Merry Christmas!!

Well the dresses  (see previous 10 posts) went over so well!  As expected, MissyT put her dress on right away (backwards, but she did it "by herself")  and dolly was quickly dressed in her new dress too!

MissyT insisted on wearing her new Christmas socks, so she needed her Christmas pants...and then when the dress was unwrapped...well my little gypsy is having fun with color and print today!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas (or just a wonderful day if you don't celebrate!).  To put myself in the mood I always pull out my patriotic Santa shirt a week or so before Christmas and wear it around town.

It's an Embroidery Library design I stitched on a cheap denim shirt years ago...the shirt and design are still goring strong!

Want to see my favorite stocking stuffer today?

Yup--that's a hammer I found in my stocking!  Mr.G sure did listen when I complained that I can never find a small hammer when I'm hanging pictures or crafting!  I was totally surprised to find one in my stocking!

And speaking of stockings--isn't this one beautiful??  I made matching for the whole family 3 years ago!  I just love how they turned out!

Merry Christmas!!

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 10, 11, 12!

Didn't think I'd make it in time!  But here they are...the last of the 12 dresses!  Time to put away the Christmas fabric and move on to other projects!

Well...maybe a few more snowman themed dresses....

Dress 10 & 11

The red is the same fabric as dress 9, just switched red fro blue...#9 was such a hit I had to make another one for the youngest girly in the house!  T

The blue is the same Daisy Kingdom fabric from dress 5, but with  a matching bodice instead of the miss-matched prints of dress 5

And now for dress 12!

Please ignore the sloppy hair on my sewing room doll--the kids decided they needed a red headed friend one day and I haven't put her back together yet!

My youngest is getting her own doll for Christmas, so I thought she'd like to "match"....now to get this wrapped up and I can call it a night!

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 9

Here it is! Dress # 9!  Fresh off the sewing machine!  Love the snowmen fabric....can't wait to see the reaction to it in the morning!

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 8 and matching overalls!

I really LOVED Daisy Kingdom patterns, fabrics and pre-printed overalls, dresses and other great projects that came from the company!  I can't even begin to remember all of the projects I've completed over the years that had some Daisy Kingdom connection!

I was able to go to the store in Portland, Oregon before it closed down--good thing we were driving a van because all of my purchases wouldn't have fit in the car!

And I am ashamed to admit, that trip was 6 years ago and I still haven't cleared the additions to my stash...thankfully I have more little girls to sew for!

I think it was 9 years ago that I first spotted a pre-printed DKoverall pattern--I fell in love with the snowmen and bought 6 panels!  I made every child I knew snowman overalls for Christmas that year, including my own!

They have been passed down ever since...sadly I think the overalls will only be worn one more season...little MissyT fits into them perfectly!

First off, here's the dress:

And here are my favorite overalls!  They have now been handed down to the 4th child, and if she doesn't destroy them I will keep them around for future generations!

Aren't the buttons adorable!

I made so many of these for friends over the years--I really wish I had taken more pictures now!  I have a few different versions, which I'll be sharing in a post after Christmas!

Tomorrow, dress 9!  Click back to older posts to see dresses 1 through 8!

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 7

Ah the Poinsettia Dress....I made this 6 years ago when my oldest was 4...and let me tell you she loved this dress!

The current 4 yr old in my house loves it just as much!  It was made using the same technique as the Boo Dress.

Click back to the beginning to see the other Christmasy dresses I've made!

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 6

If you've been here from the beginning, you've seen some of the pre-printed bodice dresses I've made for my girls....if you haven't click back a couple of posts--go on, I'll wait!

I love gingerbread men! (not so much the cookie kind to eat, more the decorative kind...I know, I'm strange)  When I saw this fabric years ago I just had to have it!  And isn't that button the cutest???  The dress was made by tracing one of the pre-printed bodices.

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 5

So sorry for the terrible blurry pictures!!  My 2 (soon to be 3) year old was begging me for a snowman dress!  I got this done, washed it, she saw it in the basket and won't let me iron it before she puts it on!  I barely got a couple of shots snapped before she ran away with it to find a "matching" (her word!) top.

She really loves the snowmen!

This is a Daisy Kingdom pre-printed bodice and lining I found in my stash...unfortunately I never did pick up matching skirt fabric!  But I have a whole bolt of these flying snowmen (also from Daisy Kingdom I think), so I just used it...needless to say she really loves this dress!



Front



back

Be sure to go back to the begining, here, and take a look at dresses 1,2,3 & 4!

12 Dresses till Christmas--dress 4

Another pre-printed bodice and matching boarder fabric.  I gathered so much of this kind of dress in my stash over the years that I'm now frantically sewing away while they still fit one of  my girls!

Have you already seen the first 3 dresses?  Check out the newest post for the latest dress!

12 dresses before Christmas….

Well I had good intentions to start this series of posts o the 12th of December, but life got in the way…

My idea is to showcase these simple dresses I have made or am making for my younger girls to wear this holiday season. My stash of winter and Christmas themed fabric is huge! And let’s face it my girlies love dresses!

Many of the dresses are in the same style as the Boo Dress I made for Halloween—easy to make, easy to wear!

December 12th:

This is a pre-printed bodice and pockets that I picked up at Walmart years ago.  I just paired it with some solid blue cotton--my girls love it!

December 13th:

I think this was a Daisy Kingdom pre-printed bodice and pocket with matching boarder fabric...It comes out right after Thanksgiving and is worn into February!  All my girls love the snowmen!

December 14th:

I found these cute country style angels and made this dress when a friend pointed out how cute the fabric was.  She was totally into these colors and style, so I will admit being influenced  a bit!  I wish I could remember the pattern I used!

Come back tomorrow for the next dress!

Mommy Monday—when I grow up

The soon to be 5 yr old has started declaring that she wants to be an engineer when she grows up.

She does this 5 times a day.

It’s getting old and my replies have gone from enthusiastic to a nod a mumble.

So when the soon to be 3 yr old decided she wanted to be part of this conversation and declared she wanted to be a mommy, just like me I had to reply:

“Hopefully you’ll be an even better mommy, Missy T”

That did it, the smiling child just had to keep going:

“uh huh! And I’ll have a little girl”

Me: “that’s right, maybe you’ll have a little girl”

“A little girl JUST LIKE ME!” Said with a whole lot of enthusiasm.

I laughed, hubby laughed, she looked confused for a moment, then I said:

“God willing you’ll have a little girl JUST LIKE YOU!!”

Satisfied with that answer she happily went off to play.

The older I get and the older my kids get, the more I understand my own parents…and boy do I feel like I need to apologize and say thank you to them every day!  Especially when I deal with the kids who are “just like me!”

Christmas Letters--the twelve months till Christmas

I love getting Christmas letters! 

I hate writing them!

So I found a way to share our year without having to write:

It's the Twelve months till Christmas letter!  For each month I chose a photo (taken in that month) and wrote a little title and there you have it...my letter is done!

Now if I had more time (and inclination) I would have put more artistic effort into the project.  Instead I just opened up Word, made a table, inserted titles and picture.  Re-sized everything to fit and print.

Easy Sneezy! (the sneezy part is my littlest who seems to have another cold!)

If you use this great (if I do say so myself) idea--please share!  Let me know how it turns out! I'd love some format inspiration for next year!

ugly wreath redo

Remember those ugly wreaths?

Well I changed them up a bit:

Yes, I flocked those suckers...and yes if you read my previous post, you'll know I'm not a fan of flocking.

But I had these cans of flocking sitting around and I just decided to go for it.

No clue how they are going to weather.

But for six bucks worth of decorations, a can of flocking and 12 yr old artificial wreaths it'll work for at least this season.

Not sure if there is any real improvement...

The kids sure like them though.

They keep asking when they can eat the candy canes...

I think they just like my exasperated reply: "You can't eat plastic"

I need to remind them that Santa really does keep a naughty list!


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Mommy Monday--just about wordless

It's bee a long weekend, followed by a long Monday....and my kids have driven me to:

don't want to even think about the number of calories in these suckers!

Oh Christmas tree…

I love white Christmas trees! I think it’s because I had one growing up, and later when I got married my parents gave us that white tree. I would still have it today if not for one little thing: it was flocked.

Do you know what happens with flocking after 20 years?

It turns yellow. It falls off the tree. It gets on and into everything and you begin to use another F word to describe it.

So close to 10 years ago we bought a green, prelit tree. Our poor white one sat in a box (getting more yellow), coming into the light every other year when I decided both floors of the house should have trees. Every other year because it took me a full two to get over (and clean up) all the dropped flocking.

I finally let that tree go three years ago and have been dreaming of a new white tree ever since.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find a prelit, LED, white tree we liked. It has to be LED because we’ve switched all our outside and inside Christmas lights to LED—and I have to say I like them a whole lot more than the regular lights we had before!

Then my darlin’ man came home with this:

It’s a cute white tree which will give me my white fix this year!

I pulled out the icicle blue LED light strands I use to put on my old tree and wired them onto this little cutie!

It was a bit of a pain. I had to start over twice. I realized I should start from the top and work my way down.

TADA! My ten dollar little tree looks great:

But wait…I have a couple of candy cane garlands, a couple of silver sparkled stars, some bells—six dollars worth of decor from the Dollar Tree:

Now I have a cute little tree for my downstairs…guess I can’t call it the poinsettia room any longer!

Hmmm…then again if I find some small red poinsettias they could be added to the tree…hmmmm…..

 

Poinsettias

I love Poinsettias! I remember my mom always had live ones in the house…the same live one year after year. She was able to keep them and make them bloom for more than one season.

I want to do that.

But with little kids (who liked to dig) in the house, I avoided houseplants and got myself some fake poinsettias:

Years ago I picked these up from Joann’s for a couple bucks a pop. They only had white left, but with all their other Christmas floral on sale I found some red stems, some sparkly green stems and just added those to my “plants”

That same year I found Poinsettia garlands, twisted them with some evergreen garland and made this:

It decorates the top of one of my cabinets:

I tend to put the entire poinsettia decor in one room and call it, what else: “the Poinsettia room”.

Mommy Monday--The questions...

I grow weary of the questions…even more so of the answers.

What am I talking about?

Those questions kids ask over and over and over. Only to get the same answer from me.

Like: When can we get a dog?

Answer: When the youngest child turns 5.

Or: Can we have a piece of our Halloween candy?

Answer: When you’re all done your supper.

I’ve been thinking of jazzing up my answers when all of a sudden Missy D, soon to be 5 yrs old comes up with this:

“When can I learn to milk a cow?”

“WHAT?”

“A cow mommy! I want to milk a cow?”

“Why do you want to milk a cow”

“To get milk” (I got the duh tone and expression--she's already heading to the teens here)

“But we can go to the store to get milk, you don’t have to milk a cow for it.”

“Mommmmm, milk comes from a cow. So we should milk a cow for our milk.”

Oldest female child gets in on conversation and adds “Well, we do grow our own vegetables….”

Exasperated look from me shot in her direction. She tries to hide her giggles.

“So mommy, can I milk a cow when I’m 5?”

“I don’t think so sweetie”

“6?”

“How about when you are 22?”

“Mommmmmmmmmm….”

Blissful silence for 3 second, then Missy D asks:

“Mom when can we get a dog?”

I bang my head on the table: “when the youngest child is 5…..”

I don’t know if I can give a more creative answer—they keeps me on my toes with their creative question! What comes after milking cows? And do I really want to find out?

How to sew one seam pants

One of my favorite type of pants to sew are one seam pants. I have a tried and true pattern for my little girls that I made years ago by taking apart a pair of pants, tracing and adjusting until I came up with this:

 

Notice when the pattern is folded in half the back side is slightly wider than the front—on this pattern it starts at an inch from the crotch and tapers down at the ankles (where it is just about even).

I spent a while experimenting until I got a shape I liked and a pant which fit my girlies well. But there are many one seam pants patterns commercially available (which I found after the fact!)

Since I’m using a really stretchy polar fleece, I wasn’t concerned about the bit of pattern that didn’t fit on the fabric. I’m making two pairs of these is the just about the same size so I’m cheating by cutting them all at once.

Next I sewed (serged) the inseam of each leg. Note that you can tell the back from the front quite easily.

Next take one leg and turn it to the right side. You’ll have one leg where the wrong side is facing out and the other the right side will be facing out

Then put the right side leg into the wrong side leg and match up the center.

Sew the center, turn everything to the right side—you have a pair of pants!

I just fold down the waist about 2 inches to the wrong side, sew and pull elastic through (the elastic still needs to be done)

With polar fleece you don’t have to hem the legs, but I like the finished look of a hem. This makes three pairs of chix rule pants done! One more pair for my oldest girl and I can call this fabric out of my stash for good!

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