Early morning harvest

We went out this morning to pick our cherry tomatoes and came in with all of this. What a wonderful feeling to know that we grew it all ourselves. I am especially grateful for the small pile of new potatoes. People around our town said potatoes wouldn't grow here and though this is our entire crop, I am happy to say to all the disbelievers "told you so."

Baby burp cloths and other baby creations

In case some of you have worried that I have lost my creative touch, I am finally here to post a few of my latest creations. I have been busy trying to make things for my Melon Days baby boutique and I have just been waiting to post a few of the projects all at once. My stack is getting bigger each day of items to sell and my craft room is beyond recognition and repair I am embarrassed to admit. It looks like an explosion happened in there and the amount of usable space is diminishing rapidly. I have decided to give up trying to "tidy" it up weekly as it is just no use. In just a few weeks the room will become small fry's and I will be relocated to the laundry room so I am just trying to grin and bear it until then. But that has not stopped my creativity. Here are a few of the latest creations.

First baby burp cloths. I found this idea on the blog Needle in a Haystack. I found this blog through the blog A little Tipsy. Both of these blogs are FABULOUS. I love it when I find great new blogs and tons of ideas. Thanks ladies to both of you. Anyway back to the burp cloths. On Needle in a Haystack she shows burp cloths that she made combining flannel and cloth diaper material. I didn't spend much time checking out what she did to make these. I saw the idea and immediately thought, "that is perfect!!!!!" and got to work. The flannel burp cloths are so cute but not very absorbent. This idea allows you to combine the cuteness of the flannel fabric with the practicality of the cloth diaper. GENIUS!!. Here is what I used.
I bought a package of these:

Then I just cut out my burp cloth with one piece of flannel and the other of the diaper material. I pinned them right sides together (p.s. is there a right side to a cloth diaper?) and sewed around the edge. Then I turned em right side out and sewed the opening closed and stitched all the way around. TADA, burp cloths, cute and absorbent. They are pretty light weight but I actually like them that way. I think they are easier to use.

Then I was thinking of a clever way I could package them up for my baby boutique booth and came up with this cupcake idea. I folded and rolled my burp cloth, along with a strip of extra material together to make the cupcake. Then I decorated with some ribbon and flowers and pins. It took me forever to get one just how I wanted it and after looking at it for so long I didn't even know if I liked it. But I persisted and made enough to take a few pictures. Then when I looked at them in the pictures I knew it was worth the effort. I think they turned out adorable. I am planning to package them as sets of 3 for my booth. I think I will look for some little boxes or something to put them in. Stay tuned for the final product.  For a tutorial on how to make these check out my interview over at U-Create

Here is another recent project; a little girls bow holder. I didn't want to make something that was too huge because I am trying to focus on baby stuff. I used an 8x10 " picture frame that I got at the DI. I repainted it and sanded the edges. I used my trusty Mod Podge to glue a piece of scrapbook paper over the backing of the frame. Then I added three ribbons to hold the hair clips.

Side view.

Another one with a different background.

Lastly, M is for Miracle.

I made one of these for the nursery in our home before small fry was born. Since we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl I made one that says, "Precious" and have it hanging over her crib. I wanted to make a few of these to sell as well. Here are just 2 of the ones I have made. I know that every baby is a miracle but for those who have been trying to have children for a while or thought they never could have children, the birth of their baby is extra miraculous. I made these with those people in mind.

I am extremely embarrassed to post these pictures with the carpet of my sewing room as the background. I do vacuum it once a week but small fry loves to take the strings out of the trash and sprinkle them everywhere and I am not too careful to make sure I throw any of mine directly into the trash after vacuuming day. Hence the terrible background. Sorry, it was late when I took the picture. No time for a cleaning. Boy and girl Miracle banners.

To Do's

Making a To Do list last week was really helpful. I remembered it all week and when I checked my blog I was reminded of it too. I was able to get done everything on the list so that was wonderful. Here it goes for this week:

Monday: House cleaning, freeze salsa and making applesauce and canning it

Tuesday: Baseball game with hubby

Wednesday: Go to Grand Junction to do some shopping (could be an all day thing)

Thrusday: Make new baby burp cloth cupcakes, make hair bows

Friday: Baseball game at home with hubby

Question

Why is it that when daddy is watching the baby a hunting show on TV about elk or a baseball game keep her super happy and entertained and she just sits on his knee and is perfectly content but when mommy is watching the baby we have to:

do bubbles

play with the shopping cart

watch her pictures DVD

read the elmo book

read a story

feed the stuffed animals

take out the pots and pans

have a drink

do more bubbles

look at the pictures on the computer

have a snack

color with a pen

etc

etc

etc

?

I spy

I am waiting to get some material to complete one more baby project so that I can post it plus the other 2 I have recently completed but I won't be getting out of town until Wed. and then it will be a day or 2 before I am finished so in the mean time you will have to endure a few random posts.

Here is a look at one of small fry's toy bins. Let's play eye spy. Can you find:

a bag of random cords belonging to something electronic in our home

a perscription bottle that has a coin in it

an empty eye drops bottle

a deer hunting DVD

What more does a girl need for toys? Not the remainder of the items in this bin let me assure you.

Sewing with pins

Why is it that I seem to sew better when I have 4 or 5 pins in my mouth? I have the pin cushion right beside me and yet they always end up in my mouth. I am sure I am not the only sewer who finds her lips double nicely as a pin holder. I know my mom did it. Anyone else out there? When I was in college in one of my Home Ec teaching classes they stressed that as a teacher you should never let your students see you with pins in your mouth. You might teach them a bad habit. Well when I taught sewing classes my pins, my students pins, pencils, you name it; my mouth made a great holding device. As for bad habits, with drinking, smoking, cussing, gossiping and lying well established as bad habits, I am pretty sure their parents weren't saying, "How dare that Miss. K teach you to sew with a pin in your mouth." (Gotta love those ranch kids from Eastern Montana.)

To Do List

Okay so I am going to try something new here. I think I am going to start a weekly to do list on my blog to help me keep focused on what I am doing. I have a lot I feel needs to be accomplished before baby #2 arrives and I am feeling really overwhelmed. I thought today that maybe posting a little list will be helpful to me. Don't know if it will or not. I am not posting to brag about all that I need to do or complete. It's just that you know how it is. You write down your "TO DO'S" on a paper, that gets used by your husband to write an important phone number on, then that baby has to have the paper, she enjoys tearing it to shreds and half way through the week you are off track and frazzled. Sound familiar to anyone? So I am going to give this a try.
NOTE: please do not judge me should I never make mention of this again and it all falls totally by the wayside. Just know I am off track and frazzled somewhere in time.

This week TO DO

Monday: Going to a funeral so vacuum when I get home.

Tuesday: Chop and freeze onions from garden, make brown sugar zucchini bread, chop tomatoes to add to salsa and freeze second batch of salsa

Wed: Remove something from the laundry room

Thursday and Friday: gone to baseball tournament with hubby.

Okay that looks like a reasonable start for now.

New Blogs to Check out

I just took a minute to update my sidebar and add a few links to some new blogs I have found. I know when I first started blogging I always checked out sites other people had on their sidebars. It is hard to keep that updated but I think it is really helpful to people. Here are a few new blogs that I have found and really enjoy (You will have to click on the side bar to link sorry- just easier that way)

It's a Girl Thing- She links to other blogs with creative ideas and has some of her own. You can never find enough of these kind of blogs if you are searching for new ideas.

Nap Time Crafts- A woman after my own heart. A busy mom who tries to squeeze a craft or two in during nap time. She has cute ideas.

My Crafty Side- Another woman after my own heart trying to squeeze a craft or two into her day. Check out her stroller diaper bag. Love it!!

That went Well- Just found this today via Sugardoodle. She has money saving tips and coupons. I linked because she had a post about $10.00 in free Schwans food. I went to the site and entered and got 24 root beer float bars for free. How great is that. Going to keep tabs on this site. Sorry probably it isn't going to be helpful for anyone out of the U.S.

Happy blog searching.

Diaper Bag questions

Since posting about this diaper bag set that I made for a friend a few months ago I have had a many questions about posting a tutorial for how to make the diaper bag. I wanted to address those now. I didn't come up with the pattern myself. It is called the Everything Bag and the pattern is by Amy Butler. I got it from her book Little Stitches. So I can't post a tutorial for it because it is not mine. Her pattern is, well I wouldn't call it easy, but it is not hard. If you are an experienced sewer and interested at all in sewing baby stuff then I highly recommend the book. It comes with all the patterns included.
As for the baby sling, if you are interested in making one of those check out this website. This is where I got the instructions for the one I made. The little box pouch which is to hold binkies and other small items I made from this tutorial.  I just made mine smaller.
For the change pad clutch (the long skinny one) you can read my tutorial here.  This folded change pad I got from a book called Heart to Art, but I have since created my own folding change pad and you can see that tutorial here.
Sorry this wasn't more help but I don't want to claim something that isn't mine. I have made a couple of bags as requests for people. If you are interested in that send me an e-mail.

Flower hair clips tutorial

I know that everyone and their dog is making flower hair clips for children. I am a little slow at jumping on the band wagon. For one thing I have had a hard time finding flowers that I really liked to make the clips. So this is a tutorial for how to make hair clips from one stem of fake flowers. I found this beautiful flower at Michael's craft store. I figured it had enough pieces to make at least 4 or 5 hair clips. The price of silk flowers is kind of high and you need to have more than one flower for each clip so this type of silk flower worked really well because it had 3 different sizes of petals all on one. Here is what I did.

1st Buy your hair clips. I had a hard time finding the old fashioned "alligator clips" that everyone uses for these (the ones the little grannies use to hold their pin curls in). I couldn't find them in any stores on our way to Canada but I figured if there is ever a place that carries anything that is outdated or not in high demand now in would be our Wal-Mart in Saskatchewan Canada. Everything seems to be about 3 year behind there. Of course they would have oodles of alligator clips for all the senior women who need them for pin curls. NOT!!!! Couldn't believe it. So this is the package that I got. I don't really like the design of them but they worked in the end.

2nd Cover your clip with ribbon. Start by putting the hot glue on the bottom and placing your ribbon like so (see picture and stay with me here)

Add a bit more hot glue and fold the ribbon back over itself (this make it less likely to fray) and continue gluing over the spring end. Make sure you don't get hot glue on the springs.

Continue over the top and down around to the underneath side but only to where the clip ends and the spring begins.

Like this.

3rd Get some of this grippy stuff. What in the world is this called? I tried explaining what I was talking about to my mom until I was totally frustrated and then when I found it she said "oh ya grippy stuff. I found it at the dollar store.

Cut a piece of grippy stuff as wide as your clip and as long as the underneath of the top side. Apply a small amount of hot glue to the ribbon and attach the grippy stuff. NOTE: after I made these and did the pictures for the tutorial and put it in Small fry's hair I realized that due to the design of these clips it would help to put some grippy stuff on the bottom underneath the spring part for extra hold.

Now because I loaded my pictures in the wrong order and don't want to take the time to fix them I am going to show you how to attach the finished flower and then I will show how to make the flower.

So 4th Apply hot glue to the ribbon on the top of the clip then press the flower down and hold. You want to place the flower so that the spring end of the clip is kind of tucked underneath.

Bottom view.

The finished product.

Now onto making the flowers.

1st You want to separate the flower petals and cut off any plastic attaching pieces. I used 4 petals for each clips. 2 large, one medium and one small.

2nd Starting with the largest first put a dab of hot glue in the center and attach the next pedal on top (slightly rotate your petals so they don't all lay directly over the other). I pinch the underneath side once I have them layered while the glue is still pliable. This gives the flower a bit more dimension I think.

Here is a picture of the pinched underside.

3rd Continue to add the other 2 petals in the same way.

4th I added a jewel to the center that I attached with hot glue. That is it.

The finished flower

And my beautiful model showing off her mom's creation.