Crafty crafty

Here are a few fun ideas for those of you that like to craft it up for the holiday season!

Beautiful ruffled linen tree skirt

photo courtesy of the lovely Sharon Hines

A fabric Christmas tree inspired by this blog

photo courtesy of Sharon

DIY advent calendar

source

Yarn wreaths

source

12 days of Christmas onesies

source

Sharon's Visit!

Sharon flew in last Thursday night for a visit and we had such a great time. We spent some time getting ready for the baby, relaxing, doing projects, and going to my baby shower! With both of us being pregnant it was nice taking some time to rest and catch up.

On Friday we ran errands and got a few things to make baby wipes! It was such a fun and easy project. Here are the supplies you will need if you want to try making your own:

• 1 roll of paper towels (cut in half)
• 2 cups water
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 2 Tbs baby wash
• a few drops tea tree oil
• a tupperware or bowl with lid that seals to put the 1/2 roll of paper towels in

Method:

• cut paper towels in half and place one half in container of choice
• mix other ingredients together and pour over the top of the paper towels 
• Let sit for 10 minutes
• Place lid on tupperware and turn over, allowing the paper towels to absorb the rest of the liquid for 10 more minutes
• Take the lid off and gently pull out the cardboard center of the paper towels. The last square of the baby wipes should be attached to it and come out as well (like a box of tissues) but if not just reach in and fish it out

Here is a little Youtube tutorial to give you an idea of what the end result looks like (we didn't take any pictures).

On Saturday we went to my baby shower hosted by my sweet friends Kerri and Kim. It was amazing! Wonderful decorations, delicious snacks, fun games, and lots of good conversation

I am so blessed to have such good friends and family 

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love Christmas. Here are a few delicious treats that I picked up that have really been helping us embrace the holiday season. Have I mentioned how amazing Trader Joe's is?

Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, Egg nog almonds, and Pear Cinnamon Cider

What makes me most excited however is that I have finally finished my Christmas project! I decided last month to make Christmas stockings for me, Jeff, and the little man. Such a fun project and it was a little bittersweet finishing them up this afternoon. Using this tutorial I bought the supplies and got to work. I think making the stars for the tops of the stockings was one of my favorite parts

The fronts are done!

 After many hours of cutting, sewing, embroidering, and seam ripping I produced these

Project Nursery: Flannel rag baby quilt

This was such a fun project. Fun and time consuming. Luckily I have a limitless amount of time to work on my sewing! I decided to make this sweet little quilt as soon as I saw it on Pinterest and quickly followed the link to a fairly easy tutorial on Do it yourself divas. It was a lot of fun picking out the fabric, especially because Jo-Anne's had just gotten a new shipment of flannel in! I have found that Im naturally more drawn to more vibrant colors for the baby's room so the fabrics I chose for the quilt coordinate pretty well with the fabric I used for the flags.
                        Flags                                                                                                     Quilt

It took a very long time to cut out each strip of fabric and batting but the sewing itself went fairly quickly!











It was fun laying out each pattern and deciding what I wanted the quilt to look like

And after several days of sewing and trimming and binding (shudder) its finished!

Project nursery: fabric banner

I felt like I had to wait to start working on the baby's nursery until we knew the gender. Now that we know, full steam ahead! Designing the nursery is difficult for me because not all of the elements are present so I have just been moving forward slowly, working with colors that I like and focusing on making the room simple and peaceful. Technically, my first sewing project produced these burp cloths:

But I like to think of these banners as the start of my nursery projects. It was so fun making these knowing that they will be for our little boy. I originally got the idea from a nursery that a friend in Colorado put together for her new baby. She posted all of the photos on her blog: From Colorado with Love. I found some great directions here: Fabric banner tutorial, and got to work! It took a very long time to decide on fabric but I eventually found 5 that I really like. I still have one more to go for a total of two but this should give you a good idea of what the finished product looks like.