Cowboy Bubble Bath- Quick & Easy Guy Gift

Do you have a man you still need a gift for?  Here is a cute gift idea that you could still put together before Christmas! 
You'll need the following:
2 Cup container (I am using a canning jar)
Shipping labels (I used the Full Sheet Labels- Avery 48165 and just cut them apart)
This recipe & ingredients (or use a Bean Soup in a Jar Recipe of your choice)

Print the following labels & fill your jars according to the recipe.  You are sure to get some good laughs from this one! 

Cowboy Bubble Bath Soup

Santa Candy Bar Wrap & Gift Card Holder Tutorial

This is a little project I've had in my mind for a little while.  I have been a busy lady getting all my Christmas projects finished so I haven't had time to post anything lately.  I hope to post pictures of all of them soon (but I don't want to spoil any surprises so we'll see)... on to the tutorial.

Supplies:

1 piece red craft felt

1 scrap black craft felt (or 2.5” black ribbon)

1 square scrap golden craft felt

White Fur trim

Candy bar (I used Hershey’s Cookies’n’crème…seemed appropriate!)

Gift card

Glue gun

First measure the length & width of your candy bar.  Mine is a little less than 6” long and 2 ¼” wide.  Now cut a piece of red felt that measures the length of your candy bar and twice the width + one inch.  So, I cut mine 6”x 5.5”.

Now cut a piece of the fur trim the length of the candy bar (in my case 6”). Hot glue the fur trim down the length of the piece of red felt letting the fur trim hang off the felt a bit.  

Cut a 2”x2” square from the golden felt and a piece of ribbon 9” long or black felt 2.5”x9”. 

Fold the Gold felt square in half and cut 2 slits each a ½ “ deep.  

Glue the black ribbon or felt to the back of the gold square in between the two slits (glue the ribbon shiny side down to the back so when you turn it over the shiny side faces out). Use a lighter or match to seal the end of the ribbon so it doesn’t fray. 

Now it’s time to dress your candy bar up.  Wrap the red ‘coat’ around the candy and fasten with the ‘belt’.  You may want to secure with a small dab of glue to keep the belt from coming loose (especially if there’s a gift card in there!).  I slipped the gift card under the ribbon. Voilla, this took me all of MAYBE 15 minutes and that included taking pictures.  This would make a perfect coworker gift or in my case gift for my sister’s boyfriend.  I hate just handing someone a gift card (even if that’s what they want!).

One week left!  Next Saturday we'll be waking up to find stockings stuffed, and Santa's presents under the tree! Yay!

~Erica

Homemade Man Gift

First of all I want to apologize for being MIA.  My computer decided to fall apart {it couldn’t have anything to do with a 2 year old standing on it J } Luckily $45 later at a local computer store (Best Buy wanted to send it away for a minimum of $80) and it’s good as new.  The best part is that they cleaned it…no grimy fingerprints all over the screen! Anyway on to what I’ve been working on.

I LOVE this idea! My father-in-law has a little bar in his basement and these will go perfect.  I found the basic idea here but tweaked it a bit and came up with: 

Quilted Vintage Beer Ad Coasters! 

Look at all the great ads I found… these are going to be a big hit! 

Oh and before I go let me show you my finished Christmas card.  *I LOVE IT!*

I made this on scrapblog {let me warn you if you've never used the site- it's addicting!} Then for a couple bucks you can have a high res. picture sent to you and I am having them printed at Walmart as we speak and can get them in the mail Monday.  I love not having to wait for my cards to come in the mail!  

Enjoy your weekend!

~Erica 

{PS 3 weeks until Christmas!}

A Handful of Thanks t-shirt tutorial

I bet everyone at one time or another has made one of these handprint turkeys in school…I just applied the concept to fabric and wah lah we have a cute, festive shirt…that doesn’t break the bank!

I have also found this idea on Treasures for Tots.

Materials:

Heat n Bond Lite

4 remnant pieces of fabric (red, orange, yellow, & brown) I bought a fat quarter of each and didn’t even use ½…so if you have fabric laying around use what you have!

Orange Rick Rack (2 pieces

3” piece of red ribbon

Fabric Glue (Liquid Stitch)

2 Googly eyes

Fray Check

T-shirt of your choice (I used what I had since it’s only going to be work 1-2 times)

Directions:  *I prewashed the fabric and shirt before starting*

1.   Trace your child’s hand onto a piece of scrap paper & cut it out- this is your stencil.

2.   Roughly trace your child’s foot rounding out the toe area to look like the turkey’s body (or if you have an uncooperative toddler like I do trace one of their shoes) cut this out as well.

3.   Trace your hand stencil 6 times and foot stencil once on the Heat n Bond. 

4.   Roughly cut out all your pieces (you don’t have to cut on the lines)

5.   Cut out a little triangle piece from the Heat n Bond for the turkey’s beak

6.   Not it’s time to get out your iron.

a.   Iron the turkey’s body (foot piece) to the back of the brown fabric

b.   Iron 2 feathers (hand prints) to the backs of each of the yellow, red, and orange fabric (you’ll have 2 feathers in each color)

c.   Iron the beak piece to back of the the yellow or orange fabric… you decide what you like

7.   Cut out the pieces (on the lines this time!)

8.   Now take your 3” piece of red ribbon and glue it into the waddle shape (put it aside and let it dry)

9.   Now take the backings off the feather pieces and arrange them first on the shirt.  Once you have them how you want them just iron them down.  To make sure I got my turkey centered I folded my shirt in half and ironed a crease down the middle then lined the hands along both sides of that line.

10. Now glue the rick rack pieces to your shirt at the bottom of the feathers (before gluing place the body on top and make sure you like where the legs are placed. 

11.    Once legs are dry, iron down the body.

12.    Glue on the waddle and googly eyes and iron the beak on top of the waddle.

You’re done!  Step back and admire your work… once my model wakes up I’ll try and get a picture with him wearing it! ( He wasn't happy to be my model)

I think I might go back and do some rough machine stitching around the body and feathers just so it doesn't completely come apart when I wash it. 

My First Award!

A big THANK YOU to Ginger at Support Blog for Moms of Boys for passing on the Stylish Blogger Award to me!

Rules for accepting this award are:

1. Thank & link back to the person who awarded you this.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.

4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award.

 7 things about me...

1.  I am a recovering procrastinator… (I had to put this first because as I sit here I am thinking ‘I’ll just do this later’)

2.  I used to teach 4^th grade and think it is the best age to teach ;)
3.  I’ve held drivers licenses in 3 states (Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois)

4.  I’m guilty of letting my 2 year old watch too much Elmo!

5.  We don’t have cable or a dish…we watch what we get with an antenna

6.  I may be guilty of raiding my son’s Halloween candy (ok I’ve totally raided it…the only thing stopping me is the limited amount of chocolate he received!)

7. I’m a city girl married to a farm boy… I’m learning the country way as I go! (I sadly didn’t know what a combine was until I was in my 20s!)

Recently discovered bloggers…. 

1.  In Between Laundry

2.  Make 5 Meals in One Hour

3.  Gwenny Penny

4.  Love Love

5.  Today’s Fabulous Finds

6.  Made by Me. Shared with You

7.  Creating by Cami

8.  Mine for the Making

9.  Don’t Waste You Homemaking

10.           My Computer is My Canvas

11.           Polka Dots and Pizza

12.           While He Was Napping

13.           This Mommy Loves

14.           Krafty Kat

15.           Crazy Craft Bugs

Have a great Tuesday!

~Erica

Making a list and checking it twice {Christmas Gifts}

After reading Gwenny Penny's Handmade Christmas Gift List it inspired me to make my own.  As of now I have the list floating around in my head and this will be a great way to organize it.  This will be the first Christmas I am making this many gifts so I hope I actually end up getting them all done. 

The first gift is a Hot Iron Carrier.  I need to make at least 2 but more would be good to have on hand in case I need an extra gift. The tutorial is from Crap I've Made.

Next, is a Casserole Carrier.  I need to make one. The tutorial is from Moda Bakeshop.

Then I’ll whip up a Tied Fleece Blanket.  Using these directions.

I’d like to make 2 double potholders. This tutorial is from The Boy Trifecta.

I’d like to make at least one of these wallets.  The tutorial is from Quiltish.

And 2 of these make-up rolls.  The tutorial is from Freshly Picked.

Lastly, I'll probably whip up a couple of these coffee cozies for those coffee lovers. The tutorial is from All Things Heart & Home.

 I could add more but this seems like enough.  To top it off I am making an Advent Calendar with Homemade by Jill’s sew along.

Whew, I better get going!

~Erica

Fabulous Felt Groceries!

 

Recently friends of ours invited us to their daughter’s first birthday party.  Being a mom of 2 boys I was giddy thinking of all the cute & creative little girl things that I see all over the blogging world but never get to make.  Then I came across this $10 shopping cart at Walmart and the decision was easy!  What 1 year old doesn’t LOVE pushing around anything! (Heck my 2 year old was sad to give it away!) Then my challenge was coming up with the felt food…Having a 2 year old and 4 month old I don’t have the time to “play” around. I was so lucky that I found this fabulous pattern for a set of groceries on Etsy.  They were a little time consuming (but much less than if I were going to try and go it on my own!) but I really enjoyed making everything.  They were really a hit at the party.  I am thinking that “Santa” might be making a set for our home this Christmas (if he…I mean she has time!) Here are some close ups:

Look at those adorable eggs! 

The essentials: Soup, corn, tuna, milk, butter, fish,

Even a reusable grocery bag!

~Erica

Football Crayon Roll

When my friend had her little girl (remember the ducky towel and burp cloth I made?) I wanted to include something for the big brother in the package.  I thought about what has kept my older son occupied while I tend to the baby which has been coloring.  I remembered that I came across an easy tutorial for making a crayon roll over at Skip to My Lou.  I embellished it with the football and adorable football ribbon since this was for a little boy and a football loving family.  I was in a hurry to get it out so I found some white sticky notes to put in the paper pocket in the middle.  I wanted to add a little tablet but in the end the sticky notes were better since they aren't lined. 

Here’s a close up of the football:

Here’s the inside:

Fashionably Late {Halloween Costumes}

So I know Halloween is over and I should have been posting this about a week ago but I still wanted to share the kiddos costumes.  Without any further ado let me introduce Batman: 

and his sidekick Robin:

 

Happy Late Halloween!

~Erica

What's for Dinner?

It's that time of year when a good bowl of something warm sounds good for dinner.  Last night I made such a dish.  I wanted to share this recipe that I got from a friend of mine in a recipe exchange a few years ago.  She said it was a crowd pleaser and she was right. 

Italian Tortellini Stew

Ingredients:

1 # Italian Sausage (I use the Bob Evans roll)

1 C chopped onion

1 clove minced garlic (I cheat and use a tablespoon of the jarred garlic)

1 can (14-17oz size) tomato sauce

1 C sliced carrots

8-9 C beef broth (I use 2 of the 32 oz boxes)

1 C water

1 tblsp basil

1 tblsp Parsley

1 tblsp oregano

4 fresh tomatoes chopped

2 C sliced zucchini

1 C chopped mushrooms

1 green pepper chopped

2 small 9oz packages fresh tortellini (I cheat and buy frozen)

Saute sausage with onion and garlic.  Add tomato sauce, carrots, beef broth, chopped tomatoes, basil, parsley, and oregano.  Simmer for 1 hour.  Then add zucchini, mushrooms, green pepper, and fresh tortellini and cook for an additional hour.  (Because I cheat and use frozen tortellini I don’t add them until the last 10-15 minutes because I don’t want to over cook them).

Enjoy!  Serve with warm cornbread or just a crusty loaf of bread- yum!

~Erica

Hooray for Homemade Gifts!

Yesterday we celebrated my wonderful sister-in-law’s birthday and I made her a reversible tote bag.  Overall, I love how it turned out.  I reverse appliquéd Arbonne to one of the pockets since I thought she could use it to carry her catalogues or product. But since it’s reversible she can also turn it so the other print is facing out and Arbonne will be inside.  The prints I used totally scream her name- so perfect for her!  I really like this pattern but it’s a little time consuming (only if you’re ADD like me and want your projects done in an hour or less!)  I am making a smaller version of this bag for my son using denim.   I will post pictures when I’m done. 

PS Less than 9 weeks until Christmas!  Scary!   I would love to hear what some of you are working on for Christmas (I know Halloween isn’t even over but 9 weeks will fly by!)

~Erica

Halloween Booties

I guess I'm just on a roll with the Halloween sewing.  I had an orange sweatshirt from Goodwill that I thought would make some really cozy booties for my litttle one.  I have a confession: I finally got it right on the third one I made (yes I had some experimenting to do) but I ran out of material to make a matching one so bootie #2 & #3 are the set but they are a little different- oh well!  The picture doesn't show the differences (on purpose!).  At least I now have my pattern so when Thanksgiving or Christmas come I can whip some up and having a matching set!  What I love is these will literally take 20 min tops because there isn't a lining.  Well, I am off to finish Batman and Robin costumes for the boys... I can't wait to post pictures of those! 

Organizational Bliss (it's better than chocolate!)

The stars somehow aligned yesterday and I was able to spend some much needed time in my craftroom (which is shared as an office...and I know drives my OCD husband crazy!).  Nothing fancy...I'm just so happy to have my own place to work. 

I LOVE these little buckets I found at Target in their dollar bin.  The pegboard I found at Michaels and it was 40% off.  I just painted them before putting them up.  I need to get some more hooks because in a package of 3 pegboard they only give you 4 hooks! 

Here's a little tip: so that the little buckets don't tip over weigh them down with some heavy magnets stuck to the bottom. 

I had 2 of these plastic drawer stands from when I was in the classroom.  They are perfect for storing fabric (if you have a modest collection like me).  Eventually I'll probably outgrow these but for now I love that I can see inside and can take a drawer out and take it into another room to work (infront of the TV...) then shove everything back in and return the drawer.

This is my whole work area.   Ta da the organization fairy has been here (don't blink because it's not going to look like this for long!).