Croc Upgrade

Her 1st of 2 pairs of new Crocs arrived in the mail today.

They are extremely cute and there is plenty of growing room. I love them. But, because these will be mainly the only shoes she wears in the sticky summer months I thought an upgrade was needed. Don’t get me wrong these are just fine as they are, but there's nothing wrong with a little dazzle.



The Upgrade
First you will need to gather your supplies. shoes, velcro, ribbon, a hot glue gun, felt and anything crafty you might have lying around.

Second- you are going to need to cut your felt to size. There really isn't a right way to do this. It’s all trial and error. So you do that until you get something like this. * A great tip is to do one and use the 1st one as a template for the other shoe, just remember to flip it over when you go to the next step.

Next you will need to cut 4 strips of ribbon about 2 inches long. You'll need ribbon that’s wide enough to attach your velcro to. After you've cut your ribbon, glue one to each of the "y" ends like this.

Now you need to attach the velcro.

Here's the fun part, decorating !!!

Pom Pom's

Fabric Flowers

These tie on with ribbon insted of velcro.

The posiblities are endless. I'm gonna get some silk flowers and some fake jewels for a blinged out Croc.

Quick and Easy Cowl Neck Sweater Dress Tutorial

I've been playing with cowl necks lately. Some of my attempts were a complete disaster while others were not so bad. This one how ever was the easiest of all. I used a thrift store turtleneck sweater and I'm gona share with you how make this quick and easy cowl neck sweater dress.

First you will need to gather your supplies-

A turtle neck sweater the bigger the better

A t-shirt that fits loosely on your pumpkin

and regular sewing supplies



Now lay out the sweater, then lay the t-shirt on top of the sweater making sure that the neck of the t-shirt is lined up as close as you can with the neck of the sweater. You don’t want to cut these seems off, that makes for less sewing. Trace around the t-shirt and add a slight A line shape, like this

Now remove the t-shirt and cut. You should have something like this.

Next, with right sides of the fabric together, sew.

Turn the dress right side out, hem the sleeves and you are done. Quick and easy!!

*Note* My pumpkin wears about a 4t, so my guess is the dress works best up to this size.

Nativity Craft

This was one of the cutest Christmas crafts I've done. It was also 2 lessons in one- a great lesson on shapes and The greatest story ever told.


To make this you'll need -

construction paper or craft paper

popsicle sticks

glue

and cardstock paper (I used construction paper but I recommend using cardstock for stability)

Then you cut out 1 small triangle for Mary, a larger one for Joseph, rectangles for the 3 kings, circles for heads, smaller rectangles and octagons for the "gifts", triangles for the star, crowns, a trapezoid for baby Jesus’ crib (that’s what the kiddos were calling it), and a half circle for baby Jesus. Then arrange it to look like a nativity scene.

Once the shapes are glued down, glue on the popsicle sticks and you're done!

Fat Quarter Skirt Tutorial

It's here. After a few weeks of procrastinating and Christmas shopping, I finally managed to get this posted. This should fit a 2t-4t, but you might have to adjust measurements for the 2t. So here we go.


1st gather your materials

1 fat quarter

about a half a yard of coordinating fabric for waist and and trim pieces or another fat quarter

1 inch wide elastic



Because my camera got the swine flu and only seems to wanna work when all of the lights are off, there are few illustration and they're made my Microsoft paint.



OK now you cut your fabric. A fat quarter is usually about 21-22 inches that will be the width of the skirt. Now cut your fabric like this.

Now with right sides of the fabric together, sew the waist pieces, the skirt, and the ruffle together. Either serge or use a tight zigzag, the raw edges and press your seams.

Next, using your favorite form of gathering, gather the skirt to the width of the waist and the ruffle to the width of the skirt.
Then sew them all together and serge or zigzag edges and press seams. Now with right sides together sew the side of the skirt and once again serge or zigzag edges along with the top of the waist.

Next fold the waist piece in half, press it down and then top stitch leaving an opening large enough for the casing.

For the elastic casing your want to use a piece about 21-22 inches long depending on your child. I have a tubby toddler with a belly. She likes to wear things below it so sometimes I need a snugger fit. OK, now attach a safety pin to the end of the elastic and feed it through. Sew elastic together, top stitch the opening closed and lets hem the bottom.

The bottom of the skirt can be done whatever way you like it. You can hem it, serge it, lettuce edge it, whatever you like. Then you're done!!!

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Once I get a new camera I'll update the tute. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Green Pretend Food

I am constantly seeing tutes on how to make that cute felt food. I am also saying to myself that I should make some. Why not? I run an in home daycare and the kids would love it. Between the massive stack of started and not yet started sewing projects, and the fact that my life can be some what busy at times, I just have not gotten around to making some yet. Not to mention that I've been to Hancock's about a billion and one times, walked right on past the felt, and did not even think to buy some. So, what I do have is garbage and green play food takes very little time.


Your basic pretend juice and milk. Iwrote "Pretend Milk" on the milk because some one would think that it was real.

Some take out. I thought that the take out was awesome but the kids just called it a bucket and tried to open it.

Making green play food is very simple.
1st find or just wait until some one finished the milk or juice, make sure that you clean the container out really good. Just take my word on this.

2nd add water, you should fill it about a quarter to half way with water. Remember that children will be playing with these and you don't want their little piggies to get hurt when they accidentally drop it.

3rd add color, for apple juice you use about 2-3 drops of yellow and about 1 drop of red. If it looks like some one went to the bath room in it just adjust your color combo.
For milk I just added some white paint, and for any other kind of juice just play around with the color combo until you get the shade you were looking for. If you are making orange juice I suggest you use paint for a more authentic look.

4th glue your lid on with supper glue or a hot glue gun like I did.

Pretend juice isn't the only thing you can make. You can use cereal boxes, pasta boxes or any food box. You can use junk mail, news paper and plastic grocery bags to stuff the boxes so they wont get too smooshed. Then tape the box shut on box ends with some packing tape. I save the empty spice bottles and fill them with a little rice and glue the lid shut. It makes it feel a little more real to our little ones when they get to play with something that looks like the real deal. Not only that, its a great way the recycle and reuse what is basically garbage.


This is some of our loved and gently used pretend food, and when they get too beat up, I just stick them in the recycling bin and wait for some more trash.