A Very "Hoppy" Birthday!

My good friend Skye's daughter just turned a year old! They are all growing up so fast...

I feel like just yesterday Skye, Michelle, and I were sitting in the van in the church parking lot after young women's talking about boys and school and whatnot. Now we're all moms with "grown-up" lives! It's all happening so quickly!

Thinking about what "Graham" (meaning Brandon and I) should get Andrea (that's Skye's daughter's name) for her birthday- I reflected back on Skye. (Because let's be honest. The presents aren't really FOR the one year olds.) When we were growing up, Skye was the very definition of a "tom-boy". She was against all things girly and I know it came as quite a shock to her when all three of us had our first children and she was the only one to end up with a girl. 

I know it was a tough mind-set adjustment for her- but I have to admit a year later she is doing an awesome job of raising a great little girl. :) (She even wears pink sometimes!) Skye and I had recently talked (At Michelle's baby shower for her second little boy!) about the hair clips generally sold for little girls. Skye was less than thrilled at the OVERLY "girly" selection. I know I've seen cute little dinosaur, robot, etc... hair clips around- but when I went to the store I found Skye was right and my only options were pink, hearts, flowers, ribbon, purple, and more pink.

blegh.

Pink is all and good sometimes- but ALL the time? I think not. So, I set-out to do what any crafter would do. I would MAKE some "cool" hair clips!  The task turned out to be easier in my head than in reality.  My "plain" hair-clip choices were limited and I settled on some polka-dotted clips.  Then Brandon and I scoured the store looking for anything "cool" that would be workable on a hairclip. 

We looked in the toy department, the scrapbook department, the craft department... and found nothing.  Finally- grasping at straws, we checked the party department and found these cute little frogs being sold as party favors. I was unsure- but Brandon convinced me of their awesomeness and I bought them.

When I got home, I carefully removed the hairclips from their cardboard holder. (I would be using the cardboard again to display my finished clips.) I then opened my little frogs and laid-out my supplies as my hot-glue gun warmed up. This is where my "creativity" would come into play.

I needed to select which frog would go on top of which hair clip.

I also double-checked that the frogs would fit on the hair clips without being excessively huge or awkward.  They happen to have nice flat bellies so that helped with the gluing process.

After each frog had a hair-clip mate, I set to gluing!

Important Tips for This Craft:

1.) Don't use too much glue. It looks tacky and you have to spend time peeling off the extra when it's cool. Also- dry hot glue can stick to hairs and pull them, making your hair clip uncomfortable to the wearer.

2.) Do not attempt to remove excess hot glue from your hairclips until the glue has dried.  Hot glue just becomes long skinny strings as you pull it. After the glue is dry it will snap right off and clean-up will be easier.

3.) Lay-out your frogs (or whatever you're using for decoration) on the hairclips before you glue, and make sure that if you are creating "pairs" that there is a decoration facing "up" on both directions... I hope that isn't too confusing.  Basically what I'm trying to say is- when you wear two hairclips- you put them on in opposite directions (for the opposite sides of your head). If your frogs aren't reversed, one of them will be upside-down when you go to wear them both at once. (Refer to how the clips were placed on the card when you bought them- imagine that all the decorations should be facing up.)

When I was done I carefully slid the frogs back on their card and voila!

A very "hoppy" birthday present! :)

Unfortunately Brandon caught a bug the day of Andrea's party so we weren't able to drive up... but hopefully we can get Andrea her clips soon and we can see how well they work functioning on an actual little girl's head.  I think they are adorable- but I'm concerned about the legs getting caught in her hair.  This project has my wheels turning thinking of what else I could glue on hairclips.  Little girls can get away with wearing all sorts of cool stuff in their hair. 

I wonder what my Middle Schoolers would think if I came in to teach with a little tree-frog propped on my head? I teach Science after all... ;)

Here Kitty Kitty...

This is Midnight. When I was in the 5th grade my neighbor's barn cat had kittens and Midnight was the runt of the litter. She's been my baby ever since and recently I've been missing her a lot.  Currently she lives at my parent's house with other cats and many people.  She was recently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and allergies. :( She hasn't been feeling too good and I wish our landlady was legit with us keeping a cat because I feel like she really needs to be babied.

I suppose having a human baby IS a thousand times better- but animals have a way of finding their own little niche in your heart that really can't be filled any other way. 

So- as I'm thinking about Midnight I wanted to write a post for a pet-friendly craft.

DIY catnip mouse!

...like most of my posts recently- this is an old craft. (...I apologize for the horrible quality in pictures.) 

This is a super simple project that really doesn't take much explanation.  One day Brandon and I were at the store looking in the pet aisle and I found a big bag of dried catnip.  After comparing the bag to the smaller more expensive catnip toys- I splurged on the bag with the hopes of creating something for my kitty at some point in the future.

The bag lay forgotten in the back of our spice cabinet. (...looked pretty suspcious- but we were newlyweds and living on the edge. haha) And one night Midnight and I were playing with a piece of string and I suddenly had an impulse to create something!  Rummaging through my box of fabric scraps I found a few pieces I liked. I cut out two tear-drop shaped pieces of green and white striped fabric, and four smaller tear-drop shaped pieces of orange plaid fabric.  I sewed the drops together right-sides in and turned them right-sides out so eventually I had a mouse-like shaped pocket.  

I took a piece of embroidery floss and tied a knot in the end before sewing it to the rear of my "mouse".  Then I took a piece of paper and funneled the catnip in before sewing the whole things shut and stitching on a pink nose and little blue eye.

In my mind- the mouse was a little more three-dimensional... but I didn't really plan appropriately for that.  It was kind of scrappy- but for a kitty toy that totally worked. Also, the flat shape ended up being for the better because Midnight reacts to catnip in a "let me rub my face in this like I'm a sloppy drunk" rather than a "I'm going to play with this like an actual toy". So the less the mouse moved around and the more it just lay flat on the ground the better (and safer) for my poor drugged-up kitty. haha

This picture doesn't do the whole situation justice- but man she loved that thing!  She literally had it for over a year- and would rub on it until the very end. (I think it got lost in our last move. sad.)  Eventually she did start to play with it a little more and she'd fling it up into the air and chase it as it slid across our kitchen floor.

Not my best sewing effort. But it was fast and lends itself to tons of inspiration.  You could literally sew just about any kind of shape/animal/ etc... and so long as you stuff it with fresh dried catnip your feline friend will love it. :) 

Happy Sewing!

Baby Birds

I found these pictures from forever ago but I thought they were crafty so I wanted to share.

These are some of the baby gifts I made for my first niece Alina when she was born. (I recently saw my sister in law recycling the burp cloths for my new niece Maya though! It always makes you feel so loved when your gifts are used. ^_^)

I sewed the little birds using a pattern I found online, and added the tulle feathers to give the birds a little more texture to make them visually appealing. I sewed them by hand so they took forever and a year to make. (especially because I initially made a few with a different pattern that I decided against.)  I wasn't happy with the assembly of the  top portion (which is mostly cut off in these pictures) but I was really happy with the birds.  The colors matched her nursery and it was a lot of fun to put something together for my teeny niece and my sister in law. (Like I've said before- SUCKER for home made gifts.)

At the time Pinterest wasn't really around and the whole "homemaker" internet movement hadn't really blown-up yet so I was kind of working blind- building the airplane as I flew it type of thing.  Just now though I googled "stuffed bird pattern" and a TON of amazingly cute ideas popped up.

If I were to make this mobile again, I think I'd do some kind of "cross" for the birds to hang off of instead of a circle.  I'd also make it bigger so the birds were more spread-out; and maybe hang them at different heights.  I don't know though- the possibilities are endless! :)

Here I am modeling the burp cloths. I took two pieces of felt and traced around a pattern I drew on some paper outlining the size of a burp cloth with indents at the shoulders. I sewed the pieces together right sides together, leaving a small opening so I could turn them right-side out at the end. Then I ironed it flat and blanket stitched around the edges using varigated embroidery floss to match the colors in the fabric.  I didn't know how to do a blanket-stitch before so I was pretty impressed with myself when I was able to learn off of a youtube video tutorial.

Now that I'm a mom I realize these small "figure-8" burp cloths are NOT the most practical, and really only work when your baby is very small... but they sure are pretty! And I had a lot of fun making them.  It's always nice to have a couple of "pretty" spit up cloths to take to church and whatnot so I would consider making burp cloths again- but I'd probably stick with more of a larger rounded rectangle shape.

Happy Sewing!

DIY Floral Hairclips

I'm a sucker for home made gifts. Two years ago for Christmas I set out to create some home made gifts for my friends. As I was cruising around the internet I stumbled upon some DIY flower tutorials. Then it hit me. Hairclips! Flowers in your hair are all the rage recently and I wanted to make sure the gifts I gave were not only cost-effective but trendy. :) 

Below are some of my favorite creations:

I made a few of these felt roses and hot-glued them onto bobby pins. I gave them to my sisters in law for Christmas one year. I haven't seen them wear them- but I was happy with how they turned out and I've definitely considered making a few for me. ;)  I thought bobby pins would be a great choice because you can get a ton for cheap- plus they are perfect for holding hair back or just sticking in for a quick accent.  Alligator or snap clips are a little more visually "bulky" and take more dedication to pull off with an outfit in my opinion. 

Here is the tutorial I used to jump-start my felt roses. I ended up sewing mine together and then stitching the leaf on as well rather than just gluing them. I felt like it made everything a little tighter and "sturdy" since I was gluing them onto bobby pins. (And I know I have a tendency to pull those things out of my hair quick at the end of the day! I didn't want them to fall apart after one or two wearings.)

Then of course we have the gorgeous organza flowers. Don't they look kind of like golden centered poppies? I found the fabric in the bargain bin at Walmart. They were getting rid of a ton and I bought a fairly full bolt for under 5 dollars.  Each flower only needs a piece a little larger than your hand so I was set to make flowers to my heart's content!

Here is the tutorial I used to jump-start these beauties.  I thought the pictures were absolutely gorgeous but I didn't have the patience for all those layers, or to sew on all those tiny seed beads in the centers... so I went ahead and just stuck them all together with buttons! Worked out great.  Not as elegant as the tutorial's flowers, but definitely pretty and could easily go in a more casual direction for any outfit.

I was pregnant at the time and my hubby wasn't a huge fan of me breathing in all those burning fabric fumes (probably couldn't really hurt anything but probably not GOOD for you to breathe in either) so eventually he cut me off- but I managed to get in a good crop of pretty flower clips before-hand and I'm definitely considering making some more for myself and as an emergency gift-stock for visiting teaching etc...

My Friend Ari got in the game too and after we spent an afternoon crafting these flowers, she brought out some pretty card-stock saved from her wedding announcements and we used them as the "base" to clip our gifts too. I feel like it's such a cute touch rather than just throwing them in a bag or something. If you don't have cardstock you could totally use some cardboard or wrap it up in some left over gift-bag tissue tied-up with a ribbon.

Happy Crafting!