Blue and Gray Nursing Cover

Another nursing cover I made for a friend, this one is gray and blue for a boy! You can see a gray pink version here.

Veggie Tales Birthday Cake

I made this Veggie Tales cake for a friend.  I thought Larry looked a bit scary, but everyone else seemed to like it.  Happy Birthday Christian!

Thomas Cake - Again!

This is my best Thomas cake yet!  Last year, I made the same one for Joshua, and I've also made it for Caleb's 4th and 5th birthday.  With one more boy coming behind Joshua, I have a feeling this pan will be used again!  Thanks to my cousin Whitney for the pan!

And then we celebrated at Chuck E Cheese!  Happy Birthday Joshua!

Monster Truck Birthday Cake

Happy 8th Birthday to my firstborn son! He chose a monster truck cake for this birthday. I think he was hoping I'd put real trucks on that he could keep, and I did! I found them at Dollar Tree, so it wasn't too pricey! The bottom layer was chocolate and the top layer was vanilla, per Caleb's request. It's covered in chocolate frosting and chocolate cake "mud". It was very simple! Below is a picture of Caleb helping his little brother bowl during his birthday party. He is growing up and I am so proud of him!

Lego Cake for my Birthday Boy

Caleb turned 7!  He wanted a Lego birthday party, so that's what we had.  He really wanted his Lego boat on top of his cake, which I was happy to do for him.  I've been trying to cut out artificial chemicals in our food, and I really didn't want to use food dye on his cake.  This was the perfect solution!

Here he is enjoying lunch with his friends.  They each got to make their own pizza, and we had chips and apples with peanut butter cream cheese dip!  I drew Lego faces on yellow cups for the decorations, which turned out cute!  They built cars out of Legos and then raced them down a ramp (made out of a stack of books and a large cutting board).  Mostly, they just played together though.

Chunky Monkey Birthday Cake

Making a monkey is not as easy as one would think!  But my son said it was awesome.  I'm sure Christian thought he tasted awesome too!  Happy Birthday buddy!

Sewing Kits for Kids

This was the kids big Christmas present this year, a sewing kit!  I had a lot of fun making this kit, but man did my hand hurt after all the cutting and hole punching!  (Plus, I made 3 kits!)  It includes: an embroidery hoop, shelf liner, burlap, scissors, a homemade needle threader, yarn, thread, instructions, pony beads, large buttons, lacing cards, cardboard sewing cards, plastic canvas in varying sizes (magnets, picture frame, bookmark), a no sew fleece pillow kit, a hanging heart kit, a small stuffed dog kit, a chicken sewing project, stuffing, and a needle book!  Wow, that's a lot of stuff when you type it all out!  I found lots of inspiration online, at these sites: Fifth Wizardry, Maya*Made, Little Family Fun, Kids Sewing Projects.

I can't find the chicken printout link for you today, I'll try to find it later, but it was a cute activity!

Here's a picture of Caleb working on his stitch card.  I got the idea from The Studio.  I was surprised that they did such a good job!

I blogged about the felt needle book.

I used my Cricket to cut out their names and then adhered them with spray adhesive.  They turned out cute!

And that's it.  Have a merry Christmas!

Army Vest - Dress Up Play

This was Caleb's birthday present.  He loves to play dress up, and had been asking for an army outfit since this past Christmas.  I finally made him one!  I bought a yard of camo fabric and this neat package of buttons from JoAnn's.  The buttons are: boots, a round one that says courage and honor, an army tank, and one that says United States.  The dog tag also came with the buttons.  I used a key ring to attach it to the zipper as a zipper pull.  

I did not use a tutorial, I was making it up as I went.  I had to rip out several seams... but I'm happy with the end result.  Caleb was too embarrassed to even try it on at first, but then he decided he liked it, and even wore it to the bowling alley.  Caleb and Rebekah both loved bowling, we had so much fun!

The picture below shows the inside.  It's all lined.  The brown fabric is just something I had on hand, I did not have a big enough piece of camo left.  There is a loop of fabric on one shoulder that he can hook something too, and then another loop at the bottom.

Basketball Cupcakes (Happy Father's Day)

Happy Father's Day!  I am especially thankful for my husband, who is an amazing daddy!  And I also have a wonderful Step-Father, that I always took for granted, but he was always there for me, thank you Doug!

My church is having a bake sale today, so I had to make something manly.  Basketball cupcakes it was!  These are so easy to make, just ice the cupcakes with orange frosting and then pipe on some black lines.  I have also done other balls in the past.  Baseballs can be done with white icing with red laces piped on.  Tennis balls can be done with lime green icing (very interesting to make that color!) and white lines.  Golf balls can be made with white icing, and then using the round end of a paint brush, make little divots all over.

I did have something odd happen to my cupcakes while they were baking.  If you're a facebook fan, you got a sneak peak at this strangeness last night.  It's like the tops crusted over right away, and then the batter ruptured out of the top like lava.  Very weird, I have no idea what caused this.  Has this ever happened to any of you?  I had to cut off the "cupcake warts" before frosting them (Kevin's term), but they were yummy!

See?  Very weird!

Paper Dolls

These are the cutest paper dolls ever!  I used my Cricut to cut them out, using the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge.  Then I laminated them using a new laminater I just bought!  I wanted to use it for this project, and I know it will come in handy for school.  Velcro dots (a lot of them) make them stick to each other and the board.  The board is one of those thick foam poster board.  I covered it with felt, using rubber cement and hot glue to stick it down.  I used only scraps that I had already, so I was impressed with the scene I was able to create!  The back of the board is covered with plain pink felt.  The rough part of the velcro sticks great to the board!

Here are all the pieces I made for them.  The top set is for Caleb, and the bottom is for Rebekah.  I would love to make more pieces, including more animals, buildings and trees, etc.  I ran out of time for more though.  The Everyday Paper Doll cartridge has so much on it, it's my favorite!

I have to admit, they took longer than expected to make, and my hand was really sore from cutting them all out, but aren't they cute?

Little Boys Tie with Velcro

This tie is for my 5 year old son.  He likes to wear ties to church to be like daddy.  I used leftover fabric from another project, and some velcro from my stash, so this tie was free for me to make, yeah!  I found the tutorial on Very Homemade.  It was very easy to follow, and didn't take long at all.  It's a little difficult turning it right side out, so she recommends using a safety pin to help, which it did.  I might make another one using one of my husbands old button down shirts.  I didn't think of that idea until this morning...

The neck strap has velcro on it, so the tie never has to be undone and the little boy doesn't have to stand still while you try to tie it, a great feature!

Bean Bag Game

I can check another Christmas gift off my list!  I just finished this bean bag game for my kids.  The bean bags are jean pockets filled with lentils and rice (I ran out of beans), and just sewn closed.  I found the idea on instructables.

Because this game will be played indoors, I didn't want pottery to be what they were throwing at, so I made my own game mat.  I used a heavy duty brown fabric that was in my stash, and used a blue jean leg to make the binding.  I used fabric markers to make the circles and numbers.  A bowl worked well to make the small circles, and a 14 inch cake pan was used to make the middle one.  I couldn't find anything bigger, so I drew the large circle free hand.

I flipped it over and drew a tic tac toe board on the other side!  The marker did bleed through the fabric in a couple spots, but not too many.  You could avoid this by using two pieces of fabric and drawing on them before sewing them together.  Then I drew X's and O's on the back of the bean bags.  The blue O's are Caleb's, and the red X's are Rebekah's.  The front of their bean bags have the letters of their names.  I hope Caleb won't be upset that Rebekah has a few more, but her name is longer!

Do you think they'll like it?