Apple Theme Birthday

For Thea's 1st birthday we did a green apple theme. No other reason then I have a slight obsession with apples and I thought it would be cute. :)

Modeling her smock dress. It's hard to tell much from any of the pictures, but the dress is a green gingham with 2 apple appliques and is trimmed in white lace.

The treats. We have caramel apples, spice cake cupcakes with whipped cream cheese frosting, apple shaped sugar cookies and apple pie pops.

Thea loved her cake so much, she decided to pick it up and take it with her.

KCWC Day #1

For day 1 I made a bonnet for Miss Thea. Not super ambitious, but I was up all night with a sick baby, and I seem to have the same bug. We can thank big sister Ella for that.

I used some leftover eyelet fabric from another project and a vintage simplicity pattern. I did modify the pattern - I didn't do a lining and the pattern bonnet had a fold over brim. I wanted the brim to focus on the eyelet and keep her little lovey face in the shade.

As a side - folding up a pattern while you have a head cold is near impossible. I am putting it away, and will fold it properly later.

KCWC

Kid's Clothes Week Challenge!

Starting next week, I am going to devote 1 hour a day to working on clothes for the kids. It might be accessories (I have some baby shoe patterns that I have been dying to try), but I am making that count!

Details can be found here...

http://www.elsiemarley.com/kids-clothes-week-spring-2011.html

Shirt before and after

A favorite knit shirt of mine, that sadly doesn't fit anymore.


After: A new dress for Ella. I did a lettuce edge with red thread on the sleeves and the bottom.

More storage

Another storage basket. I used this tutorial as a guidehttp://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=204022.0

Honestly, I didn't use their dimensions, I didn't really measure at all. I had this great vintage pillowcase that I just trimmed off the sewn edges, and then winged it. I also used some heavy interfacing. After it was sewn, I did throw a square of a plastic grid stuff in there to give it some more support since this is for Ella's cars.

Overall, the pattern is easy, and I like the look. I think if I did it again, at this size, I would add support to the walls as well.

Storage basket/bucket

While we were visiting in Seattle, Ella was enamoured with Ben's collection of Schleich animals. The Easter bunny paid attention to this and brought Ella some animals of her very own.


But, we really have zero toy storage, and have you stepped on a zebra before? Ouch! So, searching the internets for good fabric basket tutorial, I found this one

http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html .

I made it a little larger, so it's more of a bucket. I love the fabrics. I am going to play with some other storage tutorials out there, and make some for her cars and little people. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. :P

Baby Tunic

To go with her big sisters romper, I made Thea a tunic. http://madebypetchy.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-pattern-baby-dresstunic.html

Pretty quick and easy. I did learn that I need to make baby stuff a bit wider through the chest.

The Rainbow Retro Romper

I fell in love with the Retro Rainbow Romper as soon as I saw it. http://sewingin-nomansland.blogspot.com/search/label/Little%20Girls%20tutorial

The only thing is, I wanted it capri length instead of shorts. I added a button closure to the cuff of the legs so she could get them off and on. Also, I had to completely draft the pattern because there wasn't an option in Ella's size. This was great practice for me and learning how to "make it work".

The Party Dress

For Miss Ella I made the Party Dress. http://www.u-createcrafts.com/2010/11/creative-guest-party-dress-by-cottage.html

I loved this pattern, and since I am still a novice sewer, it taught me a lot about basic construction.

Charlotte Dress

I made the Charlotte dress for Miss Thea. Tutorial can be found here http://theadventuresofroryandjess.blogspot.com/2011/02/charlotte-dress.html

Only, I haven't sewn a zipper before so I traded it out for buttons like the Party Dress.

I love how sweet this dress is!

Baby Coat

I followed a vintage Simplicity pattern to make this saque. The outside is a light pink plisse and the inside is white with pink pin dots.

Doorway puppet theater

Recently, one of our little friends turned 3. I made a doorway puppet theater for her gift. After browsing several blogs for ideas, I combined what I liked about all of them and came up with my own version. I will be making another, so a tutorial will be coming. :)

All closed

The bottom opens for marionettes, the top for regular puppets and the white background is for shadow puppets. The white background is removeable and all the curtain ties are attached with velcro.

I made a house, cat and dog shadow puppet out of black craft foam, using an exacto knife. I then hot glued a wooden dowel to the back.

On the back of the shadow puppet screen, there are a series of pockets to slide the dowels into, holding the puppets in place (like the house is above).

Faux Chenille Stroller Blanket

We recently purchased a double stroller, and even though there are fun colors coming out soon, we needed the stroller now. So, we bought a plain black one. Combining my need to brighten it up and the girls need to have a blanket that didn't fall down under the wheels, I made a faux chenille stroller blanket.

I used this tutorial for guidance...
http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-faux-chenille-blanket.html

And then just winged it with making a ruffle edge, and then added ribbon ties to keep the blanket in place on the stroller.


One side is corduroy and the other is 4 layers of flannel

I made this one for Ella, and I have enough to make one for Thea. But, just one blanket covers the whole thing. Well, I guess that means with 2, they will be all snuggled in. :)

I tied the ribbon through the straps harness.

One side tied, the other untied.

The dog always tries to get in the picture too. :)

When I make the second one, I will show how I did the ruffle binding

Craft Hope, Konbit Sante

I had started this post awhile ago, but I was having trouble uploading pictures. a group of friends and I participated in Craft Hope's project for Kobit Sante. Konbit Sante is a health organization that provides healthcare to people in Haiti. One of their focuses is on maternal health. In order to make sure that woman are able to give childbirth is some sort of sanitary condition, they train people to be birth assistants - midwives of sorts. They provide the trained birth assistants with a bag. The bag has plastic sheeting, a razor, soap, hand sanitizer, gloves and string. It's amazing to think that just those things can greatly improve the outcome of labor and delivery.

Craft Hope came onboard with a project for us to make the bags, fill them with the supplies and then add a baby blanket and a lovie.

We made 23 bags. It was a lot of sewing!

Craft Hope collected 2,510 birthing kits! There were so many, that Konbit Sante was able to share with another health organization that works on another part of Haiti.