Project Organization continues…

Sorry. Nothing today… I’ve been obsessed with my project… It’s looking amazing! (if I do say so myself…) And as soon as I’m done, I’m all about Christmas! I can’t wait!

I have so many projects… Gotta get out the advent calendar and get that going! Finish the Christmas cards… I had a doll idea that I want to make. Kid clothes. Glitter ornaments. Glitter sea shells. Glitter all sorts of things…. I’m usually not a glitter gal, but at Christmas, I love all things sparkley! And more….

Did I mention how excited I am about my new room and Christmas??

What are yall making this season???

Project Organize!

Thanksgiving just passed and Christmas is coming on fast! I have a list of handmade gifts that I want to do, but what did I start instead??? A little winter cleaning. It started in the garage and I got about a quarter of that done… Then next thing I knew I was downstairs, tearing apart the sewing/computer room!!!

I know, I know, you’re probably checking the weather report… Was there recently a hurricane or a tornado or some other horrible weather condition in Seattle??? Nope, that’s just me! If you look closely you can see my son down there in the middle of the storm playing with fabric, yarn, thread and scissors. He was loving it. My husband… Not so much. As he tiptoed and hopped and grumbled his way through the ravaged sewing room to the computer!

I had to think a little bit to remember how I ended up NOT doing the garage and doing my sewing area. And I remembered… two things! 1. the fact that I brought in new fabric that had been stored in the garage to the sewing room, which meant I needed to make room for it…. and 2. This picture of Ellen’s, from The Long Thread, sewing room!

 

I saw this picture the other day and I had one of those Aha moments! Hello, fabric stores have their fabric stored vertically all over the place. I don’t know the real reason, but I’m assuming that it’s because it’s easier to get the fabric out and put the fabric back…. Don’t ya think? When ever I go to get fabric off my shelves, it never goes back the same way and half the time it ends up on the floor for a while…

And then taking a break and snooping around the internet, I found these other inspiring spaces as well!

via girl. inspired. 

via Craftaholics Anonymous

via The Cottage Home 

Fresh Squeezed Fabric via  SouleMama

After such wonderful inspiration, My storage is going from this….

to this….

The Long Thread just chip board to hold her fabric up. I didn’t have any chip board so I was scavenging around the house looking for cardboard or anything else thicker than paper! I had a piece of really big cardboard in the garage, a little box that needed to be recycled and I even took the plastic back off of one of my Ikea shelves and cut that up! It’s taking longer than planned, but I’m loving it so far!!!

I’ll give an update once it’s all done!

How do you store your fabric??

Mmmmm…. Cookies…. a mini tutorial

mmmmm… Me likes Cookies!! And my son seems to loves cookies and Cookie Monster!

I’m not exactly sure where this obsession originated. And actually it’s just an obsession with Cookie Monster hats! A few weeks ago my son went to Target with his Dad and came home with a Cookie Monster baseball cap!

Then we were at the store the other day (Wal-mart… shhh…) and he found a Cookie Monster t-shirt and beanie cap combo that was way to big for him… And it was 10 bucks. And here’s the part where I’ve turned into my mother. I told my son, ‘No, I can make that.’ And thought to myself, ‘I can make it and I can make it for less than 10 bucks.’ And what do we find but a little blue beanie just dying for Cookie Monster eyes!

We got the blue beanie for $1.27 and I had the rest of the supplies (yes, all two pieces of felt) at home! And this is what I did…

1. Materials:

Blue beanie hat

Black and White felt (just a little bit, at the most 4″ squares of each)

Thread

and Scissors

2. Cut the pieces, the sizes can be whatever you happen to have nearby that’s a circle shape! My white circles are about 1 1/2″.

3. Sew the white to the large black circles.

4. Sew the little black eyeball to the whites of the eyes.

5. Sew the eyes onto the hat.

And Wahla! About 20 minutes later you have your very own Cookie Monster hat!

Which character would you make??

Have a good weekend!

Shared with these parties!

I’m Thankful For….. free printables…

Well, I do love printables, but what I’m really thankful for is…

Family, my husband, my adorable adorable little son, friends, health, our home, our creativity, (for the moment) my unemployed status, blogging, friends I’ve made blogging… And I could go on…

I wanted to start a new tradition this Thanksgiving with I’m Thankful For cards for each family member to write what they are thankful for right now.  So I made the cards and was just getting ready to share them with you! And speaking of friends I’ve made through this whole blogging thing, right when I was working on my cards, I get an email from Lisa from My Little Buffalo with the most adorable turkey thank you note. If you remember, Lisa helped me with my blog’s graphics earlier this year. I love her art!! I totally switched gears and she agreed to contribute her art to my card and my readers! So I replaced her turkey with the one I had done (which wasn’t nearly as cute by any means) and changed the color scheme to go with her art….

And Wahla!

Click here to download yours!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving!

What are you thankful for this year?

 

Shared with these link parties.

Thanksgiving Link Love

Well, I know this may come as a shock…. No more Dr Seuss at I’m Feelin’ Crafty for a little bit…. Hope yall enjoyed our birthday celebrations as much as we did!

I know… I usually reserve Friday for my link love day, but I thought I’d mix things up a bit this week. I’m not a big Thanksgiving decorator. I have just left out some pumpkins from our Halloween decorations this year! Yes, very extravagant on my part!! But if I was to decorate, here are some of my favorite ideas….

1. You all know I love Katie’s Oohmoon blog and her daily freebie artworks! I’ve used her art on a few projects including my advent calendar, gift tags and sweatshirt and wooden block puzzles. This week is celebrating Thanksgiving. So go check it out every day this week for your own Thanksgiving series.

2. I do love the pumpkin decorations for Thanksgiving. And I love these Squash Softies from Oh, How Posh. We haven’t tried them, but I’m thinking this might be fun to make with my son on thanksgiving to take to his Uncle’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. My son LOVES his ‘stuffies’, so I think he’d have a great time making these!

3. And most of you probably know I’m a sucker for the Keep Calm printables. Here’s a Thanksgiving one from Craftily Ever After.

4. I just found these recipe art pieces from Articipes this morning and LOVE them! I want to make a whole wall in my kitchen with my recipes all cute like this! If only I had a blank wall in my kitchen!

5. So you already know I love the pumpkins. You probably also know I love the yarn based on all the yarn wreaths I’ve made. So how could I not love these Yarn Wrapped Pumpkins from Two Shades of Pink???

6. And this is such a beautiful Thanksgiving table setting! The whole table is just fantastic, but I love love love the wooden placemats! The table was designed by Paper Posy Designs and shown via The Sweetest Occasion. You have to check out the rest of the table! ‘m already planning a trip to the second use building supply to look for some lovely wood….

Dr Seuss Party Series- Fish Party Favor Tutorial with a Printable

Ahhh! Where does the time go? My last party post was supposed to be on Friday, but it’s Sunday already!! Oh, my!!

I love to make handmade party favors for the kiddo’s parties! Last year was the Dragon Wings, this year it was Fish, the Cat in the Hat’s ‘buddy’! Or arch nemesis… Depending on if your reading the original The Cat in the Hat or watching the new Cat in the Hat cartoon series. Apparently over the years the Cat and Fish have become pals!

I really wanted to give the fish in goldfish bowls… But, we are talking a three year old birthday party! I was talked out of the real glass bowls by just about everyone! I think it was my Mother’s last email on the subject that finally made me give up on convincing people (and myself) that glass bowls was the way to go for a birthday party favor. She wrote, ‘All I can see is one child dropping the bowl and it breaking into a million pieces and the child is screaming wildly and all the other children and parents are freaking because they do not want anyone to step on all the broken glass, and then we’d have to fly someone to the ER to stitch the cut and stop the bleeding……….’

So we went with clear bags… Then I wanted to make clear bags so it looked like those bags you get from fish store when you bring home a fish…. But I ran out of time for that project. I did start it, but accidentally cut the clear vinyl wrong. And at that point I gave up on that and used these clear bags. As one parent told me about making the bags, ‘Now that would have been over the top!’

Fish was a pretty welcome guest. I loved watching the kids walking around the table eyeing them before they sweetly asked, ‘Can I have a fish?’ Of course!

And now for the tutorial so you can make some too!

Step 1: Gather Materials

Fleece. Or you could use felt, too.

A little bit of felt, black and white

Thread, to match the fleece and black and white

Scissors

Cutting Blade

Yarn, about 1 foot of black yarn, cut into 6 2″ inches

Stuffing

Pattern, print the pattern here.

Step 2: Cut out all the pieces. I cut the eyes for the tutorial opposite than I had on the actual favors! On the tutorial I did white with black centers versus the black with white centers. Which do you liked best? I’m thinking I like the black with white centers best….

Step 3: Eyes first! Sew on the black piece first. Make sure the eyes are facing opposite directions, one for each side of Fish! Then stitch in the u-shape. Lastly, stitch the eye to the body. Place the yarn in place under the eye. (I don’t trim the yarn until the very last step!) Or, like I mentioned above, you can do it opposite, with black and white centers.

Step 4: Fins are next! Sew the fins together. This step was a tricky one for me. I stitch them together and then trim them up a bit for a cleaner look. You could just use one layer of fleece, but I liked the thickness of the two layers topstitched together. Fold over the edge of the fin by about a 1/4″ and sew onto the body at the mark shown on the pattern.

Step 5: Sew together the underside! First sew the two half circles together along the straight edge. Next, sew one half circle to the teardrop shape at the curved end. lastly, turn right side out.

Step 6: Sew the body together.  This will be done in a couple of steps. This step sew together the top, follow the dashed lines on the pattern. Start with the ‘nose’ and go to the top fins. Stop and pick back up again on the other side of the top fins and continue to the tail fins.

Step 7: Sew on the underside. Place the underside, with bottom lip towards the inside, with the center of the top curve to the end of the stitch line. Start on one side and sew around to the point of the ‘teardrop’ shape. Stop and start again at the ‘nose’ and stitch around to the point of the ‘teardrop’ again, but this time continue to the tail fin.

Step 8: Pull the fish right side out through the top fins.

Step 9: Topstitch the tail fins.

Step 10: Stuff Fish.

Step 11: Topstitch the top fins.

Step 12: Trim eyelashes! And wahla! You’re done!

Now just find a clear bag, print the thank you’s and hand over to kids for a sweet gift! Download the thank you’s here. Or if you have older kids, consider the glass bowl… I still love the gold fish bowl!

 

Shared with these parties!

Dr Seuss Party Series- Shall We Play? With a Printable!

Say, Shall we play??

Yes, Yes, It’s a Birthday!

Games!! Yes, I know, this was a party for a 3 year old… I was told by a couple of people that you don’t need a lot of entertainment at this age…. Well, Dad and I kept coming up with games and games and more games! We did narrow it down to the Gack Ring Toss, Pin the Hat on the Cat and Dr Seuss Hullabaloo.

Thanks to Daddy, we have the only Gack in town! I kinda pushed for the Gack game! I love love loved One Fish Two Fish and all the characters, including the Gack when I was a kid. So I think I’m feelin’ like the coolest kid in town having the only Gack around!

Dad made the Gack  with the overhead projector, plywood and paint. Then came finding the rings! Not quite as easy as I thought it would be. We ended up with a couple sets of dollar store bracelets. Before the party the Birthday Boy and his Dad were having a hard time getting the rings on, but the kids seemed to make it just fine!

My son LOVES his Hullabaloo game! If you’ve been following along for a while, a little bit back we made a special bag for his game so he can take it on all his adventures! To honor that love, we made a Dr Seuss version of the game!

I was slaving away at this project coming up with themes based on Dr Seuss illustrations. I was planning on rewriting the whole game and having my husband call out the next game piece to stand on…. That is until my husband made the whole idea sooooo much easier! He asked why I wasn’t just using the same colors and images from the original game, but with Dr Seuss drawings instead of the Cranium illustrations… Ummmm, well, Daddy, that’s a great idea! I switched gears and found images from Dr Seuss books for all of the Hullabaloo game pieces. The only one I couldn’t find was spaghetti, so I added a Dr Seuss character holding the Hullabaloo image. I was loving trying to find all the images! And it worked to turn on the Hullabaloo game box and they just played along with the new game pieces! I printed the pieces on a heavy cardstock and then laminated them with clear Contact paper for more longevity!

Download the game pieces to add to your Hullabaloo game here.

And then the traditional Pin the Hat/Tail on something! Pin the Hat on the Cat was much more fun than I thought it would be! This was the biggest hit of the day! I was so surprised that it kept the attention of the kids the whole time. Again, we used the overhead projector for the Cat drawing. Then I wrote in everyone’s names on their game piece hats.

Most all the kids played the Pin the Hat on the Cat game. After it was over, we were debating figuring out how to decide who won and all the kids got super quiet…. Then I said, instead of one winner EVERYONE gets a lollipop, then they all started jumping up and down!!! It was a good decision!

Download the hats here.

I used this font for the names.

I hope you have an opportunity to play these games with your kiddos! Enjoy! It’s your turn!

shared with:

Dr Seuss Party Series- The Fun!

There’s no printable, tutorial or recipe today! Today I just wanted to share the fun we had!

As I’ve already mentioned, the kids loved the ‘real’ invites, I was totally in love the truffula trees, and the food was deeeeelicious! I also mentioned about my issues with the party not being perfect….

But all in all, the party was such fun!

Due to weather, the stereo-typical Seattle weather, the outside party had to be moved inside! I had everything planned out for outside party. I knew where everything was going to go. Where the food tables were going to be with their backdrops and where the truffula trees were going and where the photo area would be! We got all the truffula trees and the character decorations set up outside….. And that’s when it started to rain….. And in came the decorations! All the planning went spinning around and found a new place inside!

Did the kids notice? Nope!

Another funny…. In all my planning and all my reading of TONS of Dr Seuss books. I totally got the Green Egg cookies wrong! I forgot to mention this on Friday when I showed the food goodies! We were at the store getting the little candy pieces for these cookies and at first they only had the green and pink. I was like, no, I need the white! I almost freaked out until I finally found the white ones. My mom made the icing and kept working on just the right green color. We made the cookies. Yummy! Then a couple of days later Green Eggs and Ham was requested reading at bedtime and I realized our mistake! I had them backwards!!

And afterwards…..

And coming up this week I’ll have more printables and another tutorial! Can’t wait to have you back for the fun!

Dr Seuss Party Series- The Food and a Recipe!

Mmmmmm…. mmmmmm…. The party food!

When it came to planning the food, I let Dr Seuss be my guide! Pretty much everything was inspired by the stories. I made sign labels for most of the food!

I have been LOVING the striped straws, so I just had to include these in the party! You might be seeing them again, because I have about a zillion of them. I also made the stickers for the swirl pops. The swirl pops were given out after Pin the Hat on the Cat and after cake and I think it kinda sent a few of the kids into a sugar coma… But they bounced right back!

All the paper products and plastic ware were purchase at a local Dollar store. The perfect colors! I made the mini pops using this tutorial via The Baker’s Twine. I used my fingers instead of a fork. Super easy! And then they came in handy for our Halloween Costume!

You might be wondering about the cake…. wellllll…. Everyone has these amazing cake pictures of their Children’s birthday cakes. Mine didn’t turn out well at all. I had such HIGH hopes for the cake. I knew exactly how I was going to make my Dr Seuss topsy turvy cake… The problem was I waited until the last minute. I mean last minute. Kids were already starting to get here! So my husband took over the mess that I had started. Did I say mess? I meant cake… Well, he took over and I gave up my control issues (barely) and the cake tasted fantastic… But….. It didn’t look sooo good! (And I’m not saying that was my husband’s fault! He did great with what he was given to work with!) Hence the reason the picture of the cake is a very small one!

And Horton’s specks? They were only the hit of the day! These cookies are called Forgotten Cookies. They didn’t get quite as round as I was envisioning, but I forgot that with these cookies, you don’t really get perfectly round cookies.  I know one friend went home with a copy of the recipe and others were asking for it to be emailed.

I have to give a shout out to my mother who helped with soooo much of the food! And these cookies were all her. I’ve tried a couple of times to make them, but have not had much success…. But when she makes them…. They get gobbled up by everyone SUPER FAST! Including the birthday boy. My mom agreed to share the recipe she uses and I hope you have better success than I do. (I think at Christmas I might just have to have her give me a lesson on these!)

Forgotten Cookies:

from my Mother, via MARY KAY (yes, of Mary Kay Cosmetics)

2 egg whites

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 t. vanilla

1 small (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chips, optional

1/2 to 1 cup pecans, chopped, optional

dash of salt

pre heat oven to 350

beat egg whites ’til stiff.  I like to use a bowl with a narrow base===copper is great.

Add sugar gradually

Beat a high speed for about 5 minutes, til peaks form

Add food color, if desired.

Fold in vanilla, chocolate chips and pecans.

Line a cookie sheet or 2 with foil or parchment paper

Drop from teaspoon onto cookie sheets.

Put in oven and TURN OVEN OFF!

Leave overnight (at least 8 hours)  (do not peek!)

Makes about 3 dozen meringue-like cookies.

and party credits:

All fabric came from JoAnn’s

Striped Straws via Modern Lola

Swirl Pops via Oriental Trading Company

Red and White Boxes via Oriental Trading Company

Birthday Cake Candle via Modern Lola

Update…. Unfortunately, the food labels and invites are no longer available for sell or sharing.

Shared with these link parties!

Dr. Seuss Party Week! Truffula Tree Tutorial

Who’s Here? Who’s Here??

It’s the Cat in the Hat over there!

We got to play out back with our Gack!

Oh dear, oh dear, It’s Thing 1 and Thing 2!

I do hope they don’t make a mess while they’re here…

Our Mother would be upset if they do!

The Lorax and his trees just strolled in with the breeze!

We had a great time with the decorations for sure! We had all the of coordinating fabrics, tissue balls, yarn ball decorations all over the place. As I mentioned before, my husband is a wonderful help when it comes to making the decorations! One day, before our son was born, he came home with a transparency projector. You know, our teachers used to have them when we were kids… Before smartboards and computers in every classroom… well, when he came home with it, I was thinking to myself what are we ever going to use this thing for… Well it make in handy last year with the dragon birthday party. And again this year with all the Dr. Seuss characters. He typically uses the projector, draws the characters on wood and cuts it out. This year he used more cardboard, but I think next year we’ll go back to wood… The gack  had to be redone from cardboard into wood! And boy is he cool!

And in addition to all the Dr. Seuss ‘guests’ that visited our party, we also had a little Trufulla Tree forest!

Ready to make some yourself??

Truffula Tree Tutorial

Materials:

Balloons

Newspaper

Paper Mache Ingredients, flour and water

String or Curly Ribbon

Glue

Feather Boas, about 6 per tree

Fun Noodles

Wooden dowels

Black Crepe Paper Streamer

Double Sided tape

Step 1: Paper Mache! Blow up the balloons, mix up your paper mache mixture, tear your newspaper into strips and get ready to get messy! I used 1 part flour and 2 parts water for the paper mache recipe, but feel free to use your own. At one point my husband added drywall hot mud to speed up the process! For some reason I have never seen any paper mache articles mention dry wall mud! Not sure if it helped or not with the drying time, but those balloons were harder than the others… Anyway….

Step 2: Apply the newspaper to the balloon. Dip the paper in the paper mache mixture, rub off excess mixture, stick the paper to the balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. over and over and over… Get the idea….

Step 3: Hang the balloon and let it dry for about 2 or 3 days.

Step 4: Once everything has dried and is hard, it’s time to get back to work! Cut a hole in the bottom of the balloon, just big enough for the fun noodle to fit in.

Step 5: Start gluing on the feather boas. I did this step in two parts. I did the tops, let them dry and then came back the next day to finish the bottom halves. I got my feather boas at The Dollar Tree. Not sure if they were only there for Halloween of if they are always there.

Step 6: The tree trunk. Using double-sided tape secure the crepe paper streamer to the top of the fun noodle. Both the fun noodles and the crepe paper can also come from The Dollar Tree is you time it right! The fun noodles are only stocked at The Dollar Tree during the summer as I found out… Too Late…. Of course I realized I needed these about a week after they weren’t in stores anymore. I called all The Dollar Trees around. Then moved on to Target. I finally found then there, but for more than a dollar….

Step 7: Hammer the wood dowel into the ground until it’s secure. And then put the fun noodle over the wooden dowel and add the top of the tree!

And Wah-La!

I did feel like a truffula tree artistic genius when I got them all made!

And I have a few left… If you’re in the Seattle area and need them, let me know!

 

Shared with these link parties!