Projects: Christmas Presents

This year I really wanted to make a lot of the Christmas presents we gave. I had such a great time doing it! I don't think I specifically thought, "I'm going to make presents this year," I just found things that I could make and decided to do it. I was watching Psych and saw this awesome pineapple quilt and knew my brother who is on a mission would love one like that. He loves Psych and it's super cold where he is!

I found the pattern for the pineapples here.

 (Sweet Girl wanted to model it)

 (this was my awesome packing job, it fit into a large flat rate box!)

This is the first real quilt I've every actually made by myself. I've tied quilts before, but when I did that it was just two pieces of material with batting in between. I've done a few block quilts (one was just a tiny blanket and isn't quite square) and another block quilt I made I had help with. But this one, this one was much more intricate than anything else I've ever done. I also put two blankets on the inside so it is SUPER thick! It took a long time to make, but I am super happy with how it turned out!

I found these adorable dress up aprons on Pinterest. They looked pretty easy to make (and they were) so I decided to try it out! I had so much fun making them! I made a Princess Aurora apron first.

 Then I made a nurse apron, and a few regular aprons. Then I made an Elsa apron for one of our nieces.

One of my favorite features of these dress up aprons is that they are easy to put on and take off. Easy enough that Sweet Girl can put them on and take them off herself, and since she is pretty independent these days, it is perfect!

(Silly girl didn't want her picture taken, so she started taking them off)

We had my Sweet Sister-in-law's family for Christmas on my Sweet Husband's side.
I've loved this idea of a cross-stitched family portrait ever since I saw it on pinterest!
I plan to make one for our family too, it just hasn't happened yet.
I had so much fun looking through pictures and finding outfits they had that I could recreate in the cross-stitch. And I also had fun adding little things about them that they like!
I put it in a cute frame, but apparently forgot to take a picture of it at that stage.

Boo!

I was so excited to make Sweet Girl's Halloween costume this year!

I looked for a while for ideas, but then my sister sent me a suggestion on pinterest.

It was too cute not to do!

So she was Boo from Monster's Inc.

It was really easy to make, actually.

And really fun. I had a lot of the fabric already, but I needed some for the arms.

We found a fun fabric with shiny polka-dots on it that was perfect for arms!

The first time I tried it on Sweet Girl, it wasn't quite finished, but she was less than thrilled... 

 Thankfully, while I was figuring out how to attach the eyes she got really excited about it and kept trying to steal it.

Then when she wore it for real for the first time, she loved it!

I think it also helped that everyone commented on how cute she looked and Sweet Girl sure loves complements!... who doesn't?!

 She wore it to music time first. A couple ladies in our town do a music time each week, it is really fun! Sweet Girl loves it! She's so social! She loves to dance and especially to play with the instruments!

 That week, Aunt S and Baby A joined us! Sweet Girl's cute little cousin was Little Mermaid, just like her mommy was when she was little!

For the actual Halloween, Sweet Girl gladly wore her costume, but she wouldn't let me do her hair in the cute pig tails... you win some you lose some.

 My Sweet Husband joked with me and said that he would wear a Sulley costume if I went as Mike. He figured I wouldn't do it, I sure showed him.. lol!

 I love this picture of Grandpa and Sweet Girl!

Fabric Shopping

I have two siblings getting married in the next couple months.

For one of the weddings I'm supposed to wear a cream dress,

after looking online and in a few stores for a little bit I decided I'd rather just make a dress.

Plus, it's always fun to have a project 

(never mind the fact that at the time I already had two other projects going).

We were at my sweet in-laws' house for the weekend, 

so we decided to make a trip to the fashion district to look for fabric!

Plus, Sweet Girl and my Handsome Husband had never been!

My Sweet Mother-in-law kindly drove us there and spent the day with us!

If you've never been, it is pretty awesome! As you can see from the pictures they have rolls and rolls and rolls of fabric as far as you can see... pretty much anyways. I wanted to take a picture of one shop, they had rolls of fabric from floor to ceiling! It takes a little time to look at everything, but luckily each shop pretty much has a certain kind of fabric, so if it's not what you are looking for you can just move on to the next one.

They also have lace, buttons, ribbons, zippers... it's a sewer's dreamland! Lol!

But seriously.

We found what we needed and ended up getting a few other things my sister needed for the wedding too! It was a lot fun!

June Bug Dress

Several years ago I pinned this adorable dress!

I love it so much!

But the one thing I thought as soon as I saw it was,

a June Bug Dress needs POCKETS!

When my sister was little she would put June Bugs in her pockets and my mom would find them in the wash... lol!

So I made one myself and added pockets.

I'm happy with how it turned out!

San Francisco!

We took a trip up to visit my brother-in-law.

We had a great time!

Sweet Girl loved the hotel room, especially the mirror!

 We got there late Thursday night and then

Friday morning we walked around the town near where my brother-in-law is doing an internship,

since he had to work in the morning.

Sweet Girl zonked out on our walk.

 After we met up with my brother-in-law and had lunch we went to the beach.

 It was beautiful!

  We went hiking for a little bit and then we went to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sweet Girl fell asleep then too!

  The men carried her up in the stairs, since she was still asleep!

 

 One of the things that I wanted to do while we were there was walk across the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge. As we were walking, Sweet Girl woke up about half way across. 

She was pretty jazzed about the walk, as you can see.. lol!

 After we got across the men read the signs and such,

but we didn't want to carry the stroller down stairs again, so Sweet Girl and I sat and people watched.

We also took some pictures.

The next day we went to the pier, then we went on a boat ride in the harbor. 

 Sweet Girl fell asleep on that as well.. lol! She was SO good and SO accommodating when it came to her naps! I'm so grateful!

 Selfies when you can't see because of the sun are hard to take... lol!

 Next up was ICE CREAM! It was pretty hot so we decided to get some yummy Ghirardelli Ice Cream! Sweet Girl LOVED it, as did the rest of us!

She's so funny! We were super lucky and got a parking spot on the curb in front of Ghirardelli Square when we got to the city in the morning. As soon as we got Sweet Girl out of the car, she pointed to the ice cream shop and grunted. That's her way of saying, "I want ice cream!"

 Then we waited in line for a ride on the trolley.

 After a while, we finally got on one, it was pretty cramped, but it was really fun!

 This is at the top of Lombard Street (even if you can't see the street... lol!)

 Sunday morning we went to church and Sweet Girl wore the June Bug Dress I made for her.

 The Sacrament Meeting we went to was SO good, I really enjoyed it!

Then we drove over to the Oakland Temple, it's so pretty.

We just drove around because Sweet Girl was sleeping and we wanted to get back on the road while she was sleeping.

 At one point it looked as though we'd made a wrong turn and landed in Iowa.. lol!

 Sweet Girl was a champ on the drive home, but she got a little sad about an hour from home.

But as long as I gave her my hand she calmed down.

She's such a good girl!

We had a great time! I'm glad we were able to spend some time with my brother-in-law, 

it was really fun!

Sewing Projects

A few weeks ago I realized I hadn't sewn anything in a long time and I wanted to change that.

So I volunteered to sew a wedding dress for my friend,

it's coming along, it's a little nerve wracking because it's for something so important.. lol!

But I've enjoyed it!

While searching for a better pattern for the wedding dress I came across this adorable star fabric

and knew I had to make a skirt for Sweet Girl for the 4th out of it.

When I got home I decided to mix it up a little and add some fabric I already had.

I used this pattern.

Spring Decorations

The other day I had a hankering to do some crafting,

plus I was binge watching a show and I always feel better about watching shows when I'm doing something while I watch/listen.

So I decided to make a wreath.

I did most of the crafting while Sweet Girl was sleeping,

but she was pretty good at playing while I crafted if I was in the middle of something.

She especially loved the lace!

 I love this picture.

After she kept trying to get into stuff that could hurt her, I put her in the exercauser.

Here is the final project.

I also cut out our house number in vinyl and put it on our door because we didn't have our house number anywhere.

I really like the way it turned out... lol even if you can't see it.

 I also made this cute Peep banner,

I've had it on my list of things to do for a long time, but never got around to it.

I'm glad I finally did.