Baby Showers!

Everyone around me is having babies! Which, thanks to pinterest, is awesome because that means I'll finally get around to making things. For my coworker who's having twin girls...  I wanted to make a diaper cake and never having made one before I went a-googling ;)

It looked a little plain so I crocheted some monkeys to spice it up a little bit. 

While I was looking up how to make diaper cakes, I came across this awesome website with a tutorial for a diaper bike! Here's how it turned out 

And of course, I had to crochet a little friend to ride the bike :)

I also appliqued some onesies and packaged it back up with a chevron elephant for a cute little gift. I loooooove chevron, and so does my friend Kris, sooo I totally went with a chevron theme for her baby gifts. Kind of went a little crazy though hahah. I'm sure she didn't mind :)

I think my favorite is the bowtie onesie. Because bowties are cool**

A mini chevron elephant..

To go with the chevron diaper clutch set... with matching travel diaper changing mat and a decorated baby wipes case. Found this PUL fabric at JoAnn's, it's the same fabric they use for cloth diapers so its water resistant. Or rather 'pee' resistant. 

And its chevron diaper clutch. You know for those quick trips where you don't want to lug around that diaper bag. Surprisingly everything fit inside! 

And lastly, what supposedly was a chevron baby blanket.. I made it a little too big. So I guess it's a crib throw now haha.

**It's really too bad there are no Whovians in my circle of friends. Would've been fun to make some baby doctor who crafts

March is National Craft Month

At least thats what the crafters say. So I decided to celebrate by trying to complete as many of my unfinished projects as I can. (And I have a LOT) Or just start new ones. Either way I'm going to try to blog more. I know I haven't posted in awhile but so many things have happened and its been so crazy it just recently started to wind back down. New place, an awesome craft pegboard wall that I'm super excited about, and I'm totally running out of excuses NOT to start. So here's two of my most recent squishies ;)

Jake the Dog! From Adventuretime

My Melody! A childhood favorite :)

AND. I am just so excited about this because macaroons are my top favorite desserts next to creme brulee and cupcakes. I finally made my own macaroons and they came out delicious the first time. Macaroon perfection. Yes, I am going to go out on a limb and say all of those things because I am proud that nothing disastrous happened while making them. As all of the macaroon blogs said that it might. But they DIDN'T! So YAY!

Fresh out of the oven... :D

I was so afraid of messing up, that I only made 10 cookies my first batch..  and those 5 macaroons were oh so delish ;)

I found this recipe on foodgawker.. just your basic macaroon cookie with uber yummie chocolate ganache. I read countless other blogs on tips for making macaroons; 'aging' the egg whites, leaving out the almond flour etc etc.. however I didn't do any of that due to these tips .. and even added the sugar prior to beating the egg white and they still came out awesome! The only thing I would do different next time is remember to  spray my baking sheet.. I forgot to and the cookies got stuck to the silicone mat. Minor detail :)

Easy DIY Christmas present.. #3 :)

Ok so I know that I'm not really allowed to complain about what is called "winter" in southern california, but really, it does get a little cold. Especially my extremities. Here is a super easy tutorial on some reusable hand warmers.

Supplies: 

Fabric (any on hand as long as its microwavable)

Rice

Essential oil (optional)

If you have essential oil (I used lavender) place the rice in a small ziplock bag and add few drops of the oil inside and shake it around. 

Then, sew a small square together (mine is about 4.5x 4.5), leave about a two inch opening to pour in the rice and sew together! I used pinking shears to cute-ify it. Okay, mostly so I don't have to worry about the seams at all. 

Pop it in the microwave for about 30 seconds and the warmth should last about an hour. It would make great stocking stuffers and its totally reusable. Cut a bigger square and you can make feet warmers for those cold beds. Cut the fabric into different shapes for uber cuteness like hearts, animals, oh the possibilities are endless :)

Easy DIY Christmas present.. #4 :)

So it's been forever again since I last posted.. too busy buying myself my friends gifts. And of course making them too :) For those of you who aren't counting, Christmas is four days away. Sooo for the next four days I'm going to post some super cute easy peasy tutorials that I've found (and tried) for those last minute gifts and/or stocking stuffers :)

If you haven't already, you need to sign up for pinterest. This website, and craftgawker, are where I waste spend the majority of my time browsing and just generally getting ideas for Christmas! And this is where the braided circle scarf tutorial comes in. I found this super cute scarf on pinterest. 

From a swedish website.. 

I thought.. "I can totally make this!.. once I figure out how to..." But thankfully I found a tutorial that did the thinking for me..

Annnd here's the scarf!

The tutorial is pretty straight forward and the scarf came together pretty much within a hour. The only thing that took awhile was blindstitching only because I'm lazy and don't like sewing by hand ;)

Just a note.. I tried it with a t-shirt that I cut up, and it came out too short and kind of cheap looking. This is the second attempt, with some knit fabric I got from Joann's. Much better, more fuller, and still about half the price  :)

Random crafts :)

So it's been forever since I've blogged. Mostly because I'm lazy I'm a big girl now and moved to my own place. Crafting has been put on hold temporarily. Buuut the best part is now I have a craft corner allll to myself where I don't always have to put away my sewing machine whenever I leave the table. It is so awesome.

I have this bad habit of whenever I go to a fabric store I pick through the 50% off remnants leaving me with quite a stash.

This is just one box ;)

HOWEVER, the stash came in handy in an attempt to add some color to my apt :)

Um.. future fabric flower project in mind for that vase ;)

A throw pillow that looks like one from Target :)

Another throw pillow. Playing around with ric rac. Please ignore the wrinkles. eek.

Dust cover. I just like penguins :)

ANNNNd on to some birthday gifts.

This is a giraffe. Something I came up with. He actually came out quite cute

Another rag quilt. If you can't tell who this is, then I have failed.

13 years ago, on a whim (actually, just because I liked getting mail at school), I ordered a book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from the Scholastic Book Club. Four weeks later that book came and it all went downhill from there. I recently watched the last Harry Potter movie and I have to say, it was pretty bittersweet. In my way of coping, I crocheted Hedwig. And to be honest, when she died, I cried.  HP <3 

*On an ending note. Tomorrow is 9/11/11. I don't like to be cheesy and I know it's all over the news, but I still cannot believe it has been ten years since the twin towers fell. I can remember it like it was yesterday and I am ashamed to admit that at that time, I did not truly think about the impact, the devastation, that that event would have on America. Especially being in the medical field now, I cannot even begin to fathom the terror, the fear, the feeling of helplessness knowing that there is nothing you could have done to save those people and then, your colleagues. Thank you, you are an inspiration to us all, a reminder of what it really means to be an American, a true hero, and you will always be remembered. 

Adventures in rag quilting.

So I've been wanting to dabble in quilting for awhile, but the time and thought put into making a quilt is quite daunting.. so I've recently rediscovered rag quilting! What I consider my crawling step, I've already made a few mistakes that I can take with me when I actually do start quilting (whenever that is hah!) And I say rediscovered; because when I first got my sewing machine I went blanket crazy and sewed a bunch of rag quilt blanket animals. Sadly, this was before I started taking pictures of things so I only have two photos to share. 

My rag quilt puppy. It's a Simplicity pattern. 

My favorite lap quilt. Rag quilt NEMO! :)

For some reason, it never occurred to me that it could be an actual normal blanket shape, until I saw one that my friend, Kevin, had. And THEN I went a-googling and it was all downhill from there. Haha. Actually I've only made one so far, but it's so much fun I'm sure I'll be making more. 

Here's the blanket before the washer and dryer. 

Here it is after.

So. The blogs that I've read all say that flannel is the best for rag quilting. So naturally I went with the flannel. And yes it does fray well. And yes it is nice and soft. But nobody mentioned that

a. It frays CRAZY well.  I washed it three times already and it still has thread and lint coming off of it like a mother. 

b. It shrinks. Okay, obviously cotton shrinks but I mean, like I said above, I already washed it three times so it shrank about maybe 80% already. 

I mean, the puppy blanket is just cotton, and the clownfish is fleece.. so this is my first time working with flannel. First and possibly last. :)

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

SO today was my bf's nephew's birthday party. He's turning ONE! Boy does time fly. Anyhow I had allllllll these ideas in my head as far as what to make him.. so I narrowed it down to two ;)  A simple 'B' initial cloth book (first time with embroidery so it was fun to do) and this cool Dr Suess themed felt alphabet book/hanging.

The cover :)

Yeah, my embroidery needs a little work; but it still came out cute :D

And experimenting with my sewing machine and applique. The bass was hard... I think I'm ready to start quilt making now hahaha

The end. 

Here's the Dr. Suess-themed felt book :)

See, it folds up so you can easily travel with it..

And it opens up to a book-ish thing...

Or you can hang it! (For those of you who don't know.. felt sticks to felt so its mess free for little kiddos ;) )

And I cut out felt words in a 'Grinch' font for some alphabet fun.

Happy first birthday little one. Hope you enjoy your gifts!