Jewelry Creations

Once I put away my sewing mess from my last creative buzz, I decided to get out my jewelry making mess ;-)  Thanks to some ideas I found on Pinterest (click HERE to view my Jewelry Board to see my inspiration pieces) I've had a lot of fun creating.

These ones are so simple and the possibilities are endless since you can use any paper and colors you want.  I ordered my glass tiles and bails from Amazon and used Liquid Glass to put them together.

I think I am going to turn these ones into magnets instead of jewelry.

Here is a simple birthstone bracelet that I made for my mom.  It has all of my family's birthstones plus my brother's family.

Kaylee wanted to make a birthstone bracelet as well, but she wanted to include grandparents and great grandparents from both sides of the family too, so hers can be a double wrap bracelet OR a necklace.

I also had fun with the nest jewelry that I've seen all over - I had a good variety of wires in my stash, so it's been fun to mix and match.  My pictures are not good but you get the idea.

Brianna loved these and wanted to join in so here are the rings she started with:

Then she wanted to make a matching set which turned out super cute.

I remember wanting to do these Washer necklaces a couple of years ago when I first saw them but then I forgot about them until I saw them pop up on Pinterest.  So fun and simple, and like the tile necklaces, you can really customize with the papers and colors you want.

I made this one for a friend's birthday last month, so I decided to make a little gift box to put it in. I cut the box using my CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.  I kept the box simple, just sanded the cardstock and tied with a ribbon - here it is closed...

...and open.

For the inside piece I cut another box, just 1/4" smaller and trimmed off the half circle edges. Then I punched holes with my Crop-a-dile and cut to the holes to hold the cording.  Here it is before I put each piece together to give you an idea. 

Another thing we've been playing with are Shrinky Dinks - but I will share those pics in another post.  I have been attempting to make rings from it but so far no luck, they cool too fast and break as I'm bending them :-(

Sigh...where does the time go?

It seems like I say this all the time, but seriously?  I have been a poor blogger lately, which was more than obvious when I logged in this morning and noticed the changes to blogger!  I have just been staying busy, but since I use this blog as an attempt at a journal, I feel really bad that I haven't been keeping up with it.  I am hoping to do better.  I have some catching up to do with March happenings, and since April is almost over, I will have those events to record as well.  For now I will start with some of the projects that I have been up to lately, and then I found some old projects that I forgot to share so hopefully I will get around to those, too ;-)

Sew Busy - part 3 (if you missed them before, check out part 1 and part 2).  I got all my sewing projects done a while ago and put my sewing machine and serger away (for now) but I am finally getting around to sharing the rest of my projects.

I was determined to make something for Easter this year.  My Mom made Kaylee and Brianna matching dresses a couple of times for Easter, and I have attempted to buy the rest, but it is really hard to find coordinating dresses for all three girls plus something to match for our little guy there at the end.  Luckily my girls are good sports and like to dress alike, so I'll take it as long as I can!  Anyway, after some searching I found this fun bright paisley print that had each girls' favorite color in it.  I didn't have a pattern or even know what I was going to make when I bought the fabric so I just got 5 yards so I would be sure to have enough.  I found t-shirts in each of their favorite colors as well and knew I was good to go.  Well, as it turned out, I had enough fabric to make each of the girls a skirt, plus one for me, and then I even had enough left to make their older cousin Meghan a matching skirt.  She is always passing her clothes down to the girls and they were excited to be able to give her something for a change.  I just made up the pattern as I went - it's just a simple straight skirt with a fun ruffle at the bottom, and a black wide band elastic for the waist.

I found a fun Chevron pattern that had some of the same colors in the material I used in the skirts - I used that to make Trysten's tie.  I wish I'd had more of that fun chevron because David wanted one, too!  You can see Trysten's tie better in the first picture in this post.  Here we are on Easter Sunday.

I already posted the big girls' skirts that I made from old jeans - here is the one I did for Brailee.  Gee, I wonder if you can tell what her favorite color is ;-)

Another new project that I have been up to is canning.  I had never done it before until a friend taught me how back in January.  This was my first attempt at applesauce, tomatoes, and carrots.  This month I have done 15 quarts of applesauce, and 10 quarts of tomatoe sauce.  It's been fun and feels good, I can't wait to try more!

Okay, that's it for now - hopefully I'll be back with more soon!

February Happenings

Now that March is nearly over, I figure I'm way past due to update for the month of February.  Here are some pics and quick happenings from that month.  These may or may not be in order.

One lazy Saturday morning the kids put on a fashion/talent show.

Gotta love this little cowboy.

Rapunzel?

This girl can sure hula hoop - she just keeps going, and going!

Kaylee is the little piggy ;-)

This girl loves to wake up early (4:30) and help Daddy pack his lunch and help Mommy fix his breakfast.  She either has to go right back to bed or take a nap after lunch when she does this.

We have thankfully had a much healthier winter this year (compared to our first winter here) but we finally had our first bad bug go through our house this month.  We've had some minor sniffles before, and this one really wasn't that bad, just not feeling like themselves for a few days.  Once it got through everyone we were ready to get out of the house again and return to our schedule.  We spent lots of time building marble towers...

...and playing with Lincoln Logs.

Trysten informed me that his cowboy had a rocket - here he is flying ;-)

The big girls finished up their basketball season - it was a good learning year, they enjoyed it.

I don't know what's going on with Brailee's hair but I just love this picture of these two.

And these ones, too - they love each other (but do have their moments of course!).

We celebrated Leap Day by filling out information sheets and creating a time capsule - it will be fun to open up in 4 years and see how they've changed.  We also celebrated with a Leaping picture....

...which the kids wanted to do over, and over again!  Yes, I let my kids jump off the couch - just for one night ;-)

First Brailee stated that she was actually an owl, flying, so she'd say "Whooo, whooo!" as she'd jump...

...sao then Trysten decided he was a train and said, "Choo, choo, woooo!" as he jumped ;-)

Name Sign

I am going to take a break from posting my latest sewing projects and share this fun little name frame that I made a couple months ago for a friend who recently had a baby.  I love these name frames - they make great Christmas gifts, and are perfect for Newlyweds and New Babies!  I have posted a few that I have done HERE and HERE if you'd like to see more ideas.

I used the retired Fanfare papers and stickease, along with the Posterboard Alphabet stamp set for the name - I also spraypainted the frame black to coordinate with the papers better than the original oak.  I added a paper pinwheel on top of the frame - I sealed it with a clear sealer spray before I attached it to the glass to help protect it.

Thanks for looking!

Sew Busy - part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been sewing a lot over the last couple of weeks.  I have been complaining lately about not having a fabric store, which is funny because I didn't sew this much when I lived close to one.  Maybe it's good that there's not one close since I don't currently have a designated sewing area so my sewing mess has taken over our living room.  I have a 'craft area' set up in the basement, but it's an unfinished basement and the lighting isn't very good.  Down there I have lots of lamps set up for scrapbooking but I need a lot more light for sewing which is why I have a table set-up in our living room upstairs.  It's been fun to get so many projects done but I would like to get the room back to normal!

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Here are a few more of my recent sewing projects - lots of fun skirts!

For Kaylee and Brianna's I used some of their old pants for the tops of their skirts.  Kaylee's fun purple and black animal print was in the discounted/leftover bin at WalMart.  Her skirt was inspired by this one found HERE (pinned HERE) I just made it a lot longer for an older girl.  Brianna's skirt I just made up as I went - I thought this one would be a little trickier since I had no pattern and was also adding a lining to the inside, but it went together perfectly.  I haven't taken a good picture of the style of that one and the wind was blowing with this picture, so it's hard to tell but the ruffle goes along the bottom and then up the one side.  Brailee's skirt was super simple - used the pattern found HERE (pinned HERE) only I used the same fabric instead of contrasting patterns.

This was the first skirt I made from old jeans just to make sure I wouldn't mess up.  It's an 18 month pair of pants with some fabric that used to be curtains in Bree's old room.  Turned out super cute, just wish I had a model to try it on.  I will probably give this to my niece who will be turning 2 in July.  These things are so fun and easy and such a fun way to use up old jeans.

Oh, and I'm not leaving Trysten out - I made him these comfy jammie bottoms from an old pair of David's jammie bottoms.  I used the bottom of the legs of the original bottoms so I didn't have to sew the inseam or hem them - just sewed the two legs together, made the exposed Wyoming Cowboy elastic smaller and sewed it to the top.  Super simple!

This is one of the latest skirts - I LOVE this fabric (also found in the discounted/leftover bin at WalMart).  There was 1 yard and I got this skirt and a tie for Trysten (that I will share later) out of this piece.  I used this pattern for a fun circle skirt found HERE (pinned HERE).  I wish these didn't take so much fabric, I would love to make one for me and the older girls.  If I find some good material I might do it with the two pieces instead of one circle.

They are perfect twirling skirts ;-)

Well that's it again for today, but I'm not done sharing yet!  Stay tuned and thanks for visiting!

Sew Busy - part 1

I haven't been posting much lately because I've been having too much fun sewing!  I have lots of catching up to do and for now I'll post some of the fun creations I've made.

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Before I share - I have a little confession.  I recently joined Pinterest.  I know, not a big deal, a lot of people are on Pinterest these days, but to me it was a big deal.  I avoided it for a LONG time.  I already had too many ideas and not enough time to do them all.  Well, I finally caved in and accepted an invitation from my mom to join and oh, boy am I glad I did!  Before, when I would find something online that I liked I would bookmark it or e-mail it to myself, and ocassionally print something.  Well, if I didn't do something with that idea right away it would get filed away, lost, and forgotten.  I don't know how many times I have remembered an idea I had saved but then was never able to find it.  Now, with Pinterest, I have my ideas sorted - I love that.  In less than 2 months since I've joined I have pinned over 2000 ideas (yikes!) but I have deleted almost that many e-mails and bookmarks, and found lots of long lost ideas (and new ones too).  The best part is, I am actually USING those ideas since they are so easy to find!  I haven't pinned much in a while but I have been lurking and liking ideas - once I get done with my sewing projects I will go crazy again until I get another wild hair.  Anyway, enough rambling - here are my creations and links to where I got the idea or pattern.

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Here are some darling Burlap Bunnies - found HERE (pinned HERE).  Here is the first one I made.

I found some cream burlap and I ended up liking those ones the best so I made a whole family out of them ;-)  My darker burlap bunny is hiding in the back - I originally left him out but the girls insisted that I include him and since he was the first one I made I agreed.  I may have to make more so he doesn't stick out so much.  These are simple and fun to make, the only problem I came across is the burlap is so hard to keep sewed - a few of these bunnies have already burst their seams.  In this little bucket of bunnies I included an old favorite project of mine, string eggs.  I have been making these since I was a kid and never get sick of them.  I made these ones from plain string, I am thinking of dressing them up in some fun new ways - we'll see if that happens this year or not.

The original poster used a Sharpie marker for the faces but I liked the puff paint best.  I used a Q-tip and blush to color the ears and cheeks.  I just realized I never added buttons like the OP but with them all stacked together like this I don't think they need them.  I may or may not add them.

Now this next project didn't involve any actual sewing, but it did use up some old jeans that I have been saving for years!  I found this idea HERE (pinned HERE).  I liked that this project was perfect for David's old work pants so it was okay if some pieces were a little more worn or stained.  I still haven't painted the lines on the road, maybe (hopefully) I will soon (eventually), and the original poster added velcro to the bottoms but I think I'll leave that off.  Trysten loves setting up his road since it's so different every time.  I do plan on adding more pieces.

As I have mentioned before, we do not have a fabric store here - at all!  So I took an afternoon a few weeks ago and headed to R-ton and our closest WalMart, which is an hour away.  WalMart and a small Ben Franklin Crafts store are pretty much the only options unless I want to travel 2 hours or more.  The sweet associate in the fabric section gave me this table runner pattern so I picked out some fun fabrics to give it a try.  I just wish I'd known just how easy it really was and I would have bought more fabric to make a bunch of these.  I literally made this in about 20 minutes - so simple!  You don't have to cut anything, and just sew 4 straight lines - it doesn't get any easier than that.  I don't have an online link, but the pattern is by LaRae Bunnell Clark through the Utah State University Weber County Extension - if anyone would like a copy just shoot me a message and I will pass it along.

I didn't get a closer picture of the pattern than this so I don't know if you can see it well, but I LOVE the fun black paisley piece.  The pattern says to stitch a decorative button or yo yo at the edge of the short seam to secure in place but I'm not sure I want to add any bulk, and would rather keep it flat and smooth - I may just hide some stitching to secure instead.

That will be all for today, but stay tuned as I hope to post more soon plus some family updates.  Thanks for visiting!