Monday, September 29, 2008

More Baskets

This is a basket that was given to me last year. It was bright blue. It was super cute, but it didn't match anything in her room. I kept telling myself I would paint it and I never did. So last week at like 11 I spray painted it and just got it done. And now it matches super cute.

Evie's Short Lived Modeling Career

I made this outfit for Evie during the Summer, I have just never taken her picture in it. The shirt was from a pattern, although I did have to cut off the straps so it would still fit her. I just sewed on some extra blue binding for the straps. The skirt I made from scraps of stretch denim. It is too cute and so easy to make. I have to say, it fit her better two months ago then now... as you can tell by the mini-skirt in the picture!




I am SO excited!!

I just ordered my copy of this book and I cannot WAIT for it to get here. I think I'll want to make presents for every baby I know is coming and everyone that has already had a baby! I'm prepared to go nuts. And well, talking about nuts, I went nuts and got her Sew-It Kit as well. It was SUCH a good deal, my little "agree to purchase" trigger finger couldn't stop. Check these books out. YOU will want them too!


amy butler's little stitches for little ones

20 keepsake sewing projects for baby and mom

In my new lavishly illustrated sewing projects book, you'll find all new charming and contemporary projects for the nursery, baby wear, soft toys, and many more surprises! The projects are designed for babies 0-12 months and their mothers, featuring beautiful photos of the finished designs by our friend Colin McGuire. It was fun to produce these little treasures, and I think you'll find many projects in here for all the wee ones in your world.





amy butler's sew-it kit

15 simple and stylish sewing projects for the home.

A great giftable kit with 5 new sewing projects to accompany my IN STITCHES book. The kit includes fabric and notions to make one of the projects and 15 beautiful project cards with easy-to-follow instructions, all packaged in a unique box format.

My to-do list...

This is my to-do list. Of course there is always stuff being added, finished or taken off. This is the basic list though. As you can tell I have a zillion little project I want to do,.. and then I can start in on some fun stuff or some other projects I've had going for a while.

Spidy Cover & Pillows: This fabric is going to be a couch cover for a mini Spiderman couch we picked up on clearance at Wal-mart. It is just too ugly to be sitting in our front room, which for now doubles as Evie's play area. The rest of the fabric is going to be pillows for our couch and basket liners for evie's toys.


A reading bench for Evie's room: I just got some foam and some green fabric on sale at JoAnn's to make a little seat for her room. I just turned her bookself on its side and sat it on the floor right by evie's crib. I put all her books the other way so she can just sit on the bench and read. She loves it. I'm coordinating the colors with her room, obviously-- like I would do it any other way. I'm going to make a pillow for the bench out of the left over fabric from her wall pocket and a pillow out of the green for her rocking chair.


His & Hers: I'm going to make matching his and hers gifts for someone I know, I cannot say more.


Elmo cover: This is going to cover the Elmo chair. I know Evie loves her Elmo, but seriously-- who wants to look at a giant elmo all the time. So we're going to cover him up. The rest of it might turn into a table cloth or table runner, basket liners... we'll see.


Bed Pocket: This is something my mother-in-law started but found other material she wanted to do instead so I got this. A yellow chenille bed pocket. I don't know about you guys, but I always have a million things on my bedside table. I hate it. Especially because I wear glasses and can never find where I put them at night. This will solve ALL my problems. Okay, so maybe not all my problems but it surely it will help me find my glasses at night, right?


Dress: This is going to be a brown & pink polka dot courdaroy dress for Evie... once it is done. I have a couple of SUPER CUTE patterns to choose from, that is my only problem.


Shirt: This is going to be a two-tone shirt for Evie. I have this really cute pattern I'm going to use, just need to do it. Go figure.


Vinyl: This is above my kitchen. Remember when I posted this summer about getting free vinyl just by posting something about her website? Well I chose the birds (I got three) and they are super cute. I'm deciding on a quote for my kitchen I'll print out in vinyl on my Cricut and place it somehow up there.


Vinyl Clock: Since our original clock died that we got from our wedding and this is the ugly clock from Paul's desk at school that is replacing it for now, I need a new clock. So I'm going to make a vinyl wall clock. Just buy the little ticker part and put it directly on the wall and then cut out the vinyl numbers and decorations and put them right on. I haven't seen it done anywhere, but I think it will turn out dang cute. I hope.


Numbers Book: This is from my mother-in-law. She is so cute. She sends little holiday boxes to Evie every year. In her Halloween box she included a little Martha Stewart numbers book. It is all iron-on and SO cute. I might embellish a little extra and I might not. We'll see what I feel like doing.


This is the ugly elmo chair.

Spidy some how made his entrance into the house too. I know, I know... I am the one who bought hime.. but why do they have to be so ugly!!

R is for Riley

Just a baby shower present. Her colors were dark brown, medium green and light blue. I mod-podged the paper on, cut it out with an exacto knife, sanded & distressed the edges, tied some boyish ribbon & hemp on, added riley in puffy brown stickers, added a button on for the "i" part, rubbed on "boy", tied on a button or two with the ribbon and it was done!

Baby Shower Season!

Well, I don't know about you all, but it seems a lot of my friends are having babies. And seeing how I think babies are the cutest things ever and parties are so fun to throw... I've thrown 2 babies showers in 2 weeks. They were a lot of work, but they turned out so fun. Luckily I got some good people to co-throw the showers with! But I totally forgot to take pictures of the actual parties, so here are just the two invitations and one of the games we played.

This first invitation was made almost completely by my Cricut. I love that thing. It makes crafting so easy. Granted it takes out a lot of the originality of it all, but it sure does cut the time in half! I just put the little sign in the trunk of the elephant to hold. I just used my scraps for this too. The green was left over from two years ago X-mas cards and the grey is some scraps I found from another project. I just found bits of blue ribbon and tied them into a knot. So easy,... and well that was nice because I had only a few hours to make them before they needed to be delivered!

This invitation was actually for the first baby shower. As you can see, I just backed paper onto more paper--onto more paper. Added a wrap around piece, tied it with a ribbon and then added a little Martha Stewart picture on the top part. I LOVED those little stickers. As soon as I saw them in Wal-mart, I bought a few packs because I knew I had to do something with them. Well this was it.

This is just a little baby cut-out from the cricut. I added a little blue diaper on and we had ourselves a game. It is, "Pin the baby to the Momma!" You blindfold the shower guests and spin them around and you have them try to tape the baby to the momma. Whoever gets closest to the bellybutton wins! It was pretty fun to play and everyone gets a kick out of it.

This is Evie helping me make the little babies. She is such the little crafter lately. She loves to glue things with glue sticks and color on paper(and her lion). Something makes me think she's got the crafting gene in her!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Get Festive

Since I already have my Halloween decor out, I found some places I wanted to add to, so this is what I created for my kitchen.

The details:
"TRICK"-2"wide 7x9inch squares. spray painted black with sanded edges. I drew all of the letters free hand and mod podged them on.

"or" - used pressure treated wood. 4x4inch block. I used a distress ink pad like it was paper on all of the edges. mod-podged the letters on. (I did not use paint)

"TREAT" I used a 2x4 and cut it 4 3/4" blocks. After painting them orange and green, I distressed them with my distress ink pad and them mod-podged the letters on.

"TRICK" is in different heights because I proped three of the letters up so you can see them better. All of the blocks are the same size.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Decorative Pillows



My friend and I came up with these cuties. We appliqued the brown flowers and the "k" on with a zig-zag stitch. And added the yo-yos to give it some dimention. I love the ball tassel trim! She made this cute matching doll from a pattern found here. The pillows are 20" and 14".

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

A few decorations

Just attempting to make a few things for the house. Some turned out, some didn't.
The red ones are for the kitchen. The black together is for the family room. And of course the butterflies are for Evie's room in her signature colors. The butterflies are from one of the new Martha Stewart punches. It is so cute. You just fold the little wings and poof! It's 3-D butterflies!









Twins Card

Here is proof that a redo is necessary sometimes. I finished this card, or so I thought, but it just wasn't looking right at all. So I gave it a few minutes and redid a bit and voila! It turned into a different card!

Monday, September 15, 2008

The Lilly Apron

This is my 2nd project since being back home, but the first I didn't take any photos of. It was baby shower I helped throw for a friend. Time consuming, but really-- who wouldn't like throwing a baby shower! It was so much fun to do. This project is a birthday present for one of my sisters. My husband's sister found this pattern and we all had to buy it. I was so excited to make it, I've been perusing fabrics for quite some time now trying to find the right combination. I think this is very cute, almost good enough to eat. (Probably because it looks like a giant watermelon!) It just fits so cute and has this fun tie in the back with those adorable little pockets. It is called the Lilly Apron by Busy Bee. I modified the sizing and the pleating. I also changed the colors up instead of having it just be one solid color. I have heard that people even use this as a maternity shirt... I think I'd have to find the right material--but it could definitely work!
So this is the picture that comes with the Lilly Apron pattern, cute huh?
And this is the apron that I made, pretty cute, huh?

The back


The detail on the front


The detail on the pocket


The matching card of course


The final package. I even made a tag out of left over fabric, used some rub-ons, punched a hole in it and tied it around with ribbon!

Friday, September 12, 2008

a la rustico





The idea with creating this recipes book was to use materials I already had. I've been wanting to make a book with these rings and I thought cardboard would look really natural and rustic. All of the recipes are in page protectors, so when I go to use it I just flip open to that page and then swing it around so it lays flat. I used my stampin' up tab punch and stamps and stamp pad for the word dividers. The cover was printed on velom by a friend and back with some cute paper! I love how simple and functional it turned out! Oh-and it's just 8 1/2 x 11 size.