Flowers...just because.

Lovely daisies, brought to me by my loving husband. 

I love little surprises!  :)

finding fun inside

Thanks to advice from some family, Ande and I found a great way to keep entertained inside this morning.

It has been way too cold to play outside and Ande really NEEDS a way to let out all of his energy!

He's not quite big enough to jump off furniture onto a pile of pillows, but he is big enough to run down the hallway to jump onto a pile of pillows!

He did this over and over about 20 times before he wore himself out and couldn't breath.

It's great to see little man getting some exercise! 

I even documented the experience with video, but it won't upload for some reason. Sorry folks!

Headband Storage at Ucreate

I saw this really cute idea for storing headbands the other day at Ucreate.

The tutorial is actually over at Emilie Handmade.

Just fancy up an oatmeal container or whatever cylinder container you have laying around and bada-bing bada-boom, no more headbands cluttering up the counter!

Onesie Embellishment Tutorial 2: Onesie Dress

Ok, I know I told you I would post this tutorial yesterday...
And I am sorry about that, but Tuesday turned into a busy (in a good way) day and I just never got around to it.
So, one day late, here is your tutorial!

{Onesie Dress Tutorial}


1. To start, you'll need to make a few measurements on your plain onesie.
a. First, you need to measure from the top neckline down to figure out where you want to place your dress. I marked the 5" spot for the dress. I also marked the 8" spot to show you where you could place a skirt if you chose to do that instead of a dress.

b. Now you need to measure across the body of the onesie. Mine measured to be 7 1/2".

c. And last, you need to measure from the marking you made in step A. down to find the length of the dress/skirt you desire. I found that about 10" down was about right. It is up to you!

2. Now, take the fabric you will use for the dress/skirt and fold it in half with the right side facing in. Place the fold on your left and measure from the fold over. You will take your measurement from step B above and double it. (My measurement was 7 1/2", so I measured over 15"). Cut your fabric at this measurement.

3. Now you will need to take your measurement from step C above, measure, and cut your fabric to that length.

4. Keep the fabric folded with right sides in as you did in step 2. You will now sew the ends, which are opposite of the folded edge, together.

5. If you have a serger, it might be a good idea to now serge the edge where you just sewed for extra security. If you don't have a serger, you can use a zig zag stitch or simply iron the edges flat.

6. This is where I ironed my seem down flat.

7. You should now have a tube of fabric. If you are following my measurements, it should be about 10" from top to bottom. Now, you can either serge both ends, use a zig zag stitch, or fold/iron over twice and sew the hem down.

I serged.

8. Ok, now we attach our fabric to the onesie. Keeping your tube of fabric with right side in, place it over the top of the onesie and line it up with your marking from step A. The fabric should be covering the top neck and arms of the onesie and the bottom snaps should be showing. 

Make sure you line the seem you created up with the center of th back side.

9. Pin the fabric in only 4 places: 2 sides, front, and back. There should be large gaps in the fabric between the pins, this is good. Make sure the gaps are all pretty equal.

10. You are now ready to sew! Starting at the side seem, you will sew the fabric to the onesie.

11. Remember those gaps, like pictured above? This is a crucial part - As you sew, pull and stretch the onesie material so that there is no longer a gap in fabric. This will allow the dress to gather correctly.

12. Here is what you should have now:

13. Flip the skirt over, iron down around the area where the dress and onesie are sewn together to keep it from bulging. 

14. At this point, if you have only serged or zig zagged the bottom edge, fold it under, iron, and sew it down to create a clean hem.

And that, folks, is all there is to it! Go ahead and get creative with embellishments whether you add lace or ruffles or flowers...the sky is the limit!

Here is the dress when I finished it the first time:

I felt like it should be a little shorter, so I cut off about 1 1/2" from the bottom.

I used that extra fabric to make a little gathered flower.

I then added some handmade lace to the bottom for a little extra flair.

Sneak Peek and Oh, Sweet Joy!

Here's a sneak peek at tomorrow's tutorial:

I also wanted to share a shop that I recently found, Oh, Sweet Joy!
I don't know what it is, perhaps the adorable shop/blog design, but I just love this girl's style!
She has a lot of cute fabric button earrings and fabric necklaces.
Here are the 3 things I'm loving from her shop:

Changing Teddy...

So tender, he is...

Ande changes Teddy's diaper as a daily routine now.

First, he gathers all the materials he needs.

He starts by rubbing Teddy down with some lotion.

Next comes a good bum wiping.

And of course, the diaper to finish it off. 

Well, actually, he has yet to get the diaper on by himself so, the big finish is usually a big kiss on the lips for Teddy instead.

Did I mention Ande's favorite toy in the playroom at the Y is the baby doll and grocery cart? 

Fail

I thought up this great idea to make some video tutorials on crochet 101 along with some easy projects for anyone that wanted to learn.

Well...

I just spent the past hour and a half trying to make 1 good video for you. I failed miserably! First of all, I really don't like hearing my voice on camera. Second, I couldn't figure out how to get my camera to focus. Thirdly, I couldn't seem to keep my hands/yarn/hook in the screen. They slowly move up, up, up with every take. For some reason, I thought making a quick video tutorial would be easy as pie. What am I missing here? I even had a great name ready for these tutorials. I can't give up, I guess I will try again tomorrow!

On top of all that, I am trying, really trying, to start potty- training little Ande. Unfortunately, I have no idea what I am doing and neither does he. We've made several attempts at sitting on the potty. He has a grand old time sitting there, but doesn't quite understand why I am making him sit there. I try to predict when he might need to go but I have yet to catch the perfect moment... Any suggestions?

Embellished Baby Onesie Tutorial 1

~ Embellished Onesies ~

I'm getting a little care package together for a friend and thought I'd share some new ideas and a quick easy tutorial on how to fancy up a onesie with ruffles!

{Crochet Embellishments}

I came up with a new crochet flower, butterfly, and heart pattern. I am especially excited about the little butterflies I made! I thought they would be a cute way to dress up a onesie so I took some flowers, added a little fabric button, and sewed them to the front on the onesie.

If you do this, make sure you sew down all around edges of the flowers as well. This will make washing easier and will help the flowers to lay flat.

I then added my little butterfly to the back of the onesie.

{Ruffle Bottom Onesie Tutorial}

And now for a little tutorial fun. This is quite easy to do and should only take you 30 minutes max!

Step 1. Measure the back/bottom of your onesie. I used 3 ruffles, so I measured in 3 different spots.

a. measure about an 1" above the leg seem. Mine was a size 3-6 month onsie and measured 7 1/4".

 b. Next, I measured right above the leg seem. The measurement was still 7 1/4".

 c. Last, measure just below that leg seem. Here, it measured 5".

Step 2. Cut out 3 strips of fabric. The width of each piece should be about 1 1/2" but you can make them smaller or bigger depending on your preference. The length of each piece should be 2X the measurement you took in Step 1. 

Piece a. 2x 7 1/4" = 14 1/2"

Piece b. 2x 7 1/4" = 14 1/2"

Piece c. 2x 5" = 10"

Step 3. Iron your strips of fabric or they will look like the strips pictured above! Yikes.
Step 4. Serge or use a zig-zag stitch on the long edges. This will keep the fabric from fraying.

Step 5. Begin with Piece a. Fold the short edge of the strip over twice and pin each edge to the side seems of the onesie. Place another pin in the center of the strip and onesie. There should be major gaps in fabric between the pins because this is how we will get our ruffle!

Step 6. You will sew down the middle of the strip. You can use a straight stitch or a zig-zag stitch. I chose to use a straight stitch.

As you sew, you will pull and stretch the onesie until your strip of fabric is tight against it. Sew all the way across the strip. When you are done sewing and the onesie is not being stretched, the strip of fabric should now be a ruffle!

Step 7. Sew the remaining fabric pieces to the onesie in the same manner.

*Note: When I first sewed my strips on and took a look, I was a little disappointed. The strips were a little crooked and I didn't like how far they were spaced apart. I took off the top and bottom strips of fabric and re-attached them to be a little closer to the purple strip in the middle.

And this is how it turned out the second time:

I think it looks much better with the ruffle strips over-lapping, don't you? That is all there is to it! Such a quick and easy way to dress up a onesie. You can add as many or as little ruffles as you'd like. I think lots of smaller sized ruffles would be cute too!

A new hat, a new face

~ Peanuts the Elephant ~

Just a little sneak peek into some of the new pictures going up in my shop. I guess you could say this little beauty is the new face of Curtsay Designs. She's adorable and captures the feel of my hats perfectly. And her mom is an amazing photographer. Like I said before, make sure you check out her website Funfetti Photography for a better look.

Today is a good day!

~First of all...We had a fabulous weekend. Curtis' best friend, Peter, flew out to visit and we had a grand time! The boys got to romp around in the woods while Geo-Caching, we watched a lot of movies, and ate way too much ice cream! Peter is now Ande's new best friend, he was pretty much in his face all weekend. This morning Ande looked at the air mattress and said "Peter?" So sad. But we ended the long weekend on a great note! Curtis' best friend was in town, and my best friend is in town, so we all got together as besties! The boys thought it would be fun to go play lazer tag (Courtney and I were a little skeptical at first). I was mostly concerned about getting toppled over by a bunch of over-competitive middle school boys. When we got there, we were the ONLY people there besides the 3 kids that worked there. I guess not many people go lazer-tagging on Monday nights. It was GREAT. I have never played lazer tag in my entire life and I am SO GLAD that I finally did! It was the most fun I've had in a long time! Courtney and I giggled uncontrollably while being stalked in the dark maze of walls by Curtis and Peter. I loved it, and I also love that I won.

We finished off the night with our first back yard camp fire. It finally stopped raining at that point and even the wet logs burned on into the night. Good friends, good times.

~The second reason for this good day is that a photographer friend of mine has taken some AMAZING pictures of some of my Crochet Hats. Please, please go here: Funfetti Photography and check out a sampling of some of the pictures. They are soooo fabulous, I can't stop looking at them! By the end of the week, I shall update the pictures in my Etsy shop. I am so excited to have a fresh new, much more professional look to my shop.

I am still working on my newest Pattern, which is for "Peanuts the Elephant." It will go up along with the shop picture update!

~ And last but not least...I have quite a few projects in the works for the next few weeks. Here's what you can look forward to:

* Fixin up a baby onesie with skirts, ruffles, and accessories

* And some fun and girlie new crochet hair clip designs

Ok, now on to continue this lovely day with a little watching of The Bachelor....

little boy vest from old trousers

"Make it and love it" Reversible Vest Tutorial

I just found this tutorial, literally 5 minutes ago. I wanted to share it with you all because it is so adorable and looks somewhat easy to follow. I am definitely going to try it out. Curt has some black pants that we bought for church while we were out of town. We got them at Walmart and they are 2 sizes too big. I'm sure he won't mind me cutting them to pieces!

There are LOTS  of little boy cousins in the family, so I hope you guys will find this fun and useful!