Checking My List

It's 11 days til Christmas, I am not even close to being finished with gift shopping, but I CAN mark off Christmas sewing from my to do list! Here's what I've managed to complete:

My 1st Christmas bib for my little Maggie. You can find this design at Planet Applique. It's $1 right now.....run...click....buy!
I love this design from Lynnie Pinnie. It comes with two options: all embroidery as I stitched out here and appplique. Iactually made this for myself to wear to work. (I work at a children's hospital and they loved it) It's $1.50 right now!

The reindeer applique alphabet was one of my favs this year. It's from Planet Applique and it's $8.00 right now.

Embroidery Boutique's Reindeer-$2 right now.

This is one of my favorites! It's Applique Cafe's manger ($2 right now). I also took a pair of Maggie's jeans that had gotten too short and added some length to them with this ruffle. This is an easy way to make clothes last a little longer. First, cut the finished edge off your pants or jeans. Then, all you have to do is decide how wide you want your finished ruffle to be and double that number plus 1/2 inch (allowing for a 1/4 inch seam allowance). This number will be how wide to cut your fabric. Next, cut your length. A good figure to go by is:

22 inches for sizes 0-12 months

26 inches for 2T

30 inches for 3T-4T

34 inches for 5T-6

Obviously, you can adjust this as you want to depending on how "ruffly" you want your ruffle to turn out.

Sew each ruffle in half, right sides together. Press seam allowance. Fold ruffle in half wrong sides together and press. Next, run a basting stitch through the raw edge of the ruffle then pull the top string to "gather." Slide ruffle onto pant leg matching up seams and adjusting the gathers. Pin edge of ruffle to edge of pants (that you cut, remember?) Stitch through all layers 1/4" from edge. Zig zag stitch along raw edge to "finish" edge. If you are lucky enough to have a serger, pull it out and make use of it! Now, all you have to do is stitch on the right side of your pants just above the ruffle. This helps that edge lay down flat underneath. That's all there is to it, so go give it a try!

Seriously, does it get cuter than this?? I love me some Riley Blake fabric and this Funky Tree design from Applique Alley!

This design is FREE...yep....you heard right. Go get it at Swak.

She knows what it takes to get the toys :)

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and are able to get all your Christmas stitching desires completed! I'm already looking forward to next year cause there are so many more cute designs I have just begging to be sewn! With January is going to come lots and lots of snowmen so be sure to check back!

Naughty or Nice?

These are for my boys and after yesterday's "falling out in the floor first class tantrum" my two year old threw in front of everyone at MDO....I'd say naughty will be appropriate on him when he sees Santa tonight :)

Teacher Gifts on a Budget

If you have children, I have a feeling you're gonna like this post. I have two school aged children and one in Mother's Day Out as of this year. That brings my grand total to 7 teachers between all of my little ones. If you are like me, budgeting has become a necessity in this day and age. I made teacher gifts this year that are pretty unique, don't include 5,000 calories, and can be enjoyed for years to come for the low price of $5 plus some change...total. Now you're curious huh? Well, here it is:

You wanna do this too? Yeah, I thought you might. So I'll tell you how so you can...that is unless you have a child in one of my children's classes and then, well, sorry :)

I first got the idea from a wonderful blog called The Idea Room. I have her linked over to the side under "other creative blogs" as well. She is full of great ideas that are great for my wallet. I mean, one person should seriously not be so creative. It's just not right :)

So, I expanded on her idea and made a little goody box complete with a hand towel and hand sanitizer. I happened to have these waffle weave kitchen towels that I got for around $3 each from Embroider This. You can also find great waffle weave Kitchen towels at Walmart that come in a 2 pack for $3.50...an even better deal. I picked an easy applique seeing as I was doing 7 of them. This simple zig zag cross has only 3 steps and is done in a flash! Turns out super cute too, see?

You can get instructions for how to make your personalized hand sanitizer here. I got the hand sanitizer from The Dollar Store and printed the "hand in hand" document at Fed Ex Kinko's for .75 cents per transparency page. I will say that she has you put your transparency paper in an empty bottle. That was just too much trouble for me having to figure out how to get all that hand sanitizer back in the bottle, so I just did it while the sanitizer was still inside the bottle. I used the handle of a wooden spoon to push the transparency paper up against the front of the inside of the bottle and it worked like a charm. Then I found some Christmasy ribbon in my gigantic unorganized craft bin (I really need to work on that) and VOILA!
Oh yeah...the cute little box...where did that come from you ask? Target's dollar bin. Yep. Love me some Target. So there you have it:

Hand Sanitizer-$1.00
Hand in Hand transparency label-0.75 cents per page (I put 2 "labels" on a page...could have put more but they charged extra to digitize all that-good grief?!?!)
Kitchen Towel-$3.00 roughly
Box- $1.00

I don't know about you, but my budget is saying thank you, Candice. And I'm loving this gift. Hopefully, all my (and your) children's teachers do to! Teachers are amazing people and I am so grateful for ours! Truly, they are one in a million! Merry Christmas!!

Mission Accomplished!

My children have their school Christmas concert this Friday...yes, as in tomorrow. There are two rules: 1. Wear a dress or skirt (girls) and 2. Wear Christmas colors. That's no big deal...unless you have neither and it's the day before the big event!!!! I think I just enjoy working under pressure. To be completely honest, some of my best work is turned out when I'm under pressure. For example: I finally got around to making Maggie (my youngest) a Thanksgiving shirt THE MORNING OF THANKSGIVING!!! Check it out:

How cute is this?? I LOVE how it turned out.

So back to my mission: I had to come up with something and if I didn't have to buy anything that would be fabulous! So here's what I came up with...

I bought this little number at a consignment sale quite a while back. It's a green houndstooth jumper made by Kelly's Kids. Simple, but it doesn't exactly scream CHRISTMAS!! to me.

So, I took it and did this to it:

It had to be something simple cause all that green houndstooth is quite busy. I needed to incorporate more Christmas colors too...like the all important RED. I have to say I'm pretty excited with how it turned out. It was like a game, a challenge, and I can say mission accomplish for under $10 (the cost of the dress). Not bad for the day before...

Now, hopefully I can focus on Christmas themed attire for my little ones and get them posted BEFORE Christmas day :)

Gobble Gobble

I love the holidays, but I swear there are less hours in the day during the holiday season than any other time of year! It is all I can do to crank out what I want to make for my own kids. Here are a few things I've managed to put a big fat red DONE! stamp on:

I love this My 1st Turkey Day design! Maggie will look so cute in it eating her Thanksgiving dinner :) Go to Planet Applique right now cause this design is only 99 CENTS!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Polka Dots

Have you noticed that Polka Dots are all the rage lately? I saw this pique fabric in brown and white and knew it would be perfect for fall. This is what became of my fabric find:

Cute little ruffled pants and a matching brown polka dot initialed shirt. It's a bit big on her but at least it'll fit all winter! FYI: In case I haven't mentioned it before, Monag brand blanks run BIG! REALLY REALLY BIG!

Pumpkin Patch Tee

Applique Alley has the cutest pumpkin applique. It's called simple pumpkin and it's my favorite for this year!!

Grab this design for $3.50 and make your little one something perfect for those pumpkin patch pictures.

We went with the cousins! Aren't they the cutest?!!?

My First BOO!

My little Mags is gettin' her Halloween on!

Party Favors

So Sorry, it's been a while! Things have been crazy around here! We are in full birthday swing right now. My oldest is turning 7 on the 8th and if any of you are like us, birthdays last an entire week. We had his friend party this past weekend. I'm going to be posting on that pretty soon on Duffy Clan so check in there soon for details. This next weekend will be spent celebrating with family, and then there's all the fun stuff in between like taking some type of birthday treat to school. I mean, seriously, I'm birthday'd out just thinking about it!

Back to the theme of this blog...party favors. We had a Monster themed party (cute furry fun monsters!) so I came up with one perfect party favor...

Remember those Taggy Monsters I blogged about here? Well...they made some pretty great party favors for our Monster themed birthday party! If you want to make them, go to GG Designs and download it instantly for only $7! I sewed out the 5X7 sized monster and only used ribbon for the arms on these little guys. Everyone got a different one (I made 18) and everyone seemed to love them.

Short & Sweet

This is going to be short and sweet...check out my most recent family blog post. You can thank me later :)

Witch Boots

My daughter came up to me several weeks ago and said, "Mommy, for halloween, I need some witch boots." Well, thank you Rosemary Gulledge (Applique Cafe) for making my daughter one happy girl with this design. She got her witch boots...

I paired it with some coordinating ruffled pants and it turned out super cute!

Remember Nguyen is a children's boutique clothing site that I have fallen head over heels in love with. They have some AMAZING sales several times a year. I recently hit the jackpot at their back to school sale where I got the next two outfits for practically next to nothing. They were in the clearance section, and then the site was having (in addition) a 40% off everything sale. If your kids are like mine and wear clothes that are in line with their age (or smaller) definitely order a size down. I've found these run a tad big.

How much did this girl's pants set put me back you ask? A whopping $11.39! Thanks to Applique Alley's 99 CENT simple pumpkin design (sale) and a free square patch, this turned into one cute fall outfit for Ella Kate!

And this longall for Noah cost me a whopping $9.30. I can't even make them myself that cheap!

This is my favorite! You can find it at Applique Frenzy.
I paired it with some cute corduroy pants and Noah is ready for the pumpkin patch.

The shirt I used for this outfit is a Monag shirt. I absolutely love these shirts as they are such a good quality shirt to applique on, however, if you ever have the opportunity to get one, buy a size SMALLER! These shirts run insanely large. Noah's shirt is a 2 and I have to roll the sleeves up a good 4 inches! I'm gonna try washing his on the hottest setting and drying with the hottest air in an attempt to shrink it a bit, but I guess on the bright side, we get 2 years wear out of this shirt without a doubt! I guess two out of my four have a good headstart on cute fall clothes. I better get moving on the others! Happy sewing!

Do It Yourself!

Lately, I have a thing for do it yourself tutorials. It's amazing what you can find when you just google what you want. For example: I wanted to make a paci clip so I googled "pacifier clip tutorial" and this is the blog I came across: This & That. She does a little bit of everything. I've skimmed through sewing, photography, cooking. I mean, she seems to do it all!! The part I love the most is her tutorial link. That is where I found a tutorial on how to make a paci clip.

Not bad...

There are a few other tutorials on her website that I'm dying to try such as A Christmas Ball, A Hanging Letter, Magnetic ABC's, A Super Cute Binder, A Clipboard, Hostess Apron, and an Ouchie Bag...just to name a few. Such fun things and not enough time to spend doing it. Ahhhh...someday!

Say What?

Do you ever get those orders where you sit back, and go "say what?" It doesn't happen too terribly often, but recently a friend of mine wanted a baby gift for a friend of hers. She says, "So I want a wipes case to match the baby's room." Ok, easy enough. No...she then goes on to say, "Well, here's the kicker: the baby's room is TENNESSEE orange, royal blue....and....PENGUINS!" I don't remember my exact reaction but I'm pretty sure it consisted of disbelief. So, I sat back at my machine and pondered how in the world I was going to pull this off in a cute kind of way. This is what I came up with...not bad....not my idea of cutesty baby....but not bad with what I had to go on :)

This next one had the stipulation of chocolate brown, green, and daddy is a hunter :) I LOVE it!
And what little boy doesn't like puppies...or as my Noah likes to call them-"woof woofs."

Back To School

I got this cute school house from Applique Cafe. It was perfect for our back to school teacher gift!

You can put your school's name or initials above the door to personalize it even more!

Napmats

My son Noah is starting MDO on Monday. I made him this napmat cover and it turned out super cute! This pattern is made to fit a Kindermat which you can find at Walmart or Target this time of year. I got the tutorial here. I love this website. So many fun projects that are so easy. Noah loves monkeys, so when we went to the fabric store he picked out a soft flannel with monkeys on it.

Somebody's ready for school!

This and That

I've been keeping busy lately with a few baby shower gifts. Seems everyone is having sweet little girls lately!

Love this Applique Cafe jellyfish!
This dress is called "Mary". I love it cause it's so simple to turn out. Sometimes I add a ruffle to the edge to frill it up.

This blanket turned out super cute but it's the last time I will attempt putting these fabrics together. Sewing knit, minky fabric and satin together is INCREDIBLY HARD! It all wants to slip and slide even when pinned. I've wanted to try this bib pattern I've had for months and finally took the opportunity. The chenille is something different and I like different :)

Can't have enough of these!

Happy Birthday to a sweet little 2 year old girl!

LOVE LOVE LOVE how this turned out! I think I'm gonna have to make one for my Maggie Beth.