Birthday on the Brain…

Well, hello there!  I’ve completely skipped a month on here.  It’s been that busy.  Ahhh.  I had my family visiting us from the east coast in April and it was so much fun showing them around Los Angeles.  But as soon as they left, I began to freak out a little.  Just a little.  Maybe a lot.

My baby’s birthday was around the corner and I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do for him.  I had toyed with a few ideas throughout the year, but didn’t have anything firm.  Ethan is really into Batman.  I mean really into it.  He loves pretending he’s a superhero.  I hear about his adventures everyday.  It’s so adorable.  But gosh, it’s so big boyish!  He’s a little dude now.  And he’s not even three yet!  I had envisioned his third birthday party to be cute and sweet… you know, still sort of a babyish type party.  Nope, not for Ethan.  No spring theme, no animal theme, no nautical theme.  None of that.  He insisted on a Batman party.  Ok, we can make that work — a cute, vintage superhero party!

So off to pinning I went… every night, I would spend hours perusing the many superhero themed birthday parties on Pinterest.

So there you have it!  I had birthday on the brain for the last few weeks and was on party planning mode (aka pinning mode).  But, I did create an invitation!  Nothing fancy.  I used PowerPoint to create it.

And, I also made a shiny superhero cape for Ethan!  The first one I made him last year was a little short, so I added an inch to this one.  Should have added more length though.  Oh well!  It’s still pretty darn cute, I think!  It was also my first time sewing with satin.  I nearly ruined my machine!  For some reason, I thought I needed a special needle for satin.  I thought a sharper Microtex needle would work.  Um, nope!  Don’t ever use a Microtex needle with satin!  It kept pulling all the threads out of the material.  So there’s my tip of the day!

And that’s all I’ve done so far… sadly.  Less than two weeks left!  I need to zoom into action quick!  Wish me luck!

xoxo, Jen

Easter Treat Bags

Oh yes, I realize it’s the day before Easter, but I still want to share these simple little treat bags I made for Ethan’s Easter playdate!

They are merely little muslin drawstring pouches but were such a joy to make.  These bags are blank canvases so you can embellish any way you’d like.  I appliquéd a small egg onto each one — a simple look but that’s what I love about it!

These bags are so versatile and an easy project for those just beginning to sew!  Want a quick tutorial?  Ok, here it is!  Finished size is about 5″x6″.

Materials:

• 1/2 yard of muslin (this will make 4 pouches)
• scraps of fabric for your egg appliqués
• heat n’ bond lite
• twine or ribbon
• safety pin

1.  Cut your muslin into 6″x15″ rectangles.  I doubled up on my fabric to create a more durable and less see-through pouch, but you can totally just use a single piece of fabric.  So I cut out 8 rectangles for my 4 pouches.

Find some cute spring-like fabric from your scrap stash and iron on heat n’ bond lite to the wrong side of the fabric (as per package instructions).  Cut out an egg shape.  I used a home decor weight fabric for the eggs but any lightweight cotton will do just fine.  The scraps are Kokka Japan except for the all yellow one.

2.  Take two of your rectangles and put them together, back to back.  We will be working on this as if it’s just a single piece.  Fold the rectangle in half widthwise.  Peel off backing on eggs and iron on to fabric where you want your appliqué.

3.  Sew the egg onto the fabric.

4.  Open up your rectangle.  Fold down an inch on both sides of the rectangle.  Press with iron and then sew down with 1/4″ seam allowance.  Sew again about 1/4″ from the top.  You should have two stitch lines.  This will form our casing for the drawstring.

5.  Fold rectangle in half again, right sides together, and sew down both sides.

6.  Now you have your pouch.  Turn it right side out.

7.  Attach a safety pin to your twine or ribbon and carefully insert through the casing from one end to the other, then continuously back around through to the other side.  You should finish with two strings on one side of the pouch.  Tie a knot to secure.  Then, do it again for the other side.

8.  And that’s it!  You’ve made a pouch.  Now you can go fill it up with Easter goodies, pull the drawstrings taut, and you’re good to go!

Happy Easter!

xoxo, Jen

DIY Felt Bunny Ears

There are so many cute DIY bunny ears out there, like this one (Kate’s Creative Space) and this one (Finley & Oliver) – two of my favorite blogs!  But, of course, I needed to make things more complicated for myself because I just love the extra work!  Ha, so kidding.  I had a vision in my mind and needed to see it through!  So, in case you’re interested in how I put mine together, here it is!

Materials:

• headband that will fit your child
• bunny ears template
• cream colored felt for outer part of ear (or any color of choice)
• gray colored felt for inner part of ear (or any color of choice)
• two pipe-cleaners
• heat n’ bond lite
• fusible interfacing
• essentials: sewing machine, thread, needle, scissors

Ok, let’s get started!

1.  Print out the bunny ears template on card stock.  I got the template from Martha Stewart.  Her version is super cute and EASY too.  I enlarged my ears a tad bit because I was making it for an almost-three-year-old.  The outer ear part was about 7″ long and 2.5″ wide; the inner ear part was about 5.5″ long and 2″ wide.

2.  Cut your cream felt into four strips of about 8″ x”4″ and iron strips of interfacing onto it.  Cut the gray felt into two strips that are slightly smaller and iron the heat n’ bond adhesive onto it.

3.  Grab your templates and trace the outer ear onto the cream pieces and the inner ear onto the gray ones.

4.  Cut your ears out.  You should have four cream pieces and two gray ones.

5.  Iron on the gray inner ear pieces onto the cream ones.  The remaining two cream pieces will be the back of the ear.

6.  This part is optional.  Sew along the edge of the gray ear to secure onto the cream felt.  The adhesive should hold the piece in place just fine without any sewing, but I wanted it to be extra secure in case it gets tossed around by my destructive little boy.

7.  Next, sew the back piece of the ear to the front along the sides only and leaving the bottom open.  Take two pipe cleaners and twist the ends to join them to make one long one.  Bend at the middle to form a pointy top and insert into the ear via the bottom opening.  Now you can sew the bottom closed.

8.  Grab your headband.  I got mine at the dollar store.  If it has any embellishments on it like mine did, make sure you cut or pull them off so that you have a clean headband to work with.  Wrap the pipe cleaners around the top of the headband to secure the ears.

9.  Cut 1 inch wide strips of felt long enough to cover the length of your headband.  You should have two pieces to sandwich your headband in the middle.  Now cut two slits on the top of one of your strips.  Make the slits wide enough (but not too wide) to slip the ears through.  Slip the ears through.

10.  Hand stitch the strips together with the headband sandwiched in the middle.  And you’re done!

I’ve now succeeded in making the world’s most complicated felt bunny ears!  I’m certain there is a much easier way… and I’ll probably figure it out a couple years later!

Happy spring and have a great Easter weekend!

xoxo, Jen

St. Patrick’s Day Playdate

I thought it would be fun to have a little green playdate for Ethan and his friends.  Playdates are a regular part of our toddler-mommy world, so why not turn it into a pretty themed mini party for the kiddos since St. Patrick’s Day is approaching? They had a blast!

Please excuse the empty space on the bottom tiered dish.  My mommy brain totally forgot to fill it before I snapped photos of the display.

Here are some of my handmade highlights:

• These were my favorite — the teeny pots of gold with the rainbow marshmallow pops.  I bought the little pots at Party City and filled them with Hershey’s Nuggets.  Got my inspiration here.

• You can’t have a pot of gold without it being under a rainbow!  I got the rainbow marshmallow idea from here.  I just stuck a lollipop stick into the marshmallow to make pops, and so they could easily stand in the pot.  The rainbow is from a package of sour Airheads.

• The mini cupcakes are just that – fun, little cakes with green sprinkles!  Nothing really special here.

• The spring water bottles were wrapped with this cute shamrock patterned paper I found at Joann.  I merely cut them into strips based on the size of the original wrapper.  Then, generously stuck some double-sided tape on the back of the strip, and wrapped it around the bottle.  Cute, huh?  And so easy.

• See that pretty green dish?  It was so delicious!  My awesome mommy friend made it.  Green soba noodles topped with shredded cabbage, cucumbers, egg, and fish cake cut into pretty four-leaf clovers!  It was paired with a yummy Asian dressing.

• The shamrock banner was made the same way as my lucky one.

• And the table was full of fun crafty materials to decorate large shamrocks.  I cut out a bunch of shamrocks from cardstock in various shades of green using my Silhouette Cameo.  I’m beginning to really love this machine!

• Details on the lucky banner and subway art here.

And that’s it!  I now leave you with some cute photos of the kids.

Peek-a-boo!  Guess who?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

xoxo, Jen

Lucky Shamrock Burlap Banner

I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times how much I love burlap!  I still do.  I love using it as part of my home decor.  I also love banners!  So for St. Patrick’s Day, I decided to make a banner with the word “LUCKY” spelled out and a couple of shamrocks.  Super easy.

Do you love it as much as I do?  Want to know how I made it?  Here it is!

* A little update:  When I originally made the banner, I had every intention of stringing twine though the casing to hang it, so my instructions below will reflect this.  It was only until later, after toying with the display over and over and over, that I realized I liked it hanging with clothespins.  Yeah, I’m indecisive, but I always decide in the end!

Materials:

• Burlap (probably a half yard will do)
• Lightweight fabric of choice (for letters and shamrocks)
• Heat n’ Bond Lite
• Twine (or any string or ribbon for hanging)
• Safety pin
• Your basic sewing necessities: machine, thread, scissors, iron

1. You’re going to need 7 squares.  Cut them at 6″ x 7″.  They will end up being 6″ x 6″ squares when finished.

2.  Fold each piece down an inch on the 7″ side and iron to hold it in place.  This will make your casing to slip the twine through.

3.  Sew down the casing with about a quarter seam allowance.  You don’t want to sew too close to the edge in case the burlap frays.  Now put aside your burlap squares.

4. Iron on the heat n’ bond to the wrong side of your fabric.  Cut out the word “lucky” and two shamrocks.  You can use microsoft word to create stencils and do a quick image search to find shamrocks online.  Or, if you have a Silhouette Cameo, you can cut them out that way like I did.

5. Peel backing off of your letters and shamrocks, and iron them onto the burlap squares using a low temperature, no steam setting (or, according to packaging instructions).  Now admire how lovely they look adhered to the burlap!  The packaging recommends sewing your appliqué onto the fabric after ironing, but I don’t find it necessary with this project.  The letters stay on just fine.  I made happy birthday and heart banners in a similar fashion a year ago and it’s still holding up just great!

6. Attach the end piece of your twine to a safety pin and slowly feed it into the casing you made.

And that’s it!  Now you can hang your banner up and stare at it endlessly like me!

Keep in mind that this material sheds… big time!  I can’t recall the number of times I sneezed while assembling the banner.  Luckily, it’s easy to clean up.  Also, the edges will fray.  You can probably spray some fray check on it but I personally like the not-so-perfect look so I kept it the way it is.

Oh, see that cute subway art up there?  Got it from here.  It’s awesome and free – so go print one out and frame it!  The flowers?  Those are Bells of Ireland!  Aren’t they pretty?  They made me smile when I saw them, so I picked up a bunch at my local Trader Joe’s and stuck them in some empty jars I had that were waiting to be used!

Thanks for stopping by and looking at my pretty green display!

xoxo, Jen

Toddler Backpack

So this may sound kind of lame, but this backpack was made a few months ago (way back in 2012)!  I didn’t have the time to blog about it then but here it is now!

I was super excited to have finally bought the toddler backpack pattern by Made by Rae. I had been drooling over these backpacks for the longest time! I don’t know why I waited so long to get it – but it’s a good thing because Rae had updated it with instructions for adding a lining and enlarging the pattern.  Yay!

I used this little cars fabric by Kokka Japan that I had purchased from a local store called Momen+ but Fabricworm has a great selection of Japanese import fabrics too.  It’s so hard to find cute fabric for boys so I instantly fell in love with this print at the store.

I just love little backpacks on kids.  It’s the most adorable thing ever!

Anyway, many firsts happened for me here!  It was the first time I ever sewed piping.  And it was the first time I sewed a zipper.  And I think it went pretty swell!  I was totally nervous about screwing up the piping so I looked up tutorials and found this awesome one.  It was so helpful.  I prefer to join the cords together rather than overlapping them for a cleaner look.  Plus, it was so much easier to do it this way!  So proud of myself.  Of course, I was also sewing at the slowest possible speed.  Ha!

The backpack turned out just a little bit floppy (even with the lining) but once it’s stuffed, it looks fine.  Next time around, I will add interfacing.

This is such a great pattern to have on hand.  It was $8 but so worth it, especially since I’ve decided that this would be my go-to gift for all the little toddlers I know!

xoxo, Jen

DIY Mustache Love Shirt (using fabric paint)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Last year, I made this mustache love shirt for Ethan.  I decided to make him another one this year because I just love how the first one turned out!  Also, I’m still slightly obsessed with mustaches and I think this is just the cutest design ever!  I’m so original, eh?  So much that my husband didn’t even notice it was a different shirt from last year!  Um, our son has grown a little bigger and this time I used fabric paint and not felt!  Ha!

This design came from Finley & Oliver.  Another one of my favorite blogs.

OK, here is what I did!

Materials:

• t-shirt
• fabric paint
• sponge brush
• freezer paper
• small piece of cardboard

1.)  Grab your t-shirt.  I used a shirt that I already had on hand.  It’s organic cotton and super soft!  Get the mustache love template over at Finley & Oliver and make your stencil using freezer paper.  I used my Silhouette machine to make my stencil, but you can also trace the letters onto the freezer paper and cut them out.  Next, iron the freezer paper (shiny side down) onto your shirt using a low temperature dry setting.

2.)  Grab your fabric paint and brush.  I got both my paint and brush at Joann.  I went with a matte finish paint and a sponge brush because I wanted to produce a slightly distressed effect.  Put some cardboard inside the shirt under the part where you will be painting.

3.)  Go to town painting!  Just make sure you don’t paint outside the stencil.  Since I used a sponge brush, I just dabbed it up and down on the shirt for a not-so-neat look. I painted on two coats.

4.) Wait about 5 minutes to let the paint soak in and then slowly peel off the freezer paper stencil (while the paint is still wet).  And there you have it!  Now keep it flat and let it dry according to the instructions on the paint bottle.  I let mine dry overnight and it looked perfect the next morning!

So easy!  This was my first time using freezer paper and fabric paint.  I really don’t know why it took me so long to try it.  I was seriously missing out!  The results look so professional.

I initially made this shirt so he could wear it to a Valentine’s playdate!  Check out the sweet kissing booth!  Isn’t it the cutest?!

xoxo, Jen