Happy Birthday, Jack!

My baby turned two!

He has a slight Angry Birds obsession.

 "A-Birds!  A-Birds!"
"Yellow A-Bird say, 'Ack! Wheeeeee!'"
"iCat? iCat! iCat! A-Birds!"

He loves to play on the iPad, which is affectionately calls "iCat."  Since letting a two-year-old go to town on an iPad isn't something I'd like to claim to do all that often, I made him some bean bags from felt and old t-shirts.  We like to set them up on wooden blocks and play real-life Angry Birds.  Yeah, sure, not as fun as the electronic version, but it works.  And it has to be better for his brain, right?

I used a plain red shirt and more scrap felt (okay, it does spontaneously reproduce, yes?) to make him an Angry Bird shirt.  He was in love.

Odds and Ends

The category idea for catching up only goes so far.  Here's what I made that qualifies as "miscellaneous."

Nest charms for necklaces.  Hello, addicting. I didn't intend to make eleven of these, but I looked down and they had just kind of happened.  I had all the materials on hand.  That can't be altogether normal.

I made some birthday invitations with removable magnets.  I can't take credit for the design idea- my super awesome customer had the vision.  The fish magnet has all the party details.  Clever!  Printing on magnetic sheets has worked out surprisingly well.

I got a request for larger fused plastic place mats and quickly got to work on some full size place mat sets.  More of these puppies coming soon.

Andrew's sweet cousin Karen got married last month and I had the chance to make the wedding invitations and the bride's veil.  

Hoods and Tails. And Outfits.

I have an ongoing love affair with my camera.  I feel like I have so many good pictures of my kids.  With my camera and digital photography, plus Photoshop Elements, I get at least a few good shots out of the bazillion that I take of the kids on any given day.

Usually.

Sometimes, the stars just don't align.  I have to remind myself that the pouts, blurs, nose picks, cheesy grins, awkward poses, wild hair and uncooperative model shots are funny.  Because generally I chuckle about it five minutes after I've yelled in frustration, "Oooookay, you know what?  Nevermind.  This isn't working right now.  Everyone back INSIDE THE HOUSE!"

I used to of Andrew's old dress shirts to make the kids some clothes.  I have never been into the matchy-matchy thing, but I'll admit that every now and then, it can be kind of cute.  There.  I said it.  Jack's shirt is made from the Pox Couture pattern that I've used before.  Rory's skirt is the Emma Ruffle Skirt pattern. 

I came across this tutorial from The Cottage Home for hooded towels and made a trip out to get some cheap towels.  Contrary to what it looks like in these pictures, both Rory and Jack love their new bath towels.

I made both kids some dinosaur tails.  My friend Casey shared it with me and then I saw it on Pinterest (I know!) and knew that this needed to happen.  I actually ran out of polyfil when stuffing them, so Jack's is filled with stuffing and t-shirt scraps.  Clearly, he cares.  Rory wore hers when she did a presentation on her favorite dinosaurs for our church's Winter Follies talent show.  They both get a little irritated that they can't wear the tails and eat at the table for dinner.  "Well, honey, I'm not really sure what a real Diplodocus would do, but you need to take your tail off.  It doesn't fit in the chair."

Holidays

For Valentine's Day and Easter I made things for Rory's preschool friends.  Both times, around 2:00 am, I found myself thinking that it would have been a million times easier to just buy some candy and be done.  But since I am apparently incapable of that, I didn't.  And that's okay because I really do like making things.  And it's not like the kids were going to be short on sugary (delicious) candy.

For Valentine's, I was completely unoriginal and made swirly crayons.  And then, because I felt bad for being unoriginal,  added little mini notebooks with fused plastic covers and recycled cardboard backs.  I had Rory write a message and put it all together as little bag.  She was crazy about the idea, which was really all the motivation I needed.  (She might have been just trying to butter me up so I'd let her use my good markers.  The girl knows how to work it.)

We also took a cue from Dana at made and made a quick felt heart garland for the kitchen window.  15 minutes, tops.  For real.  You have to love that.

For Easter, I made a thousand and one bunny finger puppets, give or take.  We stuffed them into plastic eggs for preschool and church.  

Birthdays and Babies

It happened again.  Plain old life.  It keeps getting in the way of blogging.  Oops.  But really, this time I'm going to do better.  As soon as I catch up.  Yikes.  So here we go.  I tried to organize everything from January until now and it didn't exactly work.  I'm going to try lumping things together by category instead of chronological order...

Let's get this party started.

I'd been waiting for someone to have a baby so that I could make one of these onesie cupcakes.  (Thank you, Lori!)  Lori's makes beautiful babies and her latest, Ryan, is certainly no exception.

I found this tutorial somewhere.  There are lots of them.  I honestly can't remember, but it was probably from Pinterest (shocking, I know.)  I serged the edges of some cute baby flannel to make a receiving blanket.  Blanket + onesie + coffee filter + fabric ribbon = baby cupcake.

Happy Baby, Lori!

Making gifts for boys is always a bit of a challenge, especially as they get a little older.  I accept, though and refuse to believe that you can't make cool things that boys would like.  I found this tutorial for a tangram-esque fabric puzzle and decided to tackle it for my nephew Philip's birthday.  I used to have a tangram puzzle.  Remember those?  This version isn't quite the same thing, but the inspiration is there.  I knew while making this that I would need one at my house, too.  For me my kids to play with.  So many possibilities.  Turning that many little squares takes a lot of patience and time, though, so my set is still in it's early stages.

Happy birthday, Philip!

Michael's birthday was in February, too.  What is the perfect gift for one of the most genuinely happy and caring people in the whole world (who has made my hair look good for over 10 years)?  Yeah, I still don't know, but I made him some fused plastic love.  It's possible that I liked how this turned out and made myself one, too.  Seems to be a recurring theme...

Happy birthday, Michael!

Claire had a birthday while we were on vacation, so we decided to birthday bomb the kitchen of our rented beach house with streamers.  I dipped a roll of white streamers into some colored water.  The drying process takes forever.  We're talking days here.  Days and small fans, but I like the result.  You can do a lot of fun things with streamers, but sometimes subtle is perfect. (Idea from Dandee.)

Happy birthday, Claire!

My niece turned one in March (ONE. Where did a year go?  Seriously.)  I made Miss Addison a Brooke dress from fabric that I recently got from my grandma.  Good stuff.  And who can resist an adorable little girl in blue?  Or pleats?  Ruffle cap sleeves?  I love this pattern. (Brynnberlee patterns)

Happy birthday, Addison!

My friend Laine's youngest just turned one as well.  What's with these babies getting older?  I don't remember approving this.  I made her a personalized tote (which is really more for her mommy, but shhhh...don't tell Carolyn) and a whale softie toy.  A whale!  I found the free pattern from Small Dream Factory.  

Happy birthday, Carolyn!