Baby Sewing Projects

Sewing for baby has been very fun and wonderful. I have enjoyed it because it has been a time for me to focus on expressing my love in a simple way for someone I have yet to meet.

Dashing Boy says its been a crazy experience to prepare our baby's space for him. Bare or filled and it wouldn't make any difference to him, but it has been a sweet little time for us together and we enjoy going in his room and being in awe at how our family is changing.

This love for a soon-to-be family member can be expressed in so so many ways. Not just ones that use domestic skills.

***

Sewing is something I have watched my Grandma do my entire life. She is amazing and is a true artist. With her so close by, it has been a blessing to be able to learn from her and see her love and dedication to her art.

Grandma's enthusiasm is contagious and now one year into really sewing-sewing I love it very much.

Here are the baby projects- a baby quilt, curtains and bedskirt.

The Quilt:

Vintage Circles Quilt by Yo Yo Mama Designs (I can't seem to find a website!): I fell in love with this pattern when I saw it at a local quilting store. There is no piecing to it, and the entire quilt is sewn and quilted in one go. So basically you baste your backing to the batting, then your top layer to the batting, then you arrange your pattern and sew all three layer at once. Pretty nifty.

I enjoy staring at it and seeing different shapes form. When I look at it I see pinwheels first and when dashing Boy looks at it he sees circles.

My cute Grandma came up to my house to help me baste the quilt layers together. She showed me a fast way to draw a grid on the quilt to properly space out the pattern! She knows all sorts of tricks that I would never think of.

This pattern was fairly easy to follow but the biggest frustration came from the pattern stating that charm packs could be used for either the 4'' or 5'' size patches (you can choose either one).

I ordered my charm packs accordingly for the 5" size. But when it came time to cut it out there was absolutely no way the 5" template would fit on a 5" charm square. Very frustrating.

(I just received a sweet message from Yo Yo Mama Designs and it looks like there was a distortion in the first printed patterns and some were sold before it was caught! The pattern has been revised so this shouldn't be a problem for anyone! Also, they are in the process of making a website! Very exciting, as I am absolutely in love with this pattern and excited to see and make more Yo Yo Mama creations!)

I ended up cutting them out in the 4" size. The charm pack fabric I used (Recess by American Jane) is out of print, and it was a little tricky to find so I supplemented them with some fat quarters for the rest of my patches. I'm happy with how it turned out!

Here it is all completed.

The Curtains:

Dashing Boy was a great sport and joined me to the fabric store where he chose one print and I chose another. I was going to make reversible curtains but with such light prints it was easier to just make two sets that we can rotate around.

I chose little birds.

And Dashing Boy chose cool cars!

The Bedskirt:

Nice and easy to make with the bedskirt pattern in Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones.


So there you are sweet baby. Keep the projects coming!

Amoeba Pizza and Artisan Bread!

Awhile back I had a lesson in artisan bread making. Finally, this week I put it to use!

I've been making a really big effort to be better about making meals every night. And as I've been planning and coming up with a system I thought: how easy dinners would be if we had fresh bread and salad as a fairly staple part of our meals each night.

This bread is a dream. Really, it is so much easier than I ever thought it would be.

So I do think the title: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is really true. I think I just might have to buy the book now- or Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. That one sounds very nice too.

Here is my first humble little loaf:

One thing I was very excited about with this bread dough is that is can also be used for pizza. I love to make homemade pizza but all the rising steps and such make it something that takes a bit of planning.

Well, I rolled out some of this dough one night, threw some toppings on it and baked it in the oven- and really it was some of the best homemade pizza dough we've had.

Dashing Boy said my pizza looked like an amoeba.
Which sounded so cool that I instantly got images of us having amoeba pizza nights with our children. We're such nerds.

Reupholstered Glider

A couple of weeks ago Dashing Boy and I received a wonderful gift. A still-in-great condition Dutailier glider for our nursery. It is very nice to sit on and the only thing needing some udpdating were the cushions.

Well goodness me! after looking online for replacements I found that they were over $200 for our particular glider! And so I turned to the crafty people of the blogosphere and found this lovely blog and glider makeover- the same glider as ours!

Grandma and I have spent the last four days working on it!

Here is the before:
I searched all my favorite designers collections of home decorator fabric and really loved Amy Butlers August Fields Fresh Start fabric in seafoam. It is bright and gender neutral.

I was able to find it on etsy for half price so the total cost to reupholster this glider was under $40 including the extra fabric I have to do an ottoman too!

Here is the after:
Grandma is so talented and patient. She made sure we got all the beautiful little details right!

Each piece is removable so it can be washed easily. I am so excited about it. It looks happy in our baby's room.

Thank you grandma! I can't wait to rock and nurse our sweet baby in it. I know I'll be thinking of you often as I do!

My name is Jenny and I am a bread snob.

I don't think there could be anything cooler than learning how to make bread like this:


Isn't it exciting! What a beauty! I was lucky enough today to take a wonderful class in artisan bread baking by my good friend Cristie at The Table Runner ( a great resource for finely tested and tuned recipes if I do say so myself).

Cristie is my go to person on baked goods. I have called her many a time with questions- knowing I can not go wrong if I follow her advice.

This past year she has perfected her art of artisan bread making- something I've wanted to learn very much how to do (We Love artisan bread in this house) but that has just seemed very daunting.

Well, fear not. Cristie showed me that it can be done easily (and with a little practice, maybe even with some grace like her).

She uses the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. And really it seemed like the title might really be true.

I'm very excited about it and am going to be experimenting with it this next little while.

Because things like artisan bread make me happy.

And lets face it, I'm a bread snob.

In college I worked at the heavenly Crumb Brothers Artisan Bread where we most definitely lived off the fresh bread I brought home everyday. I even started to get snobby about bread that was more than two days old. (Now that I'm not so spoiled I savor every last bite of an artisan bread loaf if it manages to last longer than two days!)

After college we even had a separate budget category for artisan bread for a spell just so we could have it every week.

But being able to make it myself? At home?

Very cool indeed.

Especially after being in company like this:

Oops.

This week Dashing Boy and I are watching a family of four children.

It is being quite the adventure.

It's fun and also hilarious to see how we each handle different situations.

Each day I feel a few success! moments (like during and after helping the children with homework and watching them learn, or successfully making nice dinners for everyone, or having a good conversation with one of them) and also each day I feel a few fail! ones too (Like realizing that one "parenting technique" might work really well for one child but not at all with another.)

Just now I had a fail. But it's kind of funny so perhaps it's a success in its own way.

***

This morning I was trying to be a dutiful wife, so as Dashing Boy was heading out the door I gave him some homemade fettucini sauce leftovers so he wouldn't have to worry about lunch today.

The little toddler has been LOVING this sauce for lunch so I scooped a bit out for her too.

At lunch I got the little girl's noodles all ready and began to feed her. She excitedly ate the first bite, knowing what to expect. Then, she reluctantly ate two more. After bite four she began to cry.

So I talked in a sweet baby voice encouraging her to eat more (I mean she devoured this stuff the other day!) She shook her head, moaning, then gave me an expression that broke my heart. So I fed her some of that delicious baby yogurt instead.

I was very perplexed as to why she so didn't like her noodles today.

Dashing Boy just called to tell me not to give the sauce to the little girl. "It isn't alfredo sauce," he said. "It's frosting."

Which doesn't sound all that bad. But it must not have been great because Dashing Boy was at home, rinsing off his noodles.

Which made me laugh even harder.

Meal= Fail. Dutiful wife success= Fail. Good laugh with myself and also with husband= Success!

I'll take it.

Vanilla Beans and Other Things.

I finally got to making this holiday's vanilla bean caramels. Yay! I'm so excited about it. and I can't stop eating them. But really, don't be fooled! I only appear (if that is even the case :) to have things together this Christmas.

I'm feeling a bit slow to get on top of things this year. I think I was so proud of myself for decorating our house and having a birthday party for Dashing Boy that I must have given myself a free pass to be a slacker.

Today I tried to pull it together a bit. Because, you know, Christmas Eve is a mere six days away.

I finally mailed out some Christmas cards (if you would like one e-mail me jenny@simplelifelove.com) and got to getting these caramels ready to give out.

Hopefully they'll get there by Christmas :)

Why didn't I think of that?

Today I'm watching my friend's cute little girl and I asked Dashing Boy if he could watch for a second while I took a quick shower. This is what I heard as soon as I stepped out of the shower and found when I came back downstairs:

Dashing Boy walking around the room playing an animated set on the accordion and a little girl giggling her heart out. It was awesome.

Even more so was Dashing Boy's proud exclamation, "It's so great! I can practice and watch her at the same time!"

Homemade Fancy, pt 3

HOMEMADE FANCY 2009
f a b r i c p i n w h e e l s

This project is my very most favorite of all. I keep walking downstairs to stare and smile at these fabric pinwheels. Easy and fun to make, they add a sense of cheer and whimsical to the room!

I found this project on fabulous Portobellopixie under the "free projects" sidebar. Here is the tutorial.

This what the finished project looks like:

Sandi Henderson's directions were super easy to follow. I didn't have the spray adhesive suggested in the directions so I used some fabric glue that I had. Also I used regular scissors.

I was really loving this color combination! And the snowflake button is so fun! A while back I bought a bag of mixed buttons at Michaels. Some of the buttons are pretty funny, but I use them a lot in crafts!


The pinwheels are hung from the ceiling in different clusters. I used bakers twine and thumbtacks to do the job! To attach the bakers twine onto the pinwheels I used scraps of fabric and glued the twine underneath them with a gluegun.


I made a bunch of random sizes of pinwheels- the largest being 12x12 and smallest 5x5. I think the small ones are pretty cute!


This project was pretty inexpensive! I had some scraps of fabric already that I used and I also used purchased one yard of fabric for this project. Total, for the amount of pinwheels I made, I used no more than 1 1/2 yards of fabric. The total cost for this project: 2 posterboards $1 + $6 fabric = $7 total! (I had the twine and and buttons already but you can find them at really inexpensive prices-just use a coupon!)


Yay! I think I might even want to leave these up after the holidays are over!

Homemade Fancy, pt 2

HOMEMADE FANCY 2009!
presents: dollar store inspiration
These two little projects are semi-homemade and add a fun little spark to the room.

First: I wanted to add a touch of something to my living room centerpiece. I have a large, wonderful quilt hanging that my grandma made for me. So I decided what it needed was some garlands. These worked very well with this set up, but they could look fun and festive in many different places.

Here is what it looked like when I was finished:


For this project I simply purchased two white ball garlands from Joann's. They were on sale two for $5.99. Next, I went to the dollar store and found some lovely jingle bells: nine for $1.

The bells came with golden twine to tie them with. So I tied them on the garland.



Simple and festive. Total cost per garland $4. Not too shabby.


Next, well this project isn't really homemade at all but it's too fun. I was looking for a table centerpiece and I remembered that at Belle's house they had a large glass bowl in the center of their table and for every holiday Belle's mom would fill it with something fun. Fruits in the summer, tons of conversation hearts at Valentines day. Belle loved it.

I have a nice, large glass salad bowl that is used on rare, fancy occasions. So I filled it with ornaments from the dollar store.


I love all the different textures! Total cost: $4. Perhaps I will start a tradition of filling this bowl with different things too.

Homemade Fancy, pt 1

This year I wanted make things sparkle a bit more in our home for the holidays. My goal is to spend very little to no money to do this. And so I present to you:

HOMEMADE FANCY 2009!

I have been eying wreaths now for quite some time. But I must be looking in the wrong places or something because all the wreaths I like are $50 or so! Even with adding a coupon to that, that price just seems a little steep. And so, for my my first project I made a wreath. I had all the materials I needed for the project lying around my house so the total price= $0.

This is what it looks like:

For this project you will need:
Fabric scraps
a metal hanger
ribbon if you wish
a ruler
scissors
pliers
gluegun

Step 1: Take the metal hanger and with the wire cutting part on the pliers cut the top part of the hanger off. Then, using the pliers, bend your hanger around into a circle. It doesn't need to be perfect. If there are a few little kinks you won't see them in the end. Bend the two ends of the wire in opposing directions and attach them to each other to complete the circle.


Step 2: Take a strip of fabric and with your gluegun attach one end of the fabric over where the two ends meet each other. Wrap it around this area then glue the other side down.

Step 3: Now it is time to rip your fabric. I ripped mine into roughly 1 1/2 x 8 inch strips. I measured the strip length and then just arbitrarily cut little indentations and ripped them. I like the ripped look plus it's super fast and easy! I had fabric scraps already that needed a use, but if you don't, you can print a coupon online and you can get some fabric for not much. I think a yard total would be plenty!


Step 4: Tie tie tie! Take your strips and tie them around your hanger! then squeeze them all together and tie some more! (I think I could have made mine a tad bushier but thought it looked nice when I stopped). *In this step, before you are completely done, make sure to add a ribbon on the top that you will use to hang the wreath. Fold the ribbon in half, wrap it around the wreath, then pull then ends of the ribbon through the loop. Then tie some strips over it!


Step 5: Now all it needs is a bow or some other decoration! or nothing if you want it simple!


Wallah! A crafty evening and a cute wreath!

Fall Time Times.

(photo by very talented: Kali Foley)

There is something about the fall that makes me feel like I should be getting lots of things done.

Like I need to hurry and gather all my acorns or something before I scurry inside for the winter.

I feel that crisp air, and in it I feel light and happy (it is my favorite season). But also I feel a bit weighty too as a string of little tasks that I want to accomplish go through my head. Preparedness before the winter.

And so I've been running around. Planting bushes. Pansies too, because at our last apartment we had pansies that lasted all winter long. Doing lots of little projects around the house.

But now all I want to do is lie on the floor.

That actually really sounds like a good, worthy way to spend my day.

But that is what I did (for the most part- aside from a 3 hour motivated block of time) yesterday.

no good. no good.

There are garden boxes to be built, and garlic waiting to be planted. There are sewing projects asking for some attention. There is that Julia Child cookbook I bought along with everybody else, and a husband who would probably love some nice fancy food. There are jobs to be found, visiting teaching to be done and new moms to give gifts to.

No no. I musn't lie on the floor.

Perhaps I can reserve that for a stormy day in the winter.

Before and After.

I have always wanted to learn how to paint furniture. To make something bright and pretty out of something worn and dull.

Dashing Boy keeps teasing me that I've painted every available surface in our house (this is not true as I can see plenty more surfaces :)

And so here is a big portion of how I've been spending my time this last month:

This table was free, but empty with no chairs. So six raw wood chairs were found at Ikea at a nice, affordable price. They were painted the color of my kitchen-aid mixer.

Next, two side tables Mom and Dad were getting rid of.
These were painted a lighter shade of aqua.
Since the two tables are in separate rooms I dressed them a little differently with knobs from anthropologie.
This bench was found at a thrift store for $25.
It was painted a nice lime green- a color match from one of my favorite latte bowls.

I love the lime green against the aqua wall (the same color as the side tables)

Finally a table purchased from my Grampa's consignment shop when it was closing its doors.
a light yellow makes the room feel cheery.
The end.

for more "before and after" pictures check out my friend Randi's blog- just scroll to the D.I. Furniture Makeover!!! section in her post! I LOVE the fun colors!

"You Do Know That Soup Will Be Green."

Words of my mother-in-law as we made and canned heirloom tomato soup from the bounty of tomatoes in our garden. It turned out to be more of an orange-ish color. It's quite lovely.

Mrs. Muppet also taught me how to can peaches. Something that always seemed so difficult but was really not so hard!

Hooray!

Thank you Mrs. Muppet!

Jenny and the Half Good, Somewhat Bad, Kind of Rotten Day.

Yesterday was one of those days. A good/bad, satisfying/unsatisfying, long, blah, tired day.

Most of the day was spent packing the kitchen with my sister Juju (who may I just say was a little angel, life-saver, kindred sister friend). It was a lot of work, a little sad (oh how I loved this kitchen!), and really just draining.

By the late afternoon I wanted to take a nap so badly but resisted the urge, trying to be very efficient and productive.

So instead of napping, Juju and I laid on the bed and had awake napping. You know, the kind where you let your eyes relax into a sloppy stare and you have random/sparse conversation for a good half hour...

Then a good friend arrived (thank you!) to help us finish the final kitchen leg so we got up, swallowed our sleepiness, and did it.

(As a side note Juju loves the Duggar family and admires the Duggar daughter's industrious, hard-working abilities. She says they are going to be such good moms because they just get in there and get things done. And so I must say Juju, that you are going to be a great mom- and not just because of your working abilities either).

After Juju and my friend left, I had a quick dinner, did my visiting teaching, then came home.

For the past week Dashing Boy has asked me to do some reviews on Angies List. They had a little special going on and if you filled out 8 health reviews you would get an ipod shuffle.

Well goodness, the deadline was yesterday so I ended up spending the remainder of the night filling out reviews, visions of a happy Dashing Boy listening to his ipod with visions of a lovely me in his head.

I missed the deadline by two minutes.

All the hard work for naught! Oh, it was just enough to almost make exhausted me cry and be angry at the same time.

It was a half good (Juju, nice friend, packed kitchen) somewhat bad (tired, go go go, wasted evening, no gift for husband) about to get kind of rotten day.

I moped into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Dashing Boy had just used the toilet and being environmentally conscious decided that I would probably use it right away too so why waste a flush.

And then... the rotten...

As I reached in the cabinet to put my toothbrush back-a sonicare toothbrush, mind you- a terrible thing happened. Like a perfectly orchestrated winning dive the toothbrush plunged out of my hand, flew up into the air and fell swoosh into the toilet.

I leaned over and stared. Just stared. And then a full burst of Dashing Boy laughter- the really good, high laughter that only comes out when something is really, really funny.

And so although I didn't provide an ipod shuffle yesterday evening, I did provide some belly laughter and a solid funny memory

That I will be sure to utilize should any terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days arise.

Hobbies, Love, and Thoughtful Advice.

When I was in high school I had a wonderful group of girlfriends. Strong, amazing women. I loved them (and still do) and admired their commanding talents: One was a master swimmer, literally breaking all kinds of records. One a skilled and savvy soccer star. Another a poet and artist with an aura like a peaceful river (seriously).

Of course each possessing many wonderful, lovely qualities in addition to their hobbies- they all had a fierce (for better of worse) defining thing that they loved to do.

I couldn't help but wonder, what do I have?

And you know what? Nothing really big came up. I thought of things like: I'm a nice person, I try to be a good friend, I care about others... But at seventeen, what I really wanted, what I really thought would be cool would be something flashy like: I'm a dancer, or a surfer (ok, not realistic in the mountains but...) or something like that.

Of course it's silly to put too much into the labels we put on ourselves and each other, but even then, beyond the glitzy thoughts, I recognized the power in having something- a hobby or sport or whatever, that you do because you love doing it.

A couple of years later I got married. And thoughts of being a good friend/neighbor/wife/mother occupied my mind. What could I do that would help me in these roles? Something I would love to do? The time was ripe for some defining.

And so I thought about some of the women I looked up to as I was growing up. And one woman in particular came to mind.

Alice was a wonderful baker. One of my mom's best friends and the mother to a friend of mine, her house was always filled with the sweet scents of good baking-made with love and skill. Many times you would go to her house and a fresh sheet pan of chocolate covered candies would be cooling on her counter. She shared her treats with all those she loved.

I wanted to be like Alice.

And so, a few months after being married I decided that I was going to learn how to bake. I made toffee first- and learned all about candy crystallization after my first batch failed just minutes into the process. But I kept learning. I keep learning. And I love it.

This week Grandma is giving me sewing lessons. Grandma is the most amazing seamstress I have ever seen. Truly, each piece is so perfect with attention given to all the little details.

She sews 12 hours a day. And she loves it. At the fabric store yesterday as we admired all the beautiful fabrics, Grandma exclaimed "I need to live until I'm 150 so I can sew all the projects I'd like to sew!"

And then today, Grandma told me that she was so glad that I was interested in learning how to sew because it is so important to have a hobby that you enjoy doing. "I have all this time," she said, "and I have something to do with it, instead of being lonely."

Grandma sews for herself, and she sews for others- almost every project that she does is done with someone in mind. She gives in such a valuable, appreciated, loving way.

I was thinking about what she said today, about having a hobby. I've been soaking it in, pondering her wise words.

Then tonight I helped bring dinner to an older couple from church. She had fallen recently, and needed some help with their meals.

And so I brought some food over to their home. She sat in a chair and explained her broken knee, while her husband, slow and sweet walked from the couch to the kitchen to the couch. Another lady had helped bring food too. So we both sat on the couch and talked. And then the lady told me, admiring, serious, "Mary is a wonderful quilter. She has made dozens and dozens and dozens of tiny-pieced, intricate quilts that are just beautiful." Mary sat in her chair and talked about quilting and crocheting a bit.

And then the lady and I left. I was just about to get in the car when Mary's husband got to the front door and shouted, "You forgot your dish towels!" His arms extended, holding two towels for us.

"Mary has a lot of time and likes to make these and give them away," he said.

Mary was giving a dish towel, beautifully crocheted with three different colors, to everyone that was helping bring her food. Mary was giving in such a loving way, her way.

Thank you Grandma and thank you Mary and thank you Alice, for your beautiful examples and wise words.

I long to follow in your footsteps.