Shameless Plug

I am very much with Chelsea on the fact that I have been neglecting Mini Frippery! Poor thing! My best friend Susan and I have opened up our little shop called Rasunbaby so all of my crafting energy has been going towards those orders! Go check out what I've made over at Rasunbaby. We still love you Frippery! :)

Another Felt Book

Poor, neglected Mini Frippery. Well, if any of you are like me, there has just been no time for crafts! Especially now during school, finals coming up, and the holidays. But I felt sorry for the blog, it hasn't had attention in a while, so I thought I'd post something.

I actually made this a long time ago, for my niece's first birthday. But I realized I hadn't posted it and the pictures were already on my computer and Afton is Finally sleeping...so enough of all the talk, here's some pictures. 

Anya's Felt Matching Book

All of the things have a small piece of velcro on them. I just got the stick-on kind, and I don't think that's the best for felt, but I didn't want to sew through the letters.

{Finger Puppets}

{these were the hardest to sew on cause of all the sharp turn and curves}

{My favorite one, although it took the longest}

So there's another Felt book for you. I'm obsessed with felt and I can't wait to make more. 

...Someday...

Nephew's School Bag

Is everyone just too busy sewing and playing to post about it? It's been awfully quiet here. My nephew turned four yesterday, so I made this cute book bag for him. I now have plans for my niece who is five next week ... it was really fun!

Zebras are his favorite. This was great - I traced it onto fabric, colored it with crayons, then ironed it (make sure you put a paper towel over the picture so you don't get wax on your iron).

This inside fabric is probably my favorite. They only had the bright red straps, so that was a little disappointing, but I think it will be fine.

Beaded Socks

I made these cute socks for my nieces. I was saving them for birthdays, but then the 4th came along and I had to do some red, white, and blue ones. I love them. They're really easy (basically, just a chain crochet stitch) and really fast (a few hours and you have some snazzy socks!)

These are the instructions I used, but there are so many out there! I just did a Google search and came up with lots of different styles. Oh - and it may just be me, but I used a lot more beads than the instructions said, so make sure you string extra!

Busy, busy!

I have had lots of baby showers to go to recently so I've been sewing a lot for them. It's been so much fun! I would sew all day long if I could! On a side note, my best friend Susan and I are going to start a little etsy shop selling our baby gear. I like to make slings, nursing covers, appliqued/ ruffles onesies and baby legs. Susan does great diaper bags, purses, nursing covers and burp rags. I'll let everyone know how that is going! But back to the pictures:

I made this nursing cover for my friend Katie

with a burp rag corner sewn in

Matching quilted card for her

These are from my phone= poor quality

This was for my friend Savannah

Burp rag corner

Made these baby legs for my chubby bubby.

Once again, bad photos. The colors are really much prettier!

Susan and her mom made me an AMAZING diaper bag out of these fabrics

so as a thank you to her mom, I made this quilted card out of the scraps

Made this card for my MIL's birthday. 

I made myself a baby sling to replace the one in the Yukon. I created my own tutorial for it! I'm so proud! Photos to come! 

Thanks for looking!

G-I-R-A-F-F-E, Giraffe, Giraffe, Giraffe

Isn't he cute?! Thanks to my SIL Lisa who found the pattern here

I really am loving it. This was for a friend's baby so I'm going to have to make another one for my baby

By the way, the title is a song. I'm really not crazy

Toy Bag Tutorial

I'm so excited about this one! This is the first project where I thought it up all myself and created it and it turned out just how I wanted it to! I'm so excited I just wanted to share it with you.  I'm new to this so let me know if it doesn't make sense. I took lots of pictures to help my explaining.

What you'll need: 

• One 12 x 26 piece of fabric for the bag
• Two 1.5 x 15 pieces of same or contrasting fabric for the strings {or you can use ribbon or rope or anything you want, just cut it at 15 "}

Strings:

{If you're doing ribbon or rope, skip steps 1-4 )       

                           

1. With your string fabric pieces, fold down one short end 1/4" and iron. Then again. 

2. Fold the fabric in half; iron; and open back up.

3. Fold one long edge into the middle and iron, then the same for the other edge (so it's folded in thirds)

4. Then fold the fabric in half again, iron down, and top-stitch the

 whole length. 

Repeat for second string.

That's all for now with these, onto the bag:

5. Fold one of the long ends of the fabric down 1/2 in. and iron. fold down again and iron (you

 can do this on both long ends but you don't need to.) 

6. Iron down both the short ends 1/2 in. once

7. (This is going to be a confusing one) Place the short raw edge of the string (the side you didn't fold down) on the raw edge of the short side of the bag. Fold the bag fabric over the string so you can sew the edge of the bag closed without getting the string. Pin it down and sew the edge, Making sure you don't catch the ribbon in the stitch! keep the pin in for now.

8. When both short ends are sewn, fold the bag in half hamburger style so the right sides are

 facing. 

9. Sew the long edge with the raw edge first (the pinned side of the ribbons) together with a 1/4 in seam allowance. Sew over the ribbon a few times for durability. 

10. Sew the folded edge next, starting from the bottom. Make sure you stop before you get

 to the ribbons! I stopped at the top seam. 

11. turn the bag right side out and iron. Tie a knot in the end of the ribbons if you want (it won't be a problem if you don't want to, I just did it for looks)

An optional way to do the bottom bag:

12. You can leave the bag as it is or you can do this: Turn the bag inside out again. fold the corner flat and pin it. 

 

13. Sew straight across following the pin. 

14. Trim the corner and turn right side out.

Ta Da! You're done. you can embellish as you want. Let me know if it's all totally confusing.

 

Felt Song Book

Hooray! I can post my book now, little Jo opened it. I got this idea from the quiet book from homemade by jill. 

I loved it but I wanted to do it differently so I made it into a songbook. I'm actually really happy about the way it turned out. 

Cover Page

3 little speckled frogs...

Almost all of the pages have little pocket that the animals can go into

Old McDonald had a Farm...

(with finger puppets)

3 little monkeys swingin' in a tree...

3 little duck went out to play...

Here's a ball for baby

(I couldn't think of anything for this one so I made them flaps to open and see what's underneath)

If you don't know the song, you really should learn it. We love it at our house :)

All the pages together. Sorry it's a small picture.

I think if you click on them it'll make them bigger. 

Back Cover. I just had to do it. 

If you can't see the pictures very well, I'll try and do it again and make them bigger

Sweet Little Lambs

Just a quick post to show you the little stuffed lambs I've made recently. The pattern is from bit of whimsy dolls that I bought on artfire...go check out her shop...seriously cute stuff! This one I made for my niece who just turned 4:
And this one is for my own bebe:I made them with fake fur which made them harder to make, but much more cuddly than if I had just used chenille.

Easiest Scubbie Ever

So as I was craft-blog hopping, I found the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef blog and thus began the inspiration. I've been trying to find a good scrubbie pattern and there it was. The site is a place where people from all over crochet a coral reef as a "woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world."  It's really cool all of the designs they come up with, so I made my own little coral to be my scrubbie. 

Materials: 

Peaches and Cream Yarn

Crochet Hook- any size (I used size H)

NOTES: 

• sc=single crochet
  
• You can use any basic stitch you want
  
• Crochet in the front and back loops to make it sturdier
  
• Worked in one continuous round
  

1. Make a Magic Ring. (Planet June has the best photo tutorial for this. You'll never go back to the old way)

2. Crochet 2 sc in each sc 

Ta Da: that's all

Repeat Round 2 until you feel like it. 

Finish: slip stitch into next stitch and fasten off. Weave in Ends. Trim the middle yarn

It starts out looking like this

After a few more rounds, it starts to get wavy

You can stop here if you want, or keep going.

These are my finished scrubbies. 

The best part about this is, you can make them as big or little as you want, or until you run out of yarn or time. The big one takes about 15 min. 

You can make at least 4 or 5 out of the small Peaches and Cream ball. These would be good to give with a bottle of dish soap as a bridal shower gift. 

Crochet Project

I've never done a crochet project other than really simple single crochet ones - so this was a step for me. My sister-in-law patiently helped me the whole way through and didn't make fun when I had to take it apart to fix it and took months to finish! But it's finally done - yea!

Craft Overload...and Loving it

(Excuse the photography)

I have been engulfed in crafts lately. After cleaning the house and doing homework, and in between taking care of the baby, I have a bit of time to work on my many projects I have started. My mom made my Afton this fabulous quilt:

And gave me the scraps, so I made this quilt top:

and back:

Since I have never put a quilt together, it's still in these two pieces. I have also discovered the greatness of English Paper Piecing. I got the idea from here at Craftsanity, and the instructions from here. 

 

And I'm making a mini one, for a doll blanket or something. 

I did it a little bit different than the instructions though. I got the precut fabric from my aunt who got it from her mom who got it from her daughter who got it from her sister-in-law who got it from her mom. In other words, it's been through a lot of people and it's probably 50's fabric. The fabric's pretty cool and like Shayla said, if you hold onto something long enough, it'll come back in style. 

I'll post more pictures when I get more of them done.

ALSO:

I made this plastic bag holder cause I had them all over the place. 

I also LOVE these. Dorset Buttons. All you need is plastic rings, embroidery floss (I just use the cheap stuff) or yarn and a large eye, blunt end needle. They are so fun. 

I plan on putting them on crocheted hats or even a scrapbook page. I got the idea from craftstylish. And whenever I get to it, I'm making this scrappy quilt. I plan on having a jean back and it will be an outside quilt. This is one of the blocks. It looks ugly when put together but that's why it's being used outdoors.

PHEW:  that's all for now. Notice how all of these are started but most are not finished :) My favorites right now are the paper quilting and the dorset buttons. You can take them anywhere, even on car rides.