A new bag for Spring!

I love a new bag. 

Especially when it's bright and springy and big enough for everything a mommy needs!

Oh and it's got to be cute too.

Here is my new bag:

Definately cute and springy and seeing how it's as wide as my chair it is for sure big enough!

That's my favorite chair too if you were wondering.

I got this pattern (and 2 others) from The Tiny Seamstress .  Love her patterns and her blog is super cute!

She has a lot of very fun girly bag patterns. 

This was The Darling Bag and it was pretty easy to make. Although I could probably make a bag with my eyes closed by now-I LOVE bags.  There were no zippers or anything crazy to put in though.

So, although I really love my JuJu Be messenger bag that I use as my diaper bag, I will be throwing this one in every now and then too! 

There are far too many cute bags out there to use just one!

Upcycled T-shirt dresses!

I must be feeling Green lately-I did another recycled clothing project and this one might be my favorite so far!

I used the Sienna T Shirt dress from Lil Blue Boo as a pattern.  Great pattern as far as the pieces but to be honest I never opened the file that has the directions!  I've made enough shirts like this that I didn't want to read the directions-I just wanted to start cutting!

When I was at Goodwill looking for my Men's shirts for this project I also picked up a bunch of fun T shirts with The Sienna pattern in mind!  I found some great ones!  The four leaf clover with Cy in the middle is probably my favorite!

The only semi-difficult/annoying part of this dress was doing the neck.  I took my seam ripper to the original neck line so I could use it again.  I dislike seam ripping.  But the end result was worth it and looks really good.  I had to make it smaller to use the old neckline though. 

Here is my first attempt:

She LOVES it (as do I!!!!) and I am probably going to have to wrestle this one off her to wash it!

The pink stripes were left over knit from another project and there wasn't much left-that is why the stripes are vertical on the chest part but I really like it!

One of the best parts about using old T-Shirts is that you use the original sleeve for the new, smaller sleeve, which means the sleeve is already hemmed for you! Bonus.

The one on the left of this picture is one I learned from but I will share anyway.  The design on the shirt was too far up, like right at the neckline.  So, part of the design ended up in the neckline.  It's just ok-nowhere near as cute as the green and pink one!  But still a good play dress for this summer.

And the dress on the right was my second attempt at making a dress out of a Men's shirt like I did here yesterday.  Still needs hemmed (that is one crazy LONG men's shirt) but I want to try it on Peighton before I hem it.  I even used some of the leftover purple stripes from the first dress!

I got quite a few more T-shirts that I'll be hacking up someday soon-I can't wait!

I even got some boy-ish t-shirts to make into hoodies for my little guy! 

I would definately recommend this pattern-it is quick, fairly easy, and uses up old T-shirts you probably have laying around!

Men's Shirt to Child's Dress!

I went to Goodwill in search of some fun men's shirts to make into dresses for Peighton.

I had seen this tutorial on the Made blog and thought what a great idea and so inexpensive, not to mention a great way to recycle!

I picked up this purple one and a really cute orange and white striped one that I thought would turn into some fabulous dresses!

I started with a pattern that I already had and liked.  Probably could have done it with just a shirt of Peighton's though too.

Oops. This one is upside down!  But you can see all my pieces.  I cut the turquoise knit off another shirt to use as a waistband and give it a little pop of color.

 When I got to this point I thought how cute the bottom part would be as a skirt!  Next time.

It turned out so cute!  I have since added a little flower rosette to the middle with a little button in the center. I thought it needed a little something. 

What a fun summer dress this turned out to be!

I loosely used the directions on MADE for this one although I did the waistband with knit on mine.  I think on my next "Shirt to Dress" project I am going to try doing the waistband on top of the dress as she did in her tutorial!

I also picked up about 10 other shirts while shopping at the Goodwill-I can't wait to start cutting them apart too!

Cookie Cutter Painting

Yes, another painting activity.  The girl loves to paint. 

And so we paint.

Today, we busted out some of my hundreds of cookie cutters-no joke.  I had a bridal shower where everyone had to bring a cookie cutter along with thier gift. I pretty much have any cookie cutter we could ever need!

We chose a whole lot of SPRING cookie cutters (and some random lips) because we are really looking forward to spring.  Yesterday, Peighton showed me a spot where "there's no snow so we can probably get my pool out tomorrow."  Ummmm....not yet my friend.

This one's pretty simple.  All you need:

Cookie Cutters

Paint (we used finger paint)

Some big paper

Paper Plate

Spread the paint on the plate and let em go!

This is great for making your own wrapping paper-what Grandma wouldn't LOVE that!!!

 She was displaying the Lips cutter here.  We should have used those for Valentine's cookies!

 We spread the paint a bit on the plate to make it better for dipping.

Love the Springy prints she made!

Shiny Milk Paint

Just a fun one we like to do!  And I love that we can just go to the pantry to do this one-no crazy ingredients needed!

Shiny Milk Paint

Sweetened Condensed Milk

Food Coloring

Mix them together in a bowl or tight fitting lid.

When the paint dries it will be a nice and shiny!

Peighton was in chrage of putting in the food coloring which is how we ended up with these colors!

She was too busy multitasking with her valentine sucker to take a picture!

Heart mini meatloaves!

I got this idea and the fabulous recipe from my wonderful friend, Kathie.  Her blog is just fantastic and we are always trying out her recipes!

Love her mini meatloaf recipe and the fact that we used a heart shaped cookie cutter just made Peighton's day!

They were super yummy!  I am seeing many more "shaped meats" in our future if Peighton has any say in it!

The Floor Nanny

This crazy thing called The Floor Nanny came through my inbox one day from one of those supersaver baby sites.  (I'm not sure they really save me money because I seem to be a sucker for kid gear and simply MUST have things that look fun and useful-especially when they tell me it's on sale!!!!) 
Anyway, it looked useful and pretty cool-until I saw the price tag!  The main part is $75 and the slipcover is another $35!  And all it is is a stuffed square of fabric!!!!!  Thought to myself....I can totally do this.

And I did.  The dimensions of the real one are 38 x 38.  I bought enough fabric to make a perfect square when folded on the bias. Most fabrics are about 45" wide, so I bought 45" of two fabrics. I did one flannel, one just quilting cotton so that it's reversible of course.

I made this a few months back so I did not take pictures of the process, but really it's pretty straight forward.

I took my squares of fabric, put right sides together and sewed around the entire square leaving an opening for turning and eventually stuffing.

Then, turned right sides out and pressed.
Next, I measured in 8" from each corner and marked a dot-this was to make the inner square that makes the "floor" part of the floor nanny.  Another way to do this is to make an 8" square out of paper, put it on each corner and mark the inner point.

Next, I connected my 4 inner dots to make my inner square.  I used a fabric marker and a yardstick because I wanted it to be as straight as possible and I don't always sew straight!

I sewed that square all the way around leaving no opening, this does not need stuffing.

Next, I stuffed the entire outer part through the hole I left.  THis was a bit hard-it's hard to get your arm in all those angles!!!!  I stuffed it pretty full because I wanted it to support the baby well while he was learning how to sit.  Once it was stuffed to my liking I closed up the opening and it was done!

I did not make a slipcover for it.  Just didn't want to.  I figured I have so many big baby blankets (who doesn't have like 20 or so of them?!?!?!) that I can just throw one of those over it and that's what we do-works great!

 He loves it!  It's nice that it's not as restrivtive as the Boppy-which we use too-but this is a bit better.
He's getting better at sitting but still does his share of flopping over, but that Floor Nanny cushions his fall every time!  And instead of crying he just smiles or plays on his back for awhile.

 I pulled the blanket back in this picture-you can see how the middle square I sewed is well defined here.

 It keeps all his toys right there beside him too! Bonus.

It's even good for lounging!  Man he's cute too.

I also whipped up a smaller one for traveling to Grandma's house, friends houses or just to use on a different floor of our house! We love it!!!