Thursday, December 27, 2012

Sleepy Time Pillows

You guys know I’m divorced and that I split the custody of my three little cherubs with my ex. Because of weird Christmas schedules and such, the kids didn’t really get to spend very much time with me in December. One of my girls is doing a daily teary countdown, “Mom, we are only (sob) with you (sob) for three more days!” It breaks my heart. She is the same one that says things like, “Mom, it makes me so sad when I am gone, because I can’t remember what your face looks like!!” Because they are traveling for the holidays and gone for two weeks, I made them all little sleeping pillows. I used this UrbanThreads.com embroidery and put a picture on the back. They are only about 8” square.
canon_2 090_1

 

I added little straps so they could easily hold on to them in the airport and when they are in bed.
canon_2 079_1

 

I used that fabric that is mounted to paper (like this – mine was a different brand but same thing). You send it through the printer, peel of the paper backing and use it for regular fabric. The photo quality isn’t the best but the kids love them and my little girl had tears in her eyes when she thanked me. It’s so hard to be strong for your kids all the time. When my littlest on cries over missing me, I want to cry right back. It’s so hard sometimes.
canon_2 080_1

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas Everyone!

canon_2 037_1

 

We had lots of fun opening our stockings and presents. I hope you had a fantastic day too!
canon_2 020_1canon_2 034_1

 

I made all the girls jammies too. Love her metallic iron-on Pegasus? She loves it!
canon_2 041_1

 

We love My-my!
canon_2 055_1

 

My favorite pair of jammies . . .
canon_2 065_1

 

Remember the stockings? I decided to attach my stocking letters with a safety pin and ribbon. I just tied a cute little bow, put it on top of the green ribbon, and safety pinned it to the inside of the stocking. That way, we can change who gets what stocking every year. All the girls wanted the angel stocking so we did a little drawing to figure out who would pick first.
canon_2 009_1

Here are three of them. With the letters that didn’t have holes (the S and C), I added some hot glue so the letters are firmly attached to the ribbon.
canon_2 013_1

Here’s our beautiful holiday mantle. Yes, I live in a construction zone. The gas fireplace is behind the “fire”. It just needs to get hooked up. The kids are funny. They will run over to the “fire” when they are cold and say their hands are getting warm next to it. Funny butts!
canon_2 017_1

Sunday, December 23, 2012

More photo fun.

 

Feel free to ignore all these photo posts. I’m just having fun with my camera and want to to document it! We’ve gone for some chilly winter walks with the temperature hovering right around –3 degrees F. It makes for a very quick and short walk. This camera takes great pictures on the Snow setting. It knocks out a lot of the blue and washed-out look of the snow.
camera_11canon_1 131

 

I’ve also been having fun with the manual functions on my camera. These are our Christmas lights with a very l o o o o w shutter speed. The kids took turn making designs with the lights.
canon_1 100canon_1 113

 

The camera has this fun color select function. Only one color will photograph, the rest is gray scale. Obviously I chose red for this shot.
canon_1 159

 

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the camera. I don’t love the little dial on the back, it’s hard to turn with gloves but it works fine if you are careful with it.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Looky who got a new camera . . .

Someone is a lucky girl with a cute husband who listened to her complaining about the old camera. So, of course I’ve been annoying everyone by taken a ba-jillion pictures with the new camera. Husband and I went to the zoo the other day and walked around. It’s hard to take pictures in the snow without everything turning out blue. This camera does a great job, I think. The following pictures are unaltered except for some cropping.
camera_1

 

Am I the only one that gets creeped out by goat eyes? It has a 20x optical zoom.
camera_2

 

My most favorite way to take pictures (with my arm out and big grins).
camera_3

 

This is inside with the macro. I used a large aperture, slow shutter speed, and no flash.
camera_10

 

Pretty lights. I would have played around more with these lights but it was about 3 degrees out and Momma’s hands were getting cold! If I had had more time, I would have focused on one bulb and set the aperture very small so the other stuff was out of focus. You sort of get the effect I was going for here. You really should click on the photo and see the larger picture.
camera_4

 

Here’s my latest project. See the ugly laundry room with crap on floor? The yellow on the wall if from where we removed a cabinet to put in the stacking washer and dryer. It was driving me crazy!
camera_8

 

See the new pretty laundry room. The cabinet will be installed in that corner and the crap with go in it. I’m tired of stuff on the floor! We’ll cut a hole in the cabinet in the back for the plumbing to fit through. Doesn’t the new camera take nice pictures? This is a hard color to photograph. I tried with the other camera and it was either very dark with no flash or very shadowy and gray with the flash. I opted for no flash, a low ISO, and let the camera pick the shutter speed, and aperture.
camera_6

 

I wasn’t too excited about the wall color when I was first painting it. It seemed too gray which is not what we need in Alaska (can you say 5hours and 30 minutes of daylight today?) but now it’s a cool green-blue which I really like. I think the laminate looks great with this too. I’ve always been sort of so-so on the flooring in my house but the white trim makes it look fantastic!
camera_5

 

I painted the ceiling, walls, and trim. Now we just have to put in the cabinet and trim out the window. Oh, and the light, don’t forget the light! We also changed out the hinges on the door because they were awesome brass.
camera_7

 

I have actually done quite a bit of sewing. I need to hem stuff and then post about it with my new fun toy!

Oh, and for those that are curious, I did not buy a DSLR. I wanted something that was still pocketable but had all manual controls if I wanted them. I bought the Canon Powershot SX260HS and I think it’s love! I will have to see how it does on my posed tripod garment shots though. Those are the ones with which I seem to struggle the most. 

Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Squeeeeeeee. I love being the “crafter” in the family!

I love, love, love when people give me things because “I’m crafty” or because “I sew.” I’ve acquired two machines this way and lots of fabric and trimmings. My Necchi is my go-to machine and the Pfaff is a close second. Well, imagine my excitement when I get a Facebook message from a friend’s mom (truthfully, she’s been a mom to me too) asking if I want a bunch of old patterns. Um, yea. Look what showed up on my door step last week. Three boxes of patterns and the best part is that they are my size! There are a ton of kid patterns too but the women’s patterns are a size 8 or 10 which is what I typically make in McKwikVogueRick.
pattern_1

 

I randomly pulled some out so you can see a few of them. They are all from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
pattern_2

pattern_3

 

Most of them are Buttericks, Simplicity, McCalls, Vogues, etc but there are a few of these pre-KwikSew pattern. This one isn’t even opened.
pattern_4

 

Pretty!
pattern_5

 

 

Most of the patterns are size 8 or 10 but there are a few 12s sprinkled in there.
pattern_6

 

I like the warning on this one. Upper right: Coat cannot be worn over jacket. Oh, dammit! That was my plan!
pattern_7

 

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
pattern_8

 

 

I love this hairstyle from the 60s. I could never do this with my hair. It’s too fine and too wavy.
pattern_9

 

Two out of three boxes are little kid patterns. I’ll be putting these on Etsy probably. I have no use for them because they are too small and there are so many of them. It would be fun to have a wall of pattern covers though.
pattern_11

 

Okay, this might be my favorite one. I have to say I love the butterfly collar and the ascot. Hee Hee, I said ascot.
pattern_12

 

This one is really cute and I would make it for my kids if it was a larger size.
pattern_13

 

Ra ra! I didn’t look but I wonder if these are for knit fabrics. If not, they would be pretty restrictive. Well, for a cheerleader.
pattern_14

 

Aaaaaaauuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
pattern_15

 

I think it’s funny that the kid pants are so high up on their little torsos.
pattern_16

 

I’ll let you guys know if I post any of these to Etsy. I know there is a market for adult vintage patterns. Is there any market for kid vintage patterns?

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Stockings

When you have a family of six, any little project turns into a big project. A while back, I decided to make stocking for all of us. Between cutting, embroidering, and sewing, it’s taken me a while to crank these babies out. I really like them and I love the embroidery. The embroidery is from UrbanThreads and it’s the Yuletide Revelry package
stocking_8

 

Each stocking is different but has the same theme thanks to the package of designs.
stocking_4

 

The insides are a fun green Christmas fabric from JoAnn’s. Instead of ribbon hangers, I decided on these clips from IKEA. They are just pinch clips so I can remove them when we are done hanging them.
stocking_5

 

Here are some detail shots. The embroidery turned out fantastic.
stocking_1stocking_3stocking_6

 

I added bling to most of them. If you look closely, you can find the crystals on the others.
stocking_7

 

My plan is to do a little lottery for the stockings. All the girls want the angel so we will draw for who gets to choose first. Then, I’ll put their letter on the stocking. These are the flat wooden letters from JoAnn’s.
stocking_2

Happy holidays everyone! I have a lot of things to do before the 23rd! That’s the day we will have all the kiddos so that is when we are doing Christmas this year.