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2 Little Hooligans

Bubbles.

We are constantly telling our little ones to stop blowing bubbles in their milk. Do you have little ones like that too? Well why not have an activity where you encourage them to blow bubbles. I know, it is so simple and easy, and far from being a new concept. Now why haven’t I thought of this before?! So we got some plastic bowls and taped a few straws together. Then put two squirts of dish soap in each bowl along with a little water and that was it!

The kiddo’s spent close to an hour blowing bubbles and playing in their bowls.

Sometimes I forget about activities like this to do with the kiddo’s. They seem so easy, yet they are so fun…for all of us.

Of course this wee little one wanted in on the action, and thankfully she settled for just a straw.

Of course the floor was covered in bubbles by the time they were finished. But hey, a clean floor has never hurt anyone before…especially when the kiddo’s were the ones that wanted to clean it up. A total win, win in my book!

fat quarter friday {fabric airplane tutorial}

This just may be the easiest and funnest project I have done for my kiddo’s. We are obsessed with paper airplanes right now and while they are fun to make, they just don’t last long, especially once the girls get their hands on them. So I got to thinking…why not make a fabric airplane?! And there is what, a super quick, easy and fun project for everyone to enjoy. These are very similar to making a paper airplane as you need to make sure all the sides are even and ironed well on the creases. I have only made this one design so far because, well, it works great and just didn’t feel like making another design. When you’ve got a good thing why change it right? And just in case you were wondering these little fabric planes can fly. They are way better you average paper airplane, at least the ones we were make in this house. Here is where I got the design for the airplane I used in this tutorial, of course he made his out of paper. There are a lot of other designs there as well, so give it a shot and try something new, just let me know how it works. So lets get started!

Fabric Airplane Tutorial

(10 minutes per plane)

Materials Needed:

*fat quarters or large scraps

*iron on stabilizer or backing (I used pellon 809 Decor Bond from JoAnn’s)

* 8.5 x 11 piece of card stock or printer paper to use as your template.

Iron the stabilizer onto the wrong side of fabric. Use your piece of paper as a template and cut the fabric to the same size as the piece of paper.

Iron front and back of pieces again to make sure the stabilizer is fully adhered. Using a 1/4″ sew seam, sew around the sides and bottom of the fabric. Make sure not to sew along the top. This will make sure that the fabric and stabilizer stay together better. And hopefully make your airplane last longer.

Now take the top edge and fold down about 1/2″. Make sure it is very straight and even. Iron in place.

Fold down and iron again.

And fold and iron one more time. You should have folded and ironed 3 times. Flip fabric over and iron the backside as well. Now fold sides together and iron.

Unfold and take the right top edge and fold down to the crease in the middle, making a triangle shape.

Repeat with the left side now and iron.

Iron the triangle shape flat. Pin in place and stitch a straight line across the bottom of the triangles to secure them in shape. Make sure you leave a teeny tiny space in between the triangles like I did above. It will make folding the plane together easier.

Now fold sides together and iron again.

You are now going to make the wings by folding them down. I like to fold mine like above. When folding the wings down you will notice the thickness near the tip. I start folding the wing down just a little above that. And I make my wing go up in the back a little bit instead of folding straight down. I think it makes them go faster.

Iron again.

Repeat with the other wing. Iron.

Now pull both of the wings up. See the crease mark for where you folded your wings down? Use that crease as your guide and stitch right beside the crease. Make sure you back stitch a few times at the beginning and end.

See where my stitches are? Now unfold and flatten wings up a bit. Iron flat if needed.

And that’s it, ready for take off!

Now if you want to make one with the contrasting fabrics instead (which are way cuter) follow all of the steps above except:

Sew two pieces of fabric together, right sides facing out with the stabilizer in the middle. Still sew just around the sides and bottom. Do not sew along the top. This time you are going to fold down two times instead of three. Make sure you still iron and every step and keep everything very straight and even.

Fold and follow the same steps like above. And I think we can all agree, they are much cuter with a contrasting fabric!

Have fun and make up a bunch of them! Now I can’t say for sure how long they will last, we have been playing with ours for about a week now and they are still flying high. If the wings get too bent, just take out your iron and make them straight again.

**Please feel free to use this tutorial for your personal sewing projects. You may link this to your blog and use any photo’s. Please be kind and give credit where credit is due.**

Any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me. If you make one using this tutorial, please add it to my flickr group. I would love to see it and you just might see it featured on my blog one day!

embrace the camera {almost spring}

I know spring is almost here because… our rubber boots are a must and not just a fashion statement.

Piggie is brought outside to swing with.

Cheeks are rosy red from playing and not from the cold.

The sandbox is almost clear of snow and is being played in.

Oh and so haven’t the hoses, much this momma’s liking.

But mostly you can tell spring is almost here by the smiles on our faces and the fact that we are not all bundled up.

Gosh it was great to get outside for a bit with the kiddo’s the past few days! It was a pretty tough week for me. But I won’t dwell on it. All it took was some fun times spent outside with the kiddo’s and I was energized and ready to battle whatever life throws my way. The snow hasn’t completely melted, but I can see grass more and more each day. And yes, I am going to ignore the fact that they are calling for 4-8 inches of snow for tomorrow. At least we know it won’t last long and yes, spring is almost here!

etsy shop and blog updates

I have decided to open my etsy shop back up and donate 100% of the proceeds to Operation Shower. I’m still working towards my goal of raising enough funds to help throw a baby shower for expecting military families. All of the items listed in my shop are made and ready to be shipped. And if anyone is interested in buying this let me know, unfortunately I only have one available at this time.

I hope you all will take the time to read more about Operation Shower here and will consider donating to such a wonderful organization.

And my blog is now…

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I have had so many requests for this, and I finally figured out how to do it. Thanks to this great site here, it was so easy! I’m embarrassed that it took my this long to figure it out. The only thing that I ask, is that you do not print pictures of my kiddo’s, unless of course you are family. And please still give this momma credit for all of her creations. I put a lot of time and energy into these FREE tutorials and ideas that I share with all of you.

And lastly, I spent a 1/2 hour in front of my much neglected sewing machine the other day. I made something fun for the kiddo’s that I think you will all like. It will make a great little handmade goodie for those Easter baskets or a fun toy for enjoying the spring weather. Gosh, this lack of sewing has been tougher for me then I had expected, especially with girls making stuff like this . My to do list is just growing and growing, while nothing is getting checked off.

See you all Friday!

Organizing Tote Basket {tutorial}

Phew, it’s finally finished! This was one of those projects that I never thought I would finish. In all honesty, it is a fairly quick and simple project. Its just like making a basket or a bag, but with adding large pockets on the outside before sewing it all together. This little organizer can be used in so many ways. I just love it! The first one that I made was for my mother in law and she uses it to organize all of her note cards and stationary, see it here. But you can use it anywhere to store anything. Use the same basic design to make a bigger or smaller one. You could even make a round one! I’m hoping that I will be back on my sewing feet again soon because I have plans to make a ton of these! Sorry about the spacing of the pictures and wording. I had a hard time getting everything to line up properly. It still drives me nuts, but I finally had to give in and leave it to be. Hopefully this doesn’t make it harder to follow, just let me know.
Organizing Tote Basket Tutorial

(Allow 3-4 hours to complete)

Materials Needed:

* cotton fabric about 1 yard

*fat quarter of flannel fabric or light weight stabilizer

*1/2 yard of terrycloth, fleece or medium weight stabilizer

*70″ of bias tape or make some if you have enough fabric.

Cut the following from the cotton fabric: (Make sure you letter each piece of fabric as you cut them out. It will make assembling the organizer much easier.)
A: 6 pieces at 9 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ (sides and bottom of organizer)
B: 4 pieces at 7 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ (sides of organizer)
C: 2 pieces at 9 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ (side pockets)
D: 1 piece at 7 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ (side pocket with slots)
2 pieces at 17″ x 3″ (handles)
Cut the following from terrycloth, fleece or medium weight stabilizer:
A: 3 pieces at 9 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ (sides and bottom)
B: 2 pieces at 7 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ (sides)
Cut the following from the flannel or lightweight stabilizer:
1 piece at 7 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ (stabilizer for the pocket with slots)
2 pieces at 9 1/2″ x 5 1/4″(stabilizer for the longer pockets)
**Bias tape**
You will need about 70″ of bias tape. You can either buy some bias tape or make it yourself. I had plenty of fabric so I made my own bias tape.
For now you will be working with just the following pieces: the bias tape, the 3 pieces of flannel, 2C pieces & 1 D piece.

Fold one C piece in half, wrong sides together with the 9 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ piece of flannel folded in the middle. Iron flat.

Cut off a 9 1/2″ piece of bias tape.
Unfold the bias tape. Place the top edge of the bias tape onto the folded edge of the fabric.
Sew bias tape on. If you are using homemade bias tape, do not sew in the ditch, sew in a little bit. If you are using store bought bias tape line up the shorter side on the top edge and sew in the ditch.
Now fold bias tape up.
And over, then fold edge raw edge under. Sew bias tape as close to the edge as possible.

Here is what your first finished piece will look like.
Repeat with the other C piece and 9 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ piece of flannel. Once that is finished, repeat the same steps but with the D piece and the 7 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ piece of flannel. Your three finished pieces should look like this now. These are going to be the pocket pieces on your organizer. Take the D pocket piece that you just made and measure how wide you want your slots to be. You can make them as wide as you want, depending on what you will be using them for. I made my slots 1″ apart with one larger slot. Make sure when you are making your marks that you figure in for the 1/2″ sew seam on both sides of the pocket.
It’s hard to see, but I started by measuring in 1/2″ and then measured 1″ for my slots. I ended up with 6 slots and one of them was a little larger due to my measurements.
Take a marker and draw your lines down vertically. Gather a B piece of fabric and place the pocket piece on top of the B piece of fabric. Pin in place and sew down the vertical lines to make your slots.
Your pocket piece should look similar to this one now. OK, this is where the lettering of each piece of fabric comes in handy. Gather three pieces of A, one piece of B and the B pocket piece, along with all of the terry cloth or medium weight stabilizer. Lay out all of your pieces like so with the terrycloth or medium weight stabilizer underneath each of the pieces of fabric shown. Pin the 2 pocket pieces C (C pocket pieces are the ones that you just made above with the bias tape) in place on top of the two side A pieces like below. Make sure the bottom of the C pocket pieces are even with the bottoms of the A side pieces.

Now, working with the A pocket piece and the A bottom piece pin right sides together.
Make sure you start a 1/2″ in from the edge and end a 1/2″ in from the edge. This will make it easier for the sides of the organizer line up evenly when sewing them all together. Just trust me on this one.
Sew top edge.
See? Make sure you back stitch at the beginning and the end a few times as well.
Now attach the other A pocket piece to the other side of the A bottom piece.
Your pieces should look like this now. All the A pieces are connected and the B pieces on the sides.
If you need to straighten up the edges a little bit. You want to make sure everything is kept straight.
Pin the B piece onto the A bottom piece and sew in place.
And repeat with the other B pocket piece that has the slots.
All 4 sides should be sewn in place now. (Sorry guess I forgot to take a picture of all the sides attached.)
Now it is time to sew the sides all together to make a basket. Take any two sides that are beside one another and pin right sides together. Make sure you line them up very straight starting at the bottom edge of the organizer.
Sew edge. Make sure you start and end at the edge, do not start the 1/2″ in here. Also make sure you back stitch a few times near the bottom piece. You want it to be strong, since that is going to be the bottom of your organizer.
Repeat with remaining sides by pinning and sewing in place. It does not matter which order you sew them together in.

Now you have the outside of your organizer all finished. Turn right side out.

Now it is time to make the lining of the organizer. You are going to repeat the same steps that you just did in making the outside of the organizer, but this time you are only working with the cotton pieces of fabric and no stabilizer or batting.
Gather the remaining A & B pieces and lay them out like before.
Like before, sew the bottom piece A to a side piece A.

Remember to start and stop sewing 1/2″ from the edges.

Now sew together the last A piece to the other side of the A bottom piece.

Now sew the B side pieces on.
All four sides should be sewn onto the the middle (bottom) piece now.
Should look like this now.
Begin by lining up the sides and sewing in place, like you just did with the outside of the organizer. Remember you don’t need to sew them together in any particular order.
Now you have the inside of the organizer all finished.
Place the inside of the organizer into the outside of the organizer, wrong sides facing.
Gather the rest of your bias tape. Now you are going to sew the inside and the outside of the organizer together around the top by using the bias tape.
Start by folding one edge of the bias tape in and ironing it flat. You will be working with the folded edge of the bias tape first. Pin the bias tape in place all around the top edge of organizer.
Sew bias tape in place starting at the folded edge and ending at the folded edge. Allow the unfinished edge of the bias tape to overlapp the begining folded edge of the bias tape a little.

See how I covered up the folded edge of the bias tape a little bit?

Fold bias tape up, over and under.
Pin bias tape in place
And sew. Like before, sew as close to the edge as possible.

Now gather the 2 pieces of fabric that are 17″ x 3″. It is time to make the handles.
Fold right sides together and stitch all around leaving a 2″ space in the middle for turning right side out.
Turn right side out and iron flat. Top stitch all around handle.
Sew handles in place where desired.

Attach the handles on by sewing a box to make them stronger. You can see I sewed a little spot at the top of the organizer on the bias tape to keep the handles in place better.

If you want, take and sew the handle together into itself to make them smaller. Measure up about 2″ away from edge of bag, fold edges together and stitch.
And that is it! Your finished!

I love this little organizer! Not sure what I will be storing in it yet or if I will even keep it for myself. I just couldn’t help but throw my yarn and knitting goodies in there. The colors just looked too good not too!

**Please feel free to use this tutorial for your personal sewing projects. Feel free to use any pictures, I just ask that you link back and give credit where credit is due.**
If you have any questions or comments please contact me, I would be more than happy to help you out. And remember to add your photo’s to my flickr group if you make one, I would love to see it!
Happy Sewing!

*yellow and grey*

I’m guest posting over at craftaholics anonymous today!
Come join me.

And here are some beautiful tulips my sister in law dropped off the other day. Have I mentioned how lucky I am to have 4 wonderful sisters?! I not only married the most amazing man that day, but I was also blessed with 4 amazing sisters!


Yellow and grey *SWOON*

fat quarter friday {guest post from Nature’s Heirloom}

I’m so excited to have Nikki from Nature’s Heirloom here with us today. She will be showing us how to make a cute little embellished camera strap with fabric rosettes or a scrappy ruffle.

I first discovered and fell in love with Nikki’s blog after seeing this wreath that that she made.

I mean this wreath just screams my name and is completely AMAZING! Umm, hello beautiful oranges! And her talents don’t stop there, she also makes the cutest toys and accessories for her kiddo’s.

I still have to do a double take at these cute little ones…I mean where’s the recipe?

Lucky little kiddo’s, aren’t they? So I was so excited when she agreed to join us for fat quarter friday and share her talents with all of us, Thanks Nikki and take it away…fat quarter friday is all yours!

Hello Hooligan-readers!!
My name is Nikki, and I have a little blog called Nature’s Heirloom where I share little crafty bits from my life.
I’m so excited that Christina asked me to come share a tutorial with you all for Fat Quarter Friday!! I LOOVE fat quarters. I have a whole hoard of them. I can never resist cute little mini bundles of fabric. Plus I love the quick little projects that can go along with them.

The tutorial I want to share with you is a camera strap cover. I DESPISE camera straps. They are so uncomfortable, the way they cut right into your neck. So, “photography life” has been much more pleasant since I put together a camera strap cover for myself. So here’s how I did it.
All you need is: -a piece of fat quarter fabric
-scraps (optional)
-thin batting
-heat-n-bond
-iron
-basics (sewing machine, thread, scissors, pins)

So start out by measuring your camera strap. I have a Canon Rebel XTI, so I have one of the 2 inch wide straps, which I’m pretty sure is standard for any DLSR cameras. So I cut my fabric
5″ x 21″. But if you have a different size, just double the width of your strap and then add on another 1/2″-3/4″.

Fold it in half, length-wise right side out, press, and sew along the fold, 1/8″ from the edge.

Unfold, and add any embellishments you may want. I chose to do some scrap flowers.

Flip over to the wrong side and iron on some heat-n-bond strips down the center of each side.

Cut 2 strips of batting, about 1 1/2″ x 20″ each and “bond” them to the bond strips.

Fold over each small end about 1/2″ and sew 2 seems to keep them put (as shown above).

Fold it right side out and “sandwich” the raw edges (just over an 1/8″), press and pin. Then sew along the edge 1/8″.

Fit it onto your strap, and “Wah-lah!” You’re done!

Try out the luxury and comfort. Oh yeah.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!!

Thank you Christina for having me!!!

Marshmallow catapult

I was searching the other day for kids crafts using Popsicle sticks and found this one. I just love to do kids crafts when I have everything on hand and they are quick and easy to do. This is definitely one of those. All you need is a Popsicle stick, a close pin, bottle cap and a few pieces of wood. Hot glue together like so and then grab some marshmallows.

We started by using these ginormous marshmallows but I quickly realized that yes, they may be cute, but the smaller ones travel much further and entertain them so much longer.


We certainly will be catapulting all of our marshmallows from now on. This gives snack time a whole new meaning!

**UPDATE: We had some minor issues with the bottle cap staying glued on, so we kept it off and realized that those marshmallows REALLY flew then!**

embrace the camera {sugar on snow birthday party}

I wasn’t too surprised when my little maple syrup- doughnut loving guy requested to have his birthday party at the sugar house again. We were even lucky enough to have some of the gang join us.


The birthday boy requested a pinata “ninyana” for his party. He wanted a scary monster… he got a maple syrup jug instead.


I made the pinata from a diaper box and the handle is actually a diaper all wrapped up. I cut a hole in the top and bottom of the box and then covered the bottom hole with a piece of paper. Then I wrapped the box in brown streamers. I took a picture of our maple syrup jug and enlarged it as big as I could and just taped it on to the box. Pretty easy and quick, but a very hard pinata to break open.


They all took turns hitting it.

But that “ninyana” was so hard to open that this momma finally ended up breaking it open…which may or may not have taken a few swings.

Homemade doughnuts.

And sugar on snow.

And a sugar on snow birthday party wouldn’t be complete without a #4 doughnut “cake” for the birthday boy.

This little girl LOVED her sugar on snow!

Later that night he told me that “It was the bestest birthday party ever! I loved my #4 doughnut cake! That was so nice of you Momma…sorry Penny dog ate it!” Thanks for joining us guys, we had such a great time and being with all of you just makes it more fun!

finally finished!

Wow, I never thought I would finish this cute little organizing tote that I started weeks ago, but I finally did. Oh and I just love the way it came out. Now all I have to decide what to use it for. I go back and forth on using it for my knitting goodies or for organizing my stationary. It would also be great for the kids coloring supplies too. So many possibilities! The tutorial is half finished and my fingers are crossed that I will be able to share it will all of you this friday.


Gosh, I sure have missed sitting in front of that sewing machine of mine.