Hairpin Tin

A spiffied-up Altoids mints case to hold my daughter's bobby pins and hairpins for ballet. This will make my life so much easier! This will go in her Christmas stocking, so shhhhhh!

I free-handed the embroidery on felt. Other tools: my good ol' pinking shears and trusty E-6000 glue.

Scarlet Pimpernel Costume

My almost-8-year-old chose to be the Scarlet Pimpernel for Halloween. Sir Percy Blakeney is known for his impeccable fashion taste. I don't think he would have worn rolled-up jeans, but that's okay.

Step One: The Coat - My son tried on several women's coats at the thrift store. This is the one he chose because it's supposed to be "really fancy." He didn't like the solid navy wool coat that I chose because it wasn't fancy enough. I relented because I'm trying to let him make more choices (even though I wouldn't have needed to modify the navy one to fit him!). He knew what he wanted and it was perfect. Or soon would be. Once home, I put the coat on him inside-out and pinned along the underarm seam and down the sides of the coat. He helped with the sewing. After sewing I trimmed the seam allowances with pinking shears. I also turned up the sleeve cuffs. Simple and easy. I even sewed and trimmed right over the pockets! The coat is nice and long on him. He seemed upset when I seam-ripped the shoulder pads out, but I didn't feel like giving in on that point.

Next comes the lace: The jabot (jah-boh), cravat (not pictured, but what is just a rectangular strip of white fabric tied around the neck), and the cuffs (which have elastic on them). I never thought I'd ever buy lace for my son's Halloween costume!

The jabot is made of strips of gathered lace sewn to a trapezoid of cotton (actually, two), then sewn to a ribbon with a velcro closure. This particular ribbon and velcro originally came around the Christmas pajama pants I got the kids from Target last year. Yes, I saved it. Yes, I used it. I think I deserve a pat on the back for that. I just realized that I forgot to make lace and/or buckles for his shoes. Ah well, Halloween is always rushed. I don't think I would have had time, anyway!

I didn't know if anyone would recognize "what" his costume was supposed to be, so I asked Alexander if he wanted me to make him a name tag. He said yes, as long as the writing was fancy enough. Apparently my penmanship met his approval. I used some parchment paper scraps I just happened to have around.

The oversized scarlet pimpernel flower was a cheap-o poinsettia from the dollar store. It used to have seven petals but I cut off two to make it star-shaped and hot-glued the empty spaces together as I was gluing the flower to the name tag. Yes, I also have a stash of brooch pin backs.

The green vest was from an old white rabbit costume that my sister wore in a ballet recital many years ago. I'm glad it didn't clash with the coat. Black trouser socks and dress shoes finished off the bottom half of the costume. The sword helps balance out the masculinity of the costume. Sink me! If only I had time to find a magnifying glass for a chain around his neck.

They seek him here, they seek him there...

Ribbon Flowers 2: Black Eyed Susan

I'm continuing with my wire ribbon flower adventures at my mom's house. Yesterday I did indeed finish the black eyed susan I had started before.

Source

Aren't these cheery? I love to see black eyed susans growing alongside the road in the summer. And although it's March, I just couldn't resist making this flower when I saw the pattern in the book.

Cute, isn't it? And even cuter on the girl. It still needs to be put on a clip, and then probably on a headband until Ivory's hair is thick enough to keep it in (although her hair is certainly long enough!). I might have to borrow it from her in the meantime. Or maybe we'll just share it always :)

Since Pfaffy is all alone in a dark storage unit for a week or two I hand-sewed the whole flower. This way I got to hold a cute baby on my lap and sit on a couch!

My favorite part was pulling the gathering stitches together. It was so satisfying! I didn't have any clear nail polish or Fray Check, so I singed the raw edges of the ribbon. You can see the burn marks here from the back view of the flower.

 The button for the "black eye" came from my mom's stash. And speaking of that...

Here are the ribbons I was telling you about. She likes to organize by color the same way I like to line up my M&Ms by color when I'm eating a handful. Pretty, aren't they?

And here are the books I used. The black eyed susan is in A Passion For Ribbonry by Camela Nitschke. Alexander's ribbon roses came from The Artful Ribbon by Candace Kling. The second book has lots of pictures of vintage clothing embellished with ribbons alongside instructions for many, many flowers. It's fun to look at, though somewhat old-fashioned. The instructions were clear and quite thorough. The first book has more fresh ribbon flowers (if ribbon flowers can be fresh!). The hat-decorating projects are a bit too dated for a young, hot, hip, 2011 mamma like me (cough, cough), but the flowers themselves are really fun and the instructions were great.

Next time I'll show you the first wire ribbon flower I started: some sort of geranium. I have to find it, though. It's so little that I'm not sure where it ended up!

Happy crafting!

Ribbon Roses (Ribbon Flowers 1)

I realize I have nothing green in this post for St. Patrick's Day today. Lately my life has been taken over by the color pink. It's been loads of fun! I have so much baby stuff to blog about, and pictures to go with it. Unfortunately, those pictures are all on my home computer which is temporarily in storage while we move to our new house. Guess what else is in storage? ALL my sewing and craft supplies. All of it.

Lucky for me I'm at my mom's house while we're between houses. She's been known to have a stash of her own. The last couple days I've been trying out her ribbons and flower ribbon books. My six year old took this picture of me:

(You can see where my wedding ring goes. It still feels too tight to wear comfortably, even though I'm not pregnant anymore. I'm thinking I need to get it resized... Um... Okay, now back to my story.) My son likes to be a part of whatever I'm doing. He looked through a book and picked out a pink rose to make for Ivory to wear in her hair. So I temporarily abandoned the little flower I was attempting so I could help him. Well I ended up spending quite a bit of time on the rose "he" was making, but it was worth doing it together.

All my clips and brooch pins are packed (Did I mention that already?), so we improvised by safety pinning the flowers to Ivory's shirt. These two roses were made from the same pink-to-red wire ribbon.

She is one month/four weeks old today! I love this age.

Next time I'll show you the little pink geranium flower I made, and the black eyed susan that I'll hopefully finish today (kids willing). Now I'm going to go kiss my baby. After I pinch her for not wearing green.

Alligator Clips. Real Ones.

Currently in our homeschool (preschool and Kindergarten) the kids and I are learning about the Everglades, and more specifically, alligators. Today we made these alligator clips out of... alligator clips. The original idea (that my sister came up with when we were planning the school year) was to use clothespins and hang them from a string or use a magnet to hold pictures of alligators. But since I didn't have any clothespins I just used what I had on hand. The boys are having fun making their alligators snap at each other. I've got mine in my hair today—all in the name of making education exciting for my kids—but after today it will probably go on my bulletin board.

P.S. Family and friends: if you would like the link to mine and my sisters' homeschool blog for this year, "Soaring Over America", let me know in an email or comment and I'll send you an invite.

Feminine Flower Brooch/Hair Clip

Remember my feminine flower headband from last year? This morning I needed a pin for my sweater so I whipped this up in a minute or two. So easy! The silk flowers came from a craft store closeout I went to last year. (Zim's—it was the craziest place, like I stepped into a time machine and went back to a craft store of 25-30 years ago.)



All that's needed for this project (besides the flower, of course) is an alligator clip, a brooch pin, and a little hot glue. Most of the time spent on this project was waiting for my mini glue gun to heat up.



Here's my 34-week pregnant belly with the brooch/hair clip and headband set.



Maybe I should save some of these flowers for the baby girl!



I like the flower as a hair clip because I can place it lower in my hair than the headband. When I wear the headband to church I feel like I'm blocking the view of the person sitting behind me!



Speaking of flowers, I'm really enjoying Grograin's month of Shoe Sugar. I need to make some of these! I also want to make more homemade flowers like the one I made for Melanie's purse last year.

Autumn Leaves

Happy last day of Autumn! This project (like many of my projects lately) was inspired by this blog.



I made these Autumn leaves from wool felt I had on hand for various projects. I was surprised and pleased I had so many Fall colors! The embroidery floss also came from my stash (thanks to helping my mom cleaning out her sewing room when she moved a handful of years back!).



As you can see I wasn't quite finished with the embroidery when I took the pictures, but I was quickly running out of daylight, so I took the picture anyway. What I mean to say is, I purposefully didn't finish the project so that you could see what the embroidery floss looks like on my needle!



I hot-glued a brooch pin or hair clip to the back so I could wear them. Like so:



And so:



Do they look cute with my growing baby bump?



I hope you had a wonderful September, October, and November (and First of Octember)! Tomorrow Winter and the Christmas Season may officially begin! (According to my own personal almanac, and despite the eight inches of snow I shoveled from my walk today.)

Xmas Gifts 3: Melanie Purse

Inspired by the shape of a favorite purse I own, this purse was my first "big" project in vinyl (and by big I mean in size of the individual item, not in scope of the entire project). I found the vinyl difficult to work with because I couldn't get my machine into the little nooks and crannies at the bottom of the purse very well. Also, the thread was a mess. I adjusted the tension quite a bit, but in the end it seemed to be more luck than science. Other than those hiccups, I'm pleased with how cute the purse turned out. I think the flower/bow (inspired by the flower on my favorite flats) makes the purse, but I also love the green vinyl (from Design Company Fabrics) and the fun black and white Alexander Henry fabric (from JoAnn). This purse was for my sister-in-law, Melanie.