I can't eat ice cream (especially when it is as rich as this was) but I did take a little lick and boy, it was good.
I didn't have much rhyme or reason for the scraps I chose, except they had to be either mainly green or brown. Then I threw in just a little bit of light blue just for the heck of it. I didn't realize that I had so much green fabric lying around. I guess I like green... of course that should be obvious as 6 of the 9 rooms in this house are green. The quilt should be fun... it will remind me of all the projects I made last year using these fabrics.
I was also talked into making a Patrick costume for my nephew. My sister wanted to order one for him for Christmas but they were , so I stupidly volunteered. Actually I said, "Why do make him one?" And she said, "Why do YOU make him one?" So I did. It was a hit.
I also made Cate an oven mitt and a matching one for her mom. I put them with some sprinkles, cupcake papers and a cool spatula. I was told that Cate received a play kitchen from the big guy, so she was pretty excited to have her own little oven mitt.
Up next is a scrap quilt. I 'll try to get some decent pictures of my progress soon.
it's the gift I made for the little one I watch, Cate. She loves all the "If You Give" books, and this is the newsest version. So I made a little kitty to go with it, wearing tropical shorts (he does in the book) and a cupcake. The Kitty and the cupcake fit into a little lunch pail, which actually would be better for another book in the series, If You Take A Mouse to School, but she'll still like it. I think I might also give her a cupcake recipe and a jar of sprinkles.
And just to procrastinate a little more, here are some of the finished oven mitts with a cookie cutter attached. That's how I plan on presenting them. They'll be going into my sisters' stockings so I'm not even going to wrap them. I made some cinnamon ornaments with each cutter first and will attach those to the mitt as well. I highly suggest making the cinnamon ornaments, they make your house smell soooooo good.
For the few things I need to package up, I whipped up these gift bags. I was looking at printed gift bags and even at $1.00 a piece I thought, that's too much. (Have I told you that I am extremely cheap about somethings?) So, I bought a pack of plain white ones, (10 for $4.00) cut some tree shapes out of sticky backed felt that I had on hand, had Ethan help me glue sequins onto some of them and stamped them with a "Merry Christmas" stamp I got at Michael's last year. Festive and super cheap!!
And this little cute thing, I just had to share.... it's a reindeer Ethan made in nursery school a few years ago. We reined him up to this Santa and sleigh that we received as a gift. I just think it's hysterical.
Here is my hubby (sister and parents are in the background) leaving the grounds. We thought about staying for a factory tour, but Bloody Mary's at Fargo were calling us. (Did I mention we were kid free!!)
This was a cute tree decorated with chicken ornaments.... I almost bought one for my daughter because she made some chicken ornaments for her brothers for Christmas and I thought it would be ironic... but $18 was too much to pay for irony.
You can order tiles and sinks and knob there too.... if you can afford to outfit you home with it.
The displays were all so wonderful.
This little girl bed was so beautiful... and I don't even want to tell you what it cost (more than my husband's car).
But, to be a good consumer, I did buy something.... this little cardboard house.
It goes with the little cardboard church I bought a few years ago and the sparkly tree candle that Ethan stared to peel this year!
I've slowed down a bit on the oven mitts... but finished one lat night, along with a set of cloth napkins! Now I only have,what, 6, to go?? Something like that.
This is the little train bag and quilt set I made for Jack. (My little charge Cate was my toy tester.) Before he was a tractor freak he was a train freak. I bought the fabric with the train on it at the awesome fabric store that closed, and added the rest from my stash. The quilt flips over to a play mat. I got the train at Target in the dollar bin, and the tote was from Micheal's or Joann's.
Here's a close-up of his name on the bag. When Ethan saw the bag he wanted something special too... so I made him a "5" pillow. It's in the picture below behind Knuffle bunny... which I made for him for Christmas.
Here's Knuffle on Christmas morning.
Knuffle Bunny is one of Ethan's favorite books. I searched high and low for a knuffle softie, but didn't like what I found... so I decided to try to make him one. He's made from a green sweater I found at the local thrift shop, some felt and a big white pom pom tail. I didn't use a pattern (do I ever? I'm far too lazy) so he's a little wonky... but Ethan loves him.
I asked my sister in law what my nephew Jack (who is three) would like for Christmas. He is known to be a tractor freak, but Maura said he had enough tractors. "Maybe a barn," she suggested. So the hunt began for a reasonably priced nice toy barn for Jack. I found a few nice (but pricey) wooden ones, and nearly ordered one, until I saw the shipping price was $18!! So I decided I could try to make him one.
I saw this tutorial and thought that it was just adorable, but didn't know if I'd have the time or the patience to make it. So I took the pattern but tweaked it.
Instead of using fabric, batting and something rigid inside, I made the whole thing out of stiff felt. I just cut out the pieces and sewed them together using a zig-zag stitch. The little fence is from the flower decor section of Joann's. I sewed it to the side of the barn with red thread with tiny stitches around the wire that is holding the slats together.
I'm adding a tube of animals (I took them out of the tube for the pictures) to complete the set. I figured Jack could play with the little barn with his tractors too. Hope he likes it!
For her boys I added little sculpy initial charms so that they could tell them apart. Of course when Ethan saw the charms he wanted his own.
This one is a work in progress. One of my sisters has chickens. In fact, she gave us our first two chickens. I need a little bit of black or red for the binding to finish it up. That would make 3 that I can give away... only 7 to go!
Oh, and I made one other change to Skip tp My Lou's tutorial (besides adding the batting).. I use Amy Karol's "sew then cut" rule. It is seroiusly the best tip I have gleaned from her incredible book. (If you don't know what this is, I'll explain: instead of cutting out the mitt shapes and then sewing them together, I place the two quilted rectangles right side facing together, trace the mitt pattern onto it, sew on the pattern line and then cut it out all at once.)
Ethan was a pirate skeleton. We re-used parts of Hudson's pirate costume form a few years ago and added the skeleton parts. On Halloween morning I realized that he had no skeleton shirt to wear so I whipped out the freezer paper and stenciled him up nice set of rib bones.
Hudson was a beast, re-using the beast parts I made for my Dad to use for a church talent show. I made him some fuzzy pants, a tattered shirt and we added a dollar mask from Walmart.
Alex was Velma Kelly (from Chicago). I made her a little flapper dress (man- fringe is pain) and a garter, added fishnet stockings, a wig and my mom's ancient rabbit fur coat. Oh, and she's wearing my shoes. They were probably small on her.
I had some yellow flannel, orange fleece and some black and some white cotton something-or-other (I am so limited in my knowledge of what material is called). I started by sewing together strips of the orange, yellow and white. Then I laid out the black and colored pieces right sides facing, and laid an additional white piece on top. This piece will be the lining. Then, taking a trick I learned from Bend the Rules Sewing back in my bib making days, I sewed then cut the material. SO much easier this way. 
Then I turned the bag right side out, filled them with 1/2 cup split peas and top-stitched them shut. It is sort of hard to top stitch a bean bag when it is already filled with beans, so some of the stitching is a little wonky, but who cares? They are only bean bags!
It wasn't until I was all done and got out a few real candy corns that I realized that the orange should go in the middle. Oh well. If I were to do this again I would have used a brighter/darker yellow as well, but I was just using what I had on hand. (Sorry for the lousy photos... its a grey day here today.)Now I just need to figure out what to toss them into??? My friend offered up a plastic black cauldron. That could work. Maybe a cut-out of a trick-or-treat bag? Any suggestions???
**UPDATE: I went with a big cat. Thanks for the suggestion Amber! He's a little freaky looking, but o-well.
Ethan gave it a trial run when he got home from school. Celia (who I babysit for) confirmed it's creepiness.
