Ruffle Skirt

I decided to make our little one a cute skirt!  Possibly one to wear to Uncle Matt's wedding in May, she will be 1 mo old at the wedding and I want her to look cute but didn't really want to go buy a big fancy dress since Elijah grew way to fast to keep him in any clothes!!

So here is the pattern.  I kind of made it up as I went as I had an idea of what I wanted and then just ran with it.  Also note, this is my first attempt at an elastic waistband on anything so we will see how it goes!  I think I am going to take the blue material that is left, and make Elijah a matching tie or bow tie onesie so they match.  Then maybe a skirt for me.... Just thinking out loud sorry.  Ok, onto the pattern.

Fabric strips for ruffles: 2.5" wide, 27" long

Fabric for base of the skirt: 18" wide, 9"long
Elastic 1-4" less than waist of the skirt
Thread and Sewing Machine

First cut out the Fabric for the width of the skirt and length.  I do not have a baby to measure this on so I had to kind of guess.  I used a newborn pant waist and a 3 mo dress and put it somewhere in the middle(hopefully it will fit).  You can adjust the sizes of this to fit any little girl in your life.  Just measure their waist and add some space for seam allowance and go from there.  Now hem up what will be the bottom of this rectangle.  That way you have a nice smooth bottom edge of your fabric with no loose ends to worry about.

Last sew the two ends together so that you get a circle which will be the base for your skirt.  You will then pin everything onto this one piece.  So it should be 17.5" around and about 8.5" in length just so you have an idea.

For the ruffles you will need them to be 1.5x the width of the skirt so you have room to gather as needed.  Hem the bottom of the ruffle.  Then you are going to do a gather stitch for the ruffle.

To do this you are going to set your sewing maching to the greatest stitch length (mine is 4) on just a straight stitch, also make the tension less.  Sew in a straight line.  Pull on the bottom thread(bobbin one) so that the fabric will gather, don't pull too hard as you don't want to break the thread.   You will need to pull on some of the fabric as well to help it along, just remember nothing too hard.  I cheat with the gather stitch and I only do one instead of two-it is quicker that way!

Pin into place and sew onto the fabric, I like to start at the bottom so I can see where I need to go. Easier for my brain I guess.

Add the next ruffle 1.25 inches up from that one, continue for the next 3 ruffles.

We are going to use the rest for the waistband and hemming!-This gives us a lot of room but I wanted a lot in case I messed up so you could probably cut like 2 inches off the top if you wanted, especially if you have done elastic waistbands before!

Now it is time to tackle the waistband. I'm new at this so I hope I explain this well.

First I sewed the top 1/2" down so it looked hemmed, just to give it a clean look no matter what happened! That is the easy part.  Next, we are going to fold the fabric over top of the raw edges so that we hide it.  I did this in an accordian style.  So the right sides of the fabric were together, but it still came out with the right side up. (I hope that makes sense, there is a picture below)

Inside view!

Outside view!








Sew the edge by the ruffles to cover up the top of the gathering.

Once it is all sewn, you are now going to insert the elastic waistband. Make sure when you cut the elastic that it is 2" shorter than the fabric.  It will make it bunch up more.

 Make sure when you put the elastic in that you pull it really tight and sew it up close to the elastic so it stays stretched. I would pull it tight, pin it in place, sew up to the pin.  Pull it again and pin it.  I repeated this until the elastic was all sewn in.

Sew the top part down so that it is all clean.  I did a zig zag stitch on the top just for extra flair.  It looked really nice in the end. The inside should look like below. You are now done! Not too hard right??

Pancakes

Ingredients:
2 c Flour
1/4 c sugar
4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1.5 c milk
1 c sour cream
1/3 c butter, melted

Mix all dry ingredients together.  Combine all wet ingredients and add to the dry.  Mix well!  Add to griddle 1/4c at a time. Add whatever you want to the pancakes. Our family personal favorites: Blueberries, Banana/Nut, or Banana/Chocolate Chip.

When I do Blueberry pancakes, I love to also make the Berry Sauce out of blueberries.  The more fruit the better in my world! I think little man loves them!!

Storage Boxes

I was needing something to put all of Eli's toys in since they seem to have taken over the living room.

So I pulled out an old diaper box (I was trying to think of something creative to do with them), and got to work.  I cut off the top pieces so that it would stay open.

I then spray painted 3 of the sides blue.

Then because of my new found love with chalkboard paint, I painted the front of the box with that!  Yeah, now I can write toys on it. 

I'm so very excited to have somewhere to put all his toys instead of just scattered all across the floor! Greg is too, as the clutter I think gets on his nerves more than mine. Below is what the room looked like before!

It sits so nicely on the bookshelf and now it is a bookshelf of everything Eli instead of just some random stuff!

Much better don't you think??
Now I just need to find my chalk so I can write on the box.  You have to wait for 24 hrs before you can write on the surface, so maybe tomorrow I will try and find the chalk!

1st Birthday

I can't believe my little man is 1! I know it hasn't been a year since we welcomed him into our family.  What a special day that I will never forget.  And we are blessed beyond measure with a sweet, content, chubby, little man.  We couldn't have asked for anything better.  Needless to say he is giving the next one a run for their money.

Here are some pictures of my big boy on his birthday.  Playing with his new sidewalk chalk!

 And his new car mat, he really seemed to like it!

 His mini car cakes!

 Let's eat!

I think it turned out to be a good day afterall.  We had Steak and Potatoes for lunch, with raspberry jello shaped like cars.

Waffles

Homemade Waffles

Ingredients:

1.5 C Flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs, separated

1 c milk

1/4c melted butter

*Makes 4 waffles

Directions: Mix dry ingredients together.  Add wet ingredients. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Fold into batter. Pour into waffle iron. 

I love to add Berry Sauce and some powder sugar on top! All the better. Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Scrub

1 c Brown Sugar
1/2 c Sugar
1 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp Vanilla extract
4 TBSP Coconut Oil-melted
Olive oil

Mix them all together, except the olive oil.  You can stir it by hand if you would like, I personally did it in the mixer on high with the whisk attachment so that it was lighter.  I don't like mine to feel too oily.  The olive oil is used more as a filler, if it looks like it needs more oil the just slowly add some olive oil to the mix.  Easier than melting down more coconut oil. Then store it in any type of container you like, I used a mason jar.

Enjoy it is heavenly! Keeps your skin so soft, with no harsh chemicals.

Burp Cloth

I decided since we are having a girl next time why not dress up the burp cloth a little, just for fun.  I only did 2, because they don't really need to be fancy after all they are for catching spit up.

Materials:
Burp Cloths(cloth diapers)- Wash before so they shrink before you add the fabric
Fabric of your choice- I did pink with polka dots

 1. Lay the Burp cloth out on the Fabric

2. Cut the fabric so that you have abou 1/2" on all sides

3. Fold the edges of the fabric under so they match up with the burp cloth, pin in place.

4. Sew up all sides close the edge of the fabric.  I sew it on the other side of the hem of the burp cloth.

5. You are finished and now you have something a little bit nicer than a white rag to throw over your shoulder!

Note: I always make sure to have the tag of the cloth on the inside, then there are no blemishes!

Gathering Fabric- How to

This is more for me and the ease of future posts since I will be doing a lot of ruffle's since I have a baby girl on the way.  Then if you don't know how to make a ruffle you can go here and if you know how to make one you can just do it.

Here is how to gather fabric:

First cut the Fabric the length and width you need it.  It should always be 1.5x a length of the item you are making so you have room to gather it.  Width depends on how big you want the ruffle to be, on big people clothes 4-5" and on baby clothes I recommend 2" so you have room to hem up the bottom and tuck the top yucky piece away so everything looks neat and clean.

Second, Hem the bottom of the ruffle under.  On a child's ruffle I use 1/4" seam and on an adule ruffle I use 1/2".  This will keep things looking neat.  If you are going to see the top part of the ruffle.  I would recommend hemming the top part also.  This will again just keep things neat and clean!

 Third, Put your sewing machine on the greatest stitch length, and as loose as it can go. My greatest stitch length is 4.

Forth.  Sew about 1/4" from the top of the fabric all the way across. Leave long tails on both sides of the fabric, so you can use these.

Fifth, Now we are going to do the gathering. You are going to take the thread on the under side(the bobbin thread), Pull on the thread some and help move the fabric along.  Be careful you don't want to break the thread. Keep pulling until you have gone the entire length of the fabric.

I usually then just go back over it and make sure all the ruffles on the fabric look even.

And you are done, now we can attach it to whatever we want! YEAH! I love ruffles.

Heated Rice Bag

During pregnancy I'm convinced that rice bags are a women's best friend.  After I had Elijah, my dog ate mine, so now that my back is starting to hurt.  I decided I would make my own.  After all it couldn't be that hard.  And it wasn't, it was quick, easy, and practically free!

Rice (NOT instant, Use long grain rice of any kind white or brown)

Fabric (fleece or 100% cotton work best so it doesn't catch fire in the microwave)

 

I cut a piece of one of my scrap fabrics out.  It measured 12X18". 

Fold the fabric together with right sides facing each other.  It should measure 6X18" now!  Sew with a 1/4" seam. 

Leave about a 2 in hole on one of the sides, so you can add the rice to the bag.  Turn the bag right side out.

Add the rice, and then tuck in the ends of the fabric and sew up the last part. Make sure when you add the rice that you don't over fill it our it will not mold around your shoulders right.  But put enough in it to maintain the shape.  You can really do any shape or size you want, but I like it for my lower back so I made mine long and skinny!

I decided last minute to do a zig-zag stitch along the top and bottom of it, in hot pink just for fun!

Ahhh, relief at last!

Dress up-Wand

This is an old blind rod believe it or not.  It broke off one of our blinds and I have been looking for something to do with it.  I thought it fit in perfectly with the dress up theme I was doing for my step-sister.
I took the old rod, my hot glue gun, and all the pink ribbon I had in the house and set to work.

I cut off a part of the bottom of the rod because it was a little too long.  I then started at the bottom edge of the rod, and started adding hot glue to the ribbon and wrapped it all the way around the rod.  Remember to just add a small amount of hot glue at a time since it dries quickly.  When the rod was covered with the ribbon.  I made a big bow out of the same color pink ribbon.  I then hot glued that to the top of the "wand", there was a small flat part at the top which made it ideal for adding the bow to that spot.  I then cut multiple different lengths of ribbon in the other two colors that I had and attached them, so it had some flowy(sp?) ribbons coming down making it pretty.  I think it turned out really good and it took almost no time at all.  I'm quite proud of this one!

I found an extra small hot pink flower that I decided to add the middle of the bow last minute!