Can't Wait to Grow Up

Let the soaping begin...

2010-08-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

sooo, recently I've been schooling myself in the "online course" of soap making. (i.e. reading every last blog and website that comes up in the google search engine - handmade soap)

The seeds of soaping started when I looked up what to do with leftover beef fat (also known as tallow). candles, blah, soaps, YES! And slowly....who am I kidding, it was a freakin avalanche how fast I devoured all sorts of information on making soap at home. The best oils to use for certain purposes, etc.

I was becoming slowly discouraged as I didn't see any little woman tutorial on making this stuff until I found this AWESOME blog http://smallnotebook.org/tutorials/beginner-soapmaking/. She breaks down EVERYTHING step by step in her own kitchen! She has small children and even had her husband open the olive oil bottle that was too tight for her. It was so encouraging that then and there I decided, yes, I can do this.

What drew me into it was not the possibility of selling it (which I don't really think I will) but the idea that I can put whatever the heck I want into them! I'm glad there isn't some large database somewhere that stores the number amount of money I have spent on beauty products in my entire 25 years of life because frankly, I probably could've been retired by now if I still had that money (all right, slight exaggeration). I also love love love the idea of pairing the soaps with handmade soap dishes and handmade washclothes and giving it as gifts! I usually only like to gift handmade things that I personally would enjoy...and I know I would enjoy that!

I purchased what I felt was necessary for my first batch ever. A facial soap for troubled skin (mine!) that included:
coconut oil
olive oil
lye
water
oatmeal
honey
tea tree oil
I tried to make it as simple as possible and at the moment it's curing (a six week drying period that lye came up with to antagonize soap makers) It's pretty crumbly and I was washing some crumbles off my hand and as it started to sud I sang praises to the heavens and without thinking about it immediately scrubbed my face with the suds. It was tingly and refreshing and just lovely!!!! So either I did something right or the lye wasn't fully gone and messing with my head. I think as soon as I come up with a great way to photograph these bars, and hopefully they get less crumbly as they cure I'll hopefully get a great breakdown blog of this soap. I fully intend on posting my recipes, unless my husband gives me insight to otherwise, which he tends do a lot.

I'm hoping to get a whole family collection of soaps that would include something like this:
plain and simple baby soap
sugar and spice big girl soap
blue salt big boy soap
shea butter mommy soap
peppermint (with leaves from our garden!) daddy soap

I'm hoping it'll be a nice mix and match for christmas presents. But I also have a few others I'd like to try:
super moisturizing shampoo bar
shaving soaps
and probably a LOT more

My husband is going to make me a mold, since the bread loaf pan didn't quite cut it yesterday. Isn't he sweet?! But yeah, I'm pretty jazzed about all this, any tips/hints/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I want the serger!!!

2010-08-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness...fabulous giveaway(http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=9630), almost too good to be true. I neeeeed this serger. I am sick of giving my neighbors earthquakes by battering my bernina to give me serge-LIKE stitches. I have an obsession with stretch knits and I'm sick of making holes in the items to give myself some sort of connecting stitch. I need as much free time as I can possibly get to give to my little boys, my husband and my home. I know the serger would make my sewing projects go so much faster. I don't have the money to spend on any luxury like this....I could go on all day. But pick me, pick me, pick me!!!! I would be eternally grateful:)

brand new bath, bible verse, an organized sewing room and some kitchen things

2010-08-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

I've kind of been randomly creating and organizing things lately. It hasn't really given me time to write, so here's some photos.

I finally attacked our bathroom. I made a new curtain to coordinate with the room you walk through to get to the bathrooms. I made a VERY homemade looking magazine holder to coordinate.
I completely removed ALL the caulk from our shower annnnd OUR SHOWER DOORS!!!!!! How on earth you are supposed to clean those things is BEYOND me. I've lived my whole life with shower doors and envied every bathroom I came across with a shower curtain...i've been taking more showers then necessary the past few days just because I adore having a curtain now. My husband was in charge of replacing the caulk because he's far more experienced than me but he wants to replace the shower walls first.
Added a towel rack to compensate for the lost one on the shower door. Removed our HIDEOUS mirror and shelf and replaced with this slim sleek one from target. As much as I do like it, I hate having things out in the bathroom. We couldn't seem to find any sort of enclosed shelf/mirror combo so I made a snap decision...may be rethinking it now.
I've been wanting to do a wall verse here for a while now but didn't know the exact one. After a quick run through the bible (some distractions on interesting topics) I found this perfect one. I feel like it was a very appropriate family room verse and this is the room you walk into when you enter our house. I had photos there but they weren't positioned very well so I dispersed them in other places throughout the room. Definitely pretty happy with this one.
And if you ever wondered how many things you could fit into one room, I think I may know the answer. I found that bookshelf in one of our sheds, painted it white and FINALLY have a well organzed fabric area that I can work with. Painted my sewing table i got for ten bucks at a yard sale. Broke out my keyboard, well, just because I was sick of wasting it under my bed. And that's tea from my neighbors garden hung to dry.
I found this crate in one of our sheds with the bookshelf and after lots of paint it was perfect for my paper crafting things. I know there's more in those sheds and I could definitely use them...just need to get over the large spiders I found in this one before I start again. Some new mason jars I purchased because I swear every day last week I did some sort of canning and my empty jar supply was dwindling.
I was sick of having my plastic bags hanging in the open from another plastic bag. I used an old tea towel and some elastic to whip this up. Matt thought I was a genius until I explained that this is pretty much a learn-to-sew project that a lot of country mothers have in their homes.

My potholders were so hideous. A light cream color does not belong handling hot, very stainable food. These were actually an old tea towel. Another elementary project that I'm surprised I haven't done yet.

Welp, that's what I've been up to....what could possibly be next?;)

my girly dress from a simple long t

2010-07-31T06:53:00.000-07:00

So I've had this tshirt forever. I adore the heather tan color and the cut is great although a tad on the large side and very long. That's why I never really got around to wearing it. It made me look sickly thin because it was too big and I couldn't wear a belt with it because it was too long (still havent mustered up the courage to wear those gorgeous natural waist belts over top of shirts). So needing an outfit for the day I grabbed this t-shirt out of my upcycle pile. I took two of my husbands white tshirts and cut them off from armpit to armpit.

I cut down the middle on each piece and then serged the two pieces together to make one long circle. I made sure everything lined up so that I could use the original T shirt hem as my dress hem and save myself some work.

I then just hand gathered and pinned the white part underneath the t shirt. I always try to eliminate gathers around the side seams and just leave that part straight...who needs extra volume around the hips?!

Then I turned the dress right side out and sewed a zigzag stitch about 1/4" in from the bottom of the t shirt. I sewed the seam this way because I've had bad experiences with stretch fabric and sewing hidden seams, they just never seam to fall right.

Then I got this idea for the neckline from a fabulous blogger that I wish I could remember who it was! I took a long strip of white from my husbands ts and sewed one spot down, knotted the strip over the sewing then sewed another spot, etc. The two end spots I tied and trimmed to be a tad off center. I guess I could have measured but I'm an impatient sort of woman and like to just eyeball things.

Then after the inital try on I remembered how big it was and sewed in the edges a tad and here's what it looked like:

I was pretty pleased! Something that covered but was still cute. Super comfy and flowy for a cool feel and the ability to catch my boys. I'm surethe knotted part will rip eventually, but that'll mean it's time for a cute upgrade. I'm definitely going to do this with other shirts, i have plenty and it was just so easy, plus the hubby approved, and we all know what a huge plus that is:)

A blog inspired spur of the moment day

2010-07-25T05:29:00.001-07:00

So yesterday I needed a big project break. After my horrible mishaps of pants the day before. The morning was spent making a bridal gift for my cousin's fiance. My first time making this little package and it was so enjoyable I may do it for future bride's in the family from now on. I don't want to be too specific on the off chance that she finds this:) Then I got a call from my husband while I was hanging laundry reminding me to get chicken food, completely forgot! Before running out the door I was disgusted that every time I looked down I could see right down my dress and see my bra. I was sick of having this adorably comfy dress look revealing. So I grabbed an old gray t and patched the dress up a bit. I sewed the tie straps so they would still tie but show less bra strap, then added a strip across the bottom to make the gray on top look less out of place. I chose gray to make the dress more day appropriate.

This was inspired by all the fabulous bloggers that upcycle jersey clothing with jersey scraps. I don't know why I never thought of it, but it's such a fabulous idea. Then needing some better way to keep my baby hairs out of my face on this sweltering hot day I was inspired by no big dill's headband posts http://thedillspiel.blogspot.com/2010/07/charlie-brown-gun-metal-pleats-and.html I whipped up a couple headbands with some adorable scrap fabrics and one to match my current outfit.

My only issue with making headbands is that I can never pick what fabrics I want to use! I should just make some from all my fabrics then I'll never be in need. I opted to just use the plain elastic for the back of the gray and white headband since it matched. I cover the elastic on the tan headband.

Then after searching for a dress in my endless pile of fabric that I had set aside to upcycle I found some of Arment's shirts I had been meaning to use Dana's freezer paper stenciling technique (http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/08/tutorial-freezer-paper-stencil-makenna.html) on. I had immediately thought of finding that eagle image that's used on so manyAmerican items but after finding some cliparts of them they just looked way too involved. Then I came across a little wing badge looking item and knew that was the one to use.

The first shirt is actually the piece I cut out of the freezer paper. I had two shirts and didn't want to waste a good cut out. The second shirt is the actual stencil. I love using our last name initial on our items. W is such a uniform letter that can look manly or girly.

Then after the hubs got home and our day was winding down my youngest insisted on needing a freezer popsicle. I came across this lovely little idea earlier in the day http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2010/04/freeze-pop-holders-keep-those-little.html and told myself, well, next time they want a freezer pop I'll make these. That time had come so I grabbed some cute colorful star fleece I had on hand from a customer, quickly cut something that looked like it would be the right size and sewed the edges down. This honestly took five minutes, tops. I wish I would have done it for party favors at arment's birthday party instead of play dough.

I had given Clayton a rag to wrap around his pop while I worked on his holder. After Arment saw brother's treat he ran into me with a new rag and asked for a popsicle too. I took the rag and said, guess what, i have a special surprise for you! As I put the freezer pop in the holder his little skeptical face turned into a huge smile and he exclaimed "It's Perfect!" Well, that made my night. Clayton waited very patiently while I whipped up another one and ran right away to tell daddy it was "done!"

So that was our lovely little small project blog inspired day. Thank you to all you inspiring women for wonderful activites.

Oh, and here's what the boys worked on while mommy thought they were peacefully playing with their toys.

Thank goodness for goof off and a three year old that would rather wipe walls then get in trouble.

wasted day

2010-07-24T04:24:00.000-07:00

So yesterday felt like a huge waste of time. After sweating the whole day over two pairs of pants, neither came out right. The first pair was a great khaki with plaid accents. Thanks to care and share for all the fabric. Add that to a 4 inch zipper and a jean button and i love the pants! unfortunately their like two to three sizes way too big. I used a pair of his pants that are on the large side (but not this big!) as an example. Possibly overcompensated with seam allowances. ugh, maybe when he gets older.

Then I set to work with two more fabrics from care and share. To try and balance out the sizing issue. The pants are adorable, unfortunately, they were made for a stick figure. They don't even fit around Clayton's chubby bum and thighs. They're completely lined, even all the pockets and I used a cute gingham button. After all that work and the house smelling like mothballs from ironing this old fabric and they don't fit! grrrrrr...

So I need a break from pants, as hard as it is. Either I have to take measurements and make them roomier for a full season fit or I have to just trust in God that I shouldn't be working on these for a little while...we'll see. Hopefully these were just the necessary mishaps before that great fitting pair of pants.

winter wardrobe 90-minute-shirts

2010-07-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

All right, so my jobs are on hold for the time being and I was bored. I whipped up all of Arment's shirts! I took pictures for a little how-to but Dana's tutorial (http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-90-minute-shirt.html) pretty much covers it all. The only thing I did different is I just used #8 stitch on my bernina to attach the ribbings. I experimented for the bottom hem on each shirt.

A navy jersey with a kelly green ribbing, bright yellow thread and a lettuce edge hem.

This was a gray T size 2xl i bought from a used clothing store. I didn't have enough fabric for long sleeves so I used the red ribbing to make a long sleeve. I kept the original t-shirts hem for the hem of this shirt. I used a bright blue thread and left the sleeves unhemmed.

An olive green jersey with a brown ribbing and tan thread. I made the hem a circular dipped and left it raw. I accidentally mess up and made the lap shoulders go around to the back...i don't feel like fixing it now, maybe later or see how it wears on arment.

A great camo waffle knit that was on super sale at joanns, black jersey and a tan thread. I used the camo to make a folded hem along the bottom.

I had so much of this blue ribbing i thought it'd be fun to try a shirt with the ribbing as the main part and jersey as the edges. I used a navy jersey for the edges and a bright yellow thread.

I made these shirts on the large side so hopefully they'll last all winter and hopefully they won't be too big to start out, we'll see. Overall I'm pretty pleased with them. As usual Arment's not into them, but after some helpful coaching from dada he usually warms up. Can't wait to get started on the pants!

preparing for winter

2010-07-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

My new idea is that I will make almost all of Arment's clothes...that way when he grows out of them Clayton can have them and it'll be a nice memory for them, cheaper and keep me busy. I found some wonderful fabrics at care and share and mixed them with some joanns picks. For some reason I have this idea that there are brown outfits and there are black outfits...I do NOT like mixing the two colors. Even when it comes to shoes. So my hope is that most of the clothes will be able to mix and match with brown and black. Here's my picks on some great long sleeve jersey t's with some colorful ribbing. I'm going to use Dana at MADE's great tutorial for the "90 minute shirt" http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-90-minute-shirt.html super easy and a classic boy design while giving it some frill with colorful fabrics and threads.

If it were up to me my boys would look like they were on their way to the country club every day. I just LOVE the prep style on boys, but it's really hard to do that without crossing the schmuck looking line. Luckily my husband is really into just basic and plain and I think we balance each other out perfectly. Here's my pick for some pants. My plan is for him to have all his pants church ready. I am NOT a cargo pocket fan. I really have no reason why I'm not it's just every time Arment gets a pair of cargos on I feel like they look so funny. So using a pair of pants he got as a hand me down for a pattern and some info from another great tutorial of Dana's http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-flat-front-pants-pockets.html I'm hoping to whip these fabrics into some great pants. I want to find some great flannels to line the pants and colorful while still muted threads (contradicting, i know). I even bought some 4" zippers and jean buttons to try and make these pants look as little homemade as possible. Making all these clothes look dorky would completely defeat the purpose.

Hopefully I'll b able to whip this ripstop nylon pick into some class A snowpants for the little man. I have to find a great fleece to line them and I've already been thinking of elastic ideas.

So other than the linings and extra fleece and flannel for some great pajamas (and most likely a pack of long sleeve white hanes t's) we're pretty set for creating! I found this great tutorial on this lovely blog for an adorable sweatshirt http://sewingin-nomansland.blogspot.com/2010/07/looking-like-big-boy-toddler-cowl-neck.html. I think I'm going to get one of mine or my husbands millions of old sweatshirts from the closet to use for this. luckily we have a great dress coat and snow coat that still fit from last year and he has a TON of hand me down button up shirts for church and all his belts still work...i'm pretty darn excited!

I'm sure I'll need a break every now and then. I can just use my new jar of peppermint tea for a nice relax session. thanks to the neighbors for giving me a few stems and teaching me to dry them. I really think it's sparked a tea growing interest in me...first I may need to purchase a tea pot and tea ball:)

I'll make sure and keep you posted on these fun upcoming boy projects. I know personally I always get excited when I come across little blog posts about little men. I'm pretty busy with the whole mommy/seamstress thing but I do LOVE sharing...hope to get back soon!

Cow carseat makeover

2010-07-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

So yesterday if you had come to my house I probably would have threw my children at you and thrown my sewing machine out the window, gotten into the car and booked it to the nearest masseuse. I've been seeing posts about making carseat covers and I thought, "I can do that". There is a large difference between, I can do that and I want to do that. I DON'T want to do this EVER again. here's a before shot of Arment's carseat, on the left:

It was made up of three pieces, seat, back and headrest. I prewash and dried them. I was only going to interchange the gray parts with cow...as hard as this was I can't imagine doing the WHOLE thing.I traced the gray parts onto newsprint to make a pattern.

Then cut out the pattern and traced it with washable marker onto the back of the fabric.

I cut out the fabric and started the sewing. I opted to just sew the cow overtop of the gray. i started with the quilted lines and strap holes.

Don't ask me why I marked one of the quilt lines on the right side of the fabric. I was perfectly able to see the previous quilt line through the fabric when sewing and I just had to wash this part againwhen i was done to get the pink line out. Then I did the hole part at the bottom. I ripped out the previous binding and resewed it with the cow print included. It looks hideous and prevented me from using the previous binding on the rest of the project.

Then i disconnected the black part to sew it back together including the cow print. It had silver piping along this seam that I just ripped out.

I was satisfied with this process. The cow fabric was a twill so it stretched perfectly over the the old cover. Instead of replacing the old binding I used the selvage edge of the cow fabric to make a sort of single fold bias.

And if you're crazy enough to attempt this, don't cut the holes on the piece before you have sewn it all down. my cut holes didn't exactly line up with the slits for the shoulder straps and it made for a crappy look. Plus when sewing around the elastic parts that connect to hooks on the actual carseat I had to make sure I didn't shorten or lengthen them or sew them completely to the cover.

And here's where I stopped taking pictures. This project was taking FOREVER. I usually have to finish my projects before the hubs gets home or else he has a tizzy over the mess and isn't able to see the niceness in the finished project. I have to say this piece was the hardest, but that doesn't by any means say that the other pieces were easy. This was an annoying thing. I wanted to do Clayton's carseat too, but it was 4:00 and I was done. Maybe another day when my boredom turns me into a sewing fairy. When I was getting it all together Arment was saying, "I don't want my cow carseat!" Basically biting my tongue off I got it all back together and then all he wanted to do was sit in it and have his picture taken, so that made me smile. My camera battery had died at that point, when it was back up here's the photos I got of it in the car:

I'm pretty pleased with it but Dear Lordy do not ask me to do this for you. I will probably start foaming at the mouth and head for the hills. Hats off to you if you attempt this!

The perfect M/L Gdiaper insert

2010-07-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm a relatively new cloth diapering mama. I've been sort of going through an extremely frugal stage and thought i'd give cloth another go. After the first attempt and having two in diapers my husband got peed on through a cloth and that was the end of that. But i thought this time, with the oldest potty trained and just one in diaps I'd be able to give it an honest good try. After searching around for cheapys, buying one of this and one of that to test off of diaperswappers.com...great for all sorts of mamas, cloth diapering or not. I used 80 dollars worth of babiesrus giftcards (thanks credit card company!) on the only cloth they carried, gdiapers. I was so wary of them, they looked weird and how in the world could they possibly work...that's basically all we use during the day now. I figured out that I wasn't a pocket or all in one lover.. (how on earth are you supposed to get those completely clean and stink free while not harming the waterproof?!?!) We use covers at night (love bumkins and a WAHM Mama Marsh, she's on facebook, super cheap and awesome items) with velcro! The snaps kept leaving marks on my child and it just made me sad for him. And I didn't waste ANY money on inserts. After selling off my tester diapers I set out for the perfect inserts. Covers are great because you can just use prefolds...i added a strip of fleece down the middle on them to wick the moisture away. It works so great you'll think your child hasn't peed when touching the front of the insert, but pee will easily drip out the back. Now, gdiaper inserts were a tad more difficult. I started with just a rectangle of old beach towel layers covered with flannel, workable, but bulky...and I wasn't happy with the towel frays coming through the sides. The disposable inserts they sell for gdiapers just seam like defeating the purpose of cloth...plus you'd still have to wash the plastic liners and they're expensive. The gcloth (gdiaper cloth inserts) were expensive as well. gmoons (sold by a wahm) were not good. they looked promising, but bunched up like no other. the only thing the elastic did was make it more bulky and getting a poop out of it! forget it. So here's what i came up with...I ordered some ZORB samples from wazoodle.com...supposedly the newest and best absorbing material for cloth diapers, it works great but I don't think it'll change the cloth diapering world as we know it. I made a template from an old paper bag. It's thirteen inches long, 4.5" wide on the ends, 5" down from the front it's 3.5" wide and the corners are rounded (just traced an edge of a glass around the corners then cut). I made it narrower where i noticed my rectangular inserts always bunched up on my son...from walking, playing, climbing up the walls, etc.

I grabbed old fleece scraps and my zorb.

I opted for this strip of indian style horse fleece that i bought for a cowboy project...three years ago. I usually try to do the part the touches the skin in white, just because it's easier to open the diaper and see a poo. I traced the template with black washable marker onto the fleeceand zorb.

I cut about a 1/4 inch away from the tracing markings on the fleece. you'll need two fleece pieces for each insert (one for the top and one for the bottom). I was making three inserts at this time so i cut six flannel pieces, three horse and three white.

Then trace the template onto your ZORB, or whatever absorbent material you want to use, microfiber, terry cloth, etc. I put two absorbent layers in each insert so I cut six pieces of ZORB for the three inserts i was making.For the absorbent layers you want to cut just inside your markings.

Then you lay down your bottom layer of fleece (for me, horses.)Mark sure the markings are facing up so you don't see them when you're done.

Then lay two layers of absorbent on top, lining them up with the markings on the fleece as best as possible, you should have an edge of fleece showing through all the way around.

Then you put your top layer of fleece on top, for me, white. Again, make sure the markings aren't showing, so they'll be hidden when you're done.

Then pin all the way around. Make sure you put the first pin puncture through the absorbent materials, and the second pin puncture through just the fleece layers. Also, since fleece has a lot of give make sure you put a lot of pins in, close together.

Thn judge which side shows more...when flipping my pinned inserts I noticed the white stuck out more then the horse. So I put the insert in the machine, horse side up. I lined the horse layer so it stuck a tiny bit out from the presser foot. Straight stitch all the way around.

Then you want to cut the excess fabric pretty close to the seam. Here's a photo of a cut piece on top and an uncut piece on bottom. The great thing about fleece, other than the moisture wicking is it doesn't fray, so you don't have to worry about the unfinished edges.

Then you put theinserts back in the machine. About 3/4" to 1" away from the edge you do another straight stitch all the way around. This adds structure, durability, and keeps the absorbent layers from shifting and bunching.

And you're done! My stitches aren't very straight. I made these because it was laundry day and we were on our last insert so I rushed the job.

Now you want to place them in the gdiaper with the short tapered end near the front (the part that covers the "peeps"). The photo looks wrong, but with Gdiapers the velcro goes around to the back, in an effort to keep kids from taking their diapers off...apparently they never met my child, but I'm sure I'd have a lot more strippings if the velcro went around the front.

Then put the insert in the plastic lining. I just love these inserts and hopefully you all will too! Oh, and laundering. I launder all my inserts together, with the rags and wipes. Hot wash, little detergent and a lot of bleach. then Line dry and you're good to go!

tried and true work jean patching

2010-07-07T05:02:00.001-07:00

For one day I'd like to just observe my husband at work. The amount of tears/holes/rips/wearings he comes home with on his jeans is unbelievable! When I first got my Bernina it was so confusing my husband figured it out for me (a fact he remembers very well). I practiced with his work jeans and the darning stitch. It's basically a back and forth straight stitch. Easily doable with a reverse button on a machine with no darn stitch. After trying patches on the outside, just darning, etc. he now has a preferred method of work jean patching. First off, I save old jeans that didn't fit or were beyond repair to use for patches. Here's a recent rip I fixed.

I cut a patch from the spare jeans big enough to cover the entire area of the rip and cut any large frays from the rip.
Here I've experimented with doing it with pins, ironing, etc. What works best is laundering the jeans with the rip in them. Then patching them fresh off the line. I don't pin because it's just frustating, brakes needles, is hard to position on the machine, just plain annoying. I line up the one end of the rip in the machine and put the patch BEHIND the rip. Kind of just feeling with my hands to make sure it's lined up enough behind it to cover it. Then I darn stitched one line of the rip, turned and darned the other line. Again, you can still do this with a straight stitch and just hit the reverse button and pull on your fabric to get the stitches to go across the rip.

I have a denim blue I use most of the time. But this denim was so light and I already had white in the machine. My husband hates when I leave spare thread on the ends, so i trim them close.
Then turn the jeans inside out and cut out all the edges of the patch and thread that aren't sewn down.
And there you have it! A quick trip to the sewing room will make our trip to the work pant store a little further away and it'll hide my hubbys cute bum from the world during his next workday. Why this works more than others is that it makes for minimal sewing site of the area (not like a big patch on the outside). The added patch on the back as opposed to just darning gives it more durability. Trimming the frays and sewing the entire area eliminates snagging it and gets rid of uncomfortable bulk (especially good for knee patching. My husband would come home with sore knees from kneeling on rigid sewing lines). Good luck and hope your husband approves too!

my bored creation

2010-07-06T04:37:00.000-07:00

So yesterday i was really bored. I tried fiddling with this and that going through our sheds. I had some new spray paint cans burning a hole in my workroom. I came up with a new decor for an unneccessary room in our house. For those of you that have been over several times, I'm sure every time this room has looked different. I just don't know what to do with it! It's this open room right before our bathroom that I guess is supposed to be a dressing room of some sort. Anyways, the things I had in there were pretty but didn't say country, and it was too cluttered. This is what I came up with:

Don't ask me what the blue things are supposed to be. They're not really supposed to be flowers. I just turned the music on, grabbed old house paint and put my paintbrush to work. I'm not very happy with it, but whatever, it works, and I'm sure this room will get an update sooner or later. I spray painted the switchplates a great red clay color and spray painted one of my french inspired hat boxes light blue.

I grabbed a mirror from our chicken shed that I've been dying to use. It's old and the mirror part is fading and spotty. It practically fell out of the frame. I nailed it to the wall and grabbed the paint brush to make my own custom frame on the wall. The table we got for free and it was an unfinished white that acquired marker spots while in our house. I sprayed it the same red clay color as our switchplates. I then whipped up a seat cushion to make it into a bench with some gorgeous fabric I got on sale that was begging for light.

Then with a coordinating pretty fabric I whipped up a one seam valance, no lie, it was so freakin easy I think all my windows may get a makeover...

And there it is, the fruit of my boredom. I hate our radiators, wish I could do something about that, but it is just an apartment. I'm sure you'll see posts on this room again. It's a free for all on my inspirations.

lazy mode of making project lists

2010-07-05T05:11:00.000-07:00

So the past couple of days I haven't felt like doing ANYTHING! well, anything besides sit on the computer and wait for inspiration. Here's a free pattern for an adorable women's top I'd like to try for next pregnancy:
http://www.sewmamasew.com/store/media/blog/SMSJCasaUndauntedTop.pdf
Don't really have a good fabric on hand now and I thought it would work great for hiding the first few months of a pregnancy so I'm blogging it to keep it on hand for when the time calls...hmmm, guess i can't tell you all when I'm making it or you'll know something's up:)

A very UNglamorous hooded beach towel

2010-07-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

This was a super quick fun project for the boys. For Arment's birthday he got this hilarious hooded beach towel that makes him look like buzz lightyear.

But as normal, a tinier person looked even cuter in it! And poor little clayton just had a regular old beach towel.

So judging by the high quality of walmarts hooded towel I once again pulled out the phrase: "I can make that." Luckily Arment also got a regular beach towel for his birthday (buzz lightyear of course) therefore making his old buzz lightyear towel irrelevant. So leaving all of us with one regular beach towel there was a buzz one leftover, and it was huge compared to Arment's hooded towel. I layed the hooded towel flat over the old buzz towel, making sure to position it so that buzz's face would end up on the front of Clayton's hooded towel.

I cut the old buzz towel around the hooded towel, giving a generous seam allowance since I new I'd be folding it over twice to hem. I just left the two original hems on two of the sides, why make more work for myself! So i folded over the two raw edges to completely hide them and pinned. I didn't even try to iron because i was pretty sure it was just going to burn the terry cloth.

Then just a straight stich around the two edges to close them off ina nice neutral white.

Then I place the hood on top of the folded leftovers of the old buzz towel and cut around. leaving a smaller seam allowance on the inside part because i wa just going to serge that, while I needed a bigger seam allowance around the face because I was going to double fold that.

Then ifolded the old buzz towel in half. Folded the hood to look like it would when worn. I measured across the hood (got 11" inches) then I measured along the middle of the old buzz towels fold line to make an 11" cut.

Then i took my time figuring out exactly how i wanted to attach the hood. This is usually where i have to rip the seam ou twenty times until i get it right. Luckily i had it right the first time and serged around the edges. then I straight stitched twice to keep the serged edges down and for more durability.

And Clayton's new hooded towel is all ready for a trip to the beach! They seem unneccessary but when Arment again and again wants us to wrap the towel around him it's nice to not have to fix this towel again and again and it blocks sun, keeps them from chills...they're just nice. Maybe you've got an old beach towel lying around that could use an update.

reclaimed barn window frame

2010-07-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

The good thing about living on an old family farm is that it has a lot of rustic little sheds littered all over the property. The great thing about having a mennonite grandfather is that he never throws anything out. So when searching through one of the sheds for a bucket look what i found!

Right away I was pretty sure I was going to use this to make a picture frame. I sanded it down, removed a couple of the nails up top and wiped it up. the hinge screws up top and the hinge at the bottom were completely rusted to the wood, so I opted to just keep them and add to the rusticness instead of completely ruining the window trying to remove them.

I grabbed some red wood paint and mixed it with water to create more of a red stain and keep the original wood grain shining through. Plus it dried super fast. I decided not to paint the hinge since i sanded off most of the rust and thought it would be weird looking with a red hinge.

I then grabbed a sealer spray i had on hand to seal the paint and wood. I already knew this was going in our bathroom and thought it best to give a nice sheen while protecting it from shower steam. I cut out thick paper templatesto protect the glass while i sprayed.

Then I went through my decorative paper stack and photos. This was almost harder then the actual work of reclaiming. I wanted a paper that wasn't too red and I didn't want to make a blue coordination too obvious, i didn't want it too busy to distract from the photos. Luckily I had the perfect one. Flipping through albums a while back Matt and I found the one with Arment and the wheelbarrow in the garden and we were like "why don't we have this hanging up!" I knew I wanted that photo in our bathroom, but didn't have a suitable frame so I put it on the backburner until now. Then, since we have too many photos of Arment around the house and not enough of Clayton to balance out I chose two of Clayton. The middle one is him at the Daniel Boone Homestead last fall. Perfect since that is his namesake (Clayton Boone). The far right one is Clayton from last summer peeking through one of our windows, caught him doing it one day and thought it was too cute of a photo op to pass up. I was very pleased with the picture selections when I realized they all kind of had that rustic farm theme, perfect for the frame. I just cut the decorative paper large enough for each glass portion then measured the pictures to fit in the middle and just used double sided tape to affix the photos to the paper.

Then using the thick paper I used to block the gloss from getting on the glass I taped the photos onto the back of each glass portion. I know, high falootin photo backs, I'm classy like that;)

I screwed a screw into either top side of the back of the frame for the mounting. Attached a piece of tight twine.

Then added a little accessory to the hinge with some brown raffia tied through the holes into a bow on top.

And here it is! Our brand new custom photo frame. A splash of red full of family history, perfect for the Waltenbaugh home.
Finished just in time to go to the carnival with friends for a fun evening out. What makes it complete is that the hubby approved:)

My talented boys

2010-07-01T05:10:00.000-07:00

So this is what our table looks like after every craft session.

Not only is Arment proud of what he makes, but so is his mama! Even Clayton has some skill with the brush. I normally pick a couple to hang on the fridge and throw the rest out but I thought it would be great to have somewhere to hang these until the next craft session. So I grabbed an old gift and some clothespins.

A friend of mine bought me this adorable wooden plaque after I had Clayton and I just never got around to putting it up. I felt bad about having it hidden in my closet but am glad now that I came up with an even better way to use it. I painted the clothespins a fun yellow for a little punch.

Then drill holes through the top back of the clothespins and coordinating holes between the words on the plaque.

Then gently twisted the pins to screw in the screws, adding a little wood glue.

Then i painted the screws yellow and touched up the clothespins a bit.

The plaque came with a hanger in the middle back, but I thought we needed a little more security for little hands so I drilled a large hole in each top corner.

Then another trip to the hubbies workshop for a level, hammer and decorative nails. It doesn't quite match the kitchen decor, but close enough. It added a touch of whimsy too, plus we wouldn't have to transport the artwork far and the boys could put it up themselves (or take it down again and again and again).

Here it is! Our new artwork display for my talented boys. Arment drew lots of shark pictures (on the left) and he always does a really colorful piece (left middle). Clayton's usually just has large rips, but I still think they look great, I may be a little biased:).

our clothesline makeover

2010-06-30T04:54:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Dana at MADE once again for a fun inspiration on my day's activity yesterday. I've been wanting to make a bag to hang on our clothesline for our clothespins for a while now and if I gave our clothespins a quick makeover (http://www.dana-made-it.com/2010/06/colorful-clothesline.html) they would definitely deserve a new home. I grabbed some canvas scraps and got to work.

I top stitched the edges on the bag just to give it more red with the thread and more durability, and to look cleaner.

I cut the slit for the opening on one side big enough to fit my hand a few clothespins through then created the binding for it with some canvas.

I sewed under the side edges of the top and sewed it to the top of the bag, addinga strip of velcro for attaching to the clothesline.

then sewed the coordinating strip of velcro to the top of the upper flap while sewing it's sides under and got a new home for our future clothespins.

I set our clothespins on a scrap piece of siding from my husbands workshop and grabbed the handy red spray paint. it's the only color besides black that we had on hand but it worked great. that's what we do around here, nuetrals with a splash of red.

luckily my boys allowed them to dry undisturbed.

And there it is, our handy dandy new clothespin bags for our madeover clothespins.

with plenty of room for more clothespins that i'll need after the rest of our line goes up. I do A LOT of wash here, especially with the cloth diapers and i'm dreading the winterwhen i'll have to use the dryer.

Taking advantage of the great sunny day i then did something on my own i've never down in my life. I mowed and weedwacked theyard! After Arment (a three year old) showed me how to start the mower:)

Talk about a workout! I think i'll take this up instead of those stupid P90x dvds. Hopefully this inspires you to give your outdoor haven a little makeover!

hand painted dress

2010-06-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

So it's been freakin hot out...every year this happens and every year i'm like, why don't i have some cute throw on dresses (undergarments optional) to just keep me cool! it seems like we either stay locked inside with the a/c on or mommy has to wear something that exposes straps here and there to go outside. So i started with this dress. I grabbed my go to pattern for the bodice area and some great jewel tone fabrics i had laying around. I love this pattern because it has a halter top, square top, wrap top, and sweetheart neckline top all in one pattern! plus they look super great on, accentuating without giving it all away.

I started with the top and opted for a criss cross sort of wrap one.

It's fully lined and the fabric wonderfully was a thicker twill. i sewed all pieces together and gave them a top stitch, because if you have boys like mine, durability is key...actually, i blame my boys all the time, but frankly i just like to be able to live with my things so i'm not the most careful person with posessions. I used a lovely light blue thread that is normally saved for my husband's work jeans repairs...i just thought it paired lovely with the colors.

then using the length of the purple i cut a block for the front and sewed it on, attached elastic under the bust to give it some shape. then i sewed the edges down.

i didn't have much purple to work with so i forwent the measuring for the back piece and just used what i had left. I folded over the top for elastic to follow the underarm line then added a strip of green to encase elastic followingthe under bust line.

Sewed the two pieces together using my bernina's serge stitch, i really need my own serger. I used my hand dandy dressform to get the straps perfect and hemmed the bottom edge. Voila! a new dress, but it needed a little embellishment.

So i stuck with the light blue accent and grabbed the fabric paint. I'm pretty happy with my first hand at a paisley print, although i feel it looks a tad juvenile...oh well, you're only as young as you act, right? After waiting the full 72 hours to wash with the paint on I think i'll try and sell this in my etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/christaW22 first and then if that doesn't work I have a new dress! I've said it before and here it goes again, I LOVE my dress phase!

cash shirts for the nephews

2010-06-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

So during my shopping excursion on Saturday I picked up a couple of super cheap super cute T's at GAP. With new t-shirts for my little nephews in mind.

I opted to use the back of the raglan T...because this is what my crazy mind was thinking...First passers by will be like, what a cute little kid! then when they do a double take they'll go what a cute shirt!, yea, i'm weird. And I figured tiny babys are mostly laying on their backs sleeping anyways so I stuck with the front for thelittle black t. Using double coats, red, and a hand mixed gray this is what happened:

so there ya go girls! hope you like, and if you don't, don't worry, i'm giving you the family discount;);)

flip-flops

2010-06-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

For some reason within the last couple of months of lost several dear flip-flops. the one pair i've had since high school. The part between the toes ripped right out while i was running down our hill with our number two son (clayton) making sure he didn't do a quick turn on the tricycle and topple over. Showing what a good mother I am the concern over my shoes made me stop and clayton continue, but luckily he was okay. The second gorgeous pair were thrown on for a quick trip to the cable company to get a box upgrade and while standing there Arment did some sort of gymnastic that incorporated one of my shoes so again the middle part popped off! I wasn't mad, just grossed out that i now had to stand in the cable company barefoot. Anyways I was trying out the rest of my flip flop stash with mild success until my mom showed up at my house the other day with a couple of new pairs. I love it when she does this because although i love having new things, i HATE shopping. they were great and fit wonderfully. A dark brown plain pair and then a supported white pair. But you can't really bring anything in this house without it getting an upgrade. So i set off. For the brown pair I had this great dark brown canvas with white leaf accents that i sewed into rosettes.

I am by NO means an expert on rosettes. i saw them somewhere and did my normal "i know how to do that" and just wung it. kind of sewed the strips together so the edges were hidden then hand stitched one end, yanked on the thread and it twisted into a bunch and then hand sewed the ends ontop of one another. Then I grabbed the hot glue gun and glued the rosettes onto the flip flops. Since i could just see myself out grocery shopping and my shoes start falling apart (embarressing!) i hand stitched the rosettes around the flip flop bands too, plus then i could add some cute bead accents on the big rosettes.

Then the white ones got a fairly simple upgrade. I loved everything about them except the stupid logo underneath the heal. My husband asked, why bother? nobody even sees that. but I'm a girl and I know I've looked at feet from behind and seen the top side of flip flops. I simply grabbed the good old fabric paint and painted over the the logo in a yellow, two coats.

then added our wonderful last name initial to cover up the copyright portion in a bright teal.

I'm so excited, I already tried out the brown ones on a long shopping trip and they were great. I feel like the big rosettes actually make my sasquatches (thanks for the nickname hubs) look smaller. Now I won't be embaressed to walk in front of people with the white ones on.

camera bag

2010-06-26T03:55:00.001-07:00

So sitting at the computer yesterday trying to think of something to do I thought my poor camer could use a hip makeover. I recently made a bag for a customer in some great coordinating fabrics that i really wanted to use for myself somehow. When my husband bought me this great nikon a couple years ago we thought we'd use the camera bag from his old non-digital camera, which was fine, but it had no room to grow and frankly, was hideous.

So i grabbed the fabric remnants from my sale and got to work.

I love making bags like this because cutting the fabric is so easy once you have the measurements. sewing together the outside was super easy.

The inside was a little more difficult. I added a complete velcro pocket on one side to hold little things, like camera cards. I made a padded divider to contain the camera on one side and all my cords on the other (any maybe one day a new lense?!?)

And i really wanted to do one shoulder strap going from side to side but I have bad experience with those just bending the bag and making all my hardwork look terrible so I opted for tote bag style handles instead. I secured them to the outside of the bag first then sewed the outside and lining together after adding more padding in between. the only thing is that i used an 18" zipper when i really should've used a 24". but hey, it's all i had it coordinated wonderfully, and it wasn't any harder, just have a few inches on ones side where the bag doesn't open.

And i love it. I'm so glad i did it. I've realized if i really love something i use it a lot more. I even made a matching strap cover for my actual camera that has a great little pocket to hold my lense cap, so hopefully this means i'll never lose it again (my husband said i'd still find a way).

Special thanks to my customer for these great fabric leftovers, to Dana for the inspiration after posting about her laptop bag, to Glenda for the idea of the lens cap pocket and for God and my family for giving mommy time to make something.

Afterwards it was so hot out and the boys wanted to play, so we washed and waxed the car.

Isn't she beautiful? hopefully know we'll be inspired to tweak everything that needs fixing.

have a great day, and make something great for something that a needs a little sprucing up.

Johnny Cash Shirt

2010-06-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

So those of you that know us know what HUGE Johnny Cash fans we are (or in June's words, John). Heck, we named our first son after him! (Arment Cash) I've recently become obsessed with these awesome tutorials you all post and have been deleting my sewing stash trying them all out. Arment recently had his third birthday and normally we get a Johnny Cash shirt for him from a friend, but this year we didn't, instead of sadness I felt excited for an upcoming project! Using an old black t-shirt of my husbands and Dana's absolutely necessary boy tutorial for the 90-minute-shirt, found here:http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-90-minute-shirt.html I whipped up a summer T. I took the thriftiness a step further and just used the ribbing from my husbands shirt for the neck ribbing on Arment's. Then after searching everywhere for a cute johnny cash image to freezer paper stencil (http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/08/tutorial-freezer-paper-stencil-makenna.html) I couldn't come up with anything simple enough so I racked my brain for a cute kids t in johnny cash fashion. Now all you die hard fans would know John has a GREAT children's album, if you didn't know that, now you do, so go buy it! really, it's so great. Anyways, one of his songs has lyrics like this:

Why is a fire engine red?

because 2 and 2 is 4

4 times 3 is 12

12 is the length of a ruler

a ruler is queen mary

queen mary is a ship

a ship sails on the water

a fish swims in the water

fish have fins

fins fought the russians

russians are red

(dramatic pause)

a fire engine's always rushin so it's red too

it's such an adorable song so here's what i came up with!

I found this awesome etsy seller that was just looking to get rid of clutter in her workshop and she gave me such a great deal on all these tulip soft fabric paints. Here's a link to her adorable photo ready knits for infant photographers:http://www.clickknits.etsy.com/

luckily I was born with steady hands and was able to get the front of his shirt done freehand

and the back of the shirt was done with freezer paper stenciling. thank you soo soo soo much Dana for all the fabulous ideas, they're hard to find when all you have are little rough and tumble boys to dress:)

And it's a success...well, at least I'm happy. we'll see how many random people I get asking me what the heck this shirt is all about. Thanks to his Aunt Megan for coming up with the answer to "why is a fire engine red?" without any coaching and making me feel better about this unique shirt. I've already got two orders for Arment's cousins (I won't forget girls!) Hopefully it inspired you to make something unique that screams your family name:)