Too Small :(

Little m and I recently went shopping. She needed some new clothes for church and play. She fell in love with this owl tank that came with a little jacket. Well, when we got home I realized that we had picked up the wrong size. She wanted to wear it the next day and I didn't want to go back to the mall and exchange it the same day. Too much mall for me.  I decided to add some material to the sides to make it bigger. My sewing garment sister is going to be proud of me. Even though I can sew garments, I can't stand sewing them! My mom had given Little m some gold lame (with a slash over the "e" to make is sound like an "a") this past summer. Perfect!

Too small :(

Yaaa!! Right size!! I took apart the side seams and made a paper pattern for the insert/panel. Voila!

Here's the paper pattern next to the gold lame fabric insert. So, if you have any shirts that are too small just add side inserts or panels. It was very easy to do. 

Happy sewing!!

Holly

100 Degrees!

Whew....it's hot today!

Little m wanted to swim in her pool, so thankful for the mister system we installed a few years back on the deck. That thing has been a life saver. We use it not only after working in the yard but for leisurely lounging in the backyard when the temps reach 100 degrees. The only drawback: you can't read a book or work on the computer but that's ok. It's more fun to watch Little m pretend to be mermaid.

Thought you might enjoy a video of my pond. The sound of water automatically makes the temperature drop 10 degrees.

                                        

                                       No, that is not a siren singing, it a Little m mermaid!

Stay cool,

Holly

Feeling Farmy!

It's Farm Girl Friday! Today I am finishing up a table runner. It took me a little while to decide what fabric to use for the binding. I thought this bandanna fabric looked too much like a Farm girl to not use it. 

The table runner is from Lori Holt's new book: Farm Girl Vintage. On each end of the runner there is a pieced barn with a silo. I am a little ahead on my Farm Girl Friday blocks, so I decided to make the runner. If you haven't joined Lori's Farm Girl Friday quilt along it's not too late. 

Here are my blocks. I took this picture last week so my newly completed blocks are not included in the picture.  They are each 6 1/2" square (give or take a little :)

Blocks top left to bottom right: Apron Strings, Autumn Star, Baby Chick, Baking Day, Butter Churn, Canning Season, Chicken Foot, and Churn Dash.

Little m made me a snack one day while I was quilting (with a little supervision from Sister). She got out Sister's Easy Bake oven (it's about 15 years old) and made me pretzels with powder cheese sauce, cut up some apples and strawberries and yogurt for dessert. I was very surprised by the pretzels, they were really good especially for an Easy Bake Oven mix. She did this all by herself and since she is not allowed to use a sharp knife without my supervision, she cut up the apple with a butter knife. She loves the Easy Bake Oven! I am always amazed every time we use it. I can't believe that a light bulb can cook things. Guess we will have to buy the new Easy Bake Oven when our light bulb burns out.

Hope you have an Easy kind of day!!

Holly

Strawberries!

Well...school's out for little june bug. She is so excited. Today is the first official day of summer for us. We did have to stop by school today to bring the classroom pet home. His name is Jonah and he is the classroom fish. Back in January while studying about the Government a few children ran for class President. Little j.b. was voted President. Yay! But then come the promises that you promised to your constituents: movie and popcorn twice a month, pizza party, show n tell, classroom pet, etc. She didn't want to promise them "no homework" because she said "We won't be ready for 4th grade if we never have any work for 3rd grade.". This is how we ended up with the classroom pet, Jonah, a betta fish. 

Earlier this morning we went to Wise Acres Farm and picked our fill of organic strawberries. 9 quarts to be exact. We had big sis, friend, little j.b and me all picking strawberries. Many hands make light work, was so true. We filled our baskets in about 45 minutes.

The Camarosa are big! Little j.b. picked one but then wanted to pick the smaller Cameron's to the right of this picture. 

They also had a sweet little bunny. Don't stick your fingers through the cage, I learned that lesson when I was little.

Very cute greenhouse made from discarded windows.

Little jb called this one Elvis because of his funny "hair" on top of his head.

Loved this planter.

Petting the young chickens.

Adorable coop!

Tight rope walking.

Zipline: "I have always wanted to do this! Now my dream is coming true!!"

She was not sure about the airplane swing. It was very wobbly, hard to balance.

Some of the beautiful strawberries!

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend. Memorial Day was spent reflecting on those who have lost their lives serving our country and those that served our country but passed away as veterans. To all the current servicemen/women and veterans, thank you so much for keeping our country free and safe!! We truly appreciate it. 

Have a wonderful day,

Holly

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! Hope each and everyone of you has the best Mother's Day, whether your babies are children or "fur" babies!  

Holly

Farm House Style: Chickens and Ball Jars

I have been so busy here at the homestead! I have already started making teacher's gifts. I like to give gifts to the staff and elementary teachers at Little m's (D#2) school. She goes to a small school and the staff and teachers are so involved. Over the past 4 years we have gotten to know everyone. They are so sweet and special. I decided to fire up the kiln and melt some glass. I recently found those adorable Ball jars, you know the green, blue and purple jars. I thought that they would make a perfect spoon rest gift. I have been meaning to slump (melt) some wine bottles that my father in law gave me years ago and just haven't gotten around to it yet. Dear Hubby had a week off last week and what better time to fire up the kiln! It would have taken me forever to fire 16 wine bottles so I tried to figure out what else could I use. I had a few food jars to recycle and they would have worked great but they were plain and I only had a few. As I looked around to use something else I spied my green ball jars on the kitchen table full of daisies. So a huntin' I went. Walmart, Target and grocery store had very few. I guess they are popular. I managed to scrape together about 20 jars. Slumping them is so easy it's almost a crime! The hardest part was waiting until morning to open the kiln.

My sweet little kiln!

The beautiful jars.

Tada! 

Such a pretty vintage color. I stood this one upright so you could see the sunlight shinning through it.

Placed the spoon on it to show what it can be used for. You could also use it for a soap dish in the kitchen. Little side note: I thought that I was creating something new and original. The only jars that I had ever seen slumped were clear jars. I thought "what a perfect thing to put on Etsy!", until I looked on Etsy. Lol, let's just say "great minds think alike".

I am also crocheting these sweet little Henrietta potholders. 10 down and 6 more to go. I am getting really fast after making 10! I can now make one in about 2 1/2 hours! The first couple of nights my arm hurt like crazy. I also purchased little berry baskets to place the jars and chickens in. I will tie it all up in cellophane and use a gingham ribbon. Fun!!

I "heart" Barns!

I have been working hard on my Quilty Barn Along by Bee in my Bonnet (Lori Holt). I have finally finished all the barns. It only took me 2 years....whew. I put it away for a while to build up my fabric stash. I really didn't have a lot of colors that I thought would work with this quilt. I wanted bright fun colors. I tend to purchase yards of a fabric that I love, so I had plenty of yardage but not enough variation. I have slowly been adding to my stash and making the barns as I went along. I also finished the tractor block. The tractor block is my quilt label with all of the quilty information on it. Lori used it as her quilt label and the hand embroidered information looks like smoke coming out of the "smoke stack thing" on the tractor (maybe that is called the exhaust pipe). I thought that feature was just adorable, in fact the whole quilt is adorable!! Lori has a new book coming out in April and this was just the push that I needed to finish my Barn quilt before the book is released. I already want to make the quilt on the cover of her book, but my New Year's resolution is "finish something old before you start something new" (ummmmm.....let's be real here, not sure how long that one is going to last).

Red tractor in honor of my Grandpa "Papa". I loved that tractor!

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Holly

A Snowman Heart Finished

Happy Friday!!!

I have finished this wonderful Snowman heart from Bunny Hill Designs. A free pattern. Have you started on yours? I can't believe that it is the middle of January, February will be upon us in a few weeks. It is not too late to be crafting for this Holiday of Hearts.

It is hard to see the pale cream halo, but it is there.

See that sweet little heart to the left. I have 5. They were stitched by my sweet sister (click here for her blog) and were gifted to me. I keep them in my craftroom year around but hang them on my little Valentine tree during this time of the year.

This was a quick stitch. As was suggested, I used white flannel for the snowman. The wings and scarf are a quilter's cotton fabric. 

The back. I wanted to cover up the sewn on ribbon edge so I glued a button on. 

Don't you just love Bucilla. One is for Dear Hubby and the other one for Son. I have yet to purchase me or D#2 one and I can't find D#1's. Guess I will have to purchase one for her too. I have got to find a vintage Holly Hobbie for me :) Love Holly H. I can't remember what I had purchased for D#2 when she was little. I believe it was the Nativity stocking. Hmmmm.....D#2's will require some thinking.

The kits are amazing. They come with all the felt, sequins, & thread. You provide the stuffing. These are on my craftroom bucket list. I am going to try make them this year. I need to get a lot of stuff crossed off that list. That was one of my New Year's resolutions, cross stuff off the list. Craft room organization is coming along nicely. I will share pictures when I am totally finished. BTW, did you see Heather's finished Bucilla project? If not head on over there and check it out, click here. It's beautiful!!

So cute. I can't wait to start on February's. 

The Sweet Little Nutcracker

I have always loved the Nutcracker. D#1 adored it when she was little. My parents took her to see it several times when she was little. This year I wanted to make something a little different than the usual felt/yarn ornaments. I used pipecleaners, felt and wooden beads. The would be an awesome craft for kids, no sewing involved everything is glued together. I respect that some of you out there do not sew. It can be a very scary & intimidating thing to pick up a needle and thread. When I sew I am usually prepared to stick myself. I can be fumble fingers all the time sometimes. I have even had to dislodge needles/pins from my foot using pliers (yow-sa!!) multiple times but don't let that discourage you from trying if you really want too. 

The first three characters are : The Mouse King, Nutcracker and Clara (or Marie).

Cut all pattern pieces out. I will show you how to assemble the pieces using the Clara (or Marie) as the example. 

1. Trim the pipecleaners. Bend pipecleaner in half, these are your legs. The bent area is the neck/shoulders. Wait to glue felt on.

Bend other pipecleaner to form a place to insert the head on. Make kind of a neck. You will cover this with embroidery floss. Do not glue head on yet.

Here is a break down of the parts of the pipecleaner body.

You will embroidery floss wrap the arms and neck of the Swan Lake princess, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Clara, and the Snowflake Queen. The Mouse King and Nutcracker will have glued on felt arms or hands.

Glue the felt legs onto the girls' pipecleaners. Here is how to wrap the floss for the ballerina shoes.

Glue the shoes on. See how mine don't quite line up. That's ok, just trim. You might need to trim legs too.

 First we are going to learn how to make the:

Mouse King

1. Drill tiny hole in top of head if you want to add an eyehook to hang M King as an ornament. 

2.Paint head, varnish and then glue ears and crown on. You can glue scrapbook jewels onto crown if you like.

3. Form the body as described above, do not glue any felt or embroidery floss on. 

4. Cut all felt pieces out.

5. Glue pants onto pipecleaner legs.

6. Glue gray hands onto pipecleaner arms.

7. Glue shirt on. Embellish shirt to make the M King look kingly. I used braided ric rac and sequins. 

8. Glue fur trim to cape. 

9. Place cape on pipecleaner neck.

10. Glue mouse head onto neck.

Enjoy!!

Up next is the Nutcracker.

Nutcracker

Clara (Marie)

Mouse King

I used some fake fur that I had on hand and just trimmed it to 1/2" pile and about 1/2" strip.

If you have any questions about the Mouse King or how to assemble the generic pipecleaner body, please don't hesitate to ask.

Keep those crafty hands busy,

Holly