Hello Kitty House Pouch

When I shared my Halloween Haunted House Pillow a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that my two and a half year old roped me into sewing a little house zipper pouch for her...

Just like my pillow, the pouch is inspired by these adorable little house pouches by A.casa.do.Guaxinim. As some of you know, my girls are Hello Kitty crazy, so this gave me a cute way to use some of my Hello Kitty fabric. My youngest tends to get the short end of the stick when it comes to my projects, so it was fun to sit down with her and let her choose the fabrics and the characters from the Hello Kitty fabric...

My youngest is also a big fan of cows. (Not the first time I've used this cow on a project :)

And a little apple tree completes the front...

The interior is lined with a yellow dragonfly print. I forgot to take a picture of the back, but it's a bubblegum pink with giant white polka dots.

My youngest loves it. It's pretty big (about 5.5" x 8"), so she fills it up with all kinds of stuff and totes it around. Happy girl, happy mama :)

I have a really neat giveaway for you on Monday. Enjoy the weekend!

Peg People

Over the summer, the girls and I made a fun little project. Liz from Simple Simon & Co did a really cute peg people video tutorial over on the Riley Blake blog back in May. I filed it away on my "someday" list, but then one of my readers emailed me (thanks Regina!) suggesting that it might be a fun project to do with my girls. So, "someday" became "right away" :)  These little dolls are super cute and a lot of fun to make.

It took us about three days to complete them. I wanted to make sure each step was completely dry before we moved on to the next. The girls needed a lot of help, but they were really proud of their little dolls.

We each made two dolls. These are the two that I made, one for each of the girls...

I bought my "naked" peg people online from Goose Grease. They sell all shapes and sizes of wooden peg people. And they come in a cute little muslin bag :)

The girls have been toting these little dolls all over the place. And for some reason they like to stack quarters on their heads... they call this the "Peg People Cha-Cha". Don't ask...

So if you're looking for a fun project to do with the kids this fall, I highly recommend this one :)

Doll Diapers and Wipes

On Monday I shared the doll quilt that I made for my daughter for her birthday. Today I'm sharing the doll diapers and wipes that I made for her. My aunt gave her a small Cabbage Patch Kid for Christmas, and my daughter and her doll "Lena" have been inseparable every since (which is new for me because I was never into dolls as a kid and my oldest isn't either).

These were such a quick sew. I used this tutorial from Skip to My Lou for the diapers, but I had to modify the template to fit my daughter's doll. Just print the template, cut it out, and wrap it around your doll to see how it fits. I just trimmed the template until it fit properly.

I also made her a little wipes set...

I used this tutorial from 2 Little Hooligans. This was her favorite birthday gift. Seriously. This girl could sit there and wipe her doll all day long. Poor "Lena" ;)

Scrap Jar Stars Doll Quilt

One of the gifts that I made for my two year old for her birthday was a doll quilt. I had a really hard time deciding what pattern to go with. I ended up choosing the Scrap Jar Stars block from A Little Bit Biased because a) I love this block and b) I will never have the patience to make enough of these blocks to create a large quilt from this pattern. Here's the finished quilt...

Of course I went the way of ROY G BIV :) I had a hard time selecting the right pink, but I think the one I chose works pretty well. The quilt is about 17.5" square.

The back is a single fabric multicolored polka dot print...

To label the quilt I just used a fabric pen to write a little something in four of the polka dots...

So here's the kicker... my daughter couldn't care less about this quilt. It bothers me a little, but I kind of expected it... she's two. One day she may surprise me and start playing with it :) But it doesn't matter... I love it!




I'm linking up over at {Sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations and Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

I'm also entering the Modern Mini Challenge at Ellison Lane Quilts.

Hello Kitty Party: Favor Pouches and Wallets

My oldest daughter's fourth birthday was yesterday, but we celebrated with a Hello Kitty birthday party almost two weeks ago while we were up in Vermont visiting our family. I made the birthday invitations using my Epic Letterpress that I won a few months ago, but I'll save that for another post coming up soon.

I wanted something handmade to add to the goody bags. There were three little girls at the party, and this is what I made for them...

The fabric is called Hello Kitty Flowers and Foxes. It's so cute. I used a permanent fabric pen to write each of the girls' names in the bottom right corner on the other side of the pouch. They really seemed to like them.

Now for my nephews. Knowing that they probably would not want a Hello Kitty zipper pouch, I went over to Ameroonie Designs and used Amy's little wallet tutorial to make these little gray wallets...

They loved the little pockets inside. These were really easy to make, too.

I used a rubber stamp and some fabric paint to add their initial to the flap.

On to the cake. Prior to this year I have made cupcakes for every one of my daughter's birthdays, but this year she wanted a cake. I went ahead and bought the Hello Kitty cake pan, and this was the result...

I forgot her whiskers! I didn't even realize it until we were back in Connecticut and I looked through the pictures from the party. No one else noticed, either, so I guess it didn't really matter :)

I also made a "Pin The Bow on Hello Kitty" game. I found a black and white image of Hello Kitty online, blew it up, printed it, and glued it onto a piece of foam core. I then printed the bows directly onto different colored pieces of construction paper and cut them out. The kids had a good time with this one, and the grandmothers played along, too :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. It has been really nice to slow down and spend less time blogging and more time playing with and enjoying the girls. I got an amazing new camera lens that I'll tell you about in a couple of weeks. It has been so fun to play around with, and I finally feel like I'm getting a handle on how to use my camera after six months of owning it.

I also want to let everyone know about a really neat series that is starting on Monday over on My Own Road. Jen will be hosting Button Down Rehab, a two-week series sharing some great tutorials from some talented bloggers who will be creating new things out of old button down shirts. (And you just may see me over there guest posting during the second week :)

Have a great weekend everyone!



I'm linking up...

Black Apple Dolls

I'm sure many of you have heard of The Black Apple and The Black Apple Doll. I made one for my oldest for her Easter basket two years ago. I was going to wait one more year to make one for my youngest, but she is suddenly quite smitten with the first one that I made, so I went ahead and made one for her Easter basket this year.

The one on the right is the one I made back in 2009. She is named "Marge" after my grandmother because that bold black floral number looks like something she could have pulled right out of her closet. The one on the left is the doll I made this weekend. She is named "Billie" after my other grandmother. Both of my grandmothers were gone before my girls were born, so these dolls are a nice conversation starter to tell them a little about who their great-grandmothers were.

"Billie"

"Marge"

The hair is wool felt, and I painted the faces using acrylic craft paint. I added a little note to their bottoms with a permanent fabric pen, a reminder to my girls that I spent hours making these for them I love them.

They kind of look like twins...

Or at least sisters, which I guess is appropriate :)





I'm linking up...

Quick T-Shirt Hem Headband

When I made the pieced jersey dress the other day, I had a couple t-shirt hem scraps that I thought might make cute headbands. I whipped this up really quickly last night...

Take a t-shirt hem, cut the loop open, wrap it around your child's head (make sure it's kind of snug), cut the strip of jersey to the length you need, overlap the ends by about 1/2", and zigzag stitch back and forth over the overlap.

Now it's time to embellish. I grabbed my Sizzix Big Kick die cutter, some felt scraps from my patchwork kite, and a small button. I cut out four flower shapes, layered them, and set a button on top. Sew the layers of felt and the button together.

Finally, sew the flower onto your headband by hand.

See how quick that was?

It matches the pieced jersey dress perfectly, but my youngest won't wear anything on her head, so this is for my oldest, who, incidentally, is very jealous that her sister got a new dress the other day and she did not. I think there's another pieced jersey dress in my future.

Don't forget... the first ever Point of View {a creative collaboration} reveal is tomorrow! Get those skirts ready!





I'm linking up...