Chuck's mom has made lovely blankets for each of our kids when they are born. Maddie's blanket had a duck on it, Dannie's blanket is an owl, and I picked a robot for Alex's blanket. She puts their name, birth date and info and signs it.
I gave her this image as a guide for the robot.
And here's the blanket!
She did such a wonderful job! I just love it and I can't wait for him to use it and love it like the girls love theirs!
We had our final Christmas celebration last week while Chuck’s mom was back in town from Florida. We had a great time…
Our niece, Amira, was handing out presents.
Maddie sat with all her presents and had a blast opening them!
Amira got a bunch of art stuff.
Her face cracks me up in this picture!
Maddie and Dannie playing with one of Dannie’s presents.
Awe…family photo.
Dannie was throwing a tantrum while Chuck was trying to help Maddie with a present.
A view of the card table houses that Linda made Maddie and Amira.
The house has been a huge hit around here. The girls play in it all the time and Linda’s crafting abilities always amaze me!
Paige having some fun with Dannie. Being upside down is one of Dannie’s favorite things.
Paige and Linda are so crafty. They always made the most amazing presents.
Here is a color matching board using paint chips, a canvas and clothespins.
A memory game using note cards and a bunch of family photos.
Little dolls for matching colors. And yes, Linda hand painted these! (There’s a pink one, too, but Maddie has claimed that one for herself.)
Paige made a “Guess Who” game for Dannie with family photos.
Linda made some baby baskets for the girls. She has a couple of them at her house for the girls to play with when they come over. They come with a matching pillow and blanket!
Paige made a wipes container and a doll diaper. So stinking cute…no pun intended. 
Linda also made Paige and I picnic blankets and made Brian and Chuck frames pictures using all of our names with scrabble pieces. Genius! (Of course I forgot to take pictures of these two things.)
We also had a tasty lunch. Chuck made some veggie lasagna with half of it the regular (meaty) way. Paige brought bread and fruit and Linda made pumpkin and apple pies. The food was so good!
We had a fabulous Christmas this year. I hope yours was wonderful, too!
Chuck’s wonderful mother, Linda, tackled another project I have wanted done. We went to a friends’ house one night and they have this HUGE pillow on the floor for their kids to play on. She sent me the information on it and I knew I was too cheap to pay for something like that. So I wrangled Linda’s help. We picked out the material and she went to work! Last weekend, I brought over the stuffing for it and we filled it up! Check out how awesome it turned out!
And look at how perfectly she lined up the edges!
And here’s the zipper she added. Please excuse my creepy hand.
And you would never know it, but she actually has a seam in the top and bottom somewhere because the material was only 55” and I was really hoping for a 60”ish pillow. So she made it bigger for me! She rocks!
It’s hard to tell how big it is, so here’s a picture of Maddie sitting on it. Not great pictures, but you can get a better idea of the size!
So now we have a big pillow for Chuck and Maddie to rough-house on! They love it! Thanks Linda for tackling all my sewing projects for me!
My sister-in-law, Paige (and her mom) is fabulous at sewing. Paige came across a dress pattern online that I saw a long time ago, but was too nervous to try on my own. Well, she made one and inspired me to make one for myself. Well, not for me…but for Maddie.
The website where I got the instructions and the pattern is HERE. You can see more pictures and get all the instructions and a pattern from there.
Paige got a tool to add snaps to the dresses. So I went and bought one of those. It worked great. Now this may be the cutest little dress, but let me tell you, I almost gave up when I was making it. I was so frustrated because I used quarter flats and didn’t think my cutting through well enough and messed up the first two that I cut. I need to go back to the fabric store and make up for my mistakes. But I finally managed to get this one to turn out and lo and behold….it’s adorable! I just love the funny little cats on the material!
Have you tackled any projects lately that started out poorly and ended up working out in the end?
I had seen people making colored rice on Pinterest and knew I had to give it a try. Maddie is still too little to play with it without trying to eat it, but I cleaned out the pantry and had lots of leftover rice, so I thought I should use it up.
First you put 2 cups of rice into a gallon sack. Do this for as many colors of rice you want to make.
Then you add 2 teaspoons of rubbing alcohol to each of the sacks along with 7-10 drops of food coloring. I used red, blue, green and yellow.
Then you seal them up and shake them like crazy! This would be fun to do with your kids. They would get a kick out of this part. Instead, I shook it myself while Maddie played with her toys.
Then I lined some baking sheets with tin foil and dumped the bags of colored rice on them to dry.
After the rice dried (I don’t remember how long I let mine sit, but it was at least 30 minutes….you could let it dry outside, too), I dumped it all back into a gallon sack.
Then I shook all the rice together to mix it up. It’s so pretty all mixed together.
Since Maddie won’t get any enjoyment out of it yet, I think I’ll use it in a vase for her birthday party or something. 
Chuck’s mom is an amazing seamstress. She can sew anything! This Christmas, she out did herself. She made Maddie a “fun book” with all sorts of learning pages.
You can remove all the shapes to match them!
You can move the apples around!
Yep, there’s a dog inside! And the bear comes out of its bed that has a squishy little pillow in it!
Guess what’s inside….the flowers to attach to the other page!
Check out the detail of this little doll!
And yes, I know the shapes aren’t in the right order. I did this so the velcro wouldn’t hit the words and the bow on the other page. And the little pouch opens to put the shapes into.
Are you not utterly impressed? She hand stitched all of the words. What a wonderful gift! It’s a little advanced for Maddie now (because she wants to eat the small shapes), but we are working on it with her.
Thank you so much Linda for this fabulous gift! I know Maddie will love it and it will be a favorite toy for a long time!
I came across a picture of a project I did in the Fall that I never shared. I came across this adorable idea and knew I had to give it a try. So I went looking for some fabric and paper sacks…oh, and toilet paper….and put some little pumpkins together!
So you just lay down the piece of fabric and fold it into the hole of the toilet paper. I cut out some leaf shapes that had a long tails to stick in the hole. Then I cut some strips of the paper sack and made them into accordion fans and stuck them in the hole, too. They were so cute and so simple to make. I had them placed all over the house.
At the end of the season, I just put the fabric and paper stems in with my other Fall decorations to use next year!
I am sure I could have made these for other seasons. Maybe make them look like apples, or ornaments or something. I might have to give it a try!
I have needed something to keep me busy these days. I went shopping with Chuck’s mom the other day to a craft store and decided I wanted to learn to knit. So I picked up a cheap starter book, needles and some yarn. I haven’t been able to do a whole lot in one sitting because my hands are so swollen. But here’s a little progress I had after the first day I played with it!
Not too shabby for my first attempt if I do say so myself!
Then the other morning, I woke up and decided I NEEDED to have some flower clips for my hair. So I went nuts and attached a bunch of flowers I had to hair clips. Then I found a tutorial online for making some flowers out of fabric and made a couple of those. I am definitely going to make more of the fabric flowers. I need to see if I have some more elastic sitting around to attach them to. Or I need to get some more clips. 
Not too shabby for my first attempts at these. I was quite proud. The knitting project I started is supposed to be a headband, so I may have to attach a fabric bow to that and see how it turns out! I am seeing Christmas gifts in the making already!
Have you tackled any projects lately? Any wearable projects? Please share!
I have been working on this necklace and earrings for MONTHS! Seriously! It’s not that it was hard to make or anything, I would just work on it a little, put it away, forget about it and then the cycle would start all over. So I finally remembered I wanted to finish it and I love it!
And here’s a picture slightly closer up.
So there you have it. Yet another set of jewelry. I have a few more to show you. I am trying to remember to post them on CraftsOnAWhim.com, too.
Anyone made any jewelry or other craft they are pleased with lately?
I made a pair of earrings for a friend at work. I show her all the stuff I make myself and since it was her birthday, I decided to make her a pair. She wanted blues, blacks, and silver. She also wears a lot of pearls, so I was pretty excited with the way these turned out!
This is the card I gave her with the earrings:
I even hung the earrings from the black string that was wrapped around the inside of the card. She thought that was really cute.
And she LOVED the earrings. She put them on right away! I think the best part about giving people something you made is seeing how much they like it when you make them something just for them!