at Joann's. I LOVE them so much. I don't even know who makes them but the patterns are gorgeous! Then, I used my Mod podge that I've had for years to stick the lovely squares directly onto the frame.

VOILA!

*side note: This was originally a mirror, however, I broke that while trying to put it back in the frame. 7 years of bad luck, I know, I know. So now, this frame that I am so IN LOVE WITH is sitting barren on our lavender wall. We plan to do something with it soon...I'll let ya know.

What do you think? Do you love this concept as much as I do?

Excitement!

Let me just preface this by saying that I only happened upon the great "craft blogging" world a couple months ago. I only recently joined in on the fun with this blog because I really wanted a reason to obsessively hook, sew, and glue. I was also hoping that having an audience to view my creations would help me to improve the quality of my sewing, etc.

However, I never expected anyone to read this blog except maybe my mom and my husband (because I make him look at it). That is why I am so excited today. I woke up this morning and found that one of my posts was featured on 2 of my favorite blogs!

~Tatertots and Jello~ and ~Fireflies and Jellybeans~ are two really amazing sites that are overflowing with great craft ideas. I am constantly following them to gain inspiration. Every week they host link-up parties where you can post anything you've been working on that you'd like to show off. This weekend, I posted the airplane fun tray cover, and am so excited that these lovely ladies found it interesting enough to feature!

{So, THANK YOU for the feature!}

If you want a look, head over to their post link-up party postings:

{More Great Ideas}

{Sunday Spotlight}

*In other news:

I know I said I'd be revamping my Etsy shop starting August 1st, but things have changed a bit and I will actually be adding my new items, TOMORROW! (Monday, July 19th that is) The items that are currently on sale for $10 will still be available until August 1st. So, make sure you take a look at all the fun new hats!

PB&J

After realizing we don't take enough pictures of ourselves/together...

Car seat fitted cover

This is something I have been working on for a lonnnnggg time. I don't know about your kids, but mine leaves a crumbly little mess in his car seat. He uses all of the nooks and cranny's of the seat to stash his cheerios/pretzels for later. The other day we noticed him licking his index finger over and over again. We thought, "what is that child doing?" Then, we realized he was sticking his finger in the corner of the seat to get the crumbs stuck to it so he could eat them. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry: laugh because he thought of something so crafty, or cry because I let him sit in a seat with crumbs in the cranny's.

The messy seat is pretty embarrassing, but it is so annoying to get the cover off that we never do it. I realized we needed something that could just slip over the original seat cover that we could remove easily for washing.

So here is the original in all it's glory with cheerios hiding in the little slits by the bottom buckle...

This project took me forever, but it wasn't really difficult to do! However, I decided not to try to make a tutorial because I was really making it up as I went. This could have turned into a waste of fabric very quickly.

All I did was:

~ cut my fabric into an oval shape by laying it out flat and rounding out the corners. (using about 1 1/4 yards)

~ placed fabric right sides together and sewed around the edge, leaving a slit for turning fabric out.

~ turn fabric right side out and sew around the edge again (this time about 1" inward from the edge)

~ now you have a channel for the elastic. lace your elastic and cut it to the right length depending on your car seat size.

~ last, I cut slits where the seat belt straps and bottom buckle go and added some bias tape to keep them from fraying.

*Note: Although you can't really see in the pictures, the slits for the seat belt straps go down the length of the strap so they can just pull right through. This makes is super easy to take the cover on and off. You don't have to do all the work of taking the seat belt's off from the back to lace them through!

Voila!

I am also excited to say that, the seat cover is also reversible!

The Newsie

"The Newsies" is probably one of my all time favorite movies. Don't ask me why, I just L.O.V.E it! So that is what this little crochet hat with a brim will be named after.

Cold, Sweet, Watermelon!

Wanna try some watermelon Ande?

Yes, please!

This is a tad after the fact, because I almost forgot all about these pictures. We spent the Monday after July 4th with family and the pool and then had some delicious barbecue (is that really how you spell it?) at my parents house. The best part was Ande's reaction to the watermelon. Ande is obsessed with fruit. If he's not careful, he'll turn into a grape considering how many he can stuff in his cheeks at one time! So, there was no question that he would love the watermelon. He got it EVERYWHERE and he ate about 4 slices!

Ahhh...satisfaction!

Airplane Fun Tray

Coming up, Ande and I are venturing off to Utah to have a blast with our family. Curtis will be joining us a week or two later and that means....I am ON MY OWN on the plane with Ande. I have been racking my brain and the internet trying to come up with ways to keep a 1 year old occupied in a small, confined space for 5 hours. To my relief, a blog that I follow posted a fabulous idea just this morning! Serving Pink Lemonade had made an Airplane Tray Cover, and I think it is such an amazing idea and I had to make one.

I tried to include all sorts of busy little activities that I think Ande will like.

These include:

~A zippered pouch in the shape of a basket

~The pouch contains velcro flowers which having matching flowers to attach to

~A twisty thingy (I took from a handy manny book Ande had) which has wheels that you can pull on and off

~A buckle...his favorite!

It is a sleeve that fits perfectly over the airplane tray.

I am hoping that this, along with some other goodies I've been collecting, will ease the wiggles. We shall see....

Jump, Because!

There is an awesome website called Jump Because. It is a place where people share their jumping pictures and why they jump. It is pretty awesome. Anyways, I submitted a couple pictures from our beach trip and today we are on the site!

http://www.jumpbecause.com/1/post/2010/07/sunset-jump.html Sunset, Jump!

Family Photo's

We had some great Anderson Family pictures taken a couple weeks ago. There are some great shots of everybody. However, I just posted a couple, mainly of our little Haynie family. That way nobody can get mad at me for putting up incriminating photo's!

Photo credit {Bridget Daily Photography}

Hot Wheels...

I hope this isn't a preview of Ande's driving in the future...

Crochet Hat Update #3