Nine-Year-Old's Craft

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!!!

Happy Easter!!

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!!)

Finished Boba Fett Shirt

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...

Star Wars T-Shirts

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 product here.

Making Toddler Pants from an Old T-Shirt

This was one of my simplest projects EVER!!  I got the idea one time from somewhere, but I can't remember where.  So sorry I can't give credit where credit is due.

My 2-year-old is severely allergic to latex, so I can't use any pants or shorts on her that have latex-containing elastic in the waistband (or spandex throughout).  So I decided to make her some pants and shorts, using latex-free elastic.  Didn't these come out cute (if you ignore all the wrinkles!!)?

They were super fast and easy to make, using a t-shirt my hubby had given me that he no longer wears (in the picture above, I used the white t-shirt below).

There's no hemming or anything for these pants, because the t-shirt is already hemmed for you!  

Ok, I had typed out instructions for this, but I hadn't taken pictures of all the steps.  To make things a LOT easier for you, I found the following video on How to Make:

How to Make Baby Pants from a T-Shirt

Go make some easy pants!!!  =)

Princess Leia Hat

We recently went to Comicon.  Soooooooooo much fun!!!  But I needed wanted a costume for my 2-month-old daughter.  After all, you gotta start them young, right?  =)

I saw some Princess Leia hats online, but they were expensive.  Then I realized that I could easily make one myself!

I started by buying some brown fleece at Hobby Lobby (I LOVE buying fleece in the spring and summer.  It's always on sale, so 1/2 yard cost me like three bucks!).  I then made the basic hat from the free pattern found at Fleece Fun.  That took about 3-5 minutes.  Super easy--LOVE that pattern!!  I then cut some strips of fleece, rolled them up, and tacked them to the sides of the hat by hand.  It was so easy, so fast, and so cute!

Everybody kept stopping me to take pictures of her and ask where I got her hat.  It was definitely a hit!

(That's my Yoda backpack next to me--I used it as my diaper bag.  You can find them at Thinkgeek.com.  It got a lot of compliments, too!)

One of the highlights of my son's day was getting to cross lightsabers with Darth Vader.  The force is strong with this one.  =)

We had such a GREAT time!  May the force be with you!

Laundry--Charlie's Soap

At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I sometimes like to do product reviews of some of my favorite must-have items in our household.  Most of them I've found by trial-and-error, but it's nice when you learn of one by word-of-mouth before all the trial parts.  So I like to pass on the good info to you!

If you've read many of my posts, you already know that we have a ton of allergies and sensitivities in our family.  One of them is to soaps/lotions/detergents/etc.  For showers, baths, and hand washing, I make all of our soap.

My kids all have super sensitive skin.  This is my son's back when I washed his shirt in a load after I had washed a load of hand-me-downs.  The hand-me-downs had been previously washed in Tide, and it left enough residue in my washer to get into my son's clothes and cause this:

The same thing happens if I even just throw a dryer sheet in the dryer.

I know many people who make their own laundry detergent.  But for me, nothing works nearly as well as Charlie's Soap.

Non-toxic and green, this stuff is good on the clothes and great on my kids' skin.  I've had great results with it, and we use nothing else for our children.  As you can see, we buy it by the 32-lb, 1000-load bucket.

A large load only takes a 1 Tbsp scoop of Charlie's.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now!  (Pun totally intended.  hee hee)  Check out their site for more info and answers to FAQs.  They can explain things far better than I can!  =)