Christmas Card

This year for our Christmas cards I decided that I would print out a cute coloring page and have my 2-year old color it in. I'd then scan it and print it out for our cards. I didn't get the result that I wanted. A black and orange Christmas tree isn't so cute.

So I just let her color. Well, it was pretty late so I thought I'd just clean up the mess in the morning. I'm glad I waited because she drew the perfect picture for our cards. It just happened. Yea!

SNOWMAN!!

I just finished printing out the last of the cards and now I'm ready to get them in the mail.

Mini Christmas Stockings

I decided to make mini Christmas stockings for the family this year. They're big enough to place a little trinket or gift card in. I got the idea from the book Christmas Ornaments to Make by Better Homes and Gardens.

This one is for my niece, Lexi, she's completely into the fake mustache thing (I have no idea why).

This one is for my niece, Dawny. I thought it was really fun looking.

This one is for my niece, Tiffany. Her friend photo-shopped a picture of her with a similar design.


This one is for my daughter. She's obsessed with penguins.

This one I made for my nephew and his dad. They're really big WWE fans.

This one I made for me because I LOVE Hello Kitty.


Well, I've gotten more done...

This one is for my sister, Mary, because she loves owls. I made this in about 15 minutes on Thanksgiving. They were coming over and I wanted to have as many stockings finished and on the tree as possible.

This is for my sister, Karen, she wanted an angel on her's. I don't think it came out to well but I'll probably fix it for next year.

This one is for my husband because he's a ninja.

This stocking was inspired by the New Moon movie. My husband's co-workers are a little obsessed. Go Team Jacob!

These 2 stockings are for my co-workers. Kim is totally obsessed with baseball and Jen just told me a funny story involving Christmas lights. So these are completely appropriate for them.

I've still got a few left to make, some that I forgot about (OOPS!) My stockings have inspired my niece, Lexi, to start to make them for her friends. She made a mustache one (again, I still don't get it), a tuxedo one and a Nightmare Before Christmas one (Jack's face).

Crochet Days

Let me tell you that I haven't crocheted in a very long time. But I found it absolutely necessary this week. Bella has been non-stop obsessing over pumpkins. Everything that is orange is a pumpkin. So I saw this cute crocheted version on craftzine.com and had to make it.

Since I finished the pumpkin in one evening, which is a great thing for me to accomplish, I decided I needed to make something else. And again inspiration came from craftzine.com. It's a slasher victim necklace. I've made 3 so that Lexi, Mary and I could each have one. I can't dress up for Halloween at work so this is my compromise.

Now, Lexi is interested in learning how to crochet so she showed me this cute penguin and I had to make it for Bella since she's going to be a penguin for Halloween. This came from lionbrand.com

The next thing I'm going to make is a cupcake toy. Lexi also found a panda bear and I think I'll start her off on that as her first project.

Bella & Gabe's Birthdays

I loved making the cupcakes for Bella's 2nd birthday. I was scared at first because I'd never tried anything like this before but I had Lexi help me (thx Lexi!) and they turned out pretty cute. We had a penguin theme for the cakes because Bella loves the Penguins of Madagascar cartoon on Nick.

I only did 5 cupcakes like penguins because I was not sure if my cupcake holder would be big enough to hold the taller cakes. The rest of the cupcakes were just frosted with vanilla icing and some got fish and others got coated in flaked coconut. I got a cupcake decorating book for my birthday this year and I love it. It's called Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. I can't wait to do more, maybe something for Halloween...

My sister, Mary, decorated a cheesecake for her son's birthday. Gabe turned 8 and loves the WWE.

All she did was "write out" the logo design with melted white chocolate on a piece of wax paper and placed it in the freezer to set. When she was ready to serve the cheesecake, she popped the design on.

I made a John Cena card for Gabe. He has a movable arm to do his "U can't see me" pose. I love this card!!!

Hello Kitty Pillow

Bella really likes Hello Kitty but she's still a little young for me to spend major money on all of the stuff that she wants. So I made a little felted pillow for her.

It's about 9 inches wide by 7 inches tall. It's not very big but she LOVES it! I had a lot of fun making it. It only took a few hours to piece together. The hardest part was attaching the bow to her face without it looking a mess. Bella uses it as a pillow for her favorite stuffed animal, Granger Evermore, a Teddy Scares bear.

I would have preferred to use fleece but I used what I had on hand. I know it won't last as long because it's made of felt but it cost about a dollar to make so I can't really complain...

Halloween Costumes

So, I'm trying to save money and re-use the pieces that are incorporated into Bella's costumes. Last year she was a kitty cat.


Simple to make: Black shirt and black leggings. I already had a cat hat, all that I had to do was sew the white felt onto her shirt, make a ribbon collar and sew on her tail that I made with a scrap of black fabric and 2 pipe cleaners. Once Halloween had passed, I removed the felt and she was able to wear her shirt again.

Our friends' son, Jacob, had his 5th birthday party in May. He wanted a costume party theme. Again, I didn't want to spend a lot of money because more than likely Bella wasn't going to be able to fit into it for this Halloween and I didn't want her to get hot at the outdoor party. So, I made her a hula girl.


I had just bought her bathing suit and so all that I needed to get was her skirt. I found this one at Five Below. (BTW, I love that store!) Since it was made for a tween/teen-aged girl, I had to cut the length. I did have 2 plastic leis on her earlier but they didn't stay on for too long. Bella had so much fun at the party and unlike the other kids dressed in full head-to-toe Halloween costumes, she didn't get overheated that day.

This year for Halloween, I'm making a penguin costume. She really LOVES the Penguins of Madagascar show on Nickelodeon. I know it'll be similar to her cat costume from last year but what can I do?


I used black pants, black zip up hoodie and black, white and orange felt. I stitched a huge white oval on her chest. I had to cut the felt into 2 pieces so that I would still be able to use the zipper. On the hood, I added the eyes and beak. Then I created little webbed feet that I attached to her Mary Janes. They just slipped over the straps so that I could remove them easily.

Just let me tell you that it was very difficult for me to find a plain black hoodie. So many were covered in huge appliques that I was glad that I started my search in August. It took several outings but I finally found one in Wal-Mart. It has a tiny double heart design but it was easily covered by the felt.

I helped Mary with Lexi's costume. She wanted to be a day-of-the-dead skeleton girl. Lexi wanted a homemade costume so we got her black hoodie jacket and created this beauty...

We just printed out pictures of arm bones and a ribcage. Traced them onto fleece and cut them out. I hot glued everything on because we had less than an hour before Lexi had to go out. She wore one of Mary's old black dresses and tights with leg bones on them. She finished it off with her glow in the dark bones Doc Martens. She did her own make up. It looked better earlier but we didn't take pictures before she headed out to her friend's house. (This is after she'd been out in the rain)

I'm already trying to think of what I'll do for next year's costume...

Hand Made Cards

Well, one of my other nieces, Tiffany, just had her 17th birthday. She's totally into PacSun and all of the beachy stuff so I made this birthday card for her:

I just drew the picture on the back side of the card stock and stitched using the appropriate colors.

I did a card for my co-worker, Kim. She REALLY likes baseball:


I also made a really pretty floral card for my mom's birthday BUT I didn't take a pic of it (duh). I've been into embroidery lately so it just felt right to use it on my cards.

Here's a baby shower card that I made for my cousin Colleen. I couldn't make it up for the actual shower but I HAD to make this card for her.


All I did was cut out a "onesie" shape from a piece of felt and did a quick stitch around the edging. Then I hot glued it in place. I then wrote out "Congrats!" in pencil and proceeded to back stitch over the word.

Lexi's Birthday

So Lexi asked me to help her with her birthday party. She wanted to go with a Day of the Dead theme. We made skull sachets (I didn't get any pics of those), locker skull magnets:

cupcakes:

I also made a double sided skull pillow for her gift:

And a skull birthday card:

I had a lot of fun doing all of this for her birthday. Now I have to get ready for Bella's!