Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli

 

So I was having one of those days.  Nothing major, just a bunch of little things that kept adding up.

* Potty training accidents with both of my boys.

* I took 6 kids to the last free movie of the summer and it was a madhouse.

* I broke off half of one of my molars during the movie.

* It took me 3 hours to finally get through to my dentist and when I did they told me they couldn’t “squeeze” me in until next week!

* Had great plans for trying to get a bunch of laundry done and was getting nowhere.

Ya know all the typical mom stuff and I was feeling bleck!

Then… this arrived in the mail!

Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli, creator of Sis Boom Fabrics.

I won it a couple of weeks ago in a giveaway on Living with Punks.

Jennifer was even kind enough to sign it to me.  Bonus, she also sent along some of this lovely fabric!  Yippee!!!!

My kids wanted to play in the yard so I sat right down in the grass and flipped through all of the gorgeous pages in this book.

I want to live in this house and I think I need this quilt like right now!

Now to decide what to make with the lovey fabric that Jennifer sent me.

At first I thought maybe a cute ruffle pillow.

Then I saw these great totes and I knew that I wanted to make one.  I’m a sucker for a new bag.

Go check out this lovely book and happy sewing!

P.S. Then to lighten up my mood a little bit more, I looked up to see this!

Machine Applique and Embroidery

So I had a big birthday a couple of months ago.  No, I don’t want to talk about it.    Anyway, I got a couple of really amazing presents.  I actually can’t believe I got both of them. 

 

The first was a Brother se400 Sewing and Embroidery  Machine.

 

The second was a Brother 1034D Serger.

 

I’m working on learning how to use the embroidery machine.  It is a great first machine because it is also a sewing machine and the price isn’t too outrageous.  The only down side that I can see so far is that it can’t stitch any bigger than a 4”x4” hoop.  So if you want bigger than this save up because most embroidery machines cost over $600!  I don’t see that happening any time soon.

 

So I really like my Brother se400.  It has a great instructional cd too.  There are many helpful tutorials on the internet for learning to machine embroider and applique.  The best one that I found was HERE at Love From Texas.

Jessica gives lots of step by step instructions with photos.  She also links to her favorite sites for buying embroidery patterns.  Very helpful!

I thought that I would start with a free peace sign applique that I found.  I thought since it was round that it would be super easy.

 

 

  Ummm, I didn’t think about having to cut out the holes in the middle of the peace sign.  Lets just say that it didn’t go so well.  Even though I knew that I would have to be super careful, I still managed to cut a hole in the t-shirt.  Ughhhh! 

 

 

 

To salvage the shirt, I decided to cut through the other holes as well and sew a green piece of fabric on the inside of the shirt kind of like a reverse applique.  It didn’t turn out too bad.  I had to leave a little bit of the blue t-shirt fabric around the edges of the holes so that the stitching wouldn’t unravel.

 

 

My girls still liked it so I guess that is all that matters.

For my second attempt my girls wanted a butterfly.  Beautiful, no holes!

 

Here’s what it looks like with just the fabric pieces sewn down pre-embroidery.

Here’s what it look like after being embroidered.  I think that it came out pretty cool. 

 

I have to say that I am pretty excited about my new toy. 

I also made some cute Easter Bunny appliqued shirts for all four kiddos.

Happy Sewing!

Lily and Thistle Paper Dolls

Are you looking for a unique and beautiful Christmas gift for a special little girl?  How about these adorable Lily and Thistle Paper Dolls.

I just love them and my girls do too.  Here they are receiving theirs last year.

They are totally customized to look like your little girl.  You choose the hair, eye and skin color as well as the hair style.  Your child’s name is even printed on the bottom.  She comes with a lovely pillowcase dress.

Then the fun really starts with all of the beautiful outfits that Hannah has created.  There are clothing lines for each season as well as Fairytale, Sports and Girls in Literature lines.  SO FUN!

Hannah also shares a great tip on her site about the “Amazing Sticky Strip”.  It is reusable tape that you can place on your doll and just stick the clothes to her rather than using the tabs.  The tape can be used over and over again and if it looses it’s stick you can just wash it and it is good as new!  This made playing with the dolls so much easier for my girls.  It also helped when it came to cutting out the outfits because they could just cut the tabs on the clothing right off.  What a great idea!

Hannah also offers come cute freebies on her blog HERE.  Including this Mabel doll so that your little one’s doll can have a playmate!

Happy Playing!

P.S. There are also boy paper dolls and clothing lines so these would make a great gift for a little boy too.