Spring Wreaths

As yesterday's entertainment for spring break we made Spring wreaths.
It was a pretty simple craft. We started with wreath circles cut from cereal boxes.

And used Mod Podge to attach crumpled pieces of tissue paper in Spring colors.

Finally we added a bow made of curling ribbon in green, pink, and blue.
In the end we had 2 very cute Spring wreaths that are both hanging on our front door.
KK's:

KL's: (She decided to make hers look like flowers and crumpled balls of tissue paper and glued them to the middle of each paper.)

That's all for now,
Jo!

Shirt Dress #2

Here' a quick look at the second shirt dress from our trip to the second hand store. 

I'm thinking of adding a few small details, like jewel buttons (that what has been asked of me). And maybe a back tie. 

This dress was a bit of a pain in the butt! It was riddled with troubles. First I couldn't get the fabric to fold neatly (I think it's because this shirt was an extra large, so there was extra fabric). Then I traced and cut but forgot that one side was shorter than the other so I would have to make the dress shorter. Then I had to remeasure and cut the sleeves (twice). And finally I put it on my oldest and it's too small, so now KL has 2 new dresses and KK has none :( Bad mommy! (I promised her a return trip to the store to pick a new shirt for a redo.) 

Anyway, since this was made the same way as last time (using a dress that already fits as a template), I thought I would just go over how I added the sleeves. 

I kept over thinking this- trying to figure out how to get it done but it really wasn't that bad.

I pulled the sleeve on my daughter arm and measured, with the cuff in the desired location, where her shoulder and armpit hit, and marked them. (Notice the SH & AP on the fabric) 

 

Then I drew a curved line between the two and cut with some room for hems. 

Then I ran a basting stitch across the top and pulled it tight enough to make the sleeve the same size as the sleeve hole on the dress (or at least close enough). 

Pin the sleeve right side out, to the dress inside out with the sleeve pulled inside. 

Sew the two together and remove the basting stitch. (In this case, also notice that you're not dealing with a tension issue, you just forgot to change the stitch length back down after basting.) 

And it's done- repeat with the other side (preferably after noticing the stitch length so you don't have to redo both sides). It was much easier than I thought it would be. Actually, it was one of the easiest parts of the dress. 

That's all for now,
Jo!

I Cook Too!!

Hey y'all, I know so far it's been mostly crafts (there was a Thanksgiving dessert but it was a pretty crafty one) but today I'm showing you food.

Now I didn't create the recipe, I'm not that good. The most I can do it add nuts or chocolate chips, if I think that would be good- that's about the extent of recipe creations. I just don't understand the science behind it all enough. So here's the link to Kylee's Kitchen.

Last night I baked... are you ready?
Texas Sheet Cake COOKIES!!!
They are soooooo delicious, but oh so rich!

I already linked the recipe so I'm not going to give you the step by step but here's a few pics of the deliciousness.

Look at that dough, it just looked really yummy in the bowl, I wanted to eat it all there, but I knew there were better things coming.

Close-up! The recipe calls for you to pour the icing on but I used my decorator at the request of a very special 5 year old.

The big picture. I got 2.5 dozen out of the recipe using my Pampered Chef medium cookie scoop.
These are definitely worth a repeat.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Easter Bows

Spring Break starts today!! This is both awesome and agonizing as a stay-at-home mom of 4. So to celebrate (or distract myself) I made Easter Bunny hair clips. I had pinned a website with directions but when I went back, it was "temporarily unavailable" but I could still find pictures on Google for ideas and here's what I ended up with:

As you can see I played around with the size of the head and whether the head was folded forward or back, but I really don't have a favorite and I think the individuality of them all is what's so cute.

Here's how it's done:  Line your clips! (I've got 1 for each of my big Ks and we have a Spring Break craft play date next week and I thought I would make some for those girls too- hence 6.)

Measure out your body ribbon. I just made a figure 8 over the clip to the size I wanted.

Then fold to how you want the head to look and glue into place. It really is just a figure 8 with one side smaller and flattened.

Loop the bottom half back up and glue it down.

Use the body to measure the size of the pink ribbon for the belly and cut it (again, I didn't actually take a measurement, just held it up to find what I liked).

Glue it into a petal shape.

Then glue to the belly of the body.

Measure what size you want the ears to be. I wish I would have had a thinner ribbon but I think the thicker turned out okay, the thinner just would have been easier to work with. Then cut two ribbons to that size.

Measure a pink of the same size for the inside of the ear.

**Moment of honesty** I tried gluing the pink to the white but the moment I tried to bend it: 1) it didn't- it was too stiff and 2) it didn't line up right. So much for an easier option. Also- when you hot glue a ribbon and then try to remove it tears up the ribbons, pulling apart the fibers, like this (see how you can see the brown table through the first couple rows of the ribbon by the glue):

Okay, now that we've thoroughly established the fact that I'm not perfect, just a perfectionist, let's continue (although, I'm pretty sure this isn't the first failure I've admitted to).

Next, you make tight petals with the white and pink ear ribbons.

Glue the pink into the white. I found it was easiest to put just a dot of glue on the bottom edge and then put the pink "loop" of the petal into the white loop and then pressed the end down on the glue.

 I lined the ears up on the body and then glued the ears together. Then I ran a line of glue across the ears to attach them to the body.

Next I made a tiny bow (the easy way) for a bow tie.
The easy way is comprised of folding a ribbon over a template (I've seen people using forks for a bow this small). Clip the beginning and the end so the ribbon doesn't shift.

Twist a wire around the middle to hold it all together. Then slip it off.

Next take a small portion of the same (or complimentary if desired) ribbon and make a knot.

Then glue the knot over the front of the bow and glue the ends behind it.

Then glue the bow to the top of the bunny's belly. (I tried drawing a face with fabric markers but wasn't fond of the way it turned out, luckily I was searching for a paintbrush for my husband and found little eyes that I forgot I had.)

Finally attach the clip.

And done!!

 I may go back and add a few more noses on some of them, maybe even use a pink marker. We'll see, that's part of why I love crafting, there's always a chance to change it or at least add your own touch.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Shirt Dress

While strolling Pinterest and various craft blogs I've seen several different versions of the "shirt dress." A pretty simple concept, start with a shirt turn it into a dress. So me and the K girls headed out to the resale store and bought a few men's dress shirts.

(I had a photo of the two of them brand new but managed to delete it as I was emptying pictures off my camera- so the purply-grey on is already cut, which is the one I'll be showing you today.)

This was KL's shirt choice. She also told me she wanted sleeveless with a big bow and as long as I could make it. I found a dress in her closet that was similar to what she wanted and used that for my pattern.

I'm not going to show you all the steps because I'm still getting used to this blogging thing and forgot to take pictures of steps more often than I remembered to. So for now here's the finished project and the link that most inspired it.

I love my petite princess! I asked to take her picture while she was wearing it and she made me wait while she went to get a hair bow too.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Frozen Inspired Tulle Bow

I already showed you what I made for my oldest for this weeks's Spring Fling at school. My youngest chose to watch Frozen (as if it would ever be anything else), the problem- neither KK nor KL know what the coordinating attire is for Frozen... 

KK decided she wants an "Elsa cape" and I thought, "I could pull that off, just a little tulle" then I thought... "I'm already working on 2 dresses and a cross-stitch (that I haven't touched in over a week) plus never-ending laundry and dishes and caring for 4 kids... let's start a little smaller"...

A hair bow it is- but I had already bought the tulle and have never made a tulle bow before- enter the internet with its boundless ideas and tutorials. I checked out a few pictures and realized I was worried for nothing! Now there are a thousand tutorials on how to do this so  I won't be super thorough but I'll still give you the run through. 

The supplies (thread not shown):

First I created a loop from the tulle, using a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine on both colors: 

Next I folded the tulle in half across the long side: 

Then, I layered them and ran a basting stitch across the cut side (not the folded side). I apparently don't have a picture of the layers stitched together but I do have pictures of them pinned before: 

Blue on top

White on top

Now decide which color you want on top. I liked the blue but KL loved the glitter in the white and wanted it to be seen as clear as possible. 

Next pull your basting stitch, gathering the fabric like so: 

Then stitch the gap closed (I forgot to take a picture of this until after I was all done, sorry): 

I ran the stitch through all but the top most layer and you only need to go up about an inch. Chances are likely you will cut down the tulle so you don't want to go too high and have to cut through it. 

Next I added a snowflake button (first stitched through and then hot glued to secure sides) and  and then cut it down some because it was 6 inches across and my little KL is very petite, honestly it looked huge on me. I made it 4.5 inches because the snowflake was about an inch and I didn't want it too close to the snowflake. 

Here's the finished product: 

I think it turned out pretty cute and KL loves it! (She would've been much happier with a cape, but it will do for now.) 

That's all for now,
Jo!