Tutorials I Love

Since this blog is for me to keep my crafting life organized, I decided to post a tutorial that I found that I think is great. I want to be able to find it later . . . When I really need it most. And I'm always so impressed by the time and energy people put into tutorials. You really can learn almost anything you need online. I always seem to find just what I need on the Internet! Any hoo . . . This great tutorial is from Red Pepper Quilts and it is How to Machine Bind a Quilt. I have a couple of quilts waiting for their binding. I've tried machine binding once before and wasn't especially happy with the results. I think I might just give it a go again with this tute at the ready.

Little Bags and Big Bags

I seem to have a thing for bags.  And really, can you ever have too many bags?  Big bags, little bags, medium bags.

Well here's a little linen-look bag that I whipped up for a quick birthday present for one of my favorite neighbors.  I found the inspiration piece over at Periwinkle Pincushion.  Cute, cute, cute!  She calls it the French Country Zipper Pouch - I call it super cute.  I found the linen-look fabric over at Hobby Lobby.

And the lining is a favorite from one of the Riley Blake lines.

And here's the stack in progress - I decided to make teacher thank you gifts for all of the boys' teachers this year.  I knew I needed to get an early start.  So - - - I have one all done, and quite a few more left to go.  I'll show more when they're all done.  Easy!

Happy Birthday Wood Decorations

It is coming up to Birthday season at my house - my boys' have birthdays in May and June. Last spring I came across this cute Happy Birthday felt banner HERE from a local crafter's ETSY shop. Love it! I had seen these fun wood balloons and presents on other blogs and noticed that they were from a local wood craft shop. I finally had a chance recently to stop in and pick them up. A little bit of paint, some scrapbook paper, and some glitter and now I have some great additions to my Birthday decorations.

Here is a close up of each present - three sizes. Here is the small:

The medium:

And the large:

I might go back and tie on some ribbons with the colored wire (which I loved to work with - so easy and colorful!). And here are the two balloons (there were three, but I thought two was plenty for me).

And the polka dot one - can't go wrong with polka dots!

So the plan is to put these out on the mantle along with the banner for our birthdays - very festive and fun - - and easy!

Lots of Pink - Baby Blanket

Wow - can you say pink? I live in a house full of boys - including the dog. I'm not used to seeing very much pink. But I needed another baby blanket for a gift and went to my enormous useful stash of fabric and found this incredibly cute pre-pieced quilt top and matching backing fabric. A quick seam around the edges, turn it right side out, top stitch all around again and there you have about the cutest little girl PINK blanket I may have ever "made". (I'm not sure I can really even say that I made it since it came pre-pieced - it wasn't any work at all.) The great thing about this line of fabric (from JoAnn's) is the variety of textures and the 3D effects. I hated to give this one away but a cute new niece is now the very proud owner. The backing is the green dragonfly fabric. Oh sooooo cute!

More Car Play Mats

I've posted before (here and here) about play mats that I've made for my boys. Well, we have a cousin's birthday party to attend next weekend and my boys decided that the perfect gift would be a play mat. So son #1 and I headed out to one of my favorite fabric stores that always has a great selection of pre-printed play mats. They didn't disappoint. Son #2 has this very panel already, but it is a great one and the fabric quality is excellent.

We found this new fabric panel as well - and although it wasn't my favorite, son #1 talked me in to getting it and using it to back the panel above. So now, a quick trip to Target to get some hot wheels and we're good to go. I've had this panel for a few months now - I found it at a cute fabric shop in Richfield, UT last fall. I finally took the 10 minutes to get it sewn together (the back is the same cute black/white check that you see in the pre-printed border). This one is all about mountains, cabins, camping, etc. I'm sure it will find a fond place in my boy's hearts just like their others.One day maybe I'll attempt one from scratch rather than using the pre-printed panels. But for now, these are PERFECT and easy and well-loved, which is the point.

Baby Elephants

Slowly but surely I'm starting to feel the crafting groove again. We have a couple of gift-giving events coming up - a couple of new babies and a birthday party for a cousin. I was at one of my favorite fabric shops the other night looking for some fabric for the birthday gift (coming soon) and saw this adorable, super soft and cuddly fabric. It cried loudly to come home with me and so it quickly turned in to this cute little baby blanket. It is a two-sided soft minky type fabric and so all I had to do was put some pre-made quilt binding around the edges and boom - gift for a new baby boy. I wish I had chosen a different stitch for the binding - it kind of makes it a little wavy, but it will do. More to come . . . .

Parenting

Well I don't know what is wrong with me. I seriously can't seem to get myself motivated to do anything crafty. Apparently I'm in a reading mood. I've been reading a lot lately - and not just work reports. I've been trying to get some new ideas for parenting. My husband and I have followed Love and Logic since even before son #1 was born. And I will always love the Love and Logic way! But I was looking for some new ideas to help me lately as my boys seem to be growing up right before my eyes. They're not my babies anymore. And I really wanted to get some good ideas for ways to teach them to be good, smart, nice boys who are (appropriately) independent and have good values and know how to make good choices (even though I expect them to make mistakes along the way).

I came across some great books from the Eyres and have been reading "Teaching Your Childrens Values" along with another book that one of their daughters recommends called "The Parenting Breakthrough" by Merrilee Boyack which talks about teaching kids to be independent. I have really learned a lot and plan to pick up a couple more books by the Eyres as the years go by. We started with a value from the Eyre's book in February - Honesty. That went really well! Not that the boys are perfect, but they understand what it is about and why it is important. We've already branched off a little and are teaching "Joy" this month - our own value. We want the kids to be joyful and find ways to embrace the good things in life. The values are something that you don't just teach once, but over and over again at different levels as they grow up. So far, I'm really finding some inner peace in knowing that we're doing lots of different things to take our jobs as parents seriously.

Ok - now really, I have some crafting that HAS to get down over the next few weeks. My fingers are crossed!