New front door "wreath"

Pardon the picture but it was taken at night. This is my new "wreath" for my front door this holiday season. I have seen lots of similar ideas on pinterest and I wanted one..BAD! But I do not have a lot of space between my door and screen door, so I did not want to use the usual round ornaments that most of the example had hanging down. I found this cute laser cut wooden snowflake at Michaels. I painted it white and then used modge podge to add tinsel white glitter. The rest is pretty easy. I painted a frame that I had red, hung the snowflake in the middle and added a bow. I love how this turned out and I can not wait for the day after Thanksgiving to put it up ;)

GO BEARS

This is going to be a short post. Because it REALLY is SUPER simple. While shopping at JoAnn's my mother and  me found a yard of Chicago Bears fleece in remnant bin...this was a BIG SCORE at only $7.50 (50% off the regular price of $15 a yard) I used the same pattern that I used to make the dinosaur hat HERE . The fleece was kind of thin so I doubled it up to make scarves. I made a set for both boys. Though I have not been able to get Alex to agree to take a picture for me, I was able to get Nicholas to stand still for a few seconds to grab this photo. I know its not the best, but you get the idea!
(this was the best picture out of like 10 :( if I get a better picture I will update the post)

The BIG Nicholasaurus DIG

This Halloween I knew it was going to be cold. I needed costumes that I could layer to keep the boys warm. One day while scrolling through pinterest I came across a cute Dinosaur hoodie...That is how Nicholasaurus was born.

The above picture was take just after My mom and myself made the hoodie and the tail. The hoodie came from HERE  It was super easy to make. All we did was fold a piece of felt in half and draw the points so that we had a long row of mountains( we did 2 sets, one for the hood one for the back) I sewed them right down the middle and then folded it over so the points matched up and sewed them shut.

Then we moved onto the tail. And I am not gonna lie....it was a pain. Maybe it's because I am new at sewing but it took me and my mother about an hour and a half to get it done. I am sure if I was a faster sewer/learner it would go quicker. The tutorial that I used can be found HERE She does a real good job of explaining things. We only changed how the points were done because we were using felt. We did the same thing we did for the hoodie, except we just folded and sewed the points shut. Then we went back to following her instructions.

 The next thing that we made was a fleece hat. It's cold here in Chicagoland and Nicholosaurus needed something warmer than a hood to keep him warm at night. The instructions for the fleece hat can be found HERE you will also find PDF printouts for all the patterns as well. That page does a real good job of explaining everything, there is even a video that you can watch.

So...now that I had Nicholas all figured out, what do we do for Alexander? Well thanks to my sister for the idea he was an Archeologist. Had to be one of the easiest costumes that I have made to date. I made him a badge that said he was the Head Archeologist on the Big Nicholasaurus Dig. He had a "Dinosaur" bone and a map of the dig site, he also carried some paint brushes as his work tools. The hat was found at Party City. Both of the boys had an awesome Halloween and stayed warm too :)

Burlap flowers fall wreath

 I have had this grape vine wreath since Spring. I had plans to make some yellow fabric flowers, but after trying a few different types(none that I was happy with) I put it aside. Fast forward to this week. I had been playing around on pinterest (the mobile app is deadly, its a wonder I get anything done in a day) and I stumbled upon a tutorial for THESE burlap flowers. OMG...that was it. I knew that I wanted those flowers on a wreath. Off to Joann's I went. I got a 1/2 yard of burlap(I have LOTS leftover) for about $2. I also picked up 2 fall floral picks (the little white doodads were one pick that I cut up and I got one with acorns) The tutorial is super easy to follow. I layered 2 of the flowers for a fuller effect. I have had the bird for awhile. It is a laser cut piece of wood that I painted cream. I got the cute little wooden buttons at the Scrapbook Expo in St. Charles today(they are by Melissa Frances). All together the whole thing cost about $8 to make.

I am super happy with how this turned out. Fall is my FAVORITE season and I know that its a little early to start decorating for Fall, but I just had to leave this out.

Fabric Notebook Cover

Happy Sunday! I wanted to share this super cute notebook cover that I made.


 I am going to National Conference with Thirty-One in about 3 weeks. I will be taking classes on how to make my business stronger and I needed something to take notes on. So I did what anyone would do and I turned to Pinterest. I started searching and I found 4 ideas/tutorials that I liked. So I started messing around and I found a way to combine everything that I loved about each of them, and what I ended up with was the super cute notebook that you see above.

All you need is an ugly composition  notebook(mine measured 9 3/4 X 7 1/2)
Fabric of your choice
A sewing maching
a hair tie
a fabric button or button of your choice

All of the directions are in the tutorials/ pictures that I used. I am going to link back to the original blogs, I will give you a description of what part that I used.

V and Company : I used this as the main tutorial, but where she has the muslin rectangles I used more of my main fabric like in the next link
Momma go round: Just to be clear. I liked that the main fabric wrapped around to the inside of the notebook, In the above tutorial I liked that there were seams that made the pocket have an easy fold. That is why I did it this way.
Babes and Sages: I liked the ruffle that she added down the side of the notebook
Now I have never made a ruffle before so I used the next tutorial as a guideline to making a ruffle
Made by Lex: Near the middle of the Tutorial are the instructions to making a ruffel

Now the whole project took me maybe an hour or so. I can guarantee that for a advanced sewer this should only take maybe 20-30 min. But because I measure about 3 times and cut once, and sew slow it took me a bit longer. If you make one post your link in the comments I would love to see it!!

Kathy

My favorite baby shower card!

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Hi everyone, I hope that you are staying out of the heat. Here in Chicagoland we have had heat indexes of 110+. Today I wanted to share with you my favorite card for a baby shower. It is a cute little onesie that I found about 8 years ago while surfing the WWW....I love that I can change it for a boy, girls, or if needed I can do it neutral. Its super east too! for the leg and neck cutouts I just use a circle punch, and then you angle the sides...and that's it.

Here birdie, birdie...

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Hello Everyone... Have you all been enjoying the summer? I know that we have. We spend most of our days poolside. But every once and awhile I get to sit at my desk and make something. Rewind to June 22nd. In my neighborhood a back yard buffet bash has been started. We have decided that the best part of going to a Jimmy Buffet concert is the tailgating. So why spend $60 a car to tailgate at the park, when we could do it in someones back yard. The hostess this year called me the night before asking for drink signs. She wanted something to put near the "Mom's Lemonade"(an awesome combo of gin, frozen lemonade concentrate, and 7up) and the water. I have had the giant clothes pins and the birds in my stash for a LONG TIME! I never knew what to use them for...til now. I have also saved the paper that is on the birds for about 5 years....again I didn't have the perfect project for it, so it sat in my stash waiting. I am very happy with how they turned out. They will be at every Buffet bash, but till the next one they are proudly holding photo's on my desk. Stay cool!! Kathy