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 :)