What A Great Thanksgiving And Is It Time For Christmas Already?

I hope that each of you had a great Thanksgiving!  This time of the year is so much fun, but also soooo busy!  We were able to have Thanksgiving with family close by on Thursday and then traveled to North Carolina to have our second Thanksgiving with family.  Our kids love it!  They enjoy getting to see their cousins and playing with everyone.  We love "catching up" with family and indulging in all of the delicious food.  My family is so blessed to have so much family!  We are almost done decorating our house for Christmas.  The kids have a tree in each of their room's that they decorate and we have a family tree in the living room for all to decorate.  We used to put a tree in every room, but these days we are trying to simplify.  We are not there yet, but are trying!! 

I was able to make some early Christmas presents for my cousin in Florida.  We will not see her at Christmas so we celebrated early.  I enjoyed making her oldest a dress and embellishing a coordinating onsie to match.  I am excited to make handmade Christmas gifts for family this year.  I hope that they will enjoy each gift!  I love getting homemade or handmade gifts anytime of the year! So what is your favorite thing that someone homemade or handmade for you? 

Turkey's, Turkey's, Turkey's

Only 11 more days until we get to eat one of many yummy Thanksgiving meals and spend some extra time with family!  I have been trying to come up with a Thanksgiving outfit to make for my daughter out of this adorable polka dot fabric that I found.  As I was checking out this fabulous blog, Dressing Heidi Sage, and they had a post/tutorial on how to make a simple rectangle skirt!  I thought, "This is the perfect start because we all know time is of the essence!"  She also posted on how you can use your fabric as inspiration for the shirt.  I decided to use the fabric to make a yo-yo and to use it like the feathers on a turkey!  Well, I had another dilemma! The red shirt that I had on hand was supposed to be for her Christmas outfit!  So, I decided to make the turkey removable!  For the turkey, I cut out a turkey body from regular brown felt. I added a beak with yellow felt and hand stitched the eyes and waddle on.  I then sewed it onto the fabric yo-yo through the eyes of the turkey so that there would not be any extra stitches on him.  I attached it to the front of the lower left side of the shirt with a safety pin.  And viola, there I had a SIMPLE Thanksgiving outfit.  And you know I have to have a coordinating hair bow, so I made fabric yo-yo from the polka dot fabric and made a clip to attach to her brown bow.  With that said, you must check out this blog, she has the cutest ideas for clothes and this rectangle skirt is so simple!!

My posted tutorial!

Remember that fabric yo-yo tutorial that I posted a few weeks ago?  Well, I am happy to say that Totally Tutorials has added it to her long list of anything and everything tutorials!  This blog is a great place to find detailed tutorials on how to do almost anything crafty.  She has criteria for each tutorial that is submitted, then she decides if it will be published or not.  This ensures that the tutorials are clear step-by-step directions for each project.  I have found many projects that I am adding to my to-do list on this site. Check it out and have fun crafting!!

Our Family Thankful Tree

  We are welcoming the month of Thanksgiving with open arms!  I remember reading somewhere that a family started a thankful tree each year on November 1st and added to it each day until Thanksgiving.   So with this thought in my head I set out to "create" a Thankful Tree for my family!  I told my children about this project and they were excited to get it going!  We chose some fall colored card stock to write our notes on and set out to find the "right" branches to create our tree with.  On our nature walk we also decided that we would need some fall leaves to add around our tree.  This walk was one to be remembered!

  We chose a clean path through the woods to find the perfect branches, but much to our dismay all we could find was pine limbs.  So this meant that we needed to go down a path full of brush through to a row of nice hardwood trees.  My daughter decided that this path was much to tall for her to walk in and that she needed to be carried.  Being the brilliant mom that I am, I came armed on this walk with a cell phone in my back pocket, my house keys hanging out of my front pocket and a container to put our nature finds in.  Notice I said, my keys hanging out of my front pocket.  

  So, we find a path that has been trampled by the deer and follow it to the line of hardwood trees and we pick up leaves and find the "perfect branches" for our Thankful Tree!  We started back and I realize as I am carrying my daughter that I no longer have my keys!! Oh my!  We turn back and search for my keys with no luck.  We return to the house to make sure that my forgetful mind hasn't forgotten that I left them at the house, but no luck there either.  So, we back track on both paths and find no keys.  My dad comes to help in our search, but finds no keys! My husband comes home and they take another trip down the path to see if they can find my keys and what do you know my husband finds them in a place that none of us had looked before!  Guess I didn't remember that we had walked that far!! 

  By the time they arrived back at the house I had begun to put our Thankful Tree together.  We used a glass vase, a cylinder Styrofoam piece, moss, branches and leaves.  We pushed the branches into the Styrofoam and covered the Styrofoam with moss and leaves and put it down into the vase.  We discussed with the children how important it is to be thankful for all of the wonderful things that God has created and for all of the blessings that he has bestowed upon us.  Each day we will add things to the tree for which we are thankful for.  I cut out some small pieces of card stock and attached string to them so that we could hang our thanks from the tree.  We will also ask guests if they want to add to our thankful tree.  When the month is over we plan to read the notes that each of us wrote to remind us of all that God has provided for us to be thankful for.  This is the month of Thanksgiving, and our first note is that we are thankful for our wonderful Lord and Savior!

Crafting for Christmas

Two months until Christmas!  Did I just say that? Uh Oh!!  Don't panic, you still have plenty of time to gather gifts and plan parties!  I thought about how fast the holidays come up this time of the year.  It seems like each year they arrive earlier and earlier.  What will you be getting for your friends and family for Christmas this year?  Why not make them something special!  People always seem to like gifts that are handmade or homemade.  It's like they know they have extra special love wrapped up in them.  When you create a gift for someone you think about what they like. This makes you personalize the gift more to the person receiving the gift.  You can find ideas for crafts and recipes in books, magazines, online, and even from friends!  I have been browsing the web and come up with a few ideas.  Since I have really gotten into sewing lately, I am going to make some pajama pants, handbags, and drawstring or "diddy" bags.  I have given each of these a test run to make sure I can create them.  You could also make personalized scrapbooks online or at home using scrap booking materials.  Another great gift is providing dinner for a family, baking cookies, chocolate treats, or even yummy pies.  The possibilities are endless!  Not only could you make gifts for family and friends, you could also make gifts for people you don't know!  Contact your church, nursing home or other organization and get yourself connected to someone who might not receive a gift this season!  Make them feel special and allow them to see what Christmas is all about.  Giving!  Freely and joyfully giving as God gave to us! You will find that this is just as much of a blessing for the giver than the receiver!  So get to searching for that special gift that you want to make for someone this year and try it.  You might be surprised at how well it turns out and how much the person loves their handmade gift!!

Fabric Yo-Yo's: Easy Embellishments

I love a fabric yo-yo, and after surfing the web and other blogs I have realized that I'm not alone!  They are just cute and girly! And the best thing about fabric yo-yo's is that they are easy to make!!!  They can be used to embellish almost anything! I have used them to embellish hair bows, monograms, appliques, purses, skirts, pants...the list goes on.  You don't need a ton of fabric, in fact you can just use fabric scraps or fabric squares! Oh, and the fun part is you get to play with the design when layering and you get to mix and match with colors!!  So will you get crafty today and try to create one of your own?  Check out the tutorial below. Please forgive the somewhat blurred pictures! After two cups of "leaded" coffee my had was shaky!

Your prize at the end of this tutorial!!

The materials that you will need: thread, needle, anything that is in the shape of a circle for tracing (whatever size your template is you can count on your yo-yo only being half that size when it's finished), fabric pencil or regular pencil, scissors, and of course your fabric

Step 1: Place your fabric wrong side up and place whatever you will be using as a template to trace around on top of your fabric.

Step 2: Trace around your template, you should see a circle on your fabric like this.

Step 3: Cut ou the circle. You should have a piece like this.

Step 4: Get your needle and thread ready for sewing by hand. Hold the circle with the wrong side facing you. Fold over the outside of the circle just a little bit, probably 1/4 or 1/8 of an inch. But just eyeball it, no need to measure exactly! Sew around the circle using a basic stitch as you are continuoulsy folding over the edge.  See picture above!

Another example of the circle being folded over and stitched.

Step 5: Once you have stitched all the way around the circle it will begin to pucker up to the middle. You will make sure that the pocket of fabric not sewed is pushed back or out.

Step 6: Pull the leftover thread until the center of the yo-yo becomes tight. Work with the yo-yo by flattening out the back so that the "ruffle" surrounds the middle.

Step 7: Again, do a basic stitch to secure your yo-yo and tye it off on the back.

You are done! You should have a yo-yo that looks something like this!

I hope this tutorial is helpful! Please send me a message if there is something you do not understand. I will be glad to answer questions!! Here are some pictures of ways I have used the yo-yo's.

The Basic Handbag

Since entering into this wonderful new world of sewing I have tried a few things like pants, skirts, pot holders and embellishing towels and shirts. But none of these compare to making a handbag! You know there's just something about a cute girly bag that makes a girl smile! The inspiration for this bag came from http://www.thediydish.com/ . I found their tutorial for The DIY Dish Basic Handbag. The tutorial seemed so simple. I decided to only use one fabric for the outside and one fabric for the lining and I added a pocket inside and embellishments. There are pleats at the top of the bag but they didn't show up well in the photographs. The ladies said that it shouldn't be a very difficult process, but since I am a "newbie" to this sewing thing, it took me a couple of hours! But the end result was worth all of the hard work! I'm sure I will be making many more of these! So search other blogs or surf the web and find inspiration for your style of craftiness and get going!! 

The Ruffle Pant

I don't know about you, but who can resist an adorable pair of ruffle pants for your daughter?  I love them!  But I don't love the price that some companies sell them for!  So, I found a tutorial, made a pattern and got to sewing.  This is the first pair that I made. They are not perfect, but what's perfect anyway!  I'm just excited to be able to create something new.  The t-shirt is from Hobby Lobby and I had someone do the applique on it for me.  Got any good sewing tips for me?  Please pass them along!

The Joy of Busyness!

So here it goes.... I love spending time with my family!  I love to praise my God!  I love spending time with my friends!  I love to teach!  I love to make hairbows with my "girl"!  I love to plant flowers and try to get them to grow!  I love to decorate...haven't figured out if I'm good at that yet!  I love to make things "cute"!  And most recently, I love to sew!!
Do you think that is enough?  It seems as though I'm always adding one more hobby or activity to my plate, but "I Love" them all.  Sure, you say, but I really do!!  So what's a girl to do?  Well that's easy, I guess, just keep on going. It seems to work for me!  So, until I break and can't handle the "joy of busyness" I shall keep going! And begin another hobby...blogging!  Will this be another thing that "I Love"?  Time will tell!

Here are a few of my fun creations!