So Excited!

I just stopped by Made today and was so excited (like jumping up & down excited) that she is doing her Celebrate the Boy again! For the whole month she is sharing boy clothing, boy crafts, boy style, and boy ideas all month!  As a mom of 2 boys I love to find new ideas for them.  I can't wait to try some of her projects.  Made by Rae is Celebrating the Boy too! 
To be honest I was having a crummy day that might have something to do with finding out my driver's license was expired and after one trip to the DMV let's just say it still isn't renewed....until I saw Dana's post & now I am so much happier- yay!



Dana started with a tutorial for some basic boy pants (her son is such a cutie!) and Rae has a tutorial for some adorably cute dragon slippers- love them!
If you have a boy or a couple boys go check out Celebrate the Boy!

Felt Thomas & Island of Sodor

As you already know, from the last couple posts, my 2 year old son is in love with Thomas.  I've been wanted to make a felt board since I started this blog and finally the idea hit me!  I did the best I could getting Thomas to look as close to how he really looks, but there are a couple areas that I don't like (don't look at his face...the nose lines look weird). Overall, though, I think he turned out great!

To tell the truth, I actually made him first.  I thought I'd put magnets on him and stick him on the fridge but then it occurred to me that a felt board would be more fun.  So I quickly searched my house for a large frame (took the picture out of it, haha) and hot glued some white felt around the backing.  I had a felt board in literally 10 minutes (and that included finding the frame and waiting for the hot glue gun to warm up! )

Here is my simple felt board...nothing fancy!

If you want to make your own Thomas from a gazillion little pieces like these:

Then it's your lucky day!  I traced each part and scanned it to share with you!  I used craft glue to glue everything together.  Once Thomas was assembled I glued the whole thing onto a back piece of black felt to make it more stable (I don't want to be fixing this all the time...you know how boys are!)

Finally, a few simple shapes later and I give you.... The Island of Sodor!

That white thing is a windmill, duh!  I made a lighthouse too but it was still drying. 

I hope you enjoyed!  I will probably have to make Percy and James too, since they are Thomas's friends!

      
  























     

Thomas & Friends Quilt

 

They're 2, they're 4, they're 6, they're 8

Shunting trucks and hauling freight

Red & green & brown & blue

They're a really useful crew

I find myself singing this all the time!  My 2 year old LOVES Thomas and as a bribe (yes I admit to bribing my kid...bad habit!) to make it through a trip to the fabric store I bought a 1/2 yard of some Thomas fabric. I had no idea what I would make from it...maybe a pillowcase or bag or something.  Well somehow I decided to make it into a blanket...pillowcase would have been much easier & quicker!

This little blanket turned out pretty good (don't look too close!) and my son LOVES it!  Here are some details:

PS - He picked out the yellow satin trim!  He loves yellow.  I tried to convince him to choose a nice mellow light blue- oh well, it's his blanket!

Here's the back- got this fabric, believe it our not, from Walmart! 

Can you see the star design I sewed?

Here's an example of how it's not perfect.  I am HORRIBLE at corners for trim & bias tape! 

I feel like it was a success because it didn't fall apart when I washed it, haha!

~Erica

Do you like my new header?

I actually took this picture in the fall but never got around to putting it in my header until today...yeah the snowstorm has given me some extra time!  Mandy over at Mandipidy has a great tutorial that I followed.  I want to point out one thing that I figured out that was driving me crazy about my previous blog header. 
After resizing my picture to 950px using picresize I was noticing this:

see the extra white on the right of the image?  My previous header did the same thing.  Here's how to fix it.  Open Blogger and go to the Design tab.

Then click on the Template Designer.

On the left hand side click on the Adjust Widths tab.

Where it says Entire Blog you want to change the pixel number.  What I found to work is 20 more than the pixel size I resized my picture to on the picresize website.

Make sure you click Apply to Blog and you are done.  Here is my new header:

I hope that this will help someone!

I Heart Mom Applique Pattern

Valentine's Shirt for {BOYS}!

Ok, for us moms of boys we are limited in what we can make our boys wear for Valentine's Day.  When I saw this idea on The Fickle Pickle.  She didn't have a tutorial or pattern and I HAD to make these for my boys so I did the best I could to copy the idea.  I scanned my pattern in case you want to copy too!  All you will need is a blank t-shirt or onesie (non white works better), scraps of cream or white, pink, and black fabric, and HeatnBond.  You could probably use felt but I wanted these to last a little longer.

To get the pattern, right click on the image and save it to your computer then print it on 8.5x11 paper.  Disregard the red note on the paper the crescent will actually work without reversing it.  So you won't have to reverse any shapes.

Here's a glimpse of how I made it:

After ironing the black shapes onto the rectangular piece I used a water soluable marker to mark out the lines that would complete each letter.  Then I used my machine to sew around the edges of each black piece (notice the green dot, this is where I started & stopped).  Once I had gone around the shape and was back to the starting spot (green dot) I continued to sew the rest of the letter along the markings I made with the water soluable pen.  I went over each line 3 times. 

When it came time to applique the whole thing onto the shirt I started with the heart.  I found the center of my shirt by folding it in half and ironing.  This leaves a line down the center.  I layed out all the pieces to make sure I like the placement. Then started with the heart, ironing it down then stiching around the outside.  Next came the 'wings' (again check the placement before attaching).  Last is the rectagular piece that says mom.

When everything was attached I applied some Fray Check around the edges so it wouldn't fray very bad. 

Ta da!  You have one adorable shirt for your little man (or men)!

He's thinking 'Hmm I could eat this book'

I really got lucky with this picture!  He NEVER smiles for the camera.

Enjoy!

Erica