Appliquéd Onesies

My friend Nicole who was our neighbor in EA, is getting ready to have a baby girl in about a month & a half. This is one miracle baby & we are all so excited for them. I wanted to make something for the baby before we left... something creative. Nic is super cute & creative so I had high aspirations for what I wanted to make for her little one. 

So I made these 3 onesies! 

For the first one I made this "Love" appliqué. I used heat & bond to fuse the fabric to all of the onesies before I sewed around the edges. I drew the letters on light cardboard, cut them out & traced them on the heat & bond. I cut the fabric, ironed it on, and then appliquéd around the edges with different color thread for each one.  

Then I made this simple birdie. 

Nice & girly. 

And finally an elephant. 

I used a template that I found here for this little guy. 

This was definitely my best stab at appliquéing without an appliqué machine. It wasn't too terribly nerve racking this time around either. 

This was the 3rd set of onesies I've made for a friend's babies- Jamie & I made these for our friend Brooke's baby Finn, and I made this one for Langdon last summer. This time I had fun using lots of scraps of fabric & different colors of thread to make them. It was a fun last use of my sewing machine that i LOVED.  

I hope baby girl will love them :) I'm sure she will look darling in anything she wears. Can't wait to see this little one that was prayed for for SO long!

I do miss that sewing machine. It was amazing. I gave it to Nicole when we came back to the states for her to enjoy. You may be thinking, "Aw how sweet of you to just give it to her..." well let me tell you, it was my pleasure to give it to them since I hurled a Wii remote into their flatscreen TV last year playing bowling- breaking it beyond repair. I killed their TV. So giving her my sewing machine was the least I could do after they wouldn't let me replace their TV. 

{still mortified}

Joyfully Appliquéing,

Linking up over at: {Whipperberry}{A Little Knick Knack}{Lizmarie Blog}{Somewhat Simple}

Whimsical Tree Board

Thanks for your sweet responses to my last, rather emotional post. I still have a few things I never published that I posted about when we were still in EA, and  I used my slooowww internet over there to upload pictures and I'm sharing them. And they are all things that brought me lots of joy, and I need closure. So here we go. 

I made this a really long time ago but never shared because i wasn't quite content with it and didn't think it was blog worthy. It kinda turned out how I wanted but seemed a little off. SO I never shared. How silly.

I wanted to make a unique, abstract-esque something to hang over the bed in the guest room so I bought another calligraphy board like the ones I used for my fabric panels. 

I wanted it to kind of be a collage with paper, but still have some sort of a scene. So I used different sized rectangular pieces of paper to make a sky, and then made rolling hills out of a few different patterns of green. I cut clouds out of this woodland creatures paper, and crumpled it up to give it texture. 

After I mod-podged all of that down, I painted a big tree with black, brown & gray paint. It is the tree that I didn't love, but didn't want to go back and fix it after i had finished. After the paint dried, I cut different sized circles in different patterns for leaves. I crumpled them to give them texture as well, and lightly mod-podged the on. 

I wanted to put some kind of "sleepy" quote on the bottom. I've always loved the Dixie Chick's version of "Godspeed" that it a lullaby that says, "oh my love will fly to you each night on angels' wings, godspeed, sweet dreams,"so I decided to use that line: My love will fly to you each night on angels wings. I didn't do a good job with the spacing but I think it goes pay with the whimsical look to it. 

I lined the whole board with this brown & blue paper for a finishing touch. 

And there you have it. A little whimsical tree board. 

I was really unsure about what to do with it when we left- it was too big to come back with us and I didn't know if other people there would think it was too odd to use themselves, but would never want to make someone feel like they had to say yes or no either way, and I was afraid that it would get thrown away and that would be really sad. 

But it had the perfect purpose. One of my dearest, most wonderful EAian friends who lives in a different city than we did came to visit right before we left and walked in the guest room and said, "I love that!!!! Did you make it!?" to which I said, "DO YOU WANT IT!?!?!" and she did! So we wrapped it up, tied ribbon around it so she could carry it on the plane with her, and now sweet Lydia has it at her house and hopefully thinks of me every time she looks at it :) 

So glad I decided to share. 

Hannah's Tote Bag

For Christmas {yes... Christmas, and just sharing...} 

I wanted to make Hannah a fun tote bag.

I bought this fun pink & purple flower fabric last year knowing I wanted to make her something, and finally got around to it in December. 

 I've made lots of simple bags before, but I wanted this one to be lined and to have a zipper. 

the zipper...

and the green polka dot lining.

I came up with a general size {i wanted it to be big enough for a computer} and cut everything out...

And got to work. 

I used this strange stiff webbing stuff I found at the fabric market in place of interfusing. I sewed all of three layers of each panel together, and then began attaching everything. 

I tried my hardest to sew the zipper as best I could and I did an okay-ish job....

Unfortunately I didn't quite get the zipper lined up with this seam. 

But it works! 

I wanted to make a little pocket on the outside with the green polka dot fabric it is lined with. 

So I made the pocket & the top flap, and put a magnet inside of both to keep the flap closed. 

I like to think I'm pretty innovative.

And that's my first complicated-ish bag I made. 

Doesn't Hannah look cute with it? 

It's definitely not perfect and I made plenty of mistakes that I hopefully won't make next time. Here's to overcoming my fear of not sewing perfectly. 

Joyfully sewing,

My Spring Mantle

I love decorating for spring. So many possibilities.... Lots of bright colors, flowers, anything happy.... so i was pretty pumped to use all of those things for my spring mantle. 

I wanted to use as much fabric as possible.

SO I used embroidery hoops, and covered glasses with fabric for vases filled with the fabric flowers I made last year. {More on the vases later}

I also covered a small drinking glass in the polka dot fabric trimmed with ribbon to make a little votive. 

Once again, I used the yarn S. For our last name AND for spring.  

For the tabletop, I used little things from around the house. 

I think I've used this frame for printables for every season. 

I found this spring one here. I like that it's nice & simple. To contrast it, I used this springy scrapbooking paper to matte it. 

And to go along with it, I used my favorite little bird & nest from America. 

 I used the yarn wrapped bottle I made in the fall with a silk daisy from IKEA in it, and filled this vase with my random knick-knack orbs that I made last year. 

It's a hodgepodge of stuff, but I like it. 

Quite colorful and happy. 

{the pictures are so grainy.... our apartment is long & skinny, and only has windows on 2 ends & this is smack dab in the middle with terrible lighting. still trying to figure out the best way to take them without a flash, so either the ISO is really high (grainy) or the shutter speed is too low (blurry). i'll figure it out sooner or later.}

Joyfully Springy,

Linking up over at: {I Heart Naptime}{C.R.A.F.T.}