Pillows

For my church I currently do work with the youth. So I deal with a pile of silly girls between the ages of 12 and 18. I personally spend most of my time with just the 12 and 13 year old girls.
We recently decided to make pillows for a project- unfortunately not one of them knew how to sew... or had even attempted it before.
So I had my work cut out for me, but I helped design and sew a bunch of 14" pillows.

Here's the silliest pillow first:


Ducky Pillow

 A pink pillow, with little yellow duckies, and yellow ric-rac for trim. I warned you... silly.


Blue Paisley Pillow

 You see those two little pearls in the middle of the pillow? That girl insisted upon putting buttons in the middles of the pillow... I'm not sure why, but it made her happy.




Hawaiian Print and Blue 'envelope' Pillow

We added a grey button on the bottom of the triangle flap on the blue 'envelope' pillow (So named because she wanted to have it look like it had a top that folded over like an envelope)



Zebra Print

This one I liked a lot- I'm happy that I was able to talk her into using the red thread to accent the black-and-white.
We even used a honeycomb stitch to make it a little bolder.


Red Honeycomb Stitch on Zebra Pillow



And finally, the twin pillows.

Because 13 year olds aren't always logical- this girl says she wants a set of boy-girl twins when she's older, so we made pillows for just such an occasion.

The reason behind them may be silly, but I loved these pillows. And her Uncle (who is apparently very 'into' home design and decor) swore that these were designer pillows- he couldn't believe they were home made.

I was very proud, I helped design these pillows, guided a novice sewer (and corrected many mistakes) well enough to create something that appears to be made by a top name designer.

Here they are in more detail:



Boy Pillow, front



Girl Pillow, Front

 Are those pockets cute or what?



Girl Pillow, back

 Of course, the boy pillow was backed with the brown and blue stripes, I just don't have a picture of it.
Here's what you see on the side:


Both Pillows, back

  So there is the pile of hand made pillows that I made with my young girls.

I really loved making the pillows so if you want some customized hand-made pillows you can leave a comment for me or request an item via my etsy shop

A Big Thank You- with a quick card!

I'm so excited- I made my first sale in my etsy shop!

It was fun to get the order, but before I shipped it off, I made a small gift from the extra fabric I used to make the item (I made a hair clip), and I also whipped up a quick Thank You card.

This really was a two minute project, so I know it's not much, but I think it's still pretty.

And I love it, since it represents my first success at something that I really want to do.

More Baby Stuff

I managed to get some organic AZO dye free cotton for cheap.. I mean super cheap. I'm not into super organic stuff, but since it was cheaper than 'regular' fabric I went for it.

I used it to make some more baby bibs and burp cloths.

Cute, right? And the bib isn't too bad either.

And it's reversible, green on one side, brown flower print (with green accents) on the other side.

And the burp rags:

I love these. For my son (my firstborn) I was given lots of burp rags and such one of them was made with one of these cloth diapers. It was by far my favorite burp rag. It was cute and it absorbed so much spit up. With my daughter I got three more as a gift- I love, love, loved them.

That's when I decided to make some myself- the world needs more of these fabulous burp cloths.

Here's a whole set of burp rags and bibs that can be found in my etsy shop.

Or you can get just a set of the burp cloths.

Small Tote

A woman at church asked me to make up a pattern so the girls (age 12-18) at our church could make some bags.

I was flattered that she thought of me as crafty enough to not only sew a bag , but to create my own pattern! I must be moving up in the world! And, I happy to report that it was a total success.

Along with the pattern I created for the girls, I also made a bag as a sample- But I do not need another bag- SO it's going for sale in my etsy shop 

 Do you love it? It's small for a tote, (because sometimes they are TOO big) but a little big for a normal purse... if you've been looking for a medium sized shoulder bag then you are in luck.

This shoulder bag is about 11"x12" (not counting the straps, of course)

If you look inside you can see the pockets:

The pockets are side by side, and one is thin so that it ideally holds pens/pencils etc. while the other pocket is larger to hold... you know... keys, phone, whatever!

Or if you don't like the pocket on the inside, simply flip it inside out:

The bag is reversible, so you can have your pockets on the outside if you wish.

The fabric is a little stretchy and has a fun striped texture to it. I hope someone finds this bag a good home, because I love it, but I just don't need it :)

Exploding Box

Have you all seen what scrapbookers call an exploding box?

When you see it, it seems so simple, and so innocent:

But when you pull off the lid...

It explodes!

I think these boxes are adorable! They are great for housing small gifts, and are often used as a photo album. You could make an 'album' of a senior year in high school, of a vacation or something similar to keep or to give as a gift.

I made this box with Valentine's Day in mind

 You can buy it in my etsy shop for that special someone.

Christmas Cake

I volunteered to make a cake for a Christmas party at my church. It was simple and quick and cute.

All butter cream:

 And my favorite part, the border, I love rope borders, and I really love the two colors being braided.

Simple Christmas Card

I made this very simple card so that I could stamp out a fairly large group of them in a pretty short amount of time (I may have procrastinated a bit this year)

I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday!

More Halloween

So my first born is obsessed with Peter Pan.

No, really, I mean obsessed. And it's adorable.

So this year it was a no-brainer to make a darling little Peter Pan costume for Halloween. 

My sweet-and-well-intentioned mother said she would buy tights for the costume, and forgot that Peter Pan wears green not brown.
So- it's a bit Robin Hood-ish--- but do you think my munchkin cared?
Certainly not! He was so happy to be Peter Pan.
I actually had to convince him to go get candy- he kept saying "The real Peter (the 'real' one is the one in the movie, of course) doesn't get candy"

Halloween

Why, yes-- I am aware that I am really behind on my little blog here.

If I told you I had two kids with another on the way, a busy semester of online classes, and plenty of volunteer time spent at church would you forgive me??

Anyway, I am now going to show you the darn-cutest little Tinker Bell I have ever seen.

 It's my little girl (at Halloween) I made this little Tinker Bell dress this last year and thought my little one was super cute in this fluffy fairy get up.

I absolutely L-O-V-E making Halloween costumes- if I went to buy a Tinker Bell costume it would NOT be this adorable.

I had fun making this- and I'm already jazzed for new costumes in 2011.

Nursing Covers!

I have been wanting to try making nursing covers for forever now.

I finally got around to it, and I don't know what stopped me for so long- they were easy and fun to make.

Here are the two that I made:

My own nursing cover (that I got as a gift)  is not easy to adjust- which means I never adjusted it. So when I made these I used a D-ring on the neck strap to make it super easy to adjust. 

And do you ever have to try to discretely look for your missing nursing pad after you're finished feeding? No- That's just me? Well in case you ever do find it difficult to keep track or nursing pads during a feeding, I made some handy little pockets on the bottom corner.

 

And, of course, I added boning to the neck to make it easy to peak in and see baby.

For sale now- in my esty shop: JLynneCreations

New Cakes

Here are a few cakes I've made lately- I left the sides completely undecorated, I call the 'open-side' cakes.

Selling Stuff

All hair clips come with a 'no slip' grip inside to help keep it comfortably in your child's hair.

Small flower clips .75 cents each (plus shipping if outside Phoenix Area)

Large flower clips: $1.50

Hand-sewn 'yo-yo' flower clips $2.00 each

This next picture is just to give you an idea of some of the kids of clips I've made. But I can also make the ribbon hangers for you, in any colors of your choosing.

Hair Clip display ribbon: $2.00 each

These are just some of the hair clips I can make!

Inspired by Dana Pt. 4

Another post about a craft inspired by the Fabulous Dana at MADE.

A little while ago, she MADE some adorable ruffle cards. It combined my great love of card making with my newer hobby of sewing!

LOVE!

So I decided to make a few of my own.

I used some pink and brown fabric I had left over from making all of the bedding in my baby girl's room, and I used a tan card stock for the card.

Inspired By Dana Pt 3.

Okay, one last post about re-purposing fabric.

Again, I thank Dana from MADE for giving me the idea that I don't have to go to the fabric store to buy fabric, sometimes- it could just be lying around.

This time I used a pajama shirt that I NEVER wore, and a pair of pajama pants that had been worn a few times, but they had a hole in one knee.

This time I didn't make a skirt.

I made a bib

Double sided

And not one,

But two matching burp cloths.

Here's the whole set. I actually had enough fabric to make 4 of these sets.

I've already given two away as gifts. Should I keep the others as gifts as well, or sell them when I *someday* get my Etsy store going?

Inspired by Dana Pt.2

I love Dana from MADE.

She is so talented, she has two adorable kids, and she has inspired me.

Among other things she makes an awesome shirt dress. I love that she can re-use fabric and make something so cute.

Here I found this pretty silky scarf for 99 cents.

I cut it up, and layered it with a slightly heavier fabric to give it some weight and voila! I have a skirt:

Cute Right?

I hope you all think it's cute- I think I want to sell this on Etsy. If I ever get around to setting up my Etsy shop that is

Inspired by Dana Pt.1

Dana from MADE has changed the way I look at fabric.
She is always re-purposing fabric on her site and it has made me think about doing the same thing.
This may not look like much but I found a skirt on sale for $1. and it was on sale for a reason

The cut was awful- it wouldn't look flattering on anyone- I mean it. Normally I would have walked away- but after reading Dana's blog I knew it had potential.
I turned it into a two-layered gathered little-girls skirt. I made this in about a 2T size.
So I got a CUTE little girls skirt for just a dollar

Cardswap

I found a sketch online for a card. I liked the sketch a lot, so I made twenty cards based on the sketch for my card swap- well I forgot to post my card for the sketch challenge, but here it is now that card swap is this week.
Mostly I'm proud of myself for using two patterned papers in one card. I have a small dot pattern in the background, and then I made two versions of the card with two different patterned papers-
I struggle to use patterns, I tend to prefer solid colors- so this was tough for me to use two patterns in one card- and bonus I did it twice- TWO different versions!