Today

I'm still not so sure how I feel about it, but in general, it sucked.  And I'm not talking like, illness, death in the family, tree crashed in to our house kind of suck.  I'm talking about one of those days where you keep accidentally injuring yourself, literally. And where your 5 month old is mad at you and won't sleep or nurse. And your 7 year old is mad at you and won't do his homework or keep his crap off the floor.  And somehow all those Oreos that were just in front of you have disappeared and you have no recollection of actually eating them.  And you make sucky spaghetti for dinner because you don't want to cook anymore and you eat a ton of the crappy spaghetti and then you feel like crap.
That was my day. in a nutshell.

I am not normally a complainer, but today I feel as if I have utterly failed as a mom and wife.  Horrible.

But my little baby and my big baby and my furry babies are all sound asleep. And my husband is happily watching the NFL draft.  And I crocheted a purple bow for my bff's baby due in July.  and I get to see my out-of-town sister on Saturday. And see another bestie's newborn baby boy on Sunday.
Life is decent.
Life is good.

Good thing tomorrow is only a few hours away.  I need a new start.


Promise to not eat any more Oreos.

Easter rehash

I'm delayed. 3 weeks late. My apologies.

Here's what we did for Easter!

I made these! I have two little ones, but two of our nephews were coming over for Easter dinner, so I wanted to make something special for them!  These are inspired by this pin  and I tweaked it a little bit to add the bow for the boy's bunnies and then the little flower I made for Cleo's bunny.  I cut out the pattern, embroidered the faces, sewed together (for the girl bunny, I put the seams inside. A happy accident of sorts).  After I made the bows and flower, I attached with a quick stitch and then filled with goodies!  Easy peasy Easter ... squeezy?

I also tried the THIS PIN, but did it in more of a tie-dyed effect.  I accidentally peeled too much egg off when I was taking the shell off.  It would have looked really cool otherwise!

This is my son's basket.  I got a few things at the dollar store, a few items off the clearance rack a few months ago and there you have it!  Underneath the items at the top of the basket is a huge box of sidewalk chalk. Funny story.  We've had the sidewalk chalk for about 2-3 years.  I think I've given it to him at least 3 times as a present and he thinks it's new every time.  It just never gets used.  Instead of filling my house up with more stuff that will go unused, pretend the old stuff is new!  Yay!!!

We did an Easter egg hunt.  A tradition my husband grew up doing was that his dad would put random change in the plastic eggs and then you would add it all up to see who got the most.  Math!  We also did a Golden Egg!  I was thinking of putting $20 is the Golden Egg, but then I realized that the kids would get JUST as much excitement out of $1 than they would $20.  One dollar it is.


P.S.

Easy Baby Gifts Part 2

Little Miss Cleo

This is my beautiful girl!  

She's wearing a hat I made!  and this is the tutorial I used!  This hat took about an hour to make.  I'd say that's a success!  The nursery's colors are a greyish brown, white and coral.  I used Sugar 'N Cream from Lily in a Coral color.  Cute! Cute! Cute!

For Christmas, I made my newest nephew, Kip, a big fun quilt!  It's actually my first quilt ever so I am really quite pleased with the outcome!  I used 2 of the smaller "jelly rolls" of fabric that were on clearance at Wal-mart. I love the jelly rolls because you don't need to coordinate yourself and they're pre-cut!  I did the "Jelly Roll Race" brought on by this post from the Missouri Quilt Company.   




I backed it with denim so my sister could lay it where ever she wanted without fear of stains!  I quilted it in a diamond pattern. I also did the self-binding from the tutorial on this pin.  Pretty basic sewing and muuuuuch faster than binding it (and I'm only speaking out of trying to bind once, when I made a t-shirt lap quilt so long ago).  I'll definitely be repeating.



I made this doll for my niece for Christmas 2 years ago.  She named her Maria.  An odd name for a red head, but it'll do.  I used a doll pattern from Martha Stewart back when you had to get an invite to join Pinterest.  I don't have the link, but it it's very simple.  Make legs, arms and a head then sew with right sides together using the dress.  Leave a small opening to flip right side out.  Stuff with poly-fil. Finish off with hair, face and whatever else! You can see the pieces in an earlier post.  


I'll have to continue later!  I've got a baby to cuddle with post nap.  best. time. ever.

Easy DIY Baby Gifts

I'm cheap.  I'm talking really cheap.  I don't spend money unless I have to spend.... like literally.  It's sort of always how I've been.  Or maybe I've just always been poor.  Isn't that a saying, something like, "Necessity breeds ingenuity."  Well, I'm no genius, but these projects have saved me tons of trips to the baby aisle, AND they're fun to make!  I should also say majority of these have been inspired by the one and only Pinterest, but some were translated... or malformed in some cases.

Here are the pics and info if I've got it.

 "burp" Burp cloths. Gave it to the momma with matching BOW burp cloths.  I used just the regular burp cloth tutorial, but before I made them, I cut out the letters, sewed them on, then made the bows with this tutorial and attached them really fast with a quick stitch.  Gave them as a cute set!

Here's a set! It's a "Bath Apron" with bath mit and then 2 onesies, one with a tie and one with a bow.  It was a boy's baby shower (in fact! he was just born yesterday!!  Congrats Migi!)  and there is not a ton of stuff out there to make for boys, so I made a regular thing INTO a boy thing with the fabric I chose!  It's got skateboards and... bikes and.... other... boy things!  Haha, not sure quite how to describe the testosterone in this fabric.
I took this pin: 
and decided it was pretty simple to replicate a pattern.  I made some quick "bias" tape (I say "bias" tape because I didn't cut the fabric on the bias like you're s'posed to.  BECAUSE I'm cheap! and I don't want to waste any fabric cutting part of it off just so it can be lopsided!).  I folded the towel in half, cut the corner off and set it aside for the mit.  I added a panel of the very boyish fabric to the front like is pictured.  I sewed the "bias" tape on as it shows in the picture along the edges of the towel.  I didn't make it cross in the back, though.  I just did a simple loop for the head and then followed the bias tape down to the hip area and finished the edge of the bias tape. Easy!
For the mit, I just rounded the corners of the leftover towel fabric, sewed on a small panel for the front.  With right sides together, I sewed it together in a U shape, flipped it right side out and VIOLA!  Coordinating Bath Mit!

For the shirts, I just combined a few pins like THIS ONE and THIS ONE and whipped them together!
(can't you see the skater dude.  so BOY!)

Here are the pins I sourced these ideas from: Tag Letter link (except I filled mine with poly-fil.  Rice Noodle link (I call it a Snoodle.  Get it? Snuggle Noodle! bah!) Self-binding baby blanket link  and then I made a wash cloth the same way I make the burp cloths... just smaller!  (p.s. it was totally by accident because I cut the fabric too short for a full length burp cloth.  Wash cloth it is!  (I'm embarassingly cheap)).

a little tie blanket with the baby's letter!  This one was a personal creation!  I made blankets for my little sisters (they were in high school at the time) and decided to convert to baby size!  I drew out a letter, cut the fabric, machine sewed on, then did a hand stitch to make it pretty, then tied it!
This I made for my little lady.  I used the fabric crayons and just made it look like paper!  Here's the pin.



OK.. so it's 11:30p and I am just now realizing that I've made too much stuff to fit in tonights post.  this will have to resume later on! nighty night.

Under Construction

I watched a Real Housewives episode recently and Vicki (sp?) said she was Under Construction.  Profound, Vick.  Aren't we always?  And as it is so, so is my blog.  My poor, mistreated, unvisited blog.  This is my commitment to get this blog right.  Just like with Vick, please pardon the mess.

My most recent project

This.  This is my most recent project.  It's Cleo. And she's my girl.

Sorry if I get side-tracked, but this is my excuse.

What's that?  You don't like excuses?
Too bad.

She is exactly 5 months at the time of this post.  My sweet, sweet (sometimes very cranky) girl.