Sewing "Room" Moved

Here is my previous sewing space... in the middle of my living room. This did not work well for me the rest of the family. I have now moved my stuff to another area of the house only slightly less in the way of EVERYTHING! The problem is that I have 3 children in a 3 bedroom house. Sure it's normal for siblings to share a bedroom, but unfortunately one of the kids' bedroom is only 8x10. Our 2,300 square foot house has a strange layout with some unusual lost space. I don't have an extra room for a sewing/crafting space...I wish I did. Something with a door would be nice. My new area is actually in a loft space above our living room that has been a mini office/playroom/homework area for the past few years. Now it also serves as my creative space.

The unfinished projects just kept growing and when I say this is in the middle of my living room I mean it. It just looked so messy all the time. At least up in the loft it's kind of out of sight. Now when I have to stop in the middle of a project (which happens about every 45 seconds when my kids are around) I can literally leave in mid-stitch and just switch off the power to the machine. I've done this only to return days later wondering WTH? project is lying limply in the sewing machine. 

On to a slightly different subject. I just realized I never took pictures of my finished camera strap. Now it's attached to my camera so I need to find my little camera (you know, the one that should be somewhere in the bottom of my purse) so I can take a photo. Maybe I'll go do that now.

Finally Finished

One of the projects I had going finally got completed. I made 20 bib and burp cloth sets. Pictured here are some of the bibs and the back of the burpees.

The only reason I finished it is because there was a deadline. It was for a fund raiser at the kids school. I also made some other items that I'll upload later. I was literally working on some of the items until an hour before I dropped them off at school! Phew it feels good to finally have something completed.

 

I used fabric from my stash for most of the bibs. I didn't have a lot of "boy" fabric so I had to buy some. On the reverse side of the burpees I made some with flannel and some with terry cloth. For the bib pattern I traced a bib that I already had and for the burpee I just measured a rectangle that seemed like a good size. I used Velcro for the closure. I bought the kind that is already made into little circled. They were kind of a pain to sew on, but for the entire project I sewed everything assembly line style to make it go faster. I didn't photograph the sewing process because there are probably already a ton of bib tutorials out there.

I hope these cuties help raise a lot of money for our school!

Painting the Golden Gate Bridge

My house is a pigsty. It's a never ending task to try and keep it clean. The minute I finish one end, I have to go back and start all over again. Which reminds me of a story someone once told me about the Golden Gate Bridge. I was told the bridge is painted from end to end throughout the year in a never ending loop.  Something about the salty ocean air that made painting the bridge a year round job. Sounds like my house (not the salty part. Or even remotely the size part). Since I don't want to perpetuate a story that I hardly remember who told me let alone the reliability of the source, I employed Mr. Google for the answer. If you are so inclined the facts are here. But to make a long story short, yes, there is constant upkeep to that big damn bridge.

I love me a clean house, but mine is rarely in that category. My husband actually thinks I like living in constant clutter. Does he not remember life before children? Our house was so CLEAN, so NEAT. So I started cleaning up Luca's room...

Doesn't it look so sweet?

Next step is to tackle her brothers room. It's a continuous disaster zone. There just isn't enough storage for the amount of toys he has. I thought about getting rid of some of the toys but since the arrival of a new baby boy into the house it seems silly (and wasteful) to get rid of toys that will seem new to a certain little one in just a few short years. So where to store all the stuff until then? I have my eyes on these storage bins from The Land of Nod

The only problem is that to make them effective I would need to buy four of them which is going to be crazy 'spensive. until then I get to look at this.

Birthday Party Invitations

My little girl is turning six! I'm not usually a fan of the whole kids birthday party experience, but I LOVE making invitations and party favors. It means hours spent on the computer searching for just the right images, fonts and doo-dads. This years theme is based on papercrafts which is kind of funny because the party is at a gymnastics place. So the party event and theme don't exactly match. I was going to do a cute sock monkey tumble around theme until I found these...

I found this great note card set by Suzy Ultman called Paper Doll Parade from Pop Deluxe. They shipped it right quick and I am amazed at what you get for $14.95. I was originally going to hand write the invitations on the back of these note cards but then I realized I wasn't going to like it as much as printing them. Unfortunately the cards are cut outs and wouldn't feed through my printer so I switched tactics. I found images of artwork by Suzy Ultman here and OMG I love this web site. I want one of everything from each artist. Such amazing artists are shown here. So I copied some graphics and made this invitation...

How do you like the way I blocked out the phone number? I'm so computer savvy. 

I used the envelopes that came with the note cards. They are too cute. 

I'll post some of the papercraft ideas I came up with for party favors. There's quite a large community of papercrafters out there. I had no problem finding lots of inspiration. Wait till you see the great paper dolls I found.