Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  I hope all of you had a wonderful day with your families.  We were very fortunate here and had some really beautiful warm weather.  We were also grateful to have lots of family over.

 

 

 

Here are all of the children digging into their Easter Baskets. 

 

 

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I don’t even want to think about how much chocolate this guy ate!

 

Somehow we have gotten into this tradition of putting these ridiculous bunny ears on the newest arrival (or in my case arrivals) to our family.

Here is my poor little nephew in the bunny ears.

 

Don’t feel too bad for him though because he got the last laugh.  Check out that middle finger.  Can’t you just hear him saying, “You guys think you are sooooo funny.  I’ll show you!”?

 

     

Happy Easter!

 

I forgot to mention, the girls dresses were made using the Adri Summer Dress pattern from Oh So Sassy.  The fabric is Nicey Jane my Heather Bailey.  This is my favorite fabric line ever!

Friday Favorites: Peeps Printable

Are any of you having little ones over for Easter?  Are you going to an Easter egg hunt?  I found the most adorable Peeps Treat Topper printable at Itsy Bitsy Paper.  Best of all, Lindy was kind enough to post it for free!  Isn’t that nice?

 

My girls brought them for class treats on the last day before break and they were a big hit!  We are having some cousins over on Easter day and will be giving these to them too.  I hope that you get to use them or at least bookmark it for next year.  If you do, be sure to stop by Itsy Bitsy Paper and leave a thank you comment.   Also be sure to stop by Itsy Bitsy Paper’s Etsy shop where you will find lots of cute stationary.

 

( I am not in any way sponsored by Itsy Bitsy Paper.  I just like sharing cute things with you when I find them.)

Spring Into Silhouette / Giveaway!

 

My last couple of posts have been about some fun things that I have made with my brand new Silhouette!  I really love it!  Well, guess what?  You could win one!  I Heart Nap Time and Silhouette are sponsoring a whole week of Silhouette inspiration.  At the end of the week they will be giving one away!  Yippee!!! 

Here is the lineup:

Just click on the picture for details on how to enter the giveaway.  Good Luck!

 

Friday Favorites: Glass Etching Cream

O.K. so I promise that this isn’t going to turn into the Silhouette blog but I just got it and I am having so much fun playing with it!  Here is one more totally awesome idea using the Silhouette.

Have you guys ever used this stuff?  It’s glass etching cream.  Silhouette sells it on their site but I bought mine at Joann’s.  It’s pricey so start out with the smallest bottle and don’t forget to use a 40% off coupon.  (I’ll also explain later how it can by recycled and used again!)

 

A few weeks ago, Vivienne from The V Spot posted this really clever idea for using a Cricut or Silhouette to etch your name into the bottom of a pyrex dish.  That way you don’t have to worry about getting your dish back when you bring food to an event.  Awesome right?

 

Here is how mine turned out.

I’ll give a brief run down of what I did but be sure to check out Vivienne’s tutorial HERE.  She even shows you how you can do this without a Cricut or Silhouette.  Plus she’s kinda funny so I think you’ll like her blog! :)

 

 

1. Find a font you like.  Type your last name into your Silhouette program.  Flip the image to a mirror image.  Cut it out onto some contact paper.  It would take a little more time but you could also try cutting it out with an exacto knife if you didn’t have a Silhouette.

 

2. Turn your dish over.  Peel off the backing on the contact paper and stick it onto the under side of your dish.  Don’t forget to save the small pieces like the center of my “a” and “o” in the picture above.

 

3.  Use a Q-tip to spread the glass etching cream over your lettering.  (I used a brush the first time and I think that the Q-tip worked better.)  On my first attempt I left the etching cream on for 10 minutes and nothing happened.  This time I left it on for an hour and it worked great!

 

 

 

4.  Here is a totally awesome tip that I learned from the Silhouette site.  This cream can be recycled and used again!  Don’t just rinse it off in the sink.  Scrape it off with an old credit card (or in my case a Build a Bear card) and put it back in the jar.  Clean off the bottom of your dish and peel off the contact paper.

 

I hope you give this a try too.  I’m all ready for a pot luck.  Hmmm…. anybody having one?

Now, I need to share that the first time I tried this it was a total failure.  I painted the Armour etch on with a brush and rinsed it off after 10 minutes and there was absolutely no etching at all!  I e-mailed Vivienne and she was nice enough to respond and encourage me to give it another go.  I think what helped on the second go round was using the Q-tip to really glob it on and leaving it for a whole hour.  Plus now I know that I can scrap the etching cream off and use it again so I know I won’t be wasting it on failed attempts.

Peeps Shirt

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I purchased a Silhouette sd and I am so excited.  Of course I was itching to use it so here is my first project using the Silhouette.

 

Aren’t they cute?  I have been seeing these Peeps shirts peeping up popping up all over blog land.

There is Char’s version here and Christie’s version here.  I just had to make some.

 

I love how they turned out.  I cut the bunnies out of freezer paper on the Silhouette and then painted them.  Next I appliquéd some green grass out of some knit fabric I had.  When I purchased the Silhouette it came with some white flocked heat transfer.  I used that to cut out the words.   (Note: The first day the kids wore their shirts, I hadn’t sewn down the grass yet.  I had just ironed them on with some Wonder Under with the intention to sew them on later.  As you will notice in some of the following pictures, sewing is definitely necessary as the grass started to come off a bit by the end of the day.  So far the heat transfer letters have held up fine even in the wash.)

Now for some action shots!

 

 

   

 

 

Of course I had to make the girls some cute matching hair clippies too!

 

Because we were enjoying the warmer weather and having so much fun in the back yard, we decided to make S’mores for a special treat!  Yummmm!!!!

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P.S.  Look how filthy little boys can get their new shirts after just one day.  Fortunately everything  came out in the wash.

P.P.S.  I need to share with you the really dumb thing that I did with this project.  I was so excited to get started that I only watched about 1/4 of the instructional video before I shut it off and just tried to figure things out on my own.  Well, I originally had planned to cut the words out of freezer paper too and just paint them like I did with the bunnies.  Cheri at I am Momma Hear Me Roar!  was even kind enough to give me the tip to place the freezer paper shiny side up and reverse the image.  Well, when I tried to cut out the letters it was a disaster!  The paper slid all over and basically kept getting eaten by the machine.  I was so bummed until I came up with the heat transfer plan.  Well today, I was on the Silhouette site when it mentioned the carrier sheet being sticky and I thought “Hmmmm… my carrier sheet wasn’t sticky.”  I am such a ding dong.  I never peeled off the protective sheet on the carrier sheet.  Once I did this, it was sticky.  I tried cutting out the words “My Peeps” today and it worked like a charm.  Duh!  :)

Happiness is . . .

Happiness is …

 

… receiving this in the mail!

 

To say that I am excited would be just a bit of an understatement. :)  I can’t wait to use it! 

 

Friday Favorites: Dolly Outfitters

I’ve decided that I am going to set aside Fridays as a day to share stores and products that I like.  I can’t promise that it will actually happen every Friday but I’ll do my best. :)

I am very excited to tell you about Dolly Outfitters.  Lori offers some great patterns and clothes for 15” and 18” dolls.  However, what I really wanted to talk to you about is her awesome doll carriers!  My girls each have one and they love them!

 

 

Aren’t they cute?

 

These carriers fit various size dolls.  We tried them out with a Bitty Twins doll and a Build a Bear doll.  Both fit great and stayed in place.  My girls have other doll carriers and the dolls always seem to tumble out head first as they play.  These carriers kept the dolls right in place even as the girls were running around the back yard today. :)

 

I was also very pleased with the construction of the carriers.  They are beautifully quilted.

 

The inside is fully lined and all of the seems are serged.

You can definitely tell that Lori puts a lot of time and love into these bags.  They would make the perfect little gift for any little “mommy”.  I highly recommend them.

To see the selection of pre-made doll carriers, click HERE.  If you are feeling crafty, you can purchase the pattern for the doll carrier HERE on Lori’s blog.  Lori even offers a backpack version that leaves off the doll carrier straps and adds on a pocket.

Happy Sewing!