We Christmased...

Christmas Eve found us at Bass Pro Shop taking pics with Santa...We had so much fun and it wasn't busy at all, surprisingly!  There was so much FREE fun to be had!

The carousel was adorable!

There were all different animals.

Violet loved it!

Did I mention it was FREE?!?!

I was so happy that Violet did well with Santa!

Not the best pic, but with four kids, you get what you get!

There are crafts there, too!  This day was cookie decorating...

So fun and saved me from having to bake later.

The kids in their Momma and Nana-made Christmas Eve Jammies!

Flannel sheets from Target make for cheap yardage.

I love these peasant style gowns.  Caught Violet mid-yawn.  Ha!

The boys...

The kids left goodies for Santa!  

Lilly wrote a letter to Santa...

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE what she wrote on the inside!!!  Warms my heart so much!!!

Santa came!

The table all set for Christmas brunch...

Christmas Brunch is always the same...sausage balls, muffins, and fresh fruit.

The mirror got gussied up with paper snowflakes from Wal-Mart and a sign I made.

The hutch...little crooked, oops!  Shouldn't take photos at 3am!  Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas!!!

Anthro-Inspired Dishtowels

Hey y'all!! Some of you may remember last year when I posted about being featured on Edie's blog, Life in Grace. I decided that I would share it here with y'all now.

For my part, I am showing y'all how to make some cute tea towels. These make wonderful hostess gifts, teacher gifts, girlfriend gifts...Tie up with a loaf of homemade pumpkin bread and a Starbucks giftcard and you have a perfectly cute, perfectly welcome gift!!

First, gather all the supplies:
*towel
*cute fabric-three different prints
*pompoms
*thread-the color of the towel, pompoms, and fabric{I actually used white here, but you can match the thread with the fabric}
*m&m's-optional, I suppose ;)


I personally think holiday colored m&m's are more fun to eat!!

Let's get started...

You'll want to cut{or tear} your fabric into strips, roughly 2 inches wide by one and a half to double the width of your towel.

Turn the dial to the longest stitch length. Sew down the middle of each strip.

To gather, you just need to grab one piece of thread and gently slide your fabric down, being careful not to rip the thread.

You will want to make sure your ruffles are the width of the towel and evenly gathered. Play around until you get the placement you like.

Pin the ruffles to the towel.

Next, you will sew the ruffle to the towel, going over the gathering stitch and taking out pins before it goes under the foot. DO NOT LEAVE THE PIN IN!! Ask me how I know...it involves a broken needle and a call to 911. Thankfully, no lasting damage was caused!! I now have safety glasses curtesy of my husband's co-worker. ;) Do make sure to turn your stitch length dial back down.

Cut pompoms to size and sew them to the back of the towel. You will want to change your thread to match the pompoms and the bobbin to match the towel.

Voila!! You have a cute, ruffled dishtowel that anyone would love!!

***

I also have another towel to share with y'all. I really love the way this one turned out!!

This one I made from a flour sack towel. You will also need three fabrics, pompoms and wonder under for this towel. You can get a four pack of these flour sack towels at Target.

I used a salad plate and a bread and butter plate for the circles. Lay the plate atop your fabric and cut a square just a smidge larger than the plate. Do that for both circles and your image. Once you get that square, you will iron it to the wonder under, being careful not to iron the wonder under itself, or else it will make your iron sticky.

Then you will use a fabric marker or pencil{I think the water soluble markers work best} to trace the plate onto the fabric. Cut out the shape. Do this for all three fabrics. I opted to use a rooster shape{click here for image, copy and save} for the applique, but you could do any animal or even a monogram. I made a Valentine towel, with a heart, for a friend, you can see it here. For the rooster, I just saved the image and opened a word document and enlarged it. I printed it and cut it out. Then I traced it on the fabric and cut it out.

I opened the towel and ironed the creases out. They are folded about four times and once you get your towel all prettied up, it will only be folded into thirds. Determine the middle third and place the biggest circle in it. Iron it on, then sew inside the edge. I used a contrasting thread and around it twice for more whimsy. I then ironed the second circle onto the first one and sewed around it, then did the same with the rooster. Once that was finished, I sewed the pompoms on like the first towel. If you don't sew, don't fret, you can totally make this towel. You will just get another wonder under type-they make some that are no sew and use Allene's craft glue to adhere the pompoms.

Another fun, cute towel for some lucky person on your Christmas list!! You could customize this towel all kinds of ways, using a tree for Christmas, bunny image for Easter, star for the Fourth of July, the options are endless!!

Pillows, Pillows, Pillows...

I had this wild hair last night to make some pillows. I've had the chenille and the cutter quilt for quite some time and I always snatch up vintage sheets whenever I see them, too.

I dyed the chenille with teal dye. It was previously white. I love how it looks with the red and white polka dots!! The rectangular pillow in the middle is going to my bestie, Jenny, all the way across the US.

Here is a close-up of her. The pink chenille is original and I've had it for a while. We used some of it for Lilly's crib skirt and a lampshade. That was over 6 years ago. Wow, how time flies!! I still have a bit of it left so I decided to pair it with the blue chenille and quilt. I found the vintage red pompoms at a yard sale for only 10 cents for a big bag of it!! I love the way this one turned out!!

Here is the back view...

Here is another pillow I made. I used a scrap of a quilt top for it.

The back side got vintage sheets. Simple envelope style pillow covers are so easy and a fun way to add more texture and color!!

One last pillow...I made this one from burlap and osnaburg for my friend, Amy's birthday. She also collects blue jars and bottles, so I grabbed this one when I saw it at an antique shop.

Don't you just love how pillows can transform a space?? Should I put them in my pityfully empty Etsy shoppe???

We Made Merry...

I am finally getting around to posting about Christmas. How about that?? Now we can move on along...Above is our tree all lit up on Christmas Eve. I love how my camera hates me and I cannot get a decent pic to save my life. ;) Maybe that will be this year's goal, to learn my camera.

Here we are with a flash. Same time as above...The dress hanging on the window...I made that Christmas Eve Eve, intending on taking the kids to see Santa the next morning. Nothing like the last minute!! That plan went to pot, much like this whole 2010. I think I was running behind most of the year. No matter, though, this is a new year with new beginnings. And...we didn't actually get to see Santa. Why?? Let's start by saying the week of Christmas, or maybe the week before, heck the whole month of December had someone sick at some time. Well, Thursday before Christmas, my husband came home early. Sick...Then, Christmas Eve, I awoke to my oldest saying something about seeing Santa. I knew immediately that I wasn't feeling well, then proceeded to get sick myself. Nice...Luckily, I wasn't sick long, but felt poopy the rest of the day, tired, achy skin, fun stuff...I couldn't hardly pull it together to wrap gifts. Thankfully, Cory felt a little better and he did most of the work.

Here the kids are in their Christmas Eve jammies. My Mom and I made them. I had the idea to use flannel sheets from Target instead of buying fabric by the yard. One little ditty praising Target...Cory and I did the bulk of our Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving{a great feeling!!} with coupons and sales. Well, Black Friday rolled around and I happened to be in Target and noticed a few things were on an even better sale, but sold out. I took my receipt to customer service and they refunded the difference in what I paid and the current sale price!! Isn't that great!! They do price adjustments within a 14 day period.

Lilly was quite excited to get a Barbie movie!!

Jackson playing a game on his DS...

Violet loved to lay under the tree gazing up the lights!!

Fisher was quite content playing with his choo-choo...

These are the pillows I made for my Mom. Those are the only handmade gifts I gave this year, aside from a teacher gift and Christmas Eve jammies. How sad is that??

I have to give God some props here...I went to Ingles one morning to get a few necessities and decided to look at hams. Originally, we were supposed to go to my Mom's house on Christmas day but with all of us getting sick, and my stepdad having a double bypass, it wasn't prudent. Anyway, most of the hams were $1.69 a pound, but this ONE was marked down to $1 lb. How wonderful that God knew how our Christmas was going to be and gave me a ham on an even better sale!! We also had green bean casserole and corn casserole. Yum!!!

Lilly was so cute, she sat the table with napkins and forks. On the napkins she wrote everyone's initials. I tried to photograph them, but you know how this sentence ends...:) The day ended in snow falling, a Christmas miracle!!

Anyway, that was our Christmas wrap-up...Hope your's was wonderful!!