All the Small Things...

Our Newest Irish Lass...

She Planned It Out For Days...

"Hey, Scarlet... do you know what you want to wear for St. Patrick's Day tomorrow?"

"I know EXACTLY what I want- I've been thinking about it for days.  My sequin shamrock shirt, striped arm warmers, jeans, my big green tutu, and of course- my crown."

Ok, so as a parent, I KNOW that it's kinda crazy- BUT the girl has her own style and who am I to squelch it?  

When she got home from school I asked her how her day went and she told me, "It was SO fun!  Everyone kept calling me the QUEEN OF GREEN!" 

Let's face it... the girl can rock a tutu!

A Shirt For My Littlest Leprechaun...

 

Oh, this was a FUN one!  I rarely get to sew for my boys, so when I do, I LOVE it!

The story behind this shirt is that I saw something kind of like it in my favorite kids' high end catalog and it was fantastic, but really too expensive for a holiday shirt that he'll wear a couple of times.  So, I decided to make one.  

The problem was when I went to copy the idea a few days ago, the shirt had sold out and the image was no longer available!  GULP!  Okay, so I remembered the saying SHAM ROCK and I remembered it had a clover guitar, but that was it!  So, this is what I came up with and I like it... a lot. 

 Now if one of you girls have bought the shirt I'm talking about, DON'T send me a pic of what it's suppose to look like- or I'll hate this one!!!  :)  And if you don't heed my warning-  I'll remind you that you paid $40 for it plus shipping and I spent $7!  hee hee

Oh!  And BTW-- did you notice the leg/arm warmers Keiran is wearing from my last TUTORIAL ?  How ADORABLE do they look with that shirt?!?!?!?  I LOVE it!

Wanna make one?

Well, here are the directions:

 

  

  1. Start off with a plain polo shirt or T-shirt.  

2. Print out guitar and words onto card stock.  The font I used is called ALPINE.

3. Cut out letters and guitar.

4. Iron Wonder Under onto the BACK of the fabric scraps you are going to use.

5. Trace the letters and guitar onto the Wonder Under backing.  TRACE THE LETTERS BACKWARDS!!!

6. Cut out the letters and guitar.

7. Iron Stabilizer onto the inside front of the shirt.  This will make sewing A LOT easier, so don't skip this step!

8. Place letters and guitar where you want them to sit on the shirt.  Remove paper backing and iron letters onto shirt- letter by letter.  

9. Now grab your sewing machine!

10. Using a satin stitch (a stitch that makes a solid line of stitches), sew around the edges of all the letters.  The needle should be going through the shirt and into the letter and repeating- half the stitch on the letter and half off.

11. Now, I wanted the guitar to look distressed and frayed, so I simply sewed around the guitar quite sloppily- twice.  I also sewed a couple of random crazy stitches every now and again.

12. After sewing the guitar, I peeled up the edges of it and picked them apart and frayed them with a needle to give it a distressed look.  Be careful not to harm the stitches though!

13. In this picture I show the inside of the shirt.  You can see the two distinct styles of stitching I used.

14. After ALL the sewing is done, peel off the stabilizer.  

15. Lastly, iron on the metal studs.

Yeah!  It's done.

It took a little time, but was easy.

I hope you guys make one- I DARE you!!!

Lucky Leg Warmers...

 

So, I actually made these for Scarlet, but since she's at school-- Keiran became my model!  He actually LOVED them and refused to take them off for a few hours!  lol

I LOVE making these for Scarlet!  They are so inexpensive and SO easy to make.  My favorite place to buy the socks to make them with is Target.  In the women's hosiery section, there is a rack of $2 socks which are DARLING!  Right now they have a great selection of argyle.  I bought some orange, gray and yellow ones last night which are to die for!

Okay, so here is my tutorial:

1- Buy women's knee socks.

2- Cut the feet off- making sure to do it in a straight line.

3- Turn socks inside out.  Fold over raw edge.

4- While socks are still inside out, sew a simple whipstitch around the raw edge.  My hint here is to look at the inside of the sock to determine what color thread to use.  Use a thread that will be invisible to the eye.  

On the socks above, I was sewing onto a green stripe, so I used green thread.  The thread was visible on the inside, but when you flip the socks to the outside, it becomes impossible to see.

5- Turn socks inside out and VOILA! a cute pair of leg warmers you have!!!!

 

 
 

The Luck of the Irish...

Okay, let's face it- I've been a blogging disaster, but I thought you'd still be interested in what we were up to over the past 100 years or so since I stopped posting.  So hold on to your knickers, 'cuz we're about to take a trip down memory lane...

St. Patrick's Day

The kids woke up to a trail of chocolate gold coins which lead them to the breakfast table.  There they were met with a totally green breakfast and as unappetizing as it looked, it was delish!

 

Of course we all dressed up in our finest greens...

 

St. Patrick's Day Pics...

The green tutu ...

St. Patrick's Day at the baseball fields with Grammy and Pa...

Holy Cow! Way Too Busy...

What have I been up too?  I think I'll need some bullet points for this one!

• Patrick turned 12!  Rollerskating party:
• 

Cutie Scarlet and my hottie, Dan!

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• Chandler and Patrick have been rocking it in baseball! 
• 

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• We celebrated St. Patrick's Day and Grammy's Birthday at Claim Jumper !

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• We attended the most BEAUTIFUL birthday party for Scarlet's little friend, Kaylee. 
• 
• This dress was fun, but a little challenging to make.  I like how it turned out though!

What an amazing Maypole!

The Amazing Wizard and my Dan doing a juggling trick for the kids.

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• We got together with a group of friends last Saturday night and played The Werewolves of Miller Hollow .

  Okay you guys... you HAVE to believe me when I say THIS IS THE GREATEST GAME EVER!!!  I'm not kidding... I've played it once and I'm obsessed!  Not only am I obsessed though, EVERYONE (6 couples) who played the game that night it obsessed with it.  So much so that we are meeting again on Friday night to play it again because we just can't get it out of our heads.  This time we are adding about 3 or 4 more couples to make it even better.  I'm not going to explain what the game is about because it would sound way too lame, but believe me when I say it is OUTSTANDING.  It's not a card game or a dice game or a board game... it's something completely different than I've ever played or even heard of before.  I suppose the only downside to it is that you need a lot of players to make it great.  We played with 12 people last week, but the perfect amount of people would be about 18 people.  That's kind of a lot to fit around a table, but where there's a will there's a way!  :)  I will definitely take pictures of it Friday night and post them soon after.  GO OUT AND GET THIS GAME!

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• I joined a way fun CANDY SWAP!  Here's what I sent out:
• The theme of this swap was regional candy.  I live in Southern California and I don't think we're really known for our candy... diet pills and plastic surgery maybe.   In fact, I would dare guess that most women here have never put a  piece of candy in their mouths! :) 

Okay, so what did I do then?  Well, the gal I was sending candy to lives in Canada and I noticed that Canada doesn't have See's Candy, so I just gathered some goodies from See's.  Love See's... don't you?  I sent her a few of the bars (including my fav... the Scotchmallow Bar) and a box of the pops.  Hope she likes them! 

I can't wait to get my goodies!

It's MY Day!

Two words:  ACADEMY AWARDS!!! (notice the gold writing... fancy, huh?)

I can't even begin to tell you how much I LOVE this day.  I get home from church and plant my butt on the couch until 11pm.  It's pure heaven.  I love the dresses, the tuxedos, the stars, John Stewart... the whole thing.  Dan always orders delish take out and we have a BLAST.  Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... my toes are curling with excitement and anticipation!  Yee-ha!!! 

A few pics of Scarlet today in her shamrock tutu...

Can you tell we're Irish?!?!?!

It's March!

Here's a green layout to ring in the month:

She really is quite cheeky...

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It's crazy hat day at school today... that Chandler is one crazy guy! :)

Chandler is my most festive and excitable child by far.  Today as soon as he saw me he ran up to me and hugged me tight and said, "Happy 1st Day of March!"... as if that's some awesome holiday.  I LOVE that about him! So HAPPY FIRST DAY OF MARCH to everyone... we all need a reason to party!

Scarlet was off to school today in her finest greens! 

Fabric Makes Me Giddy...

What can make a gaudy holiday like St. Patrick's day even gaudier?  Gaudy St. Patrick's day fabric!  Yeah!  It makes me happy.  Looks like Scarlet is going to be dressed like a little leprechaun for the next few weeks!  Here was her St. Pat's outfit last year:

Also, baseball season is about to start for my boys and I thought I needed to make Scarlet an opening day outfit.  Opening Day is quite a big deal around here.  Both my boys are #17, so I think I'll applique that number on a three quarter length arm baseball shirt and then make her a skirt or bloomers or capris or something to go with the shirt.  I'm not sure, but I bought this fabric and we'll see what I come up with.  I will definitely post pics of her in whatever I come up with.

I love fabric...