Posh Tooth Fairy Pillow

My little girl has her first loose tooth, and since we made her big brother a monster tooth pillow, she was really excited for one of her own. This time we chose to do one a little bit more suited to a princess. Her room is pink and black, so I wanted to match it.

 Materials I used:

Pink main background fabric, Coordinating accent fabric, Black silhouette fabric, Black thread, Stuffing, Iron-on fabric adhesive (would have used adhesive interfacing, but they didn't have any where I live).

Other things I needed:

Shears, Rotary Cutter and Board, Sewing machine, Seam Ripper ;), Pins, Pattern for Tooth and Dress Silhouettes.

 

I drew a picture of a dress and a tooth in paint first and printed them off for the silhouettes. They are a little bit poor quality because I did them in paint, but you just cut the edges smooth, so it doesn't really matter. Feel free to use them if you want to do something similar!

Then I cut out all of my pieces.

2 10x12 background pieces, one 11x12 accent piece, 1 dress out of black and 1 out of the adhesive, 1 tooth out of black 1 out of adhesive and 1 out of pink.

I used a zigzag stitch across the 12" sides of the accent piece to make it gather. This worked fine because it's a knit. Then I attached the accent to the background.  The accent fabric is an inch taller than the background so that when I gathered it in the middle it wouldn't distort the whole pillow.  I took care of the excess in a later step.

Then I gathered the fabric to the middle and tacked it down. 

Next I put the double sided adhesive on the dress and attached it to the front of the pillow. Then I stitched it all around the outside of the dress.

 

The tooth is the pocket, so I couldn't adhere it directly to the pillow. So, for stability, I stuck it to a piece of the pink fabric before I attached it to the back of the pillow.  I also sewed the top edge of the tooth to make it look the same as the rest of the finished tooth.

Then I pinned the tooth to the back side of the pillow and stitched it on, leaving the top portion open.

                     

With right sides together, I sewed the front and back pieces of the pillow together, leaving an opening on the side for turning and stuffing.  This is where I got rid of the extra bulk from the accent piece. I just pulled the middle of it tight as I sewed along those edges.  This is also where I used the seam ripper because I forgot to do it the first time.  I turned the pillow right side out and pushed out the corners with my fingertips.

Then I stuffed and shaped the pillow and hand-sewed the opening shut.

FINISHED!!!

And the back:

I was really trying to make it go with other decorations I made a while ago. What do you think?

One of these days I will paint her room too, then I think the look will be complete.

Post Halloween Post

I wanted to show off my sweet kids in their costumes one more time, so here is my post Halloween post. We went all over our neighborhood and got a ton of candy.  I didn't really know what to do with it all.  I'm not super excited about my kids having a ton of sugar.  Here's a picture of what I came up with:

What kind of creative things do you do with your kids Halloween candy??

I hope you had a great Halloween!



Happy Halloween!!

 We've been having fun this Halloween. On Saturday we had a church party where there were contests for table decorations, pumpkin carving, chili, and costumes. So, on Friday and Saturday we were working hard on our creations while enjoying some homemade root beer. So much fun!

Here's my wonderful table decoration haunted house with working door that plays music. I made it from a shoe box. You can't tell, but Frankenstein's monster and a ghost are in these windows, and in the back are an alien and a witch.

My son working on his pumpkin.

 My daughter digging out her pumpkin and the finished works of art. They each drew or chose their pumpkin design and I helped with carving.  The skeleton in the middle won second place!! Woohoo!

My little fairy Princess got first place for costume in her age group.

Here's my toothless vampire and orange kitty cat

 

And finally, the cutest little skeleton baby ever

One of my favorite Halloween treats as a kid was the popcorn ball, and I haven't had one in years, so I decided we needed to make some. It was fun, and I love them, but the kids didn't enjoy them so much. Oh well.

Jello Popcorn Balls

16 cups popcorn (popped)

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup white corn syrup

1 3 oz package jello, any flavor

Remove any unpopped kernals from popcorn.  Combine sugar, corn syrup, and jello in a saucepan and boil 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Mix into the popcorn. Form into balls and cool on waxed paper.

We've had so much fun so far this Halloween, I can't wait for trick-or-treating tonight!  Happy Halloween everyone!

Corner Bookmark with Flower

Well, it's been a really long time since I posted, but that's because I've been busy building a beautiful baby girl, and I really haven't had a lot of energy for anything else.  I finally feel like a regular person again, so I thought I'd try to get back to it.  This bookmark I made for my Mom for Christmas last year, and just never got around to posting it. She is hard to find a gift for because she just doesn't want anything. She does enjoy reading, so I thought this would be a nice present. I got the inspiration from this blog, but kind of put my own spin on it.

Materials:

     Paper                            Glue

     Embellishments        Scissors or Paper Trimmer

     Ribbon

     Flower

Take your background paper and cut a square. I did 3 1/2 inches.

Then fold the top corners to the middle. Cut a triangle to cover the folded edges and attach to the bookmark with the ribbon between the layers. 

I cut the corners off of the bottom because I like the look of the square better, and added my embellishments. I love laser cutouts.

Attach the flower to the ribbon. I made my flower with a jeweled brad, so I just poked a hole through the ribbon and attached it with the brad.

Then I placed a coordinating paper circle on the back of the flower to cover the attachment.

And, finished! I will post how to make the fabric flowers soon for anyone interested.  



Matchy Matchy

I just love when things are matchy matchy.  I used to go to church with a mom who had two girls, and they all had dresses made with the same fabric.  I thought it was so cute.  And I absolutely adore the idea of a girl matching her dolly. 

I got some hand-me-down fabric from my grandma years ago that is so cute, and I finally used it a couple of months ago on a simple A-line skirt for my little girl.  Then I found a pattern for a doll dress that was perfect.  Since I used a pattern, I figured there was no need for a pictorial.  That's what the pattern is for, right?  But I did want to share a picture of it because it turned out so cute, and of course Audrey loves it so much.  I had planned on giving it to her as a Christmas present, but I was so excited, I couldn't wait.

And yes, that is a Cabbage Patch Doll from the 90's.  I'm a little nostalgic, and I kept a lot of my old things for my kids.  Want to see my old Ninja Turtles too?

Glitter Shoes

Update: Ok , so she's used them for a little while now, and the glitter is starting to come off where the shoe bends naturally.  :(  I wonder if there is a better glue to use for this kind of project.  It sort of cracked and fell of.  It's not really noticeable yet, but she will only be able to wear them a couple more times.

Have you ever bought some of those glitter shoes for your little girl, and a week later half of the glitter has come off??  They are super cute, but some of them are made a little better than others.  We got some silver ones from The Children's Place, and boy were they cheap (poorly made, not inexpensive)!  Here is my little girl's shoe all ready to go in the trash:

I figured, I'm ready to throw these away anyway, I might as well try to save them first.  So, I busted out the glitter and the glue.

First I sanded the shoes a little, to get any of the loose glitter off.  Then I just took some tacky craft glue and spread it all over the shoe.

Then I put glitter all over the shoe.  I couldn't decide what color to use, so there is some pink, blue and green in there.  Shake off the excess glitter, then  let it dry for a few hours.

Next, I used modge podge and covered the glitter completely.  I also cut some fabric to cover the inside of the shoe because these actually have had a lot of use.  I let it dry over night and then covered it in modge podge again.  Then I put on an extra layer over the toes and other places where there was a lot of wear.

And here they are!  Fabulous, right??  I will have to let her wear them for a couple of weeks and update to let you know how well they hold up.  At least she will get a little more use out of them.  This will probably work on any canvas shoe too, if you want to glam up a tennis shoe or something.  In fact, I might just try that too!



My son is singing in a "Barnyard Moosical" for school on Monday, and has been asked to dress like a cow.  Now, I'm not about to go spend money on a cow costume that he's going to wear once, so I went to look in my craft closet to see what I had.  I found this shirt that James stained last year and isn't really wearable.  Luckily, I could never bring myself to throw it away.  I thought for sure I could think of a way to use it for something, and I was right!  Yay me!  So, I grabbed the shirt, a sharpie, some cardboard, tole paint, and a paint brush.

I stuck the cardboard inside the shirt, and drew some spots with my sharpie.

Then I filled in the spots with the black paint.  Yes, I know that's not the purpose of this paint, but it's what I had on hand, and it works!

I let it dry a few hours, then flipped it over and spotted the back.

Throw in a pair of black gloves for the hooves, and there you have it: A free cow costume that was really easy to make! 

Disclaimer:  The paint is really stiff, and it will be uncomfortable, so he will have to wear an undershirt with it.  If you are going to plan on doing this a fabric paint would probably be a lot better.

Update:  Here is a picture at the performance.  I didn't sit close enough to get a good picture during the singing, but this is him in his classroom.  What a cutie!