my sewing adventure

Between being busy with working for my friend Laura and her bearded beanie business, being a mom, and preparing for the holidays, I've been starting up my own little business like I mentioned here. 

Since that post, I've created my facebook page and my etsy shop and am awaiting my first customers.  I think that this is something that could grow a little, but not go out of control, which is just what I want.  

It's been a lot of fun thinking up ideas of how I can grow my shop and coming up with different ways to customize my superhero cape.  Because some things have been sent out as Christmas presents and I don't want to spoil any surprises, I will get pictures of the changes up shortly. 

In the mean time, spread the word about these sweet little things! They are definitely fun to make and to watch the little ones play in.

To get Josh out of wearing aprons...

Jake told me about a cape that his mom made him when he was younger and that I should make one for Josh for Christmas to avoid him turning into a "girly man" and wearing the apron around the house all day.  You remember from this post right? 

Well as Jake explained it to me, it was a little hard to understand.  So, after some coordination with his mom this is process that we went through...

picture text from Sandy

drawing up of measurements

choosing color scheme

And then we got this...

Josh's reversible Batman/Superman cape with chest piece and belt.    Super fun to make.  Trying to decide if it's something that could be made and sold.  Possibly change color scheme/symbols to different characters (flash, captain america, wonder woman, super why, etc.)  Hmmm... I'll have to think about that possibility.

Side note:  Tried it on Josh, he hated it.  :(  We'll see where it gets by the time Christmas is here.  I can't decide if I should wrap it and wait or just let it lay around.   One thing I know, I'll need to start hiding the apron so he'll stop pulling that down to wear.

More Crafting and Sewing

Because our home was lacking some Halloween Decor I thought I'd get on top of that and make these cute candy jars.  I got the idea off of Pinterest, from this blog.

I thought they turned out cute.  I changed a few things to whatever I could find at craft stores around.  round base is a terra cotta saucer, then the jars are with mason jars. 

Too bad I'm pregnant and a candy-holic because they are just about empty already.  I'll probably have to end up changing to filling them with decorations instead of candy to limit my candy consumption this holiday season.  But I thought I'd keep them around for fall and then at Christmas fill them with candy again and do "Joy" with the letters and red ribbon. 

I also found this other great idea from Pinterest, which routed back to this blog. 

Since my belly is quickly growing, I thought it'd be nice to have another maternity dress around that'll last throughout the rest of my pregnancy.  I really love it. It's comfortable and I think pretty cute.  Super easy to make as well.  I'll have to make more for regular dresses in the future or do it for my little girl for easy dresses for her. 

crafting/sewing

I've had a few projects I've been working on and got a couple completed. 

The first were these adorable skirts (w/ matching flower clips) and tie onesie that I did for my friend Mallory.  She has two girls and a boy on the way.  I thought they turned out really cute!

The next was my fall wreath.  Because I have zero fall decorations and I spend way too much time on pinterest, I thought it was about time I take some ideas I've been "pinning" and make something out of it.  I had all of this stuff around, so for free I thought it turned out pretty good.  Of course, there are always things that you'd like to change about something, but for now I think it works.

Lastly, don't you hate seeing all the clutter that piles up on a changing table?  Well I sure do and I've been wanting to get this done for a while, but it wasn't until recently when I found the fabric in my bin that I remembered to do it.  I used our old flat sheet to do this project. (Do you remember what I used our old pillowcases for?)  Well, turns out old sheets come in handy.  We threw out the fitted sheet because it was getting holes in it, but the pillowcases and flat sheets were still in great shape.  Always feels good to re-purpose things, right?  I think so.

Changing Table - BEFORE
side note: do you see the dresser that I stained recently.  turned out to be the perfect color! I love it!

Anyway,  as I said, I've been wanting to get some "drapes/curtains" for the changing table to get his room a little less clutter-y.  I thought it turned out great.  It was super simple to draw up too, which is always nice.

Changing Table: AFTER

They even tie up if you need them too.

steady sewing/craft corner: kid's height board and itty-bitty dress

Since Jake being home from school, I've found myself a little more able to get some projects done.


My sister Lindsay had her babies (yes, 2 of them) on Wednesday and oooh they are adorable.  I've only seen them in pictures, but I'm sure they are even cuter in person.  I've been wanting to make something for them.  Well in that process I've found out that boy clothes are just difficult to make.  So I did go buy something very cute for the little Liam.  Now for Adisyn, I decided to make a little dress which free pattern I found here.  I also made a matching headband with flower. I thought it turned out pretty darn adorable!

The other project I saw my friend post on her blog and I had been thinking about doing it long before that, but never got around to it.  I looked around a couple of places to see ideas of what other people had done with theirs, and then thought up this one and made it a reality today.  This is going to be lots of fun to have around as Joshua gets older.  I'm planning on putting a piece of paper (shaped into the things that he likes at the time, so for now I was going to put a truck because he loves playing with his truck) and on that right the date and how old.  On the back of it I will be putting his hand prints.  I hope to continue to make these for all my kids.  They are so easy and a lot of fun.  If you want to know how I went about painting or doing the details on the letters, let me know.

steady sewing: girls twirl skirts and matching flower bows

Last month there was a combined baby shower for two ladies in my ward.  I took this opportunity to get better at my sewing skills and decided i would try to make some skirts.  As I was making the skirts I noticed there was some extra fabric so I thought why not make a matching flower head band.  Here's how one of them turned out:

While at the baby shower, a friend in the ward asked me if I would make some for her two daughters for Easter.  I figured what a great opportunity to brush up on those sewing skills and help out a friend while doing it.  So, after going to the fabric store with her to pick out what we were doing, this is how they turned out.  Pretty darn cute I think!!

I used this tutorial as a start for the skirts and tweaked them a little bit for my liking.  I also found the tutorial for the flowers here.

steady sewing: thrift store curtain makeover

I've been really wanting to get some curtains for our bedroom, pretty much since we got here.  It left my mind during the winter months because it was always so dark outside during the times we were in our bedroom that it didn't bother me.  Well now daylight savings has passed and it's getting progressively lighter every day (hooray!!) and the light is starting to bother me at 6am when I still would like to be sleeping, but I'm distracted by the growing light in my bedroom.

So, after that long introduction... I found these drapes at Value Village (aka Savers in other states) for $2.99! And obviously bought them, (even though I realized later that I was allergic to them - some old lady with cats probably had them prior to me - i still went on with it, i'm hoping the steaming/ironing gets that out).