O' fun for... finally blessing my baby

Okay, so here's my post. We finally blessed Ellie a few months ago, and I made her blessing dress. I feel kind of guilty, since the boys didn't even get white outfits, but I guess it's just that much more fun to dress up a girl. It's okay- life evens it out later when the girls grow up and bear children and then clean up after them for the next 20 years...

I found enough white fabric from my Grama T stash to make the dress, but I wanted it to be a little fanci-fied. I decided to use the handy decorative stitches on my machine o' awesomeness to detail the fabric. It is hard to see in the picture, but the flower stitching in rows with white thread was something I added. It took longer then I planned, but turned out pretty cool:



I had fun trying out more fancy stitches on the bodice and sash, and did elastic-thread smocking on the back of the bodice. I didn't have a pattern, but smock-y dresses don't need to be too tailored.



I finished it off with little daisies on the skirt here and there, and then made a yellow and white bracelet to match. We put a huge Shauni-flower (that's just what we call it now, Shauni!) on her head to get the whole Cindy-Lou-Who thing going on, and then she was so cute it hurt a little:




And there you have it! That is the thing I am most proud of making over these last 6 months or so. Now I just need to get my craft room all back in one location and I can make baby-clothes and bows and whatnot like a madwoman. Right now half my crafty-room items are in the almost-finished craft room in the basement, and the rest are mixed in with a lot of junk in my old craft room upstairs, soon to be Ellie's room. It's amazing how much easier it is to do things when they are all organized! Plus, sometimes it's just fun to go look at all the colorful things on their shelves or in their cubbies.

I'll keep posting now- I have Christmas projects and wedding jewelry coming up on the never-ending list o' projects.

O' Fun For... thwarting my attempts at plumbing

...or at least my attempts to sport the plumber's choice in pants.

It's all thanks to Spandex. This is rather shocking in light of my history with the stretchy sparkly fabric. One time in high school during cross country practice I made a wayward comment about Spandex involving the drill team, which was overheard (and misunderstood) by a very indignant Drill Team coach, who then passed the information on to the rest of her team. This lead to my being forced into writing an apology to the entire drill team on behalf of the cross country team, and getting cussed out in the halls by some drill teamers who were very defensive of their Spandex. (Who then turned away in unison and marched down the hall, arms flapping and heads bobbing in time to their marching... no, but that would have been a lot cooler...)

So who would have thought my saggy pants savior would have come in Spandex form?! I am humbled. And now, to show my new found respect for the elastic fabric of the gods, here is my...

STRETCHY PANTS TUTORIAL!

This is a picture-riffic tutorial on how to make maternity pants that actually stay up! It's true! They'll be there to cover your rapidly expanding bum through it all- the sitting and standing, the bending, the climbing of stairs... you get the idea. Let's begin...

You'll need:

*one pair of jeans, preferably low rise with a bit of stretch
*one big ol' piece of Spandex- not too thin a piece, preferably the kind that stretches up and down as well as side to side. (check out SpandexWorld- they have a minimum purchase requirement, but you could get extra to make a swimsuit... you know, for that time far off into the future when you decide it is safe to wear a swimsuit again...)
*plus a tape measure, thread, pins, all that sewing stuff

I have made a bunch of these now, and since they do- to some extent- grow with you, the specific size of the jeans you start with doesn't matter too much, as long as they are a few sizes bigger than you wear while not all knocked up. Really it's all about whether or not your preggo thighs want to fit into them or not that really matters.

STEP ONE: measure around your jeans about one inch or so below the waistband, all the way around. Now subtract a few inches from this, and you have the length for your Spandex measurement.

STEP TWO: Cut a rectangle from your spandex measuring 12 inches x the measurement you got at the end of step one.

STEP THREE: With right sides together, fold the Spandex rectangle in half so the 12" sides are touching. Sew a seam along the 12" side. (See the picture, my words are not working...) You should now have a Spandex tube. Try it on around your middle and make sure it is snug. Then take it in or taper the seam or whatnot as needed. In my example I needed to take the seam in more at the top then the hip area, so it tapers at the top. Just how snug to make it depends on how thick and stretchy your fabric is. The point is to make it stay put without your needing to hold it up while still not crushing your internal organs. Cut off extra seam allowance from the side seam.

This pic shows the seams:



This one shows how the tube should fit, (and what I have learned in my Photoshop class...):

STEP FOUR: Really quick before you forget, hand sew the zipper of your pants closed about halfway down the fly, like this:

STEP FIVE: With right sides together, pin your Spandex tube to your pants. The tube is smaller than the pants, so stretch the tube to fit as you pin. Make sure to line the tube seam up with one of the side seams on the pants. Now, hopefully to clarify and not confuse, I'll explain what you should have here. Looking at the pants you should see the pants inside the tube, and the tube is inside out and upside down. (The part you measured for your hips is on top and pinned to the jeans, the part you measured around your rib area is scrunched up awkwardly around the thighs of the jeans. If that was confusing just ignore it...)

It should look something like this:

STEP SIX: Use a zigzag or some stitch with a bit of stretch and sew the tube to the jeans about 1/2" from the top. (look at the picture above...) Start at one side of the fly and work around until you get to the other side of the fly. Don't sew over the zipper. Your machine won't like that. Also be careful for metal rivets or snaps or things like that as you sew.

**Reinforcing all seams by sewing twice or something is recommended since they will get a lot of strain put on them as you get freakishly huge**

That's it! Pull that panel on up and ta-da! Enjoy your pants! You can wear them before you get too big by zipping the fly like normal and folding the waistband over your hips to keep your pants firmly in place, like a belt. As you get larger and larger, you can unzip the fly (to the point where you sewed it shut at least) and pull that stretchy tube o' fun up to yer armpits there under your shirt.

Here are the pants worn with the waistband folded down:


And here they are worn with it pulled up:


Now go do some squats! No, that sounds tiring. Maybe instead put on your stretchy pants and go eat some brownies while you watch American Idol. Yes. Try that.

o' fun for... endless crafting

Sorry it's been so long! To make up for it, I will post something new every weekday this week. Oh yes.

To begin, here is a link that you will love. (Or else!) It's the Top 100 Tutuorials of the year as ranked by http://www.thelongthread.com/ It is full of crafty goodness, so stick your kids in front of some Disney and get to it! (What? No.. that's not what I really do... that was just a joke...)

I recently made the kimono from a tutorial on the list. It is the 0-6 month size for a friend's baby shower gift. (I missed the shower, but late gifts are still fun, right?) Now I just have to deliver it before I decide to keep it for my baby...



No, I won't keep it. I'll just make one for Ellie also and then my friend and I can have matching wise-yet-comfy looking baby girls.

Enjoy the tutorial fun!

O' Fun For... finalizing vasectomy plans

It's a GIRL!!!

Yayyyyyyyyyy!

Last Monday was the ultrasound, and Dr. Anderson says he's 99% sure it's a girl. He never says 100% about girls in case the kid was just really good at hiding something from the ultrasound camera, but he gave us the 99% instead of his usual 98% since the view we got left very little possibilities of where a boy could be hiding things from us.

Here is a picture of Ellie: (yes, that's probably going to be her name. James is very attached to it, and I like it, too. I think the majority of her Terrorist days are behind her, although the name may come up again during her teenage years...)



This confirmation gave me the green light to start making a bunch of little girl stuff. However, making anything while pregnant adds complications. The kinds of complications that could be avoided if my brain was still processing and sending information like it should. (Although, I'm not sure it ever works entirely, the absent-mindedness lingers long past pregnancy. It's just nice to have an excuse for a few months.)

I made what should have been a simple sundress. It was still relatively simple, a one-afternoon project, but the lack of functioning brain cells created significant setbacks. See the brown ribbon around the bottom? I was planning on using it all along, but it ended up serving an extra purpose when I used it to hide the seam created after I sewed the ruffle on the bottom wrong-sides together, so the seam ended up on the right side of the dress. I decided the ribbon would hide the seam, since if I picked it all apart and tried again there was a pretty good chance I would sew it the wrong way yet again. Seriously.

Here is the finished dress on a blue hanger, since this whole pink thing is still pretty new to us:



I have also started on these stuffed blocks from the tutorial on the London Mummy blog. I am putting the letters of Ellie's name on them so James feels secure about the fact that we will be using that name. When I showed him the dress, he suggested using some white thread to embroider "Ellie" across the front. I decided against labeling our baby. I know my brain has functioning issues, but I am pretty sure I can remember her name. At the very worst, I'll call her "Tobraellie" as I stumble through all our kids' names to find the right one. Although, I think the clothes-labels might have helped at church. Think about it: someone goes to leave, picks up a baby from the Relief Society room floor thinking it is theirs, and then notices the name stitched across her dress. She then sets Ellie back down, picks up another baby, hopefully the right one this time, and heads home. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to label her after all.

O' Fun For... Uncle Aaron and Uncle Brian

...but you can't tell them. It's their Christmas presents.

I had Toby draw 3 designs for me: one for a hooded sweatshirt for his Uncle Aaron, and two for t-shirts for his Uncle Brian. I then turned them into stencils and sprayed them. I think Toby's designs all turn out pretty dang awesome, if I do say so myself.

Here is how the hoodie for Aaron turned out:



The colors in the pictures were hard to get with the metallic paint, but it is a slate-blue hoodie with copper eyeballs on the back. Very cool.

Here are the two shirts for Brian:





The first, according to Toby's description, is of a bunch of different shaped lightning bolts all hitting the same place. It is in the copper paint. The second is an airplane getting hit by lightning. Kind of morbid, but oh-well, I guess that works well for grown-up-boy shirts.

Fun times! Now I only have one pair of pajamas and James' super-secret present left to make. And a few cheeseballs. Mmmmm..... cream cheesey goodness......

O' Fun For... people who enjoy huffing paint

I BLOGGED! See? Right here below, there is a PICTURE-HEAVY TUTORIAL on how to do freezer-paper stencils! The Terrorist has slightly relented, allowing me to finally blog for you all! (All 3 of you. You know who you are...) Verna is visiting, and she helped me with this handy tutorial extravaganza. Thanks, Verna! Everyone needs their own Verna.

On to the tutorial-

We will begin with my trip to Wal-Mart to replenish my stencil-spray paint stash. This is what to look for on the shelves in the craft section. They sell them in multi-packs of colors. Having tried a few, here's what I can tell you about them- Black works the best. It is nice and even and does not bleed. Red and Copper are thick, but work fine if you shake them enough. Orange is thick and spattery, but that can be fun. Silver bleeds like crazy, so take care not to use too much detail or lay it on thick.





Materials needed:
*Fabric paint (spray works best)
*Freezer paper
*Shirts or whatnot to spray onto
*paper to draw or print design onto
*Marker to draw design with
*exacto knife (I wish I had one...) box cutter, or scissors
*tape and scrap paper to protect shirt and work surface from over-spray
*self-healing mat or cardboard or something to put under the image while you cut it with the blade
*iron and ironing board
*awesomeness of some kind



I let Toby draw his own design and then outlined it in marker. (Well, I eliminated some of the detail. You try cutting all that detail with a box-cutter!) Brady requested Lightning McQueen.



Cut a piece of freezer paper big enough to cover the image and put it shiny-side down on top of your design. Put these both on top of the self-healing mat or cardboard if you are cutting with a knife or blade instead of scissors. Scissors don't work very well for most detailed designs. Cut your design out of freezer paper by tracing over your marker-lines with the blade.





Good luck keeping your kids' fingers out of the way while you are working. Maybe now is a good time for a Sponge-Bob break...



When you are done, the freezer paper should remain wherever you want the shirt color to show through, and you should have cut out areas where you want the paint to cover. Sometimes you will have little, unconnected pieces to put back in place when you lay the stencil on the shirt. Put the stencil shiny-side down on the shirt, then iron into place. My iron was set to high heat with no steam. In these examples, McQueen will stay shirt-colored and be outlined with paint color. The shark will be filled in with the paint color.





Once the stencil is ironed on to the paper, lay it out where you want to paint it. Cover areas of the shirt that you don't want painted with newspaper or scrap paper and tape it down so the over-spray doesn't creep on in. I like to cut corners, so I just folded the parts of the shirt not covered in freezer paper underneath. This makes the shirt all bumpy and not level, though, and if the paint is runny it will pool and bleed. (That's what I found out after using this slacker shortcut...) Shake the crap out of the can, point, and spray. Look, even Brady can do it!





I made a star shirt, and Verna made a flower shirt:




This is the point when you should take some Excedrin. The fumes will get you! I usually like to do the painting outside, but it was cold and wet today. After the paint is mostly dry, you can peel the freezer paper away and... TA-DA! Amazing! Here are today's finished products:

Thanks to the runny silver paint and the 3-year old "helper", this one bled a bit. Okay, a lot...



Toby's shark worked well:



My stars bled a ton, too. I laid the paint on way too heavy.



Verna got the hang of the silver. Super groovy, Verna!



Here is a dragon shirt we made for Toby when he started school. The image wraps around the entire shirt. To paint it I ironed the stencil on the front and back and then held it from a hanger outside while I sprayed the paint.




This is an example of what can happen when I don't force myself to simplify. Here's to you, James Taylor:




Phew! Well, I think that may have made up for 5 weeks of no posts. Don't expect another one that long for a while, but I will try to keep up with my blog!

O' Fun For....a hurried and late entrance to stake conference (church)

I got ready for church today and realized that I had made a bunch of the things from my outfit, so I decided to add them to my fancy-schmancy new blog. Unfortunately, this meant taking pictures of me. Blah. All photos except bracelet courtesy of my easy-going husband, James.

So... here is my whole outfit:



The headband, shirt, skirt, and bracelet are made by me. The shoes were a super-kick-butt-awesome deal at $2, and matched my shirt and headband exactly, so of course I had to buy them! The earrings were provided by a persuasive Honduran while we were on our cruise this last spring. The headband is just the 3" of fabric I cut off the hem of my shirt when making it.

Here is the bracelet: (sorry about the scary hairy hand, but that's what the macro setting on the camera does for ya')



It is one of my first attempts of jewelry making, done with all the sparkly new beads I got from the gem fair. My friend Lauralee was nice enough to be bead-mom and tour-guide to a few of us newbies at the gem fair. "No, no, not those ones, follow me girls! Yes. Those are the right ones. Buy those." ; )


Here is a close-up of the shirt and the pattern I based it off:




The pattern is one of about a gazillion I rescued from my late Grama T.'s sewing room. Grama was a sewing queen, and being told by my Aunt Jill that I could take home what I wanted from her sewing room was like winning the crafty lottery. I used the basics of the pattern, but used elastic thread on the bobbin to gather the neck instead of casing with elastic. The sleeves were gathered using the handy "stretch the elastic really tight and sew the fabric onto it" method. (Patent pending...) I also lengthened it, added a few rows of shirring with elastic thread under the bust, and added some random buttons. Ta-da! You can tell it is one of my favorite shirts by how the jersey is pilling already! Blast! I'll have to make a bunch more for maternity shirts.

Here is a close-up of the skirt:



It is made from an old pair of white jeans that had gotten a bit too baggy in the bum and too short in the legs. Since I did not make a tutorial while sewing, here is my ever-so-lovely hand-drawn tutorial...



*STEP ONE: Cut off the legs right below the crotch, and the waisty-area right above the crotch, being careful not to cut off the bottom of the back pockets.

*STEP TWO: Cut the legs on each side seam and up the middle (front and back), and then cut them in half at the knee. Cut the hem off all pieces that have cuff hem. You should have 16 leg panely-things, like so:



They will not all be exactly the same shape, but oh-well.




*STEP THREE: Sew a bunch of the leg panels together lengthwise until it is long enough to comfortably wrap around your hip-area. (Sew with short ends of panels facing the same way, so the skirt kind of flares at the bottom.) I didn't use all 16 panels. Now sew the end shut, and you have the skirt-piece. Measure the opening at the bottom of the jean-waist piece, and add pleats to your skirt piece until the measurement at the top matches that measurement.

*STEP FOUR: Sew the skirt piece onto the bottom opening of the waist piece. You may want to pin it and try it on first to make sure the pleats don't sit funny anywhere.



*STEP FIVE: Zig-zag about half an inch from the bottom of the skirt, and then cut tiny slits in the hem about every 1/2 inch or so all the way around so that it will fray faster. Well, that's it! That is my first vaguely-helpful tutorial! I hope you enjoy!