My First Halloween Costumes!

I feel as if I have run a marathon in the last few days! Staying up super late, burning my fingers with the glue gun, poking my fingers with needles, rethreading my sewing machine and serger about 57 million times, cooked, cleaned, sewed some more. I now know what my mother and grandmother went through with all the costumes they made! Burning the midnight oil to make countless costumes for Halloween, choir dresses, plays I was in.... the list goes on. I just figure I was carrying on with tradition in staying up passed 3:00am and going a little crazy in the process.

So here they are! Drum roll please!

Here is Dorothy! I made her dress out of a blue man's button up shirt that we got from Goodwill for about $1.00!!! All I had to do was unpick the seams and I had plenty of fabric for her shirt and straps. The shirt was just some extra muslin that my mother-in-law had. It turned out so cute and was way cheaper than if I had bought it.

Now meet the Lion! This costume was about the end of me. I knew from the second I looked at the pattern that it was slightly above my sewing skills, but I wanted a challenge and dove in. Needless to say I will not be diving in like that for a very long time. It wasn't too bad, it was the hood and the mane that was not my friend. But I got it done and I was very happy with the results.

All in all, it was a good lesson and I'm glad I tackled it. I need this experience to get ready for all the plays and things that they will be involved in. But I am taking a day off to rest my back, blisters on my fingers from the hot glue gun, and nursing my stomach from all the candy I have eaten! Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween! Now its time to think about CHRISTMAS!!!!!

I'm Back!

Alright ladies, sorry for the absence, but I had to get myself in a better place. I will probably still take things slow and not post a whole lot for a little while, but that has not been stopping me from working on some projects.

My husband and "the boys" (his dad, brother, brother-in-law and adopted grandpa) went camping a few weeks ago. Now, just so you know, we have been married for 6 year and in that 6 years I have slept alone in the house 3 times, and never since we have had kids! So this night was going to be a long one, so I made it a productive one. I stayed up for many hours watching girl movies as the wind outside was so bad it freaked me out! Things were crashing all over and I didn't get much sleep. But here is what I worked on.

I saw this tutorial over at Make It and Love It, and just had to do it. The only difference that I did on this was I turned all of these "rompers" into shirts.

My son, who is growing like a weed, has all these incredibly cute one piece short sets, but is too long for them.

So I hacked off the bottom shorts part and hemmed it.

I then used an old knit shirt and added long sleeves to them.

Here is another example. I did the same thing, hacked off the bottom and added sleeves. He went from having 2 or 3 warm shirts to have 10 or 12! Didn't cost me a thing!

Not Completely Back Yet...

I am alive and well, I promise. Things are still reeling from our little boy being sick last week. With several trips to the doctor and one trip to the E.R., its been a little nuts. However, he is on the mend and happy and getting stronger and healthier by the minute!

I wanted to post this as it just broke my heart. Tragedy struck a friend of mine's family this past week. The brother-in-law of my friend passed away unexpectedly last week leaving behind his beautiful wife and 6 gorgeous girls, ages from 9-1. This was such a shock for their family and my heart reaches out to them. Naki Maile was a great man, I only had the privilege of meeting him twice, but I was extremely impressed with his sweet spirit and his love for life and his family. The family has set up a donation account with Wells Fargo for anyone wanting to help this mother and her 6 girls. You can read about their family here at www.nakisgirls.com No donation is too small.

My thoughts and prayers are with that entire family.

The Mommy Wall

Yes, you read correctly. I have officially hit the "Mommy Wall." Its that terrible place where the kids are sick, too many projects, not enough hours in the day/month to get them done, the house is a mess, laundry piling up, binge eating (I've made a few batches of Puppy Chow, from the back of the Rice Chex box, and have eaten most of it myself), sleep deprivation, the need to curl up in the fetal position and hide in a closet until the husband comes home. Yep, that's me right now. Oh and did I mention bursting into tears at random moments for no apparent reason? Oh yeah, its been a long couple of weeks.

That's why I'm taking a small break. I need to regroup. I need to get this mountain of laundry under control, I need to finish about 58 projects (some for friend's baby's that have already arrived), I need to get my kids healthy, I need to get myself healthy (and the binge eating under control WHOA!!!), I need to just BREATHE! I will return and be more focused in a week or so, but until then, I am signing off. Don't worry, I will be ok, and the kids will be as well. Just need to slow things down, makes lists and set some different priorities and also put showering on a daily basis at the top of my list, yeah its gotten that bad around here! Talk to you all in a week or two.

Yet Another Shirt

I have struggled with this post for a week now. I know that a lot of the things that we all make are inspired by something we see in a magazine or at a store. Well, my inspiration came from an Etsy shop. Why does this make me feel bad that I copied their idea and I don't feel bad when I do it from Pottery Barn or any other place that inspires me? I have no clue. However, here it is and I absolutely love it!!

When I saw this shirt, I totally thought, "Its so cute and I bet it would be easy to make!" I used a peasant top pattern that I had only for the arm holes and I made the neckline wider and longer than the pattern I have. Then you just add a loop across the neckline and add the strap through it.

It was a little fluffy in the back, so I added that piece of fabric with the buttons to cinch it up a bit.

The nice thing about this shirt is that I can wear it all year round. In the summer time I can take the shirt off underneath and it will be a super cute halter. The tighter you cinch the strap on the top the tighter the neckline becomes. Its cute, looks good, and took me about an hour to make! Can't beat that! Plus, the fabric was on sale, so this shirt only cost me about $4.00!