[sunshine quilt]

While awaiting the news of my niece's birth this weekend, I "patiently" worked on my latest quilt. And I patiently anxiously waited so long that I was able to finish it! Yippee!

This quilt was made for a very special friend of mine from highschool, Kim, who is expecting her first baby this July. She lives on a farm in Illinois, so I wanted to make a quilt that was sorta "farmy" looking. {I won't admit how long I spent trying to write that last sentence and still "farmy" was the best I could do...}

Before I post a tutorial on how to make it, I'd thought I'd share some pics of it first : )

This is sorta a pinspired project. I'll explain in the next post, but I added my own twist to it.

What do you think?

{Inner border and backing for the quilt was my daughter's old curtains! Such a $$ saver!}

 Will have the tutorial posted soon!


<3
Lindsey

[mother's day present]

We have lots going on this week...My youngest man, Kellan, is turning 10 on the 9th. My sister is graduating from college on the 11th. My dad's birthday is on the 12th. AND of course Mother's day on the 13th.

Phew.

I just showed you my sister's grad present and now I'm going to show you what I made for my madre!

A faux wood grain chalkboard frame thing! lol I'm sleep deprived right now so that's as good of a description as you're going to get.

ETC is currently selling unfinished wood frames in a lot of cute styles. I bought one, painted 3 coats of the same paint color (Martha Stewart Rainwater) as my sister's frame. After it dried, I taped up around the grooved edges with some painter's tape so the wood grain was only on top. I mixed some white paint with the Rain Water paint and, in small sections, painted it on top and then immediately took my handy dandy wood grain tool (also from Martha Stewart- got it at Home Depot!) and slowly, rocking forward and backward, dragged it down the small section of paint. I repeated that process till the top of the frame was done. Removed the tape. After that dried, I painted some matte varnish on top.

I took the backing board the frame came with and painted 2 coats of dark gray chalk paint on it. I took some chalk and, after it was dried, rubbed or "slatted" the surface with it. I took a dry rag and rubbed it in. Then wrote a heartwarming quote on it with a liquid chalk pen. Added a recent pic of the kiddos and it's finished!

Think my mom will love it??

And my poor dad is not getting anything "special" for his bday. But Father's Day is coming up soon, so watch out! ; )

Hope all you mother's out there have an extra wonderful, over flowing with hugs and kisses, sort of Mother's Day!

<3 Lindsey

[Seestur's Grad Present]

So this Friday the fam and I will be driving up to Flagstaff to watch my sister graduate from college! {YAY Hannah!!!!}

So EXTREMELY proud of her. She's going to make one amazing teacher.

After a few weeks of stressing, trying to decide what to give her for such a momentous occasion, I finally figured it out and made her a bulletin board for her classroom!

It was totally meant to be cause a coworker, Jamie, was teaching a super cute burlap bulletin board class at ETC and had a leftover cork/foam board thing and tacks that she sold to me for two bucks. Seriously. Two dollars.

AND then the store got a new line of fabric and one of the fabrics had a cool alphabet print on it (Summerville by Moda fyi).

AND THEN when I was trying to figure out the frame situation, my husband and I discovered Michael's had a build your own frame section (how have I not known about this yet??) and not only that, it was all clearanced!

So yeah, the stars totally aligned for this project. Best part, I only spent $30 bucks for it. Which means I had room in the budget to throw in a gift card too!

I didn't take pics while making this (sorry!). But it was so easy I think verbal instructions will be good enough.

SO....

I just covered the top of the 18x24 cork/foam board thing (not sure what it's called, but Jamie got it super cheap at Home Depot) with one layer of batting. I used some spray adhesive I had on hand to keep it in place. I sprayed the adhesive on top of the batting and carefully centered the fabric over the batting and then glued the fabric in place tightly on the backside. I scotch guard the be-Jesus out of the front and then I trimmed off my excess fabric on the backside. I cut a piece of 18x24 canvas I also had on hand (any coordinating fabric would work) and sprayed the adhesive on the backside of the board and then centered the canvas on top of it to cover up the raw fabric edges.

Since the build it yourself frame came in a dark cherry wood, I primed it and then painted 2 coats of Martha Stewart's Rain Water in eggshell on all sides of the frame pieces. I am so obsessed with this paint color I found that I decided to also use it on my mother's day present (post coming very soon!) AND I totally plan to either paint some walls with it in our future home or on our kitchen cabinets. Would be so cute, right?? Husband doesn't think so, but he'll come around in a few years I think : )

Anyways, after I painted all the frame pieces, I assembled the frame. Then had my husband apply some liquid nail around the inside of the frame and then placed the now padded bulletin board inside. I took some cans from the pantry and put them on the backside of the bulletin board to make sure the board was completely up against the front of the frame so there wouldn't be any gaping.

I took my tacks and my hot glue gun and glued some vintage looking buttons on top! Stuck them on the bulletin board, and here's the finished project!

And a close up of the pretty button tacks...

This would make a great gift for almost any occasion (depending on what fabric you used!) Or make it for yourself! You could also add some ribbon and make it a french memo board. Lots of ways to change it up : )

Oh! Almost forgot to mention, I didn't add any wall hanging stuff to the backside cause I'm not sure what the wall hanging situation will be in her classroom. But I did buy some of those Command picture hanging strips for a 18x24 frame (also got it at Home Depot) so that should work whether she has to hang it on a plaster or stucco wall.

Alrighty, think that's everything!

Be back in t-minus 5 minutes!

<3 Lindsey

[EASIEST Baby Doll] Tutorial

Heeeey everyone!

Super duper excited to show you this newest tutorial!

(Pics of it at the very bottom. Just keep scrolling. Keep scrolling. Scroll some more. And....you're....there!)

If you're a beginner sewer, like myself, you can make this. I promise!

And if you're an advanced sewer, you will laugh at it and go, "Phsh. I can make this 10 times better!"

And you will. But afterwards, can you share how awesomer yours is with me?

Thanks.

So I got the idea to make this doll because I'm going to be an aunt again!

As some of you may remember I have a little niece, Logynn. She's my brother's little girl.

I love her to death.

Well, my brother and sister-in-law just found out they're having another girl. <yipee!>

And what better way to get Logynn ready for her sister's arrival then a baby doll made by the greatest (and most humblest) Aunt in the world.

So I'm 110% sure this is not an original idea. I'm positive someone has already made this or something similar in the history of the universe. So not taking credit for it. But because I'm lazy, I didn't take the time to do the research to find a tutorial or pattern and just went ahead and made it. And let me add that I've NEVER made anything like this before. So if I can do it, than you can too.

YOU CAN DO IT!

That's my pep talk so you will feel a little more confident about tackling this project. I hope it worked cause that's all the pep I got right now.

Ready? Here we go!

I forgot to take a pic of the supplies you'll need (remember I'm lazy?) so here is a list instead:

1) Batting
2) Gray embroidery floss & needle
3) Canvas or whatever fabric you want to use for the baby's face/body (1/4 yard)
4) Coordinating fabric (1/4 yard)
5) Minky (1/3 yard)
6) White ruffle trim
7) Pink and white thread
8) Thin ribbon for hair (I used brown grosgrain)
9) Disappearing ink pen for fabric
10) Fray check

Other recommended supplies: 6 x 12-24" acrylic ruler, rotary cutter, and washable glue stick.

I apologize in advanced for the potentially confusing instructions. I'm horrible at explaining things, yet I have a blog with tutorials. It's a mind bender, I know.

First step is to cut two 6" x 12" fabric pieces, one of them will be on the minky and the other on the off-white canvas.

Next using cardstock or any thick paper, cut out a 6" circle. Lay it at the top and using your fabric marker trace around the top two corners of your fabric. Then cut the two corners so they're both round.

And they'll look like this!

Now take your coordinating fabric that you'll use for the baby's "outfit" and cut it in a 6" x 6" square.

Fold it in a 1/4" and iron down. Take your glue stick and glue it on or just pin it  8 1/2" up from the bottom.
Then sew like so!

Ok this part may be confusing, so bear with me...You'll want to cut out 2 6" x 9 1/2" strips of minky.

Take one corner and fold it in so it looks like the pic below.

Now take your acrylic ruler and rotary cutter and slide the ruler carefully underneath the triangle.

Open it up and use your rotary cutter to cut along the edge of the ruler. Repeat with other strip of minky.

Now taking lots of pins, pin one of the minky strips onto the front of the doll. Fold the minky around the top to make a hem and pin as you go. Then sew it on.

Repeat with other strip of minky.

Should look like this when you're done. Or better for the advanced sewers since I sorta made this up as I went. And notice how I only sewed along the top and the diagonal side. I also sewed along the bottom, close to the edge, just to make it easier to all sew together at the bottom later.

Now take your fabric marker and draw the face on. The less perfect it is the better. No one likes a perfect face.

Using your grey thread backstitch the eyes and mouth on.

Next, trim 3" pieces of ribbon for the hair. Apply the Fray Check to the ends on one side. Take a hot glue gun and glue them in place.

Once the glue is dry, take the ruffle trim and glue it along the edge of the top of the head so the ruffle is facing in.

Trim off the excess hair ribbon, leaving about 1/2" left. Take your minky you cut at the beginning and with the 2 fronts facing each other pin them together.

When sewing them together, make sure you leave an opening at the bottom big enough for your hand to squeeze through. I like to start at the bottom about an inch or two away from the corner and then once I reach the other side sew around the other bottom corner too. Cause there's nothing worse then having to hand stitch corners closed. Nothing.

Should look like this when you're done. Now get it right side out and start stuffing!

Once you have it completely stuffed. You'll want to hand sew the bottom closed. And since I'll be horrible at explaining how to do that, I'll just give you a link to a video instead. HERE you go!

If you notice in the pic above I forgot to attach the white ruffley trim at the bottom. Since I'm a beginner sewer, I'm not sure how you would have done that beforehand so I'll just explain what I did to fix it. I applied some Fray Check to be safe along the bottom. Then took white thread and just sewed the bottom corners to the top of the minky. The pics below might help explain what I'm talking about better...Thank goodness for visuals!

Also, I took a small brush and some of my blush and gave the baby a makeover. Suh cute.

And here is how she turned out!

I'll post pics of my niece with it later depending on how well she takes to the new "sister"...fingers are crossed.

Feel free to post any questions or comments (nice ones preferably) below! I'm always happy to assist or give you links to other people assisting you via youtube. Whatever works, right?

<3 Lindsey

Update: SHE LOVES IT! YAY! : )