Quiet Book

     For Christmas this year my husband and I decided to try and make all our gifts. We are hoping to save a ton of money by doing this. Especially since we have a ton of things to celebrate at this time. My husband's birthday, Christmas, New Years, my birthday, our Anniversary, then Valentines Day. All back to back. So we try to do Christmas super cheap, especially while we are in college. 


     Originally I was going to make this quiet book before Christmas but at the rate I am going I decide just to make it a Christmas gift. Plus it made it one less gift I had to figure out. I started by looking up some ideas on Pinterest and then just went for it. I am loving the way it is turning out! 

     With the lady bug you grab her spots from under the wings and attach them to the dots on top of the lady bug.

     This one you catch the butterflies in the net. I still want to add some flowers to the hill but you get the idea.

     This little barn is one of my favorites. You open the door and inside are finger puppet animals. I still need to add some googly eyes to the puppets, but again you get the idea.

     This one you pull out the pieces of the caterpillar from the cocoon and line them up on the branch so he can eat his leaves. Again, I need to add a face still. 

     I love this one too. You match the cute fish in the fishbowl with their coordinating colors. 

     I thought this one was very appropriate since I am a cosmetologist. She can braid or brush the girls hair and add flowers to it, just like I do with her hair. 

     It's been really hard not to give it to her right now. I am so excited for her to be able to play with it!  I love the way it is turning out. I have six more pages that are almost done and I'll show you guys as soon as I am finished! 


     ~A

Thanksgiving

     I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We sure did, but I of course forgot to take pics of it at all. We ate tons of food, Hung out with all of my family, stayed the weekend at my moms, set up Christmas decorations, went shopping, played games, and had our first eggnog of the season. All around it was a fun weekend break! 


     We did go black Friday shopping, it actually started Thursday night this year at ten pm. It was insane of course, but we got some really good stuff and saved tons of money! We love going every year. I have to say though I really hope they just change it back to early morning Friday. I like it much better than all night Thursday night. 


     We did set up our Christmas tree the next day. I figured Sophia would be all over the ornaments, but she has surprisingly not been. She does like to go up and touch them but she leaves them on the tree. I even have presents under it and she hasn't even touched them at all. 

     We did green and silver with giant green sparkly snowflakes, which I love! I also used all plastic balls so even if Sophia does start to grab them off the tree they won't break. Which is nice not to have to worry about. 

     We also stopped by the annual lighting festival at the Riverwoods in Provo. They had tons of fun activities for kids and they had Santa. I only took this one picture because my Camera is crappy and in the dark nothing showed up good. It was a lot of fun though they had face painting, balloon animals, free carriage rides, a bell choir, Santa Clause, and they were giving out all kinds of free yummy treats! It was a lot of fun and Sophia and dad had to try out all the motorcycles out on display. 

     The only down part to our whole weekend was Sophia caught a cold. Probably from on of the many cousins she was around all weekend. So this week we will spend lots of time cuddling in our sweats and recovering from her cold. That's the best part of having a sick baby at home.

              ~A

     

Lace for days skirt adjusted to toddler size

     I am sure you all know the amazing Leanne Barlow of Elle Apparel, if you don't know her blog is here . She has lots of fabulous tutorials and an Etsy shop that sells her own handmade and personally designed clothes! Here are a few of my favorites!

     Aren't they gorgeous?! I love stripes! I am pretty sure this cardigan is going on my Christmas list. Anyway she made this gorgeous skirt called lace for days, and made a tutorial for it. 

     Isn't it stunning?! I love it and fully intend on making myself one as soon as I find some lace I fall in love with. Well I was at one of my favorite stores the other day and found some red lace and fell immediately in love with it. The problem was it was only about an inch wide. I had to get it though. So I decided I would make a lace skirt for Sophia out of it. It turned out perfect! I am in love with it. I had to tweak a few steps to get it to work the way I wanted it to. Leanne has been gracious enough to let me use her tutorial and my tutorial combined to show you how I made it. So enjoy and I hope it makes since!   

     If you want to just make yourself one and not a little girl one go here. That is the link directly to her Tutorial. 

     

     The tutorial will go like this, whatever steps of Leanne's tutorial I used I will just link back to her post since they are her original steps. Whatever I changed I will post on here. 

     What you will need: 

~ Depending on the size of your little girl, 1/2 yrd - 1 yrd of fabric that matches your lace. Sophia is 18 months and I got a half yard and it was more than enough! 

~ 4-5 yrd of lace depending on thickness. 

~ 1 inch wide elastic about 10-12inches of it.

~ 1 larger Button, 2 small buttons

~ Skirt to measure with for your little girl use a skirt one size bigger than she is.

~ Zipper

Step 1: Measure skirt  

    Here is the link to Leannes step one.  I just want to make a note of a couple things. If your skirt has elastic in it make sure you stretch it out when you measure it for your pattern. Also while you are cutting out cut out one piece of elastic the length of your waist band.

Step 2: Cut out Material

Step 3: Lace, This is where I strayed from Leanne's. 

     Take your two skirt pieces and cut out your strips of lace. Look at Leanne's Step Seven and she gives you some tips on cutting lace. Do cut out two pieces for front and back like she said. DO NOT sew up the sides of the lace, we will take care of that later. 

Step 4: Sew lace to skirt

     Pin the lace on both sides of your skirt. Making sure the bottom of the previous row gradually overlaps the top of the next row. 

     I pinned all of my lace on first then sewed it but you can do it row by row if that is easier for you. Anyway sew along the top of each row, till all your lace is connected. 

     It should look something like this when it is done.

     

Step 5: Hem 

     Now you are going to hem the bottoms of your pieces. I know it's kinda weird to hem them when they are apart but it will make your life easier. Leanne shows you how is Step 5. I only hemmed a half an inch instead of the full inch under that she did. Just make sure that you do it exactly the same on both pieces so they match up when we sew the two pieces together! 

Step 6: Waist Band

     Take the two shorter waist band pieces sew along the top, iron the seam then turn right side out and iron down. Do the same with the two longer pieces. 

     Now attach the longer piece to the front piece of your skirt. Make sure you leave the extra inch hanging off the edge. Don't center it. Iron the waist band seam so the waist band is nice and crisp and lays flat.

     Now here comes the tricky part. Before you attach the other waist band to the back we are going to add buttons and a slit. So unfold your waist band and attach a small button to both ends. Then right next to each button sew an inch wide button slit to fit your elastic in. Make sure you do this on both ends of your waist band!! Fold your waist band back up and attach to the back piece of your skirt, making sure the buttons and holes will be on the inside of the skirt. 

Step 7: Sew together

    Now pin the right sides of your skirt together. Make sure you align your skirt really well so everything is lined up when you flip it right side out. Sew all the way up the side that doesn't have the extra inch. The side that does stop sewing at the point where you want your zipper to be. I went a little more than halfway up my skirt then stopped.

Step 8: Zipper

     Leann has a great link on how to insert a zipper. Over on Step Six. Have the top of the zipper start at the base of the waist band not at the top of the skirt. I added the zipper at the last minute because this lace and fabric has no give. I know having a zipper and elastic is like double duty but I really wanted to make sure the skirt would go over Sophia's diaper, better safe then sorry! 

     I know this must be really confusing this is kinda a harder skirt so just breathe and hang in there in, if you get frustrated walk away and come back later. I had to do that a couple of times! 

Step 9: Elastic

     I wanted this skirt to be adjustable. We are going to add elastic just to the back part. So sew 3 - 4 small button holes on each end of your elastic. Insert it in the back waist band, hook the first button hole on the button and adjust as needed.

 Then just attach you big button and button hole to your extra inch on your waist band and your skirt is finished!  

     I know this is a trickier skirt! It is so worth it though trust me! Look at how gorgeous it is! I can't wait to make myself one. Take your time and email me if you have any questions. 

                                     ~A 

     

Picture Frame Quick Fix

     Having a little girl who likes to get into stuff can make things complicated sometimes. She has taken to love a picture frame that I keep on a side table in my living room. It's super cute a has rhinestones all over it. First she decided to rip the front of the frame off but it could always snap back in. Then this happened.

     She snapped the frame right in half. So I pick out all the jewels and saved them for later things and threw the outside of the frame away. The glass and everything was till in tact. So the frame was looking like this..

      I wanted a quick fix. Something I could just do till I bought a new frame or did a more permanent fix on this one. i have been seeing those organic bloom frames everywhere and I was inspired. I love these frames and someday I will own one of my own or make one. But Like I said I just wanted something quick. So I took this...

   And came up with this... 

     What do you think? When you are just standing next to it your really can't tell its cardboard, in the picture you can kinda see that it is. That is just because I had to get real close to snap the pic. I know red kinda clashes with that pumpkin but it matches the rest of my living room  great, when it's not decorated for holidays. 

     Someday when I own a table saw or know someone who does I am going to make this permanent cause I love the way it looks! It would be super easy to do with some chip board or something, but for now since the frame was bare, this works for me. 

             ~A

Happy Halloween!

     Happy Halloween! I hope everyone had a great Halloween or as my husband would say happy Nevada Day. Nevada's state day is October 31st so my husband insists on that holiday first and Halloween second. He is kinda a goon that way but I don't mind.

     Well our Halloween was pretty low key but a lot of fun! It started like this..

       Sophia is in this new phase where when she wakes up she has to have everything that was on her bed with her. It is really cute! So we started the day lazy as I did the final touches on her Halloween costume. Then we spent most of the afternoon shopping. I am lucky I have a girly girl cause she loves to shop with me. We spent the afternoon going to stores looking for shoes for our family pics on Wednesday. We finally found Sophia and Tyler shoes at the very last store we went to. I think it will pull all the outfits together I really hope the pics turn out! 

      Then we made dinner. For our Halloween dinner I found these amazing huge mushrooms! 

      So we had stuffed mushrooms. Oh yum! They were the best stuffed mushrooms ever. I don't even typically like mushrooms, but I love them stuffed! The recipe is so simple and I got a little creative and added some flavors of my own and they turned out so great, even Sophia liked them.

      With all the Halloween parties going on this week I had to make desserts for 3 different ones. I was wanting to make pumpkin cupcakes. It was my first try and they turned out so yummy! I made some fun cupcake liners to go around them in fall colors, they were gorgeous when I was done. So we enjoyed cupcakes for dessert. 

     Then came the fun part. Dressing up Sophia!! I decide with her red hair she would make the perfect little Pebbles for Halloween. So I googled some pics and came up with my own pattern to make her costume. In a lot of the pics Pebbles had a pet turtle and we had a little stuffed turtle that was perfect for her to carry around with her! 

     She was being the perfect little poser! I hope she is this good for our pics tomorrow! The night ended with all of us snuggling on the couch eating cupcakes and watching a movie. Sophia's hair was so goofy looking after we took it out. She looked like a who from Whoville so we snapped this silly pic.

     Look at that face! ha ha She is so goofy! I  Love her. I hope everyone had a great Halloween/Nevada Day! Stay tuned for family pics coming up in a few days, I hope they turn out good, wish us luck! 

                                           ~A