Made By Me Monday/4th of July

I hope everyone had a happy 4th! I had a lot of fun dressing Charlie up in red white and blue, playing Monopoly with Tim and eating a giant meal of ribs, corn on the cob, salad, watermelon and bread, followed by strawberry shortcake at my dad's.

Charlie wasn't so excited about posing for a picture initially, but Tim and I stuck with it, and got some cute shots of the Squirt. Notice the red shoes...I have some very similar:
For the Made By Me Monday portion, I attempted to make

white chocolate strawberries with blue sugar sprinkles. But, I couldn't find the sprinkles. So, I went with red white and blue candy sprinkles. The didn't turn out as pretty as I'd hoped, and before I was half way done the chocolate clumped up and caramelized...so we got a few festive strawberries out of the deal. But they tasted good!

We didn't blow up, or even watch any fireworks (we saw one by accident while we were loading the car.) We were more concerned with getting Charlie to sleep despite the noise and keeping her cool on such a toasty evening. But we're fine with that. Explosives aren't really our thing.

Did you do anything fun and delightful?

Made By Meghan's Mom Monday

Yesterday our friends Ryan and Meghan came over for pizza and games. Meghan's mom had just visited, which generally means gooey homemade cinnamon rolls for us :) This time she also sent along these little knitted shoes, made in the style of Robees, stretchy and adorable.

We had a great time eating LOTS of Papa Murphys (new Thai pizza...amazing), playing Settlers, making paper cranes for an upcoming wedding, and stuffing Charlie full of puffs.

Made By Me Monday (or Tuesday)

It seems the local stork is super efficient, cause he's bringing us a second baby a mere 14 months and two days after the first.

Despite having known for about two months now, we're still relatively shocked, but a baby is always a wonderful thing, and we are happily (if a bit nervously) anticipating welcoming this one into our little family.

So far this pregnancy has been identical to my first, except for fewer taco cravings - probably because I'm already on an iron supplement. I've been very blessed to never experience morning sickness, and sleepiness is my most consistent symptom.

Although I'm only 14 weeks along, it is pretty obvious that I'm expecting by the end of the day. I look about how I looked at 20 weeks last time.

We're brainstorming how to make Charlie's little nursery big enough for two cribs, tossing around ideas of how we'll "boy it up" if this one is of the masculine variety, and are figuring out what we'll do differently knowing what we know now that we have 8 months of parenting under our belts.

Any mom's of two under two happen to read this? I'd love to hear more about what I should be expecting, the good, the bad and the funny.

I'd also love boy names...we got nothin'.

Made By Me Monday

I made a crayon carrier a few years ago for my nephew's birthday. I used Pirate-y fabrics, since it was, and still is, his favorite, sewed together the squares and folded up about a third of it to make a pocket on the inside. I sewed the pocket into crayon sized sections and added crayons.

I added a ribbon to the outside to hold it shut.

Roll it up, tie it off, and you have a portable crayon holder. Voila.

What's Charlie Wearing Wednesday/Made By Me Monday Combo

And sillier every day. So, I skipped Made By Me Monday this week, so to make up for it, here's a Made By Me What's Charlie Wearing. This dress was the first project I tackled after hats:

It's supposed to it an 18 month old, and it's got glaring mistakes, but it's so so soft, and considering my rookie status...pretty cute.

The onesie is, as usual, Carters from a vest/pants set.

The tights came from a consignment shop.

So, she's sweet and snugly and cute as a button.

Made By Me Monday

Tim and I have these amazing knit stockings we got at Cost Plus the first year we were married. I really wanted to find a similar one for Charlie, but the only one they had with the same color scheme was about a foot longer than ours. So, rather than buy one we didn't completely love, I made a temporary stocking to give us some time to find a great one. At three months old she didn't really care anyway :) I had bought Christmas fabric the year before to make pillow covers, so I pulled out the remnants from one of them as well as remnants of a pink minky fabric from a baby blanket I made and used our existing stockings to make a template. Foolishly, I cut the stocking shapes incorrectly, so the better image is on the back side of it...oops. Oh well. I really doubt this could hold much, since I hand stitched the whole thing, and the minky stuff is almost like batting. I think a lot of weight might rip the whole thing apart, so it's purely decorative. But, for Charlie's first Christmas, I think it worked. Plus, it was free!

Made By Me Monday

Easter was a huge deal in my house when I was growing up. A lot of planning went into the outfits, particularly my mom's and mine. Every year we would go to the craft store together and pick out two dress patterns and one fabric, and my mom would proceed to make us coordinating dresses. And, of course, I would get an Easter bonnet.

So, this year as I wander through stores and see all the Easter items, I'm tempted by every tiny hat and frilly dress. To put an end to the temptation, I decided to make a bunny hat for Charlie.

Then Tim called and told me one of his co-workers was having a baby shower, so I tried out a bear hat.

I had to adapt the ear patterns a little to meet my level of know how, so they're not as polished as you might find at Baby Gap, but I think they're cute just the same.

Here's Charlie modeling the bunny hat (which barely fits her. I need to switch to larger needles.) The bear hat is too tiny for her big head, so no modelling was done for that one.

Made By Me Monday

For Christmas, my friend Laura spoiled me with crafty goodness. I found this owl puppet pattern by Sara Lucas in the goodies and thought it would make a good friend for Charlotte.
I chose completely different colors for Charlie's owl because the fall colors seemed a bit dull to me.

Once I saw how dark the body was, I decided to make this the boy owl, and have a girl owl in process, with light grey and white "feathers", and a pink belly.

It turned out pretty cute, considering I had to learn a lot of the techniques as I went. And Charlie seems to like it (most of the time).

Made By Me Monday

Occasionally the things I make don't turn out quite like I envision...here's an example of a dud.

This "baby hat" was supposed to be a sweet tiny hobo hat to see baby peepers peering out under. I chose red because it really makes Charlie's eyes pop (and because I only had red, pink and black to choose from at the time). But, seeing as how this was my third knitting project and I wasn't fluent in the terminology, it didn't go as planned.

What it was supposed to look like:

Here's what I got:

A giant, Alice in Wonderland type hat, with a backward pocket.

Doesn't Charlie look thrilled with her present? Yeesh.

Now that I'm more competent about thing such as gauge and bulky vs. baby yarn, I may reattempt...we'll see.

Made By Me Monday

A week before Charlie arrived my office threw me a potluck shower. I felt funny not contributing, so I made some little "cigars" for everyone to have.

These were made with:
10 packs of Rolos
Slightly sparkly brown and gold paper
Glue
Pink yarn
Paper Tags
Pink Marker

I just wrapped the Rolos in the brown paper and glued the seam, then cut out a little band from the gold paper and glued that on too. Then I tied a piece of yarn with a paper tag saying "It's a Girl!" around the middle and put them all in a cigar box. Presto! Inexpensive festive shower treat.

Made By Me Monday

When I saw this tutorial, I couldn't wait to make one. I pulled out my scrap fabrics and some fat quarters, and chose this brown polka dot pattern for my first attempt:
I love how it turned out. My fabric was slightly shorter than what was called for, so it made a smaller Charlie sized flower. With a few quick stitches I added it to an elastic head band that immediately dresses up Charlie's outfits.

She loves to wear it (I assume, since she doesn't yank it off) to church.

Isn't it adorable! Make your own in about an hour. I'll probably make a bunch more, but I have to wait till I'm in an ironing mood...which is almost never.
Again, I'm curious...would you purchase something like this from an Etsy shop? What would you expect to pay?

Happy Valentines Day/Made By Me Monday

I'm kinda cheating this morning with some super quick projects I did last night and this morning. I channelled elementary school with this heart bunting, alternating long and thin with short and stout:

Charlotte is wearing a dress from Old Navy, tights from a local consignment shop and little shoes from Target

Last night while Tim was at work, I took a white Gerber onesie and some sharpies and quickly made this little tee.

Since we're not in a position to go out, I'm doing some light decorating (switching orange pillows with red, and hanging the heart bunting) and brainstorming dinner ideas. Currently I'm thinking crepes with fruit and nutella, hashbrowns and chocolate chip cookies for dessert with some after dinner coffee and then wine after Charlie goes down. Exciting, right? What are your plans?

Made by Me Mondays

The day before Charlie was born was my last day of work. Tim and I knew that when we started our family, we wanted, more than anything, for me to be able to stay home. My passion and desire is to be with Charlie as much as possible, to teach her, to learn from her, to love her and dote on her, to do everything I can for her.

To be able to do this, we've had to make a lot of sacrifices. Tim has to work two jobs, we've had to cut all extras out of our budget and live the leanest we've ever lived. Worth it? Absolutely.

So, when Christmas time rolled around, I was faced with the biggest challenge I've experienced in this lean time...no buying presents for people, something I love to do. Thankfully, there is a never ending amount of crafting to be done, so in our need for creative gift giving, I was able to make, among other things (jewelry, mounds of cookies, etc...):

Yarn Wreaths with Felt Flowers:

I found a tutorial on this a few weeks before Christmas and made one for my Grandma in traditional Christmas colors:

It took me awhile to decide if I liked it, but eventually I determined I did.

(Bonus shot, Grandma with her great grandkids on Christmas Eve)

Once I decided I liked it, I made another in less traditional colors for my sweet friend Laura. I was even more uncertain of this one, so much so that I didn't initially give it to her, giving her only the jewelry portion at first. Later I decided I was being stupid, "slyly" asked her if she was familiar with the yarn wreath fad, and eventually presented her with the wreath, assuring her that she didn't have to like it. She did though, and happily hung it up right then.

What do you think of yarn wreaths? Is this something you'd buy in an Etsy shop? What would you expect to pay, and what color combos would you like to see? Any input it welcome!