Spring Baby Showers

Did I already tell you enough how much I love spring?! I can't wait for the warmer temperatures and I have already brought my spring wardrobe up from the depths of the basement. I am all ready.
Last summer I made these two gift sets for a friend of mine for two baby showers she was attending. We worked together to create the items below.

The first set the theme was transportation. I showed her a bunch of different fabrics and she settled on the fabric with cars and trucks on it. This was made into a big taggie blanket with orange minky on the back and as accent fabric on two burp cloth. Then there was a screen printed onesie with two cars and one truck in the same bold colors found in the blanket. I used some neon here and love how the color pops off of the onesie. The year set of onesies was made with coordinating dot fabric, blue dots on brown background. The lettering is done in brown.

The theme of this gift set was cows (with a few other special items placed in the set). This set includes (from top right going counter clockwise) a breastfeeding cover, star onesie with stripe leggings, cow screen printed oneise, two black and white spotted burp cloths, a year set of onesies with black in and black and white dot fabric, and finally a cow print taggie blanket with green minky on the back.

I totally love these sets and would love to create more "Baby Shower Baskets" if anyone is wanting to give a nice set at a baby shower, holiday or birthday.

As I have said before I love coming up with custom items based on what the buyer wants and the cow and truck/car onesies I just fell in love with. Who wouldn't want a cow on a onesie and maybe it needs to say something cute on it like got milk or something. The cars/truck onesie could say something like movin'. I hope to get more taggie blankets made this spring and feature a few more here on the blog. Finally for all of those St. Louis Cardinal's fans, those red and blue leggings would be perfect with a Cardinal's onesie for those chilly nights at the game.

Thank you to my friend for her order (last year). It was so fun to create these items for you!

On the Vera of Spring

So spring has sprung (just wish it felt like spring) and I am happy; spring is my favorite season of the year. I went to Home Goods and ran into some beautiful items from one of my favorite home decor designers, Vera Neumann. I grew up with many Vera items; placemats, napkins, my mom's scarves and I loved them all. It was the bold color, the fun designs and now it just reminds me of home. When I saw these bright colors that would go well with my house and saw the name VERA on them I had to buy them!

Not only did I pick up the table cloth but got the matching napkins but also the placemats and two hand towels for the kitchen. Yes I know...overkill right? I LOVE IT. Our house is so small that I think having all of these matching items just helps tie everything together. Now I will have to force myself to use them instead of just looking at how pretty they are all day.  I put it on the table and love the way it looks, perfect for our house.

Anything you found this week that you just love?

Don't forget to enter the giveaway, only a few more days!

What I Wore #14

 

This cold....snow?! Is not how I like to start out Spring, but here it is. Easter is one week away and I can not believe it is Palm Sunday already. It feels like yesterday I was taking our old Palms to be burned. This lent has been about growing closer to Christ and in some ways I feel like I succeeded and in other ways I still have a long way to go. For some reason a personal relationship with Christ is hard for me. Maybe that is because I am still ME centered. I would like to try to continue to be less me centered and be more Christ centered. Not only that but I see that when I am focusing more on my husband and family instead of myself everyone is happier. I don't scream at the kids as much or get mad at my husband for things that I think he should be doing...but that are actually now in my list of things to do now that I am at home full time. It seems to be a never ending process since we are all created to be a bit selfish and I am glad that we have a whole lifetime to work on things like this.

Back to talking about me....and what I wore today. haha ok wow isn't that a bit ironic after that last paragraph. I can't wait to pull my spring and summer clothes out of the bins in the basement. Yesterday was in the 60's and today in the 30's with snow!? I looked in my closet and realized I haven't worn this skirt yet so I put it on and went from there. A tank and sweater (with my favorite detail being the zipper) and my cute new high heal boots. Five min later I decided to go with the flat faux leather boots so I didn't fall or ruin the more expensive boots. Good choice. Now I need to figure out what to wear next weekend for Easter. I have all of the boys/men in my house figured out but I need to get my act together. Hopefully something will strike my fancy without having to go shopping. :) Shopping wouldn't be all bad would it?

Clothing Details:
Tank: Glamourmama
Sweater: Old Navy

Skirt: thrifted so I have no idea
Boots: Target (you can't really see them)


PS. Enter the giveaway going on here to win a gift basket of awesome natural products (soap, lip balm and lotion bar) or a personalized hooded kids towel.

Quick Takes #11

1. Be sure to enter the giveaway going on here. Right now your chances are pretty good.... :)

2. I am learning a lot about myself now that I stay at home. I see that some of the things I thought about myself are really not as true as I thought. I really thought I would go crazy staying at home all day but I actually love it. I love the schedule and the one on one time with each boy and I can't wait until they are both on the same nap schedule so we can have more play dates with friends. It seems so hard now to get out and keep them both napping.

3. It drives me crazy when the kids decide not to take naps, why? Because it cuts into the me time. So I see the key to getting them to nap is to go run errands and wear them out. Oh please come spring so we can go out for walks and to the park.

4. I have the family Easter presents purchased...now to make sure we have Easter baskets. humm I know we have one but I might have to pick up another one. Mom are you reading this? We might need one more, where did you get that one last year?

5. LOVE those peanut butter eggs from Reese's. MMMM the peanut to chocolate ratio is awesomeness. I know they aren't good for you but...they are oh so good.

6. Wish I had an ipod 3gen or up because I am finding my 2nd gen one a bit limiting now. It seems as if all of the apps that I want to get don't work with my old ipod touch. I just found out that I shouldn't have updated all of my old apps that used to work and now don't because of the upgrades. This is mostly having to do with wanting to get an NFP app and all of the ones I want to try wont work on my ipod. Also I want to try out a reader app and of course those I can't download either. GGRR see what you have done to me google reader?!

7. I drink a crazy amount of water during the day and the easiest way for me to drink it is through a straw. Did you know that it is a proven fact that you drink more through a straw than any other way? I had two water bottles from the hospital when I had baby Bee and I use them all of the time but they are plastic and something about drinking out of plastic creeps me out even if the plastic doesn't leach into the water. I bought a glass water bottle and love it! I ended up sticking a straw into it to make it easier to drink out of and that works great. Now I am so scared of dropping it and it breaking, epically when I take it outside on errands, so I bought some stainless steal water bottles. I can't wait to get them and start trying them out. I have one bit it is too big to put in my car cup holders so I got some smaller ones. Now I just need some sleeves to put on them so they don't sweat all over my hand and the table when I drink out of them. I made sure I got one that I could put a straw into!

New Fabric/New Find Friday #128

This set of fabrics I am not as excited about together but they are all great in their own respects. The green with black dot is a nice standard fabric to have in the stash and I know that would be great as an apron or letter applique on onesies. The aqua fabric next sort of look like a damask pattern inside of a square pattern. From afar it almost reminds me of snowflakes...which I hear we are getting this weekend. It looks cool like winter. Not sure yet where this will end up but I liked it enough to pick it up! The last fabric is probably the one that I am most excited about. I have a thing for animal prints and this one is great because not only is it an animal but it is a neutral animal with some shimmer to it. If you look at the picture below you can sort of see that the silver that makes up the animal print is metallic. I love the way it picks up the light. I again am not sure what I will do with this but I think it would be great as a letter or number applique.

Here you get another close up look at the fabrics. Nothing too crazy but always great to have in the fabric stash for when you might need them.

Silhouette SD Cover Redo

I have a Silhouette SD and when the company came out with another machine (a smaller one) I saw that they had dust covers for them. I thought a dust cover would be great because my SD sits out all of the time and collects dust when not in use. I thought that this new machine had to be about the same size as the SD and figured the dust cover would work, plus it was on SALE, so I bought it. I found out that no, the SD is larger and the cover would not fit, Darn. Not only that but I couldn't return it...or maybe I could but I would have to pay shipping to send it back. I figured I had three options 1) buy the cover for the Cameo and cut it smaller (it would be more expensive), 2) make my own (with what time plus the trouble of getting it right), or 3) make this small one bigger. So I went with option 3.

I had this scrap fabric from a project I did a while ago and I really loved the colors in it and thought it would go well with the grey cover so I went to it. Sorry I have no progress pictures. I literally just cut the cover where I wanted to add the extension fabric, pinned it together after seeing how much I would need to make it big enough and sewed it together. Voila! It was so simple and I actually love this little pop of color on my grey cover.

Is there anything that you have done to make lemonade out of lemons? Do tell.

Fourth Blog Birthday

Happy 4th blog Birthday everyone!!

So this year I thought...yes two gifts is perfect but this time you might want to win something I DIDN'T make. ;)

Item #1
This is a gift basket from Hanley Fold Farm which includes one goats milk soap, one lotion bar, and one lip balm. If you win this gift basket you can pick between unscented products or lavender soap and lotion bar and mint lip balm. I use these items daily and thought you might enjoy them too.

Item #2
Embroidered hooded towel like the one picture but different colors. It will be a Navy towel with white embroidery thread. You let me know the name and I will place it on the towel like shown. I will be working on it this week and it will be ready to embroider when the giveaway closes.

This is my first time trying Rafflecopter so I hope this works out! Good Luck! You have one week to enter!

As an added bonus until Mar 31st you can buy two bars of soap and get one free on the HFF site by typing hffmarch and the scent you want for free in the comments section when you order.

Happy Feast of St. Joseph, our family's patron Saint!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

Black and White Cover

I would love to get a mannequin or dress form just to make taking pictures of these nursing covers easier. It would make it look more like a cover, these pictures over my stool end up looking like just a piece of fabric. I will have to do some craiglist hunting...maybe even some thrift store shopping. I really don't want to pay too much for them.

Back to the cover. Here is a black and white floral cover that was made for a friend to give to another friend. She was having her first baby, a boy and I think this is perfect for a mom with a boy. Love the floral fabric, a bit dainty and sweet and bold at the same time.

Ok be sure to come back tomorrow for a special giveaway!!

What I Wore #13

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Since it is St. Patrick's Day you know I had to wear something green. I pulled this light sweater out of the summer clothing just because I knew it would go great with this green skirt from Target. You saw this skirt a few weeks ago with a green and white shirt but this time I paired it with some multi colored stripes. I actually really like how this went together and I have not tucked a sweater in before but it was too long over the skit and it turned out to be perfect tucked in. The boots I have yet to wear out, well one time I did, and they are great. You can't tell from the picture but they are wedges so they add the height without being uncomfortable, perfect for skirts/dresses and running around after little kiddos. They also add some warmth to the legs when it is just not warm enough to wear a skirt and shoes.

This is an outfit I am sure to wear again!

Clothing Details:
Shirt: HalfTees
Sweater: Old Navy

Skirt: Target
Shoes: Target

Quick Takes #10

1. We have a new Pope! I am so excited about this and the best was celebrating it with my two kiddos. We danced and chanted "New Pope" after the white smoke was seen and before we knew his name. Pope Francis. I am so excited to go to Rome again one day and "meet" this Pope. I have had the chance to be in the same vicinity as the last two Popes so I hope to do the same with this one. We will see. Anyone want to go to Rome with me?

3. These first two takes are probably the same two that most Catholic bloggers are going to have on their list. Google reader going away?! WHAT! I LIVE on Google Reader. I mean it is my go to place for blog reading while nursing, especially in the middle of the night. Please Google don't make me use the blogger Reader list. UGG Here is a site that give some options and how to move your feeds.

2. My husband taught my son to say "no way" and it sounds so cute coming out of his mouth. Luckily it isn't a NO WAY but more of a whiny nooo with a way on the end of it. It will be cute until he gets older and then I will have to stop it.

3. There was a box in our house from Aldi last week and my son LOVE pushing it around the house. He would put a car in it and take those for a ride. It was so cute to see him doing something he used to do all of the time when he first learned to walk but this time he could go around corners without needing help.

4. Last weekend my husband and I were finally able to go on a date. He was getting made at me for not setting up a date night sooner and actually once we got home he said that he was sorry, hanging out and watching a movie at home the night before was as fun as going out. We went to a tapas restaurant that we had a gift certificate to. We LOVED the food but it was so noisy. I guess we have turned into those old people that complain about how loud a restaurant is. I guess we were both just expecting a bit more of a romantic atmosphere and this was a bit more of a bar scene. We ended up going to Starbucks to just sit in a quiet place and talk. That was great. It was great to reconnect with each other and we should do it again soon!

5. Today is a nice warm day and I hope that we can go for a walk when the cuties get up from their naps. It gives me hope that Spring is here! I know that it is going to be in the 40's again tomorrow but it is coming soon...the warm is coming soon. Yeah!

6. I am an awesome cook, ok no really I am not at all. I almost burnt the house down the other night while steaming carrots! I often steam veggies for Bee and forget that I am doing it and the water evaporates and I burn the item. This time the water boiled off and the pot was charred black and was smoking. Whew that was a close one. Made me think that I really need to video tape the house so we have an inventory of what we have in case something tragic like that happens. So now to work on cleaning that pot.

 

7. I finally finished my son's Easter pants and both of their Easter bow ties. I can not wait to show them to you after Easter. Makes me want to make more cute bow ties for them.

Dang my cell phone woke up the baby....

Mommy's Sous Chef

I love this apron and it was again not at all my idea! My good friend likes to cook and is very good at it and asked me to make an apron for her son that said "Mommy's Sous Chef" on it. I loved the idea and told her when I was up and running with my new machine I would get on it. So here it is! I gave it to her before his birthday and baby number two arrived so I hope it helped him feel special.

This was the first item I embroidered using my new program that allows me to do multi lined text. It was so fun to try and man it was so much easier than I thought it would be. I think I will need to make a girly version soon for the second baby. Hers might need a bow. :)

G.I. Sam

 I made this bib as a gift for a friend. Her husband is in the military and I thought it would be fun to use some camouflage fabric to make this initial. Camo is not my favorite on my little boys (I want them to stay sweet babies forever and camo makes me think of mature boys/men) but I thought it would be fun to do on this bib. I love that the pattern is sort of subtle when you cut just a letter from it.

I embroidered it with a neutral camel color and love how it plays off the camo fabric. I actually really really liked the way it turned out and might just have to make this a separate listing on Etsy because I think it is so cute. Perfect for all of those military families out there that have little baby boys.

What I Wore #12

Sunday just flies by for me. It was a very productive day. We got up on time, got to Mass on time, and even picked up a much needed file cabinet! Yippee. I am sure the kids are all messed up with sleeping because of the time change and our errands but there is always tomorrow.

I forgot that I talked about it last week but I actually did put on minimal makeup today. Just eyes and lips. Can you tell? yeah maybe not. Oh well, it always makes me feel pretty. Loved this outfit today and wish my husband were just a bit shorter or would hunch down to take these pictures. Yes my skirt is a bit too big but this angle makes it look so silly. I don't think it looked this silly in person. The necklace is a teething necklace that my mom bought me for Christmas. Baby Squirrel loves it and chewed on it today while going to sleep at Mass. I wish I had a picture of the back of this sweater, the top of the shirt the stripes come together at an angle and it creates really cool lines. Maybe next time I wear it. This outfit was totally inspired by a picture on pinterest because I didn't have any shirts to wear with this blue skirt already in my closet and I didn't want to buy a new one. I love how the black and white stripes look with it.

It was a really productive and fun weekend (more on that later) and I really wish that it was not already Sunday night!
 

Clothing Details:
Sweater: Target

Skirt: Target
Tights: Probably Target
Boots: Target

Yet again another outfit brought to you by Tarjay! :)

Quick Takes #9

1. Tomorrow a new Jo-Ann Fabrics is opening up here in town and I am going with my mother in law. She is much of a lover of fabric and sewing as I am and I think it will be fun to do this together. She will also be a distraction for the boys as I tool around the store looking at all of the pretties. Now I am going to have to fight the urge to buy more things that I don't need....we will see about that.

2. It has been really hard for me these past few weeks to get everything done that I need to and be a great mom to my kids. How do you blogging ladies do it? I mean I can get food made and diapers changed but it seems like they always want me to play with them instead of clean or do other chores. Then when everyone is in bed my hubby wants me to go to bed but that is my blog/business time. I don't mind little sleep but I don't want to upset a happy husband and have him resent me. So I am trying to do it all and if that means sometimes blog posts don't happen I am sure you guys don't mind right? My 5 readers. ;)

3. What keeps me productive while I sew at night is to listen to books on tape or the radio. I always think I can "listen" to a movie or tv show while working but then I end up stopping to really watch, waste of time. So I ordered another book on tape from the library Call the Midwife (the book that the PBS show is based on, thanks Amy for the recommendation).

4. The two teeth that I have been talking about squirrel getting for a while finally came in and they are so cute! I am so glad that he is less unhappy and can take longer naps now since he is in less pain. He still chews on everything which we are not used to since our first really never chewed on anything. I guess he is ready for solids.

5. Speaking of food we sat him at the table with us in the high chair for the first time and moved Bee to the booster seat and he loved it! He started biting right away on the sippy cup and I think was even sucking up some water. Could he really be telling us he is ready? Maybe after these last two takes I will get the picture that our baby is growing up faster than I am ready for him to.

6. So lent is almost half over and I have been half a$$ing what I have been doing it. Time to get on the ball. I opened up the USCCB's site on my ipod touch so I can start reading the daily readings while nursing. I will pop the Rosary cd in the car while we are driving around and I am for sure giving up music for lent. I am only allowing myself to listen to Catholic radio. So here it is in black and white and now it is time to really do it. More time working on my relationship with Christ so that all other relationships fall into place.

7. I hope to show you some pictures of these next week when I pry the pictures off of my husband's cell phone but almost every night we hang out in the basement with Bee and work on duplo creations. Yes us adults...play more with the duplos than our son. We love them...and so does he, but he loves to de-construct more than he likes to construct. In time. :)

 

New Fabric/New Find Friday #127

It is baby blanket time! I am in full swing of gathering together fabrics that I have to make baby blankets, taggie and just cuddly blankets. These are a few fabrics that I picked up lately that are for sure in my "make into a blanket pile." On the far left we have a standard brown minky fabric, the perfect soft backing for any blanket. The next two fabrics are a pink and white check flannel and a white with pastel colored polka dot flannel. Flannels add just enough softness without adding bulk to the blanket and are also great for burp cloths. The flannel fish on the far right is my favorite. I picked him up at our local Upcycle Exchange and I love it! I thought for sure it would work for a blanket but after opening it up it was just a small long piece. I am thinking now it would be PERFECT for a bit of design on the hood of a hooded towel I have ready to go. I will talk more about those later.

Don't you just love how much personality that little fish has?! I had to keep this fabric away from my little Bee because he would love on those little fish and never want to let this soft fabric go. I might have created a bit of a compulsive hoarder myself, it must be genetic. ;)

Here Comes the....Baby.

This cute set was made as wedding attire for a six month old. His mom requested two onesies, you know in case there is a poopcident on the first one, and a bib. The wedding was for the mom's sister and her wedding colors were purple and black so of course this little boy had to be outfitted in the same. I love this purple fabric that I found, it is purple with no flowers, let me tell you that is hard to find. The fabric has purple and silver circles on it which I thought would just be manly enough to pull off made into ties. The silver actually has some shimer to it which screams party to me. :)

 

The black onesies really set this fabric off and the bib is great for when someone needs to eat but you want everyone to know that he means to be dressed up even when he eats!

 

I loved creating this custom order for this family and I hope that the bride loved the homage to her wedding that her sister and nephew created with his clothing.

Need something special for Easter or a special event? I think these tie or even bow tie onesies and bibs are so cute. Now time to finish up some Easter items.

St. Patrick's Day and Easter Ideas

March is here and there are so many things happening this month. First let's talk about St. Patrick's day and Easter. Looking for something to get that little Irish baby in your life? Well look no further. I have applied these shamrocks to bibs for the year bib set, but I think it would be more fun to have the one bib and for it to be personalized with baby's name.

I added the name of a special little guy soon to make an appearance. Shh this bib has not made its way to the mom yet so I hope she doesn't see this. If she does...it should be to you soon. You can pick one up with or without the bib personalized here. It could just say Lucky instead of a name, that would be cute or even Lucky Charm! CUTE!

For the Irish lady there is this cute set of bloomers. These again can be sold just as shown with no name or personalized with the young lady's name. Cute to see a little shamrock on a baby bum.

Those are just two fun St. Patrick's Day ideas. I am always open to custom ideas so throw them at me and let's see what we can come up with.

Easter...it may be a few weeks away but this is the time to start planning those Easter outfits and seeing what you can pull together to make your little ones just the cutest thing. I would be happy to put Easter-esque fabric on a bib, onesie, or bloomers like the shamrock ones above. Check out this bib listing to see how the fabric and three egg design looks. I also have some new cute brown Easter fabric that we can play with if you don't like the eggs.

What about this cute Easter bunny on an onesie or cut out of fabric for the bloomers. Check him out here if you want to snag him for yourself.

Do you need an outfit for that little boy of yours and nothing seems to be right? Well what about a cute tie or bowtie onesie? Perfect for a casual Easter brunch after the "nice" Easter outfit is dirty.

I am working on some seersucker pants and bow ties for my two little men and I can not wait to show you how they turn out. I am not usually a clothing maker, more of an applique sewer so we will see how this turns out. I will be sure to update you after Easter.

What I Wore #11

This is going to be short and sweet tonight. I have been catching up on sleep instead of blogging so I hope to be back in full swing this week....with more rest. How do all of you blogging moms out there do it!? You have me amazed.

Here we have it. The skirt that I thought I would never fit into again. I still have a lot of toning to do but the skirt does zip. There is another summer skirt that I really don't know if I will ever be able to wear but it barely fit back in the good old days. I had to wear it on a skinny day. Anyway this outfit might make me look like a mom but I just love it. I am sure I could find more cute up to date tops to go with this but this works well. Like I said I love this skirt maybe because it was one of the most patterned skirts that I have ever owned (that wasn't a loud floral). The tights I wish you could see up close but they have a small diamond pattern to them that mimics the cross hatched pattern in the skirt. Shoes are cute brown heals that felt a bit too small but I rocked them anyway. I was going to put on make up for you guys today but you know what....just didn't happen. Maybe next time.

Clothing Details:
Shirt: ummm I don't remember too old to even matter

Skirt: Loft
Tights: Target
Shoes: Vaneli sample sale