Quick Owl Baby Toy

Preston is chewing on EVERYTHING right now.  And I like when the things he chews on are easily washable...as in I can throw them in the washing machine, not hand wash!!!!

Homemade By Jill (LOVE her BTW) had a super quick tutorial on there today for making a crinkly owl baby toy.  Perfect quick project for naptime today!

I love that it's not super girly and I didn't even use the pattern, just free-handed the cutting.  So quick.  And I used fabrics from my scrap box-Score!

 Pretty cute.  I think it would make a great baby gift with a matching blankie!

We have lots of babies coming up among our friends so I think I know one of the things I'll be making!

He's diggin it. 

And on a side note...we are supposed to get like 14" of snow in the next few days....lots of time for projects to keep me and the short ones busy!

Superhero/Queen cape

A friend of mine recently asked me to make her son a Superhero cape.  I have never made one because Miss Peighton is so not into Superheros!  Sounded easy enough.
Although, now that I think about it, I did make a cape (for an adult friend of mine) out of Crown Royal bags! 

After digging through my piles of fabric I found the perfect QUEEN fabric to make a practice one for Peighton.   It's a Mary Engelbreit fabric and I'm pretty sure I bought it when we lived in North Carolina and have never used it...fabric hoarders annonymous here I come.

I googled around to see if I could find a free tutorial and this is the only one I found.  You can buy her pattern but really it was too simple to need one!

It says things like "It's good to be Queen and The Queen of Everything."

Pretty cute little queen!

Much cuter that the Crown Royal one and WAY easier too!

Fab new skirt!

How much do I LOVE this skirt!!!  It was so kind to be waiting in my inbox this morning....might to have go buy it later today! 

Makes me think of Spring, warmer days and skirts with cute heels.

It is from the Sew Daily Pattern store if you are as inspired as me today!  Lots of great downloadable patterns on there, which is my favorite kind because I need instant gratifiction!

Fabric Tic Tac Toe Travel game

In a few short months we are going to set sail with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and most importantly, Snow White and Cinderella.  So, I have been brainstorming small, inexpensive things to take along with us because in order to sail with Mickey, we must drive, fly and then drive again to get to him! 

For Valentine's Day Peighton is getting a rolling backpack from Pottery Barn Kids so she can tote all of her own treasures easily!

Today, I came up with a travel tic tac toe game to put in her back pack.  It was pretty easy, and took me about 45 minutes to complete.

Here's what I did:

I cut 2 6" x 6" squares for the board. 
On top of one of them I added 4 skinny strips for the grid. 
I did NOT finish the edges of the polka dot fabric.  I like frayed edges and it was a lot faster.  You certainly could iron the long edges and then sew them down. I just sewed them down. ;-)

Then I added velcro to all of the small squares.  Since mine is for the short-legger crowd I wanted to make it easy to play.  Added bonus of the velcro-easy to store too!!!!!
(I sewed one extra piece of velcro to the back of the game board since there will be one piece that does not fit on the game board.)

After the velcro was added, I put right sides together and stitched around the edges leaving a small hole to turn it right side out.  Then I top stitched the edges to finish it off.

Since my game is for Valentine's day I chose to do two different colors of hearts for the game pieces.  And quite honestly, I didn't want to make X's and O'S!  I cut out 20 hearts, a front and a back for each heart.  I made 5 of each color (the extra one goes on the back).
They each got a piece of velcro stitched on and it's done!

I love that it is small, lightweight, and easy for little fingers to play.  And all the pieces are contained within itself-LOVE that.
I think this would also make a great game to put in my "restaurant bag" after we get back from our cruise.  Whenever we dine out, I take along a bag of small things to entertain us while we wait for our food and the natives get restless.  This will be a great addition!

Fabric Sticker Book

Peighton has a serious love for stickers.  LOVES them. 

She also adores "reading" to her brother but gets frustrated when she doesn't know all of the words.  Well, you're 4 and there's just not a lot of words you know yet!

I came across this tutorial.  Looked super easy and quick so we tried it.

I cut mine about the same as hers (10" x 4") and it worked out well with the size of laminating sheets I bought. My Joanns did not have the laminating sheets required but I did find them at Staples. 
I also bought some small laminating sheets to make some "mini books." 

I will admit that hers looks much neater than mine does, but thankfully, 4 year olds don't judge!!!!

It only took about 10 minutes start to finish. 

Peighton went right to work creating her first story book.  Princesses, dogs and maybe some ducks went into this one.

Then of course she read it to Preston...it got quite interesting.

This one, he's just happy to be hanging with the girls today.

Looks like someone needs to fold laundry....hope they get that done today too!

Afternoon fun

I will admit that afternoons can get a little crazy around here. 
Naps are over, the big one is hungry and bored and needs something fun to do, the little one is usually hungry and bored and has probably pooped himself.  Good times.

We decided on Smores for a snack today.

Then we needed something to do...
So, today we decided to make something messy.  Our favorite kind of activity! 
I saved a lot of my books from teaching and they are coming in quite handy now that Peighton has reached the "Preschool stage."
One book is called "Glues, Brews and Goos."  Right up our alley.

This one is super easy:

Mix equal parts shaving cream and glue with the  mixer for a couple minutes. 

We used a few of my jumbo box of craft sticks to do the spreading. Peighton is not always into having things like this on her hands.  Craft sticks are great.

She was loving it...and ended up with it all over her shirt.

This one was busy learning how to feed himself Gerber Puffs.

He was quite pleased that he could do it himself!

And while they were happily doing thier thing I got to make dinner!  We're having Creamy ham and egg casserole and an Apple Puff Pancake tonight!  Breakfast for dinner-Peighton's favorite!

Vintage pattern LOVE

How much do I love that my mom saved all her sewing patterns from when I was a child?!?!  It is fantastic.  I am having so much fun using them to make things for Peighton. Some require a little bit of updating or altering but nothing too hard.
Most of the only cost a dollar too!  Crazy-I just bought some last week that I think I paid $17! 

Peighton loves it when I tell her that I had an outfit "just like this one!"  Although mine was probably not nearly as cute!

Here are some she gave me this weekend:

 Isn't it fun to see the models!!!!  The girl with the collared shirt on might be my fave-who really thought that fabric was cute enough to put on the cover????

I doubt I will make all of these (some are a bit too dated for me) but some of the pieces are really cute made with the right fabrics and accessories! 
I started with the top left pattern that is a simple jumper.  I am not into the shoulder ruffles so I left them out.
And I used one of Peighton's current favorite things...zebra print!
Here is what we came up with:

I think it needs a funky flower pinned onto one side or the other but it turned out really cute. 
Peighton is currently in a "I only wear dresses" mode so it's fun to give her lots of different options.
I am seeing her wear this one with some bright leggings and her adorable pink cowgirl boots!

I think I'll let her pick which one I make next! Stay tuned...she'll probably have me make some weird pant suit or something!

Peighton just could not wait to wear it to school today.  So she chose pink leggings and t-shirt to go with it. I will have to work on getting a flower on it later!

American Girl MANIA

It has hit us.  American Girl has come into our lives and we will never be the same.

"Nellie" joined us in August when Peighton was in my little brothers wedding.  She was thier flower girl and they gave her Nellie as a thank you present.  She couldn't have been happier.  The only downside of Nellie initially was that she only came with one outfit-the horror!

It's a good thing Peighton has a crafty mama!  In no time we were whipping out clothing, accessories, pajamas and many matching outfits for Peighton as well!  And I must say, I am SO GLAD that I can make these things-have you visited the American Girl site and seen thier prices!?!?!  Whoa.  Good gifts for the Grandmas to get Peighton!

Here are a few of the dresses I made the past few weeks.  I am going to attempt to use my newfound scanning skills and try to scan the A-line dress pattern that I drafted.  It is so super easy.  I just hope that I can get it on here!!! No promises, but I will try.

And here is Nellie, Peighton and Nora.  We affectionately refer to Nora as our friend from the other side of town...

 

My Mini Picasso

Today's activity was making shampoo paint and then painting beautiful pictures with it!  Peighton loves any chance to paint. She would literally paint all day if I let her.  She is currently taking a painting class at our local rec center and LOVES it!  She comes home covered in paint (last week I found paint in her ear...) but I guess that just means she was using every ounce of creativity she possesses. 

The recipe was super easy and Peighton was able to do most of it.  The teacher in me loves the math lessons that are worked in when we have to measure things! 

Shampoo Paint Recipe

3 t. shampoo (we used wild watermelon shampoo!)

small amount of water (not sure how much we really used, I just started with a few teaspoons at a time.)

kitchen mixer

food coloring

Whip the shampoo and the water until it is foamy. 

This was really fun and we will for sure be doing this again.  It made a great activity for a cold winter day in Iowa.  

It was a lovely foamy texture and our kitchen smelled very watermelon-y!

This is where Mr. Preston decided he needed to be during our painting time!  I'm sure he is going to be in on the action in no time!