Got Pets? Pouches Perfect for Pooches!

This week was one of the busiest of the year, causing me to race like a super mad lady gone electrocuted. I've just completed this bag for a client whose dog who just had puppies. One of the facts about corn bags that many people forget is how well they keep newborn animals warm. A friend even used to use one for her "elderly" cat.  What a perfect gift for your pets, or for your friend who has pets!

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Helpful Tips for Keeping Warm

Here are the latest patterns of microwavable heat packs. 

The packs shown are made with a removable fleece cover. The great thing about the cover is that it can be washed when soiled.

Now that the weather is so chilly these days, we use our heat packs often.  I heat one up to put in my bed before I climb in it at night.  It keeps my feet warm.  Some of my children heat them up to take in the car with them. You can keep them in your lap, put them behind your back or sit on them even!  It sure beats shivering while waiting for the heater to warm up the car.

Keep warm and enjoy winter!

Fleece Corn Bag Covers

Fleece is soo cuddly!  At least half of my corn bag covers are made out of fleece.  Here are the latest patterns I have added to my collection:

These will be listed on ebay this weekend.  Enjoy your weekend :)

Reasons for Not Blogging................

• Someone put the black food coloring container on the kitchen window sill - laying flat with the lid ajar. 
• Put Dad's "Do not dry-Lay flat" sweater in the dryer and am trying to stetch it out before its fully dried.
• Had to catch the parakeets that were accidently let out.  
• Teaching Sam the right way to head a paper for spelling.
• John wants to drive me to the bank to get driving practice.
• Cooking two different dinners - one for Dad and one for everyone else.
• Teaching kids how to deep clean (so I don't get so overwhelmed doing it myself.)
• Reminding Pete and Ben they love eachother more than they know.
• Re-organizing computer area to equip Amy how to help in Dad's business.
• Molly wants me to hold her and play Mommy Deer and Baby Deer.
• Bread maker smelled like it was making burnt toast. I think it's time for a new one.
• Got lost in Joanne Fabrics (not really, but I forgot about the time.)
• Correcting school papers.
• Playing Spider or building birthday puzzles after dinner clean-up; sometimes it helps my brain relax.
• Teaching boys the right way to open a pomegranate (and that it STAINS!)
• Trying to finish the laundry before the weekend, but this is only load six.
• I (not the kids) spilled 5 pounds of sugar all over the floor!
• Cuddling David's soft ears before he thinks he is too old for that kind of stuff.
• And the list goes on...............................................................................

"Actually, Godliness is a great source of profit when it is combined 

with being happy with what you already have.

1 Timothy 6:6 (CEB)

Plaids!

A customer ordered this plaid print today.   Plaid can be a little tricky to work with if you want your lines matching together on the front and back.  The nice thing about this fabric is that it didn't do much shrinking during the prewash, which sometimes makes it difficult to keep the lines straight for a project.   I happen to like this particular plaid with the brown and grey colors. My first thought about this color combination is that it wouldn't match well together, but seeing it together like this changes my mind - this print looks great! 

Football Season

We picked up some fabric for our local football team today.  I want to make heating packs with it.  This is a fleece fabric so it is very cozy; perfect for keeping you warm on chilling evenings.  The size for this heat pack is 12 x 8 inches.

Eventually I want to get fabric for other teams.  Each team will most likely be have a different size heat pack since the fabric and logos vary.

I found this Green Bay material from a couple of years that someone special ordered for a heat pack. This particular one is a 13 x 5.5 inch size.  It's also a cozy fleece.  I'll post others as I make them.

No Time for Crafting.............YET

This past month has found me upgrading around our home.  So rather than creating with fabrics and flip flops I have been up to my elbows (and hair) with paint!  My son asked if he could paint his room (it needed it) so he and I went to get paint.  His idea was to use black and red!  My ideas were a little less radical.  So between our brainstorming we came up with what I would call chocolate pudding.  The color is a very dark but nice brown and the whole time we were painting I kept saying that I felt like I am painting pudding on the walls!

After painting his room I remembered I had paint for the hall so I painted that.  Then realized I had paint for the laundry room too, so that was next.  Which then, of course,  led me to the boys bathroom, touch-up in the living room and so on!

Now after all of that we are endeavoring to redo our porch, which is somehow making me think of painting our ceilings.............I don't know if I will go that far.................yet. :)

I am glad for summer upgrades.  Crafting will come soon enough as does winter around here which is when I seem to have more time for crafting.

We have also had some family time which you can view here:    Beach Trip

Photo Floundering

Our weather is warming up.....finally!  At least today is nice : )  Seeing the bright blue sky today inspired me to take inventory of already embellished flip flops and to make a few more pairs.  My main task of the day though, has been researching how to take pictures of crystals.  I'm not that great at it and am looking for any imput I can get.  Here are some (experimental) photos I took today while trying to apply some suggestions from my intenet research.  My first goal is to not have all the twinkles and glare.

The pictures aren't perfect, but at least the crystals don't have as many twinkles and/or glare. And the colors look true to color now.  That's one small step for capturing crystals.

Sam's Pillow

I have an eight year old who thinks he loves to sew!  He's been interested since he was about 6.  I even have a small sewing machine that I've let him use to sew pillows, bags, and other creations with.  But somehow when I moved my "craft station" from one room to the other, I misplaced the cord for his machine : (   This didn't stop him though, he asked me to teach him to hand sew!  He's certainly an aggressive young man.

The other evening he found me sewing and of course asked if he could sew too.  I had been saying no for about a month now, but I gave him a yes this time.  Sam had his own fabric that he had bought a while back (yes, he loves the fabric store just about as much as I do)  and wanted to make a big pillow with it. 



Sam's "Leather"



 I let him look through my patterns this time.  This is actually the first time I've shown him patterns and let him pin and cut.  Usually he does his own shape and cutting. He chose to make a bolster pillow.



Pinning the pattern

I let him use my machine this time and he did just fine considering it is a lot faster that the small one he usually uses.  He sewed everything but the last round piece.  I helped him with this since it was hard to sew once it was filled with the stuffing.

This project was quick from start to finish.  I had forgotten just how easy it was to make such a nice pillow.

Yellow, yellow everywhere!

I finished Amy's yellow dress a few weeks ago, and I will post pictures as soon as I get around to taking them.  I'm hoping to make little sister something to match or at least the something with yellow in it also.  Last night I had "yellow" on my mind and decided to make a few different hair accessories in that color.  Here is what I came up with:

I made a few others that I gave away already so I didn't get pictures of those.  A few more ideas were flying around my head, but my stock of yellow ribbon is now depleted.  Oh well, I guess I have to go to the fabric store and restock  : )  

My Pillow Case Dress

I've seen many pictures for pillow case dresses and have always wanted to try to make one.  They seemed really simple to make so last night I finally got a chance to make one.  They are really easy to make! And fun!  You can do all sorts of things to dress them up.  I had such a hard time deciding which ribbons to use to dress this one up.  I finally decided on the lavender ribbon for the ties and a trim at the bottom.  I have pretty sequins to put on this dress too, or should I make some cute bows...........................oh well, I'll decide later!

Wedge Flip Flops w/ Swarovski Flowers

One of the first pair of flip flops I "decorated" was for a friend of mine as a birthday present.  I used an Old Navy Wedge and made flowers out of AB Crystals with a rose colored center.  I divided the flowers with blue zircon crystals which to me actually look more green than blue in color.  I thought the color combination turned out very nice.  Her flip flops turned out to be too uncomfortable for her to wear for long periods of time so she asked me to redo her flip flops on a more comfortable shoe.  This is a Reed Brand Flip Flop which is much more comfortable.  Don't get me wrong, there are certain Old Navy flip flops that are very comfortable and I still use them for embellishing, but this particular wedge just wasn't that comfortable even for me.  This is how they turned out:

I'm not sure yet how to get close ups of crystals with my camera and not get lots of "twinkles" in the picture.  So this close up is as close a I could get without them. :)  Hopefully you can get an idea of the patten I used.

Her Yellow Dress

My lovely daughter recently picked out some fabric to make a dress.  She picked out a light yellow fabric.
This seemed a little out of character for her (to me anyway) so before we had the fabric cut I asked her if she was sure she would wear it once it was made........................She really likes it!

I let her pick out a pattern and will let her (try to let her) do most of the sewing on it.  She wants to sew her own dress but I know it will be hard for me to not want to "just do this part," or "just help you with this section." She is going to make the green dress that is shown-without sleeves.  Sleeveless dresses seem to be

her favorite no matter what the season is.  We'll post the dress when we she has it finished. : )

Getting Ready for the Fair

 

We're getting ready for the next JBF sale in a couple of weeks.  This is a big sale at the fair grounds here in town, where people sell their childrens and maternity items. Here are a few items that I've made to contribute to this ever growing event:

Not the Usual Heat Pack

12x4 inch Rice Filled Heat Pack

I made a heat pack today, but I did something I never usually do.  I filled it with rice.  Rice is not usually my choice for filling because  it doesn't usually smell as nice as corn (in my opinion), or stay warm as long when it is heated, so I have been very partial to corn.  But the corn pack I made today was out of the smoochiest material and smaller than the typical size bag I usually make, so I thought it needed a smaller grain to fill it with.  The feel of the smaller grain adds to the smoochy soft material. 

Maybe next time I will fill it with flax seed.

Pillows! Pillows!

While digging around in my material box, I came across this silky soft, shaggy and red fabric. It was perfect for making this neck roll and neck pillow.  They are filled with a polyester filberfill.  The neck roll I gave to my mother for her birthday and she loved it!  She will get the neck pillow too, I just didn't have it ready on her birthday.  I was just a little untogether this year.  Sorry mom : )

Brown Fleece and Flowers

10x10 Microwavable Heat Pack

I found this cozy fleece recently on the remenant rack.  It's quickly become on of my favorite fabrics. I can just imagine lounge pillows or bolster pillows out of it! Hopefully I will be able to find more of it soon.  For now I've made a few corn pack covers out of it.  It's still to season to stay warm!

Fleece Neck Roll - Corn Filled

This is a neck roll that can be heated in the microwave.  This particular one is made from one of the more popular fleece fabrics I have this year. It's filled with about 3 lbs. of corn.  I let Amy use one last night and she enjoyed it so much that she ended up taking it to bed with her!  The weight of the corn, and the heat at the same time is very soothing and great for relieving neck tension and shoulder pain.

This neck roll can also be use as an ice pack as well.  Just put it in a gallon ziploc bag for a couple of hours to get it nice and cold.

Try using these around your knees, ankles, wrists, and elbows too. : )

Doggy, Doggy, Where's Your Bone!

Several of my clients have ordered heating packs for their cats and/or dogs.  I got an idea to make a bone shaped heat pack.   Will the pets like it more?  What do you think?

Chocolate Snowflakes

 Last night during our family night I was able to make a few hair clips.  Often I have a few different ideas to try out with all different kinds of colors, but this time my only color idea was brown.  How many different kinds of creations can you make with the color brown?  Well here are some clips we came up with.  I say "we" because even though I made these, Amy always tells me her opinions and ideas.  This is my favorite part-having her apart of what I'm doing.



Neapolitan Pinwheel



I call this clip the Neapolitan pinwheel because the colors remind me of Neapolitan ice cream.

Polka Dot and Brown Bow Tie Clip

Pin Striped Bow Tie

 Bow tie clips are one of my favorites, so of course, I made a few of these.



Crochet Hair Band - Brown & Pink



I attached this pretty pink crochet flower to my brown hair band.  That came out nice.



Chocolate Snowflake



And since it is winter I made a few chocolate brown hair clips with snowflakes in the center.  When I have a chance I will make a few "fancier" snowflake clips and post those.  Family night took first priority, as it should  : )