Lately, I've been making lots of T-Shirts with Star Wars characters. My kids have been wanting me to branch off into superheroes. One of my nephews has his ninth birthday coming up, so I thought there's no time like the present, right?
One of his favorites is Captain America. As usual, I started with the sketch.
I then cut out all the individual pieces. This one had a LOT of pieces, making this the most time-consuming design I've done yet.
Then I sewed everything together by hand.
He's not sewn down to the shirt yet--I'll do that today. But I love how he turned out--especially his shield!!!!!
Ok, here's the latest in the Star Wars t-shirt series. I love this shirt, except that I got a small bubble in the felt, rather than it laying flat. I blame part of it on the fact that I used a pleated t-shirt, which makes things more of a pain, and the fact that I was doing this while running a low-grade fever and feeling quite cruddy. I know I should probably just rip the seams and redo it...
Like all the others, she's made out of felt. I really love her hair buns. So cute!!
I'm still working on my hubby's storm trooper (I have it sketched already, so maybe I'll get it finished today). I've already made a jawa for myself. I still need to get a t-shirt for it and get it sewn on.
So now I'm looking at super heroes: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Captain America, X-Men...the possibilities are endless. Who would you like to see on a shirt?
Welcome to my first giveaway!!! I'm really, really, really excited to be doing this giveaway, because it's for a product that I feel very strongly about, and now I get to share it with one of you!!
For any of you who have been readers of my blog for any length of time, you've seen me mention Charlie's Soap more than once on my blog. For those of you who haven't read how much I love Charlie's Soap, you can read my rave review here.
In short, my family is FULL of allergies to foods, soaps, detergents, fabric softeners, latex, etc. Charlie's Soap is one of the ONLY detergents my kids don't react to, and it is the only one I will use in my house and for my family. It works great, it gets everything clean, and it's so economical. I buy it by the bucket--literally.
Yes, that is a 1,000-load bucket. I used to buy it and split it with a friend. Then I had baby number 6. Now I selfishly hoard keep it all to use for my family. We definitely need it. =) It works great for everything from my Mr. Man's grimy work clothes to my daughters' dirty cloth diapers. And the liquid detergent works just as well!
I recently started trying out some of their other products. I am in LOVE with their Kitchen and Bath Natural Cleaner.
I typically use vinegar for pretty much all of my cleaning. Needless to say, it doesn't have the most appealing smell. Charlie's doesn't add any fragrances or anything to their products, but they smell...well...clean! Not fake perfumey, but simply clean!! This stuff also cleans really, really well. And trust me, with 6 children, 9-and-under, I've had plenty of grime and messes to try it on. =)
Which brings me to the giveaway! Would you like to try Charlie's for yourself--for free? The winner receives an 80-load tub of laundry powder and a tote bag. Entering is super simple! Check out the Charlie's Soap website, then come back and tell us what your favorite Charlie's product is.
For a second entry, leave a SEPARATE comment telling me how you found my blog.
I will contact the winner via e-mail, so please be sure that your email is visible in your profile or your comment. US shipping addresses only--sorry to any international readers!
***Giveaway closes at midnight CST, Sunday night, April 29th. Winner will be chosen by a random number generator.***
This giveaway is now closed. Using a random number generator, here are the results:
True Random Number Generator6
So the winner is Vanessa! I'll be notifying you via e-mail so that I can get your address. Thank you to all who entered!!
Here's the latest in my Star Wars shirt series. I got Yoda all finished, and I must say, he looks pretty cute!!
Like all the others, I started with a simple sketch.
I then cut all the pieces out of felt, glued them in place, and hand-sewed them down. Then I top-stitched the entire thing to the t-shirt. Very cute, he is. =)
Ok, so I'll take a break from the Star Wars shirt posts today to talk about kale chips! I love chips. Who doesn't? Even my two-year-old begs for chips all the time. There are a lot of chips who masquerade as health-food, by throwing words like "spinach," "tomato," etc into the ingredients. But in reality, they're typically little more than colored potato chips. Still yummy, still unhealthy.
Enter kale chips. Kale is super healthy--one of the so-called "superfoods." I add it to our smoothies sometimes, but it takes a lot of fruit to cover its very strong flavor.
Then I learned about baking it into kale chips! It's quick, easy, and yummy. Start by preheating your oven to 350*.
Then wash and dry the kale. Then tear pieces of it off into chip-sized pieces and putting them on a cookie sheet (I lined mine with parchment paper for easier clean up).
Then drizzle or spray oil over them. Many recipes call for olive oil, I used safflower. Rather than drizzling, I used my Misto oil sprayer. (If you don't have a Misto, you need to get one!! You fill it half way with whatever type of oil you prefer. The lid acts as a pump, and you manually pump it to fill the bottle with pressure. It then sprays your oil using nothing but the pressure you pumped into it--no aerosols, no chemicals, and it's stainless steel. We LOVE it!) Then sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss, to make sure they're all coated.
Bake for 10 minutes, and you have a healthy, crunchy chip!
My kids LOVE these! The first batch I ever made, I got one chip. My husband didn't get any. My 2-and-4-year-olds inhaled almost all the rest before I could even get myself a second chip.
Now, if I could only find a recipe for healthy donuts...
I've recently been working on Star Wars t-shirts for my family. Today I finished R2-D2 for my 9-year-old daughter. She picked a dark blue shirt to put it on. I love how it turned out!
I made it the same way I did the Boba Fett shirt. I started by free-handing a sketch of R2-D2. I then traced and cut out the individual pieces that were on my sketch (sorry for the lousy picture quality below).
I then cut the individual pieces out of felt, glued them together, then hand-stitched around each one. Finally, I top-stitched it to the shirt. My daughter loves it!
I have a Princess Leia one in the works for my 5-year-old daughter. Here's a sneak peak at the Yoda one I'm working on for my 4-year-old son.
These are so simple and so much fun! I'm really, REALLY loving making them. I can see me doing other characters, too. One of my daughters is asking for Hello Kitty...
My oldest daughter turned NINE the other day!! *gasp* Time goes by soooooo quickly!!
For her birthday we gave her a sewing machine...
...and a small sewing kit...
...and a Star Wars Ahsoka figure and a lightsaber--because every girl NEEDS a lightsaber!!
Anyway, she's really been wanting to learn how to sew. I told her she'd need to learn how to sew by hand first, then we'd move on to the sewing machine. So yesterday I got some fabric squares left over from another project and started with the basic project for her: a small pillow for her dolls. She chose a different fabric for each side, and we got started.
I really wish I would've gotten pictures of the stitches she did! I did the first two stitches to show her what to do, what size to make them, and how far apart they should be. She did all the rest. She was quick and did AWESOME!!!! I was sooooooo impressed. And she didn't even draw any blood. =)
She stuffed it with some jersey fabric scraps. I showed her how to do a hidden stitch and she closed it up like a pro. Now Josephine can sleep comfortably with a little pillow of her very own:
I'm so excited to be getting started on the next generation of sewers. And now my 7-year-old son wants to get started learning, too! WOO HOO!!!
I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!!
(I just had to get the above picture before church this morning. Our third girl is allergic to latex, and thankfully, most Nikes are free of natural rubber latex. So she gets to wear her Nikes with her fancy Easter dress. I wish I could wear my Nikes with my fancy dresses and look just as cute!!)
Yesterday I posted pictures of my Boba-Fett-t-shirt-in-progress. It's now finished!! Last night I glued the pieces together, then hand-stitched them securely. Today I pinned it onto the shirt and topstitched around the entire perimeter. I love how it turned out!!
Now I have "orders" from the rest of my kids (and my hubby!). So I still need to make two R2-D2s, a Princess Leia, a storm trooper, a yoda, a Wicket...
A friend of mine, knowing my love for all things Star Wars, recently introduced me to Etsy Shop mi cielo. More specifically, the Star Wars (aka "Sewing Wars") shirts at me cielo. They are SUPER adorable, and I knew that all my kids would want one (and who am I kidding? I want one, too!!) But we're on a limited budget, and we're a family of 8, so I couldn't buy one for everybody. So I decided to make them myself.
I started by letting each of the kids pick which character they wanted. My seven-year-old son wants all of them, of course, but chose to start with Boba Fett. I though this was a great choice, since he's also one of my favorites!! I mean, how awesome can a guy get?
Anyway, I then free-handed a picture of the character.
(My son insisted that Boba Fett wouldn't be Boba Fett without the scope on his gun. I guess the ridiculously large head, rounded limbs, and lack of digits don't detract from the coolness that is Boba Fett like the lack of a scope would. Who can argue with that kind of logic?)
I then cut all the various parts out of felt and reassembled them.
Next I'll glue them in place and stitch them together. I bought solid colored t-shirts at Wal-Mart today for $2-$3 each. I'll topstitch each character down to their appropriate shirts, and they'll be done!! The drawing and cutting only took about 1.5 hours. I don't anticipate the sewing to take too long, either.
ETA: It's all done!! See the finished producthere.
