2013 Crafts Round Up!

So it's basically been 6 months since I last posted on here. So much has happened! Our daughter Rachael was born July 28th....after 30 LONG hours of labor. Talk about exhaustion! Oy! All I have to say is whenever we decide to have #2, s/he better not take that damn long, or I'll be begging for the knife! :-p I had so many wonderful, helpful visitors after she was born, I never would have been able to do it without them! Chris came home beginning of October and finally got to meet his daughter!! It was quite emotional, as you can imagine, as well as an adjustment. It didn't take too long for Rachael to get to know her Daddy though, since he was able to take paternity leave. Our first holiday season with her was very low key and laid back....no traveling for us, and no one was able to come and visit. But it was still a very nice holiday season, and lots of love and gifts were sent our way! Okay, it was mostly for Rachael....she is one loved little girl! So that's the last 6 months in a very small nutshell. Most of you probably know all the details anyway.

So on to the point of this post....Christmas Crafts!!! Woo!! So many things made this year, where to begin?! Well some of these are baby crafts or crafts for friends, so it's not all for Christmas. So here goes the rundown!

1) Baby gifts for our friends Kara and Aaron, as they celebrated the arrival of their daughter in October.

Burp cloths matching their vintage story book nursery theme.

Pacifier clips!

Reds blanket! Emblem embroidered by my Aunt Dory. She really made it look awesome! (I so want an embroidering machine!!! lol)

Rachael being my model. :)

2) Baby gifts for our friends Matt and Erin, who celebrated the arrival of their son this fall as well. 

Crochet blanket laid out.

Close up of the stitch...I love this stitch!

The edging, reverse single crochet, also known as a crab stitch. First time using it on a blanket, pretty neat look!

Pacifier clips! Had to make a Hokie one, and found this super awesome beer bottle cap fabric I had to use as well!

Blanket and pacifier clips

 3) Baby gifts for our friends Nicole and Adam, who celebrated the arrival of their baby girl in October as well. I had made her a blanket for their son when he was born, so of course I had to make their baby girl one too!

I love this look...Bavarian crochet looks so beautiful! But seriously takes forever after about round 6. lol

Close up on the center

Close up of the outside and edging

Pacifier Clips for them as well!

Burp cloths too!

4) When my friend Andrea came to visit, we made a trip to Joann's Fabrics. I'm always looking at fabric there, and found this really bright and colorful home decor fabric I knew would make such a fun apron! So I was going to get the fabric to make myself one, and offered to make her one as well, which she quickly agreed to! These are pictures of hers, as mine became more of another test to perfect the pattern layout. But I think I've nailed it now, and it's perfect to make more for my Etsy shop! :)

Apron Front

Apron back

Decorative Buttons

Pocket

Towel Loop

Adjustable neck strap!

5) Aprons for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for Christmas! Lydia (my SIL) likes to experiment in the kitchen, and Susan (MIL) likes to bake occasionally as well, so I thought they'd like aprons for Christmas. We also try to do some handmade gifts every year, so this was right up that alley! I loved the way both of these turned out, and the pattern for Lydia's will be offered in my Etsy shop as well! :)

Lydia's Apron Front

Apron Back

Apron laid out

Pocket and Towel Loop

Adjustable neck strap on both aprons!

Susan's Apron Front

Apron Back

Pocket, Towel Loop and Bottom Accent Fabric

Accent Buttons!

6) Christmas Gifts for my niece Kara!! My niece is about a year and half old and LOVES her play kitchen stuff! So when I saw an apron set on her Amazon wish list, I asked my SIL Jessie what Kara's sizes were so I could make her a set instead. My original plan was to do puppies or kitties since Jessie said she loves them, but then I saw this elephant print fabric in Joann's and just fell in LOVE with it!! It is SO dang cute, I had to order a LOT more online so I can offer it in my Etsy shop as well! Jessie said she loves it and wears it every day, and now uses her own oven mitt for her play kitchen oven rack instead of stealing her Mom's. She's just too darn cute! :) I also made her a winter hat to match one I made for Rachael...it was a quick work up and super cute as well!

The whole apron set, including mini spatulas I found at the PX!!

Apron includes pocket, 3 utensil slots, and adjustable ribbon neck strap!

Cute little pleats at the bottom

Chef's hat!!

Adjustable to grow with her!

Oven mitt front

Oven Mitt back

Winter hat!

Close up of the flower and a truer color shot of the yarn

Well that concludes all my projects from 2013!! Already working on another baby set for a friend, planning another baby set for another friend, and so much to make for my Etsy Shop! That should be up and running in the next couple of weeks, so be sure to be on the lookout for the link! But trust me, if you're friends with me on Facebook, you won't miss all the advertising I'll be doing!! :)

Happy New Year to all my family and friends, here's to a wonderful year of health, happiness, and love in your life! :)

And as always, Happy Crafting!! :)

Crafts for My Baby Girl

Yeah it's been a while....and I tend to start each post that way a lot lately. But I've been busy! You see, my baby girl is due in 10 days (holy cow where did all that time go?!?), and I've made a bunch of stuff for her and her room. Rather than make multiple posts, I figured one big one with everything I made would be easier.

So prepare yourself....this is a long one (but mostly pictures)! :-)

One of the first things I knew I'd be making were of course burp cloths. Since the ones I've made for other friends were so popular, they were definitely on the top of my list to make sure we have plenty to use when she gets here. And me in my indecisiveness, found so many cute patterns, I almost couldn't make a decision! But finally I just picked some, they don't all go together, but they are cute. I made 3 of each print, for a total of 15. That should at least get us through to a load of laundry. ;-)

 

The fronts of each pattern

With the back colors

It might be a little hard to see the details of the patterns, so here's a close up of each one.

The next project I knew I'd be making was a ruffled minky blanket, and of course it had to be VT!!! I mean football season is right around the corner and all. ;-)

The front

Ruffle detail

With the orange minky back

And of course with the cute little VT cheerleader bear from Dad and Teresa 

Speaking of blankets....I had to make a crochet one too! It took me forever to decide on a pattern, and yarn for that matter. I went through several different options of both, and finally decided on this. It washed very nicely and is super soft, and just light enough for a summer baby. I used Caron Simply Soft Light yarn (which I can only find online). I took a chance with the colors since computer screens aren't true to color in person, and I think it turned out pretty nicely. Not sure I would have picked these together in person, but it still looks good.

pattern detail

edging detail

Another item I see a lot of, and think is a great idea especially for summer babies since you can't use sunscreen until 6 months old, are the car seat covers. Almost every one I see though, has minky on the underside, and I just couldn't imagine using it since it's not that breathable. Soft? Yes. But I thought it would get too hot in there for her with the summer temperatures, so I wanted something lighter. I found a really cute pattern at JoAnn's for the front in regular cotton, and decided on linen for the lining. It's still a dark color to help block out some of the light from her eyes, but so much more breathable! And because I like to make things more difficult then they need to be, I wanted to add piping around the outside edge. I love the way it turned out!! Now I just have to figure out what to do with that extra fabric. ;-)

front of car seat

side view

handle straps

opened up

Piping

Another sewing project I took on for the first time was making fitted sheets for the gorgeous baby cradle my husband's step-father made us for Christmas this past year. The mattress is a custom size, so a standard crib sheet wouldn't fit, and I didn't want any loose blankets or sheets in the cradle. I found a tutorial online here and adjusted the measurements to fit my much smaller mattress. So much easier then I thought it would be!

The beautiful cradle!

with the crib sheet

print detail

this is the other sheet I made for it, just to see the print

And last, but not least, I made several things for her nursery. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you've already seen these in the nursery album, but for those that aren't, or haven't looked there, here are the three items I made for the nursery. :-)

Butterfly mobile - time consuming but really easy and turned out great!

Beaded curtain tie backs.....a lot cheaper than buying similar ones!

A 24" x 36" canvas Dr Seuss quote for the reading area. Made with acrylic craft paints (darn you Martha Stewart and your awesome selection of very expensive paint colors!!!!!), the letters are a vinyl decal, secured on with Mod Podge, and finally finished with a very fine glitter spray paint.

I think that just about covers everything! If you made it this far, you probably like making crafty stuff just as much as I do! Or you're really bored with nothing better to do. Either way, thanks for making it through and checking out my work! Hope you enjoyed it, and I certainly can't wait for her to get here and get some good use out of some of these! :-)

More Crafts!

Time for another crafty update for any of you who actually follow this blog. Recently some good college friends of ours had their first baby girl! Of course I had to make them something, but in my own "duh" pregnancy brain, I didn't think about it until last minute and really wanted to get it to them before their bundle of joy arrived. Thankfully I was able to get it all complete and sent out just in time! :-)

Now since they both went to Virginia Tech with us, of course I had to make something Hokie related. And I found this super cute fabric online! I ordered about 6 yards of the stuff, even though I don't know what to make with all of it yet....but I know it will be sold out by the time I want to use it for something else, and then I'll have to pay out the ass for it or just not be able to find it. Anyway, here is the cute Hokie blanket for them!

Front of the blanket

 

Close up of the fabric design, border detail, and white minky back.

And one on my VT rocking chair :-)

 

Another product I regularly make for friends having babies are burp cloths. I made them for my brother and sister-in-law and some other friends, so I was going to do the same for these friends too. Well, after searching high and low online, I discovered the cloth diapers I used that worked so well were no longer sold!! Oh no, what to do?!? I decided to get a little creative this go around. A while ago, I found a blog on Pinterest about making terry cloth burp cloths. (I don't even know if I kept the post or looked at the tutorial, I just remembered the fabric they used.) I thought this would be an excellent backing for my new adventure, but wanted something softer for the front, like flannel. Besides, flannel comes in many more cute patterns! I also had ordered some flat diapers online, and they were not thick at all, so I decided to use them as a middle layer, and kind of "quilt" all the layers together before doing the binding. Definitely a new adventure, and I hoped they would work as well as the ones I made before.

 

Now, normal baby patterns are cute and all, but babies like bright colors! It's entertaining for them, and not as dull for those trying to keep themselves spit-up free (at least as much as possible). So I decided to go a little wild with my fabric choices....basically since I could. :-)

 

All my fabrics lined up ready to go!

I LOVE this elephant print, it is so cute and fun, and brightly colored. It was really difficult to find a coordinating print though, so I went with a grey fleur des lys design that matched pretty well. And the backs got coordinating bright terry cloth!

 





 

 

And of course the binding colors matched as well. Gotta coordinate everything! :-) Before their baby girl arrived, my friend sent me a note saying how much she loved the prints and that they will now use the boring plain white diapers they were going to use for cleaning instead. Sounds like a good plan to me! A little more than a week after their daughter was born, she sent me another note saying how much they loved using them, that they are very absorbent and soft against their baby girl's face. I was so happy to hear they worked as well as I had hoped, and that they love using them! And her sister-in-law has asked me to make a set for some of her friends because she loves them just as much! Which I just think is so cool that someone has requested them! :-p Maybe one day it will become a side business!! Just gotta think of a cute brand name first....

 

That's it for now....currently working on more crafts for friends as well as myself, so hopefully more posts in the near future! :-)



Spinach Cheese Tortellini with Italian Cream Sauce

Lately I've had zero ideas for weekly dinners, so where else do I turn but Pinterest?? I found a crock pot recipe on Pinterest (original recipe here ) and it sounded pretty tasty, but it needed some more stuff in it in my opinion. And I don't particularly care for frozen pasta items, so I knew I would use the refrigerated tortellini instead. Obviously if you cook refrigerated tortellini for 6 hours in a crock pot, they would become mush. So I turned this into a stove top recipe, added more veggies to help get those in, and used the refrigerated pasta. This makes a LOT!! I will probably be eating leftovers for a week by myself. :-p But it was tasty! Below is my recipe; it will certainly be going into my family cookbook!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb sweet Italian sausage
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 (10 oz) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 2 cans Italian style diced tomatoes, drained
• 4-5 cups chicken broth
• 1 (8 oz) block reduced fat cream cheese, cut into chunks
• salt to taste
• 2 (9 oz) packages refrigerated Spinach Cheese Tortellini

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot, brown Italian sausage. If in links, remove from casings and crumble. Do not drain.
2. Add onions, garlic, spinach, and mushrooms to the pot; sauté until tender.
3. Add tomatoes, chicken broth, cream cheese, and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 15-20 minutes for flavors to blend, stirring occasionally until cream cheese is fully melted.
4. Add tortellini and cook for the amount of time indicated on packages directions, usually about 7-9 minutes, or until fully cooked.
5. Ladle into bowls and serve with shredded parmesan cheese. 

Notes:

If you like the sauce a little thinner, add more chicken broth, otherwise about 4 cups will be good. If you want more volume of thicker consistency sauce, add an additional 1/4 block of cream cheese per additional cup of chicken broth.

If you decide to give it a try, let me know what you think! Happy cooking! :-)