Organized Art Totes, an Owl, and B-Day Gifts

While in my crazy late-night-trying-to-be-sneaky sewing rush to make the last few Christmas presents, I didn't get pictures of a couple of the fun goodies I made for the girls this holiday - Organized Art Totes. They completely got me in the mood for my New Year's purge and organizing marathon ;) You know how much I love organizational goodies! This one is A's.



Here's the inside. I found working with crayons harder to design than pencils, but I think her tote came out alright. Because it was the first one I've ever made and I didn't have a pattern, there were a lot of mistakes, but of course she didn't notice one bit ;)

You can tell C's is more refined. A lot of my first time mistakes were remedied this time around and well, the pencils were much easier to design for. I love how professional looking hers turned out.

Of course I did still make a small boo-boo with hers as well - the books are a tight fit. They still slide in and out alright, but it is pretty snug. A half inch more would have been better. Other than that I only wished I put a big pocket on the outside of them both. They love them so much and carry them everywhere that it would have been nice to have an extra pocket for their dolls or special toys to take too ;)

One of my favorite parts about these aside from the darling remnant fabrics the girls picked out, was my double stacked PTI buttons. They turned out so well I know I'll be using this on other projects! Overall I'm very happy with how both totes ended up turning out and even more so with the reception they got from the girls Christmas morning!

This little guy was one of A's Christmas prezzies. She loves owls and I bought the Hoot & Annie pattern back in the spring. I've been wanting to use it and thought now would be the perfect time to stitch it up! I think I'll be making more of these in the future, they are so easy to put together and are perfect for using up scraps!

Next up is C's momma snake that I made for her birthday earlier this month ;) C is so into snakes, she just got another snake book this Christmas, this time it's one of those National Geographic ones with all the fun facts. She loves talking about all the cool stuff snakes can do!

Momma snake is even taller than C!! C loves her big snake so much, it makes me so happy to see her play with it and cuddle it so often along with her lovie snake that she's had since she was a baby. The lovie has now been deemed 'baby snake'. So cute!

And last up is A's mermaid doll that I put together a couple months ago for her b-day. Her entire birthday was mermaid themed as she absolutely loves mermaid everything right now! I didn't have a pattern so she was very trial and error with the tail and swimsuit. I think she turned out darling though!

A's b-day just so happened to be right around mid-terms so I didn't take the time to snap shots of her mermaid doll until now. Of course A had to name her Ariel ;) Now that I have the Wee Wonderfuls book I have a lot more fun dolls to try making as well as a mini-mermaid! Anyway, just thought I'd share these fun sewn goodies while I've got the time ;) Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #91

Did everyone have a great Christmas? We had a fantastic one, the girls had a blast and Christmas dinner with Paul's family went wonderfully! Since then I've been on an organization marathon. Each day I tackle a new part of our apartment. Anyway, I thought I'd take a break and play along one of the Cupcake Inspiration Challenges now that all my scrappy stuff is all reorganized ;) The challenge cupcake is so pretty and the flower has lovely gold centers and edged petals. I don't have any gold ink so I used some stickles to add sparkle instead. It didn't show up very well in the photo so you'll have to imagine the fun glitter in the center. I used colored pencils on colored cardstock for the flowers and pencils on the green dot paper for the leaves, I love how pretty this came out! I hope you enjoy the card and have a great Thursday!

Snuggly Owls

The girls are so excited for Christmas. I was going to make them wait to play with these until Christmas morning but it's hard to be sneaky when they know I'm sewing stuff up. These darling owls were made from this Snuggly Owls tutorial created by Ashley from Make-It and Love-It. So fun and easy! I made my owls all with fleece I had on hand, their fluffy front feathers are inspired by Target's Circo owl pillow. They have so much fun texture!

To make the front loops as well as the wing strip texture, I cut strips of fleece 3/4" wide. Since fleece doesn't fray there's no need to finish any edges. With the loops I simply pinned up each row of loops then sewed them down. The wing strips are really simple, just line them up straight, pin, and sew a line down the center. I added my textures before sewing the pieces onto the owl. Enjoy and I hope you're all having a Happy Christmas Eve!

Christmas Cards - Pink, Blue, and Red

I've been sewing like crazy trying to get the last minute gifties all whipped up. There's a lot of fun projects for decor and gifts that I wanted to make, but didn't have the time to this year. Luckily, I got a lot of the fabric for these projects 50% off or more so I can work on them during the next year for next Christmas ;) With even just this bit of sewing I've been doing though, I'm sure I'll be wanting to make spring and summer projects before long, lol.

As for the cards I'm hoping to better play along with card challenges this next year. I really want to rebuild my stash of on hand cards which is currently at nil. And since I don't really have any art classes (technically I have 2D Design but all I have to do is 4 more projects since my Design class this last semester covered all the rest of it), I won't have anything at school using up all my creativity ;) Anyhoo, thanks for visiting and have a happy Thursday!

Christmas Cards - Red and Pink

Hot cocoa is one of my favorite parts of winter and fall. It gets so hot here during the spring and summer, and well part of the fall here too, that most of the year I don't want to drink anything hot. No coffee or lattes, no tea or hot cocoa. For 8 months of the year I stick to iced chai lattes, ice tea, and icy water, so it's a welcome change when the weather gets cold and I crave the comfort of warm drinks and creamy soups.


My other favorite thing about the cooler weather is my fall/winter wardrobe. I always feel like it's so much cuter than my summer one, lol. I love layers and scarves and boots ;) And even though I like the cooler weather better than our super hot summers, I can't imagine living someplace that gets too much colder than it does here. I'd hate to shovel snow, drive in snow, or be stuck in snow, lol. Anyhoo, I hope you're all ready for Christmas ;) Our girls have been asking if it's Christmas yet every day since school got out, lol. Enjoy the cards and have a wonderful Wednesday!

Christmas Cards - Pink and Plaid

The BG Eskimo Kisses paperpack is probably one of my favorite Christmas lines ever - the colors are so festive and the patterns can be fun or gorgeous. This plaid has been hard for me to use simply because I like it so much. The first cut is always the hardest. I'm not sure why, the finished product is always so much better than the paper by its lonesome ;)

Both images are from Stamping Bella. I heart this one so much because it reminds me of my girls ;) This year the girls attended their first symphony concert. I was so excited. They got tired about half way through and A fell asleep in my arms, but C was really good and patiently watched the whole thing, we were there about 2 hours. She was really excited to see all the instruments and asked me all about them. Thankfully I can tell them all apart and explain what each did since I was such a band geek ;) The second to last piece was her favorite because we got to sing along and because the Deck the Halls was one of the songs. She loved singing out Falala lala lalalala! Anyway, enjoy the cards and thanks for stopping by!