Guest posting on Sugar Bee Crafts

I'm over at Sugar Bee Crafts today taking part in Mandy's Guest Blogger Extravaganza! Today, I turned my son into an acorn with this little number:

The Acorn Knot Hat serves two purposes:

1. It keeps Connor's head warm.
2. More importantly, I think it'd be really funny to whip this picture out one day when Connor is 16 and getting ready to head out the door with his homecoming date. Revenge for those nights you kept me up, buddy!

So head on over to Sugar Bee Crafts and learn how to make an Acorn Knot Hat so you can embarrass your children when they're teenagers too.

And leave some love while you're at it ;)

Drummer Shirt

Why is it that little girls are so much easier to make clothes for? There are so many cute little skirts, dresses, and ruffled tops out there for girls, but it seems like boys are limited to t-shirts and track pants. Boooooring!

My husband swears by his baseball tees. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get that man to wear a graphic tee. He doesn't like how the graphics look on it because he thinks they make him look "metro," and my guy is a guy who is all about "manly" things like super heroes, guns, and explosions.

Maybe I need to make him a shirt with an exploding super hero holding a gun. I mean, that's gotta be ultra-manly, right? Watch out world, I'm about to revolutionize fashion with my new line of men's clothing featuring exploding super heroes.

A friend of mine has a son who just turned 3 recently so while the idea of a shirt with an exploding super hero was appealing, I stuck to something more appropriate for a 3-year-old. This kid loves playing drums, so I decided to make him a fun shirt with something to do with drums. This is what I came up with: 

I got a Garanimals shirt from Wal-Mart, and used felt to cut out the letters and drum sticks. I love using felt on shirts so much because it's easy to cut and it doesn't fray. Plus, it gives a fun dimensional aspect to the shirt. After cutting the letters out, I just basted the felt onto the shirt with some basting spray (found that at Wal-Mart too) and sewed everything on with black thread.

If anyone is interested in a more detailed tutorial just let me know and I'll put something together. I think this shirt would be really cute with an electric guitar and maybe some lightning bolts or stars on it - because lightning bolts are also very manly. According to my husband, stars are NOT manly. Tell that to Captain America.

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

Fall Button Tree Shirt

In case you missed my guest post on Tatertots & Jello on the 2nd, here's what I shared! Also, make sure you check back next week...I have a giveaway for all of my awesome readers!

Today, I wanted to share a project with you inspired by my favorite season - fall! This fall button tree shirt is a really easy sew, perfect for beginners. You just have to have lots of patience to sit and hand sew all the button "leaves" on.

Here's what you need:

• Download my free tree pattern HERE
• A shirt
•  Brown fabric for the tree
• Sewable interfacing, like Heat 'N Bond Lite
• Lots of buttons in fall colors
• Basic sewing supplies

First, follow the directions on your interfacing to iron a piece of sewable interfacing larger than your tree image to the back of your fabric. Don't peel the paper backing off yet.

After your interfacing is ironed on, print and cut out my tree template, then trace it onto the paper backing of the interfacing.

Cut out your tree and remove the paper backing.

Using a hot iron, iron your tree onto your shirt following the interfacing instructions. Sew around the perimeter of your tree to secure (use stabilizer if needed, knits can be tricky sometimes.)

Now is where the patience part comes in! Dig into your button stash for some fall-colored buttons. Using a needle and thread, hand sew buttons around your tree until you're satisfied with how it looks. You might want to grab a snack and put on some of your DVR'd TV shows for the next hour or so while you're at it.

After lots of hand sewing, you should have a cute new fall shirt for your little one!

Now go find a big pile of leaves to jump in!

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

FroYo Shirts: Guest post with Come On, Ilene!

I found Come on, Ilene! just recently while blog stalking surfing and ever since, I've been hooked. She bakes, she sews, and she had the GREATEST bicycle-themed wedding that you have to check out. The tutorial that really caught my eye was for adorable FroYo shirts she made - I just love all the bead "sprinkles"! I'm so glad to have Ilene here sharing it with you today so you can make one too!

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Hi! I am ilene from Come on, ilene! Thanks for having me here, Jen! I am honored to be guest posting today. My blog is much like Jen's - full of tutorials, recipes and crafts. It's basically a collection of whatever is cooking up in this crazy little head of mine. Here are a few of my most popular posts (click to see full tutorials):


Today, I am sharing with you one of my favorite projects- how to sew frozen yogurt appliques!



We had some friends who were contemplating opening up a frozen yogurt business so I wanted to surprised their daughters with cute little froyo shirts! I'm totally loving this frozen yogurt fad, I could eat a large cup for breakfast! If only froyo stores were open that early. There is a place near our old house in Boston that had this awesome mojito-flavored froyo. Pile mochi on top and I am in heaven!

The froyo design was appliquéd onto plain T-shirts. This is a great project for using up scraps of fabric and mismatched "orphaned" buttons. I didn't have a pattern so I just drew one up with a sharpie. I tried hard not to make it look like a big cup of doo-dee:



Cut out the pattern pieces with scissors:



Then trace the pattern onto your fabric using disappearing ink:



To help the fabric pieces stick to the shirt, I like to back them with Heat N Bond iron on adhesive. You just iron on the paper-backed adhesive onto the back side of the fabric:



Then peel off the paper. Cut out the pieces and iron onto the shirt. The heat will activate the adhesive and bind the fabric to the shirt:



For the spoon, I cut out a silver piece of silhouette heat transfer material and ironed it on.

Now comes the tricky part, embroidering all around the design. This requires lots of patience and slow stitching. I used a zig-zag stitch all around:



Here is a great tutorial on how to appliqué. It definitely takes some practice!

Now comes the fun part! Adding buttons, swavorski crystals and beads as "toppings"! The girls love all things sparkly, so I wanted to add some bling!





And that's it! Two unique froyo shirts for two very special sisters!



Thanks for having me, Jen!! For more of my ideas, come visit me at Come on, ilene!

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How cute are these shirts? Frozen yogurt is all the rage in my town (I can think of 4 separate frozen yogurt places within 7 miles of each other), and I'm definitely a sucker for ice cream myself, so this project caught my eye right away.

Thanks for sharing, Ilene! Go check out Come on, Ilene! and see her other great projects, I'm sure her blog will become one of your new favorites too.

Guest posting at Tatertots & Jello!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm guest posting over at Tatertots and Jello today!!

I whipped up something a little fall-ish to celebrate my favorite season - and as an added bonus, I actually got to use up some of my button hoard.

Can we all take a moment of silence in honor of the fact that I actually got a holiday-themed project up before the actual holiday is a week from being over? And can we all just pretend for a moment that fall is actually a holiday?

Awesome, glad we got that all straightened out.


So anyway, head on over to Tatertots and Jello and check out my Fall Button Tree Shirt tutorial. And while you're at it, show some love! Because all you need is love. But comments are nice too :)

No-Sew iPhone Costume

Halloween is 7 days away. Oh wait, you knew that? Apparently I chose to completely forget that fact. And also the part about how my son still had no costume for his first trick-or-treat.

We're not huge into Halloween at my house. I have no decorations up and I still don't have a pumpkin (it's probably a lost cause by now), but there is one thing I celebrate very passionately in October: candy. Halloween has always been all about the candy for me. You can keep your suckers and Pixy Stix (and if you are one of those families that give out toothbrushes I know who you are and I will be skipping your house), give me the chocolate! Specifically the Reese's cups and the Baby Ruths.

As a kid, I always made sure to go through my stash after I went trick-or-treating and pick out the good stuff to hide in my room somewhere because we all know that when parents do the "candy inspection" they're not really looking for needles and opened candy, they're looking for chocolate. Now that I have young kids, you better believe I will be doing plenty of candy inspections myself until the kids catch on.


I was feeling the pressure this past weekend since it's my son's first trick-or-treat experience, but since I was low on time and resources I decided the costume had to be inexpensive, quick, and no-sew since I didn't feel like sitting down to a major project. Then as I was surfing the net for ideas on my iPhone, then I realized the answer was right in front of me. I got to work and whipped this baby up in roughly 1 1/2 hours (the apps were what took the longest to cut out and piece together) and while I made this for my 11-month-old, it would easily make a great costume for any age. And I even designed some apps for you to print and cut out. Consider it your Halloween treat!


Supplies:

• Shirt that fits to use as a template
• Felt or fleece for the main fabric
• Assorted felt squares for the apps
• Free app template HERE
• Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
• Scissors
• Disappearing ink marker

Step 1: Make your main piece.

First, fold the piece of felt or flannel that you chose for the main fabric in half with the fold on top. Tuck the sleeves in and lay your template shirt on top of the fabric to determine the length and width you want your final costume to be (extend it 1 1/2 + inches wider on each side to be safe). Using a disappearing ink marker, trace around your shirt where you will be cutting.

Cut out your rectangle, making sure not to cut across the top where your fold is.

Use your template shirt to determine where your neckline should be and how wide and deep it needs to be and mark this with your disappearing ink marker. I would make the neckline slightly larger than your template shirt's neckline because the felt isn't as stretchy as knit.

Use a CD to round each of the corners like an iPhone.

Cut out your neckline and each of your rounded corners.

Step 2: Cut out the detail pieces.

Now, cut out a rectangle for the screen (use a CD to round the edges like you did above), a small rounded rectangle for the earpiece, and a circle and square for the power button. Position and hot glue these components in place.

Step 3: Create your apps.

This was the really fun part! Determine which apps you want to make for your costume. I looked at my phone and picked several of the simpler ones. I designed the 6 you see below and included them HERE if you want to print and cut them out to make yourself. Just cut out each piece on card stock (which I prefer because it's thicker) or regular print paper, and trace onto squares of felt. Cut out each component and hot glue to assemble.

Now, just arrange your apps on the screen and hot glue them down. Simple!

Step 4: Glue sides.

Pretty explanatory. Since the sides are open, you can choose to leave them this way, but I decided to glue the sides together so my little guy couldn't wiggle out. Just lay your template shirt on top of your costume and use your disappearing ink marker to mark where you want the bottom of the sleeve to be. I marked about an inch down from the sleeve on either side. Hot glue the two sides together from this mark to the bottom of the shirt right before it curves.

And there you have it, a super easy no-sew iPhone costume!

Now obviously since this costume is hot glued instead of sewn, it's not machine washable so just wipe any stains with soap and warm water.

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

Shopping in Shannon's Closet: the fall edition

In yet another chapter of Shopping in Shannon's Closet (where my sister-in-law dresses me with all of her amazing hand-me-downs), I wanted to share with you some of the awesome fall things I scored from her latest stash!

If you haven't heard about my sister-in-law, she's nothing short of awesome. She's the sister I never had who, besides being extremely talented and brilliant, has an awesome taste in fashion (and a love of shopping). Luckily for me, she has taken pity on her poor sister-in-law's sense of fashion (and empty wallet) and does better than let me wear her clothes - she gives them to me when she gets tired of them! I love that girl. And so does my budget.

When my in-laws visited last, my mother-in-law brought another big bag of Shannon's stuff for me. A lot of it is cooler-weather stuff, so I've been waiting to share some of it with you!

Outfit #1: Lumberjackie

Shirt: Shannon's
Leggings: Mine, Target
Shoes: Mine, Target
Belt: Mine, Forever 21

OK, so most of this outfit was actually mine for once, but it definitely has some Shannon influence in it with the leggings. I mentioned before how much I love leggings, but it took a lot to get me to actually wear them in the first place. I think I was having flashbacks to elementary school stirrup pants. Now, I don't know what I'd do without leggings.

I love this flannel shirt because 1: There's just something so wonderfully fall-ish about flannel 2. Blue is my favorite color and 3: The sleeves have pickups in them so I can wear the sleeves long or short depending on how cool the weather is that day.

Outfit #2: Goody Two Boots

Dress: Shannon's
Necklace: Shannon's
Boots: Mine, Gap

So I'm sure you're loving my corny outfit names, right? And also the very obvious fact that I only have 2 poses? Yeah, modeling is not one of my fortes.

This is an outfit I wore to church recently. I wanted to wear a dress, but it was a little chilly outside so I decided to wear one of my favorite pairs of boots with it. Not sure if this particular pair of boots worked as well as they could have with the dress, but I'm kind of lacking in the boot department since I have arches that are like, 3 feet tall, and therefore can't wear any heels higher than a couple of inches. My husband says I walk like a velociraptor when I wear heels. He even does an awesome impression of me walking like a raptor. Which I will not repeat for you. Ever.

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And now some outtakes for you. Because when my husband gets the camera, he's good for about 3 minutes. Then has the attention span of a 6-year-old and makes me laugh so I can't take a normal picture.

Linking up to WIWW:

Cheating my way through a winter wardrobe

Thank you to all of you who left your sweet comments on my Babushka Doll Shirt on Monday! I wanted to get you in on a little secret of mine that I applied to that shirt. You might not have noticed, but it's a sneaky trick that I use to winterize Haley and Connor's summer wardrobes.

Did you happen to notice in my previous post that the shirt began as a short-sleeve top and ended up as a long sleeve shirt?

That's because I cheat my way through my kids' winter wardrobe. If I already have a shirt on hand that I want to use for winter but it's short-sleeved, I just add sleeves to it using one of my husband's undershirts. Cheap? Maybe. I prefer "clever." :) Plus, I really like the look of the different colored sleeves.

Since that secret is out now, I might as well share the details with you so you can save some money and cheat your way through your child's winter wardrobe too!

Supplies:

• Short-sleeve shirt that fits your child
• White men's undershirt (or any other knit shirt you may want to use)
• Disappearing ink marker
• Sewing machine and basic sewing supplies

First, find a long-sleeve shirt that fits your child well. Lay one of the sleeves on top of your knit shirt flush with one of the edges and the bottom of your shirt (this is so you don't need to hem your sleeve). Use your disappearing ink marker to trace around your sleeve, making sure to make a j-like curve at the top where the sleeve meets the shirt. Repeat on the other side edge of your shirt to make 2 sleeves.

After cutting each of your sleeves out, they should look like this when they're open:

Fold them in half long ways with the right sides together, and pin along the long side. Sew down the long side from the edge of your sleeve to the top (make sure you don't sew either of the shorts sides closed!)

Turn your sleeve inside out, and you have a completed sleeve! (sorry, I didn't take a picture of the finished sleeve, but I'm sure you all know what a sleeve looks like :) The long side you just sewed is the bottom of your sleeve.

To attach the long sleeves you just made, turn your shirt inside out and stuff the existing sleeves of your shirt inside. Locate the original seam where the existing sleeves are sewed onto the shirt. This is where you will be attaching your long sleeves you just made.

With your long sleeve right side out, insert the sleeve inside of your shirt's armhole, matching up the raw edges of your sleeve with the edge of the armhole.

Pin your sleeve to the armhole and sew all around the armhole to attach your sleeve.

When you pull your sewn on sleeve inside out, it should look like this:

Turn your whole shirt right side out, and now your short sleeve shirt has been winterized! You can do the same thing with little boy's shirts. It's a little addictive. Especially if you stock up on cheap, end-of-the-season sale shirts from summer.




The only downside is your husband will start to wonder where all his undershirts went. Just tell him you're saving money on your kids' winter wardrobe :)