More felt bookmarks!

These are so fun to make...some flowers and a tea cup...

Toilet Paper Roll Creatures!!

We had SO much fun making these.  I am working on some pieces of art - yes, art from toilet paper rolls - and the kiddos decided we needed to make some creatures too.  We have been collecting these paper towel and toilet paper rolls for WEEKS and now we finally have something to show for it.  Here is the first round of creatures we concocted:

Clockwise from top left: B.O.B. (from Monsters vs. Aliens), a butterfly, another butterfly, a bee, an owl, and two moose.

We have more in the works including some Lord of the Rings characters.  The kids have really enjoyed making these and I haven't even busted out the googly eyes, pipe cleaners, felt, fabric, or paint yet!

As for my art pieces, I am still deciding on colors but once they are done, I will show them as well!

Happy Mother's Day!

Picture courtesy of http://www.lilesnet.com/mother/mothers_day_2012/

One day where Moms everywhere get to sleep in and have breakfast made by their families and in general relax. 

Unless you are a single Mom like me.  We wake up and make our own breakfast, handle the household, and play referee.  But that's okay.  I miss sleeping until ten, waking to an awesome breakfast and knowing there would be time to take a long, hot, undisturbed bath if I wished.  But, as I so often tell my kids, sometimes things do not work out as we hoped or planned.   This is one of those times and we will make the best of it.

My wonderful kids let me sleep in - until 8am!  They vowed to "try very hard to be extra special good."  I laughed, they are always good.  I have only refereed to small arguments this morning and I did so while trying not to smile at them.  I was able to convince them to have my favorite breakfast - french toast - after promising to make it "cake batter flavored."  Kids will eat anything cake batter flavored, right?  All I had to do was add a little butter, vanilla, and almond extracts to the eggs and milk then drop some sprinkles over the top of the finished pieces.  Voila!  Happy kids who devoured the french toast - so fast in fact that I couldn't get a picture!  I STRONGLY suggest some cake batter french toast if you haven't tried it already.  Here is my recipe:

2 eggs

8 slices of whole wheat bread

1/4-1/2 cup milk

1 tsp butter flavored extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

sprinkles/butter/apple butter/syrup to taste

I know this isn't much and I am sorry I do not have pictures, but as I said, the french toast was gone before I could do anything.  They loved it!  We are off to spend the rest of the day together, hopefully finishing some of our projects so we can post them.....

Cupcake bookmarks!!

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster - I lost a family member, spent a brief amount of time with my immediate family who I do not get to see often, and dealt with a few road blocks.  So, my long term projects are taking even longer but I am starting to see some progress and to that end, I have the first of many new items starting with felt cupcake bookmarks!  The kids actually helped with these and they have SO many ideas for more - mad hatter hats, cheshire cats, monsters, Harry Potter characters, Lord of the Rings characters and so on.  My challenge now is to see how many I can bring to life.

These were pretty easy to make.  I made a pattern, the kids cut them out and used some fabric modge podge to put them together.  Once the kids were in bed, I added the embellishments.  We made a lot in a short time and they are SO cute!

Recognize this book?  I kind of know the author...

First style is a corner mark that slides over the pages.

Second style slides in the book.

Both styles are double thickness.  One slides over the corner and the other is a standard bookmark but so much cuter.  I have a bunch of these!

Break time!

Not a long one but I have a few projects going that are multi-step and therefore more time-consuming. I'm also finishing up the last book in my Emerald Seer series so I've been mighty busy. In the interim, look back over my projects, check out my etsy store and Pinterest boards, or comment on things you'd like to see me do!

Men's dress shirts to Steampunk-inspired skirt!

This is my favorite piece and I am not even 100% done with it! I wanted to put it up for Men's Dress Shirt Week, but I have a lot of embellishing left to do. This is just the bare bones of the skirt but I have only used men's dress shirts so far so I felt it was the perfect ending to this week.

Just a few of the details:


I added grommets to the back so the closure will lacing like this.

I also did a lot of tucking and gathering to give off the layered/bustled look.

I am going to add a lot more by way of embellishing but the base was made from three men's dress shirts (one is the green/white stripe and then I used two plain white ones.

Men's dress shirt to Children's apron

My kids love to bake with me.  It's something we do together often, actually.  That means we have several aprons in our house and I am always looking for cheap ways to make new ones since the kids are so rough on them.  So, when I started out on this Men's dress shirt upcycle I found a way to get two aprons out of the sleeves.  Smashing!  Of course, I had to raid some scraps for the waistband and I pulled pockets off the men's shirts and I am seriously thinking of embroidering or adding appliques to these to dress them up a bit, but the basic is just the sleeve of a men's dress shirt.