I’m working on a few baby projects for some upcoming baby showers, but there isn’t much to show this week. I’m trying very hard to actually work instead of look through my books I got for Christmas. But check these out. A little inspiration for a rainy day…

My Birdie partner found this gem for me. I cannot wait to try every single bag in this book. They are all phenomenal and a lot of them use pillow covers and unexpected fabric sources, so stay tuned for lots of bags this year!

And my brother-in-law just brought this one over and I have already read it cover-to-cover.

So many fantastic ideas. I’m itching to try a few of them. Maybe I’ll even get started on Christmas presents…for next year.

Merry Christmas! We have obviously been on Christmas hiatus this past week. We had a lovely Christmas complete with lots of relaxation and fun, and then the girls and I sped off to Michigan to visit family. So we are here having an extended Christmas and will be back to California before the New Year.

I was only able to complete two new projects as Christmas gifts this year. I do have a few piles to complete when I return home…to my new serger! (Oh, yes Santa was good to me this year.)

So the first project was a new runner for my sister’s table.

The color in this photo is not great – but the middle fabric is a great gray/khaki brocade that was in the clearance bin at JoAnn’s. Love it when you find something like that.

The second project was for my crafty Mom. She needed a way to transport her markers to her scrapbook classes and dates with her crafty girls. So I used the idea of the crayon roll-up and adapted it to fit my mom’s copic pens.

I really like how hers turned out. I then made similar little roll-ups for the girls’ new DS’s. I haven’t taken photos of them yet to post, and I need to make some revisions to them now that we have used them for a few days. There are a few things that don’t seem quite right on them. All things to deal with next week.

I hope you all can share your Christmas goodies with us today, too! Have a great week.

I am frantically finishing up aprons and supercapes to get orders out the door before Christmas. As well as doing a few Christmas gifts of my own – so not a lot to show this week. But I think I can safely show our Christmas card from this year. Most of them have trickled out of the house and hopefully found their way to their destinations.

When Emma saw the front of the card she exclaimed, “Mama! How did you find Mickey’s kind of writing?”

I promise it was a totally legit (free) font that I downloaded. I wanted to keep with the “all things Disney” household we have going on right now.

Have a fun (crafty!) Tuesday…

Here I was all ready to break out some photos of our Boutique and other craftiness from the past two weeks or maybe a sneak peek into our Christmas card, but then we opened our mail. And, um…wow.

Yeah, our stack of unfinished and un-assembled Christmas cards? They don’t hold a candle to what we found in our mailbox today.

They are works of art. All courtesy of (and copyrighted by!) Nana.

Seriously. These photos don’t even begin to do the cards justice. They are all hand-painted and assembled by Nana, with some help from her elf, Papa.

This one was Em’s – I LOVE the birdies!!

And, Addie’s. She nearly wet her pants when she opened it…”Awwwww! And it has a cat, Mama!” she screeched.

And this is only three of them. All different, all assembled with care. I think she does like 100 of them or something. Yes, I think we may have to award her the Crafty Award of the Week.

Anyone else have some Christmas crafts they can share? Please post your cards, so it will force me to feel guilty and assemble mine and get them in the mail. K? Thanks!

It has been all sewing…all the time for the past week around here. So I’ll make this extremely quick, and I can get back to it.

Excuse the photos, of course, I just took them and they are horrible quality and flashy. Well, like I tell the girls, “you get what you get and you don’t have a fit!”

Last week’s pillowcases are this week’s pillowcase dresses ready for the boutique this weekend.

Well…most of them, there is a stack over here that are in various stages of production, but by this weekend we will have probably close to 3 dozen dresses.

We are also working on some other iPhone holders and aprons too…basically we are just getting what we can done, and going with it. We found out that this boutique is MUCH larger and a MUCH bigger deal than we thought. Soooo…there is that. But like I said, we are just going to get what we can done.

Some other things I worked on this week. J.’s old sweater has become a new bag for me – which I took all over Disneyland and LOVE. (The outside is J.’s sweater, obviously. He doesn’t wear crazy bird print sweaters.)

Someone else likes it, too. (And she is sporting ‘hair by Addie’ today. Hmm, yeah.)

She also likes the apron we made for her friend Emma.

I have a few extra of these cupcake tea towels that I am going to make into aprons, too.

What crafty goodness do you all have for me today? I will need a sewing break soon, I’m certain.

Well, my plans for a very crafty past week were seriously thwarted. I was able to get the six capes finished that had to be done by the birthday party this Thursday.

Jamie (my Birdie partner) and I had put a Birthday Party Package in the silent auction for Em’s school last spring and a friend of ours bid, and won, the package. So her twins are having their party on Thursday and we are working on getting the “package” done. The capes are done – now we have to finish the party favors and cupcakes.

And then? THEN, I really need to get some crafting done. We have a boutique on Dec. 4th and 5th and I do not have anything to put out yet. So yes, this week we are for sure going to need to do some serious sewing. Plus I got a whole box of fun de-stashed felted scraps from my friend Jen – and I’m itching to make some good stuff.

But I’m just not feeling very productive. Today was one of those days where I felt a little like a hamster, just running on the wheel. Where I nearly felt dizzy as every hour I kept switching “hats.”

I had the “mom” hat on this morning – cajoling girlies to get ready for school, making lunches, cleaning up kitchens and loading laundry. And then I dropped them to school, kissed J. goodbye for the week (his last work trip for awhile – hopefully!) for the week and then ran back to school to put the “teacher helper” hat on. Back home again to finish up the PTA newsletter (“editor” hat) and make myself somewhat professional and presentable as I ran to a client lunch. My “professional” hat did pay off as I picked up another client (a cool artist!) and website project. Back home again, picking up girls and back in “mom” mode or rather “homework nazi.” Then switching gears and into the “soccer coach” hat and a long (almost last!) practice and back home to put on the “chef” hat. Then off to put on the “Girl Scout leader” hat and a service unit meeting and finally back home to plop the girls into bed. And it is only Monday night. No wonder my “blogger” hat isn’t quite working smoothly tonight.

But, tomorrow is another (packed) day, so I had better go plan it out so nothing falls through the cracks. I promise I am going to get to reading everyone’s blog this week. So leave me some good stuff to read!

It has been all about getting stuff crossed off the old project list around here this past week. A lot of it is stuff that I need to do for school and not all that exciting. But I managed to finish up those drapes I put out to the internet universe last week. I knew if I said that I had to finish them I would feel compelled to actually do it.

Crummy middle of the night photo again, but you can kinda get the idea of the brown silk – and the “puddling.” I was really happy with how they turned out and even happier that all six windows are done. My friend Jamie remarked last week that I’m good at execution, and I guess I am. The more things that are on my to-do list, the more I get done. But, If I don’t have a lot on my plate, I don’t seem to accomplish anything.

Speaking of executing…Jamie used the tutorial I did for Em’s birdcage dress and Addie’s all-time favorite t-shirt that was getting too short and she made this fantastic dress for Ad’s birthday.

Do you think Addie loves it? She wore it to a birthday party moments after she put it on, and has been asking when it will be out of the laundry ever since. Yes, I think she does indeed adore it.

Well, I am off to finish up Halloween costumes. Guess what Emma has decided she wants to be? I’ll give you a hint, or two. I’m off to find orange make-up, dye a wig green, and I just finished up these overalls…

Any ideas? (Oh, and she is on a total Roald Dahl kick, if that helps.)

Projects, projects, projects. It is all about getting some projects finished, or rather…started, around here this week. Even if by getting them “started” just means digging out the fabric and moving the stacks to my ironing board.

The first project probably looks a little familiar for it is version 2 of last week’s project. I just gave it to my friend Jamie to beta test for me. I think this one works much better than mine from last week. I like the loop better – it is better secured, and I lined the lines up (front and back) a little better, they are still not perfect. And, yes (Kimberly and Arizaphale) – the material is just felt and I stitched the lines on. Although I’m thinking you could use up bits of fabric if you wanted to and just interface them to make them stiffer. Also don’t really need the stitching detail – and can customize the appliques for just about anyone/anything! It is a fun project.

Anyhow, I’m much happier with version 2 and I think we already have some additions/changes for version 3. I do think I need to heed the advice I’m always passing along to Emma. “Slow down and think it through…” I’m always in such a hurry to see the finished project sometimes I get to a step and realize, “hmmm…should’ve probably done that before I stitched those last two somethings together!”

I also told my friend that I would put together some vintage pillowcase dresses for her Boutique in December. So I dug into my stash of pillowcases and found 23 that will work nicely. I washed them, sized them, and cut them out…but that is as far as they are right now. I’m hoping the stack will remind me to work on them.

I’m also determined to make some of these little “study quilts” for Christmas for some girlies I know. I ordered this fabric to try one for Em, but now that it is here, I’m feeling like it is a little baby-ish. Not that I can’t use it to do a quilt for a baby who might come along, but I’m not sure I want to use it for hers.

Addie’s, however, I think that might be just fine. It is puurrrrrfect!

And I’ve got some fun fabric for pillows for the playroom.

But my most pressing project (the one that I’m posting here in the hopes that it will propel me into action and finally get it done) is the living room drapery. I had been hunting for fabric/drapes for awhile, since we had ugly blue ones in here and then we inherited some cool red chairs from a friend and well, that blue and red just wasn’t working out.

So I started the living room makeover many months ago and finally found these cool drapes at a ridiculously low price (never EVER could have made the drapes for the cost). The only problem was they didn’t come in the 108″ length I need for all SIX windows.

See? Just a wee bit too short. (Yes…I know they also need a pressing. I was kinda hoping the wrinkles would “fall” out, but nooooo! Couldn’t be that easy, right?)

But, like I said the price was really right, and I found some chocolate silk duponi fabric that matches perfectly, so I’m doing a horizontal stripe of chocolate at the bottom of the drapes to make some of that cool fabric “pooling” that I really wanted in there. In theory it all sounds good, but it is just so frightening cutting into all of that silk. Not to mention, it is incredibly slippery and puckery.

We’ll see. But now that I’ve said I’m doing it…documented here in “internet stone” I feel like I really have to do it.

Three soccer practices, one game for Em, one game for me, and a 24-hour “layover” at home for J. in between his travels – so soccer and travel preparations pretty much took over our life the past week, and not a lot of crafting, unfortunately.

And my cousin is coming to LA to visit today, we are soooo excited but I’m thinking I won’t have a lot of time for crafting this week either.

I did mess with a little iPhone pouch after admiring these many weeks ago, and then my friend lost/had her phone stolen and I figured it was time to work on some of these for all of my friends – maybe as Christmas gifts?

This one is very unperfect, so it will remain mine, but I think I figured out how to do them much faster and easier…

…next week. There is always next week.