Armor

One thing we did for John's birthday was make armor for him and Daniel. One of John's little friends had some (store-bought), and John had said several times that he thought that it would be fun to have that. So we made an activity out of it and used cardboard, aluminum foil and electrical tape. Surely these won't pass the test of time, but hopefully the memory of making them will!

Mother's Day bag

This bag for my mom was a combined effort by me and John. He was the artist, I was the seamstress. I used old dish towels for the lining and straps from my old purse for the handles. So it's very "green," if you will. I hope all you mothers out there had a great day! I wouldn't trade being a mom for the world. My 3 little boys mean the world to me. After giving me a few things he made in preschool John said, "If I had some money I would buy something for you." I think those words were are all I needed!

Vinyl scripture bag

I've been wanting to make John a scripture bag to replace his other one that was falling apart. I bought a remnant of vinyl for really cheap last month so decided to use that. I got the idea to have John draw a picture on his own bag before I sewed it together from The Sleepy Time Gal. I think it turned out rather nice! He drew everyone in our family. I especially like everyone's hair : ) Vinyl proved to be very easy to sew once again.

Book of Faces

My sister Brittney gave me this idea and I absolutely love it. You print a 4x6 picture of each person in your (extended) family with their names on it (I put the names on the actual photos in Photoshop, but you could also glue a piece of paper onto it after you print them) then put them in a cheap little picture book. And there you have it... a book of family faces for your kids to look at! I especially wanted to make this as our families are getting more and more spread out so the kids can always remember everyone's names and faces. I keep this in my church bag and whip it out every Sunday. Joe especially loves this book right now and gets all excited when he sees the faces of his grandmas and grandpas.

Flower clips

I got the idea for these clips from Tatertot Hairclips. Now all I need is a little girl to wear them : ) Pair them with a diaper/wipes carrier and a couple burp cloths and you have a great handmade gift package all ready to go! (Is it weird to have clips that match your burp cloths?)

Burp cloths

When I had Joe a lady gave me burp cloths like this and I LOVED them. One side is cute and the other absorbs and hides spit up well. So I decided to make a bunch to use for gifts. Probably the easiest sewing project you could do, and it's got to be cheaper than buying them. I estimated it to be less than $1 to make each burp cloth (if you can get the fabric on sale). You cut out two 14 1/2" x 9" rectangles, sew them right sides together, leaving about 3" so you can turn it right side out, then iron it and sew the hole closed. That's it! Try it, I dare you!

Diaper and wipes carrier

I recently went up to Park City with my girlfriends and had a "craft night." We had dinner, went hot tubbing, then crafted the night away. We left all the kids at home with our hubbies, so fun! One of the things I worked on was this diaper and wipes carrier. I had never used vinyl for any of my projects so decided to give it a go. And you can better believe I will be using vinyl again! I love how durable it is and that the edges don't fray. I didn't take pictures along the way, but the instructions are easy:

1. Cut out a 22" x 7 3/4" piece of vinyl
2. Sew velcro on both ends of the vinyl: one on the right side and one on the wrong
3. Fold right sides together leaving about 4" at the top for the flap and sew down the sides
4. Turn right side out and there you have it.

I also sewed on a strip of fabric I liked for added interest before I sewed the sides together.
These make great baby gifts!

Felt flowers wreath remake

I made a wreath for Valentine's Day with felt flowers a couple months ago, glued the flowers on a grapevine wreath, and hated it. It was huge and bugged me every time I looked at it. And it took probably 5 hours to complete, which only made me like it even less. Something that takes 5 hours should look amazing, right? SO... I decided to redo the wreath. And now I love it! Took the flowers off, wrapped a styrofoam wreath with felt, then glued all the flowers on it. It's much smaller and much more full. Go here to see how to make the flowers. And now I only have to wait 10 months to hang it up : )

CD organizer

I've been wanting to organize my CD's and have a handful of them easily accessible (and not just sitting all over our CD player and shelf), so I came up with this. It was fast, easy and inexpensive. For my full tutorial go here. We don't have a place to hang it just yet, but eventually I want to have one with all the kids CD's in it, so they can choose and listen to their music whenever they want.