Baby M's Very First Birthday Bash

Baby M celebrated her very 1st  birthday last week & we had her very 1st birthday bash this past weekend.

I am a bit poky about getting the shin dig posted.

A little birthday recovery effort has been going on over here.

Then add my home being invaded by neighborhood kids & well,

my time for me, myself, and I gets put on the back burner.

The birthday bash was incredibly laid back & very small compared to past birthday gatherings that have taken place for my other two wee ones.

The color scheme of the birthday was pink, white, and baby blue.

Here are some photos of Baby M's sweet little birthday party.

Her attire:

1. A birthday skirt purchased by an amazing friend, who also happens to be my next door neighbor.

2. I purchased a onsie and appliqued the number 1 to it.

3.  I made her a flower hair clippie.

4.  I, also, made Baby M a party hat  made out of fabric and embellished with a tulle pom pom, an appliqued number 1, and a silk flower.

She looked flippin' ADORABLE!!

And, of course, I wasn't able to get a great shot from my camera & I am waiting for a couple of others to send me their photos.

For party food, I kept it pretty simple.

I made lemon flavored cake balls,

rice crispy treat pops in the shape of hearts,

chocolate cupcakes filled with homemade caramel or a mini candy bar & topped with a vanilla/almond butter cream.

I also made Baby M her own chocolate smash cake with a vanilla/almond butter cream frosting.

I made a watermelon punch which just consisted of pureed watermelon with ginger ale & some sugar. 

It looked so pretty, & of course, I have no pic of it when added to the table!

Duh!

( I had the husband make the adults a grown up drink using the punch.   Yummy!) 

We also had some watermelon slices, grapes, blueberries, chips & salsa.

Things that the birthday girl loves to eat.

For decorations, I was very frugal & "decorating on a dime" would be an understatement.

I draped mosquito netting that my mom gave to me after her return from a trip to Vietnam along one corner of our  pergola. 

It was so billowy & lovely!

And free!

 I also made mounds of ruffled streamers & covered the "rafters", table & Baby M's highchair with them.

The cost for the ruffle streamer loveliness cost $2.00!

The streamers were so easy & fun to make!

I just took some plain old, boring streamers, set my bobbin tension to it's highest  on my sewing machine & then placed two different colored streamers together & started sewing.

Presto!

Ruffle loveliness.

It's like magic happening before your eyes!

I  made a balloon banner with the cost of maybe $3.00 (idea taken from here),

tissue paper flowers all of $1.00,

and displayed some fresh baby blue hydrangea flowers that were given to me by one of my son's sweetest friends who happens to be our next door neighbor as well.

A long while back, a friend of mine gave me oodles & oodles of white fabric.

Cost of fabric=FREE!

So, I dyed a large piece of fabric baby blue & made a tablecloth for the table.

The cost for the dye...almost $3.00

Total cost for decorating=a whopping $9.00

We all anticipated CAKE TIME!

Because she tends to shovel her food with both her hands during meal times

we thought, without a doubt, that she would go NUTS with her cake.

Guess what?

B-O-R-I-N-G

Nada!

No face plant into the cake.

No two handing cake into her mouth.

No throwing it all about.

NOTHING!

Oh well....

We did get some cute pics of her trying to figure out how to eat the darn thing.

It was such a great little birthday party.

She had a blast & in the grand scheme of things, that is really all that matters.

Happy Thursday!

~Amy

I'll be linking up to some fab parties!

Thank You For a Great Year Teacher Gift

Little Man N will be spending his last day as a 2nd grader today!

Wowzer! 

This year flew by so incredibly fast!

And to add to the craziness, Baby M took her first steps last night!
All my babies are growing up waaaaay too fast.

                                                              
                                   Oops...

I got sidetracked...back to my topic.

I wanted to make Little Man N's amazing teacher a gift for her "amazing-ness" & for the wonderful job she did.  She was able to make my Little Man a serious learner & that is so fantastic.

Nearly every day he looked forward to attending school & I truly believe he enjoyed going this year.

(Although, he may tell you otherwise if asked.)

I am so proud of his accomplishments & I owe so much of those accomplishments to his teacher.

With her guidance, patience, love for teaching & perseverance, Little Man N was able to reach goals that were thought to be unreachable in a short amount of time.

Here is what I made for her...

I have to apologize for the crummy photos.  I finished the tote bag during the evening hours which means horrible lighting.

I made a simple tote bag, but to make it unique, I sewed the fabric to look like notebook paper.

Super-cool, right?

I got my inspiration here & here.

I then appliqued an apple & embroidered my son's teacher's name to the front of the bag.

On the backside I embroidered a heart, my son's initials & the year.

This tote bag is also reversible!

I added  pockets for pens, markers, pencils or whatever.

I only did the pocket thing on one side & I am now wishing I had added pocket to both sides of the bag.

Oh well.

I am really digging the "notebook paper" fabric.

I can't wait to do more with it!

So, overall I am happy with how it turned out & hope she likes it.

Thank you, Ms. Morrill!

You are truly amazing & wonderful!

Happy, happy Friday!

~Amy

**I'll be linking up to some fantastic parties!**

My Girly's & Their Skirty's

 

I have been in a sewing frenzy making clothing for me wee ones.  My 4-year old is fixated on skirts/dresses so I have been going all out getting a bunch made for the spring & summer months. 

Here are just a few that I have made over the last few weeks...  

 

This happens to be one of my FAVORITES!  So, so cute!

I just love the ruffle on the bottom of the skirt!

Underneath this adorable skirt is a pair of skorts.

I followed the Little Ruffle Skirt Pattern tweaking it here & there.

She is able to wear a skirt & play & not have to worry about her undies being revealed.

So fantastic!

Next up...

A sweet little double layer skirt perfect for twirling.  This lovely, beauty has a ribbon drawstring that pulls up the top layer to reveal more of the bottom layer which gives it a bit more "oomph".

 So sweet!

She loves it!

The perfect twirling skirt.

I followed a pattern from Little Lizard King called the Peek-A-Boo Skirt.  I had to tweak this one a little bit as well. 

Here, Baby M is wearing the same style double layer skirt, but the photos are horrible.  I will have to try another day to get a better photo.  She just wasn't in a willing mood on this particular day.

Baby M sporting a simple peasant dress/shirt using a pattern from Leila & Ben.
Super easy & quick.  And, I love how you can really make this pattern your own by altering/cutting/piecing different fabrics.  I just opted  for plain & simple this time.  I may go back & gussy it up a bit with some fabric flowers, ruffles, and/or lace. 
It's also a bit too big for her right now.  Therefore, it looks a bit like a potato sack on her.  Oh well, she'll grow into it.



I have a few more skirts that I am working on for my girls.  I hope to have them finished by the weekend.  I really must start working on some things for my Little Man N.

I feel as if he is being shafted.

Yikes!

Happy Thursday!

~Amy

Proudly linking up to some fab parties!!

More Happy Mail!

Look what arrived in my mailbox today...

I am super, super excited!

It's a Singer Side Cutter Attachment!

It's suppose to sew and serge and I cannot wait to give this thing a test drive!

I dream of owning a serger, but it's not in my budget at this time.  Ho hum.

I saw this attachment and thought what the heck.  Let's try it out.

I will be sure to give a thorough review soon!  Maybe, even by tomorrow if my wee girls play nice and let me play in my sewing room.

Happy Wednesday!

~Amy



Bright Eyed & Bushy Tailed

  It's 3am & I am bright eyed and bushy tailed.  Oh yippee doodles!  I have actually been wide awake since 1am  (what the heck!!!).  I think  getting 4 uninterrupted hours of sleep created more damage than good. Therefore, I have decided since sleep wasn't happening for me, that I would finally post something on this very neglected blog.

The past couple of weeks have been filled with oh so much fun. 
Let's see...

Baby M has been sick since last Wednesday with an ear infection that will not let up.  Her temperature has been sky rocketing & scaring me.  We have visited the doctor's office three times since last Friday and she is now on her second type of antibiotic.  I am hoping, fingers crossed, that this antibiotic actually works this time!

I loathe my wee ones taking a bunch of stuff that really isn't all that wonderful for their little bodies.

My Little Man N was sent home from school Tuesday morning because he barfed all over his classroom & himself. 

I bet the school janitor just loved getting that call from the teacher.

"Clean up in Grade 2.  8 year old has barfed all over the carpet."

Needless to say, not a whole lot of much needed time for me & my creative outlet.

I, however, did manage to accomplish a few simple things.

Some of my pics were taken during the evening, so I apologize for the blah-ness.



An Easter wreath for my front door.

I made this with cupcake liners, tissue paper, foam eggs & a foam wreath.
So simple. 
My 4 year old,  another lover of all things artsy-crafty, helped with this.
She had so much fun squishing the cupcake liners.

An Easter banner...

Little Bunny Foo Foo's strung with some plastic eggs.

A lamb created by using Sweet Little L's handprint.  I got the idea here on Crafts by Amanda. 

I now need to get Little Man N's and Baby M's handprint. 

Oh my gosh these pics are terrible!  Yikes!  I promise to take better ones during the day.

Now, a small intermission of all things crafty for cute girlie pics.

Cute Baby M...

A very cute 4 year old looking like something straight out of the 80's...

                          More sewing....

A headband with a felt flower made for Baby M to go with her Easter outfit...

And, finally, a handbag & coin purse set that I will be adding to my Etsy store...

I need to add some final touches to the handbag set.  Such as a detachable fabric flower.  I also want to add a wallet, key fob and, possibly, a cell phone pouch to make it a complete set. 

As I am trying to blog away, both my girls are up & that ends any and all fun in the bloggy world.

Happy Thursday!

~Amy

I will be linking up to some fab parties.

In-Between the Barfing...

The last couple of weeks have been me mostly covered in barf, poop, and tears.  All of my wee ones have been sick with whatever nastiness that people are seemingly wanting to share with us.  I am all about sharing, but seriously, keep your nasty/disgusting germs to yourselves.

To add to all the craziness, my Dad had a heart attack and miraculously is still here to tell about it.

With all of this going on, I was able to get a bit of sewing done.  I will post more about the projects and possibly a tutorial or two once things settle down a bit more. 

First Up:

Plump baby booty + cloth diaper= VERY plump baby booty

Being a cloth diapering mama means finding pants to fit Baby M's rotund  booty to be rather hard.  What happens is that I put pants on her that are a size or two bigger to accommodate her plump booty, then the leg length is obnoxiously long & requires lots of folding of the cuffs.  ICK!

I followed pattern that you can find here with a few minor mods.

Made By Rae is awesome!

I also made Baby M
a pair of sweet little  

cashmere
baby legs

I made Little Man N & Sweet Little L pajama bottoms.  Two pairs for each of them (but only showing 2 of the 4 pairs)...

I love how Little Man is sporting his new pair of kicks along with his pajama bottoms.  A definite fashion statement.

An apron skirt for Sweet Little L...

And finally, a few things for my really cool Mom:

 Mom, if you happen to be reading this post,  when you get these, just act surprised, okay?

I made her a simple tote that I stenciled using a paper doily,

a gathered clutch that I, mostly, followed here, but I modified a wee bit

and a little pouch that could hold either her digital camera, iPod or phone.

I am also going to add to her gift pack a case to carry her glasses, a pen holder and a key fob.

I also have started preparations for my son's 8th Birthday Bash.  Here is the invite that I made:

I just took a close-up photo a few of my son's Lego pieces using orange construction paper as the background and then used a fantastic site called Picnik
to add the wording and editing options.  I then had them printed at Target.  Easy-peasy, nice & cheesy, lemon squeezy!  (A little something my little buggers like to say.)

I got the idea from a few different places when I was poking around the web looking for some cool ideas for his birthday.  I will link to them once I locate them.

When things begin to finally settle down a little here, I am hoping to post more  with better descriptions and some tutorials. 

Have a great weekend!

 ~Amy 

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