My weekend consisted of a little of this:

(Edward 40 Hands...)

And A LOT of this:

This:

And this:

I was able to knock out a lot of projects on my list!.... But, I still have many more to go.

Jude's Dress-Up

Last night, my husband and I had dinner with his sister and our nephew, Jude. We walked to a nearby craft store afterwards and got onto the topic of Christmas. She mentioned a few of the things she wanted to do for Jude this year and one of them was a trunk of dress-up clothes. Well, I gladly accepted that challenge! With the pile of quilts and other long projects I'm always working on, having quick little projects to bust out periodically will be a breath of fresh air.

I was so excited that I already started today! My sister-in-law also mentioned that he might be acquiring a kitchen set. While I was searching the web for dress-up clothes tutorials I kept coming across aprons for kids made out of dish towels. I scrounged through our stack of dish towels and found this one(that I don't even think we've ever used) that seemed like the right amount of adorable without being feminine. I whipped this out in about 15 minutes loosely basing it off of this tutorial. It turned out pretty damn cute - if I do say so myself! I only hope that his recently vegetarian mom isn't turned off by the cheeseburger motif...

Finally - A quilt for me!

For our engagement party, Bryan's aunt bought us this amazing sheet set with orange and white fish on it. We absolutely LOVED it! The only problem was that it didn't match anything else we owned. So, since we only ever use the fitted sheet anyway, I decided to use the flat sheet to make a quilt! I found this quilt pattern online, and decided to give it a go!

Beagle tested and approved.

We love the way it turned out! Of course, it matches our sheets perfectly, but it also matches the pillow that we bought to match our sheets. Now if only I wasn't a blanket stealer so we could actually have it look this pretty on our bed all the time...

Presents are always fun.

But homemade presents are the best, aren't they?

I've been spending most of my craft energy on making things for other people lately. It's so much more fun to make something for someone else! I have a stack of projects I've started for myself or Bry, but instead, I have visions in my head of projects for the upcoming nephew and Christmas. Here are some of the things I've made in the past few months:

A pillow for my Aunt's 50th birthday. That's our song ;)

A toy box for Mason. (Ok, so this was Bryan's craft, but I helped)

A birthday quilt for Olivia(by far my favorite quilt I've made)

A "welcome to the world" quilt for Mason.

Katy makes things!

I've been on a roll lately! I have my two current quilts almost done, but as I need a break from them from time to time, I've been knocking out little projects! On Saturday, I made invitations for my sisters bridal shower. We're doing a Wizard of Oz theme since that's her favorite movie so they are yellow card stock that we made to look like a yellow brick road with a glittery red shoe and the words "Follow the yellow brick road" on the front. The back is going to be printed by one of her other bridesmaids. They turned out adorable. Also, for my birthday, my mother-in-law signed me up for yoga classes. I love it! However, it is a pain having to go to the classes after work lugging one bag with my change of clothes, water bottle, towel, etc, my purse, shoes(since you can't wear them once you're inside the studio), and my yoga mat. One of the ladies in my class came during the second week of class with a convenient yoga bag that she got off of Amazon for $20. I decided I wanted one too! During my online quest to find a suitable bag, I came across a tutorial for making your own(http://boredandcrafty.com/?p=2607 ). I made some slight adjustments, but there she is in all her glory. It only took me about 45 minutes to make it. It's lined with green fabric and it ties at the top. Obviously a cheaper alternative... it cost me about $6.

Speaking of birthday presents, I found a tutorial(http://notesfromaveryredkitchen.blogspot.com/2009/09/alphabet-bean-bag-tutorial.html) that I used to make what was supposed to be a birthday present for J-Man. There are 26 bean bags in the colors above. They all have a capitalized letter on one side, and the lowercase version of the same letter on the opposite. I started the project super early thinking that embroidering 52 little pieces of fabric was going to be a pain, and ended up getting them done fairly quickly. I took a few hours on two separate nights to get the embroidery done and the rest was cake! From what I hear, he loves them and wants to take them everywhere. I'm so glad that they didn't turn out to be something that seemed great in theory, but flopped. I'd love to be able to make them for our kids someday.

Christmas in March

My good friend Sarah never fails to give us super awesome gifts for Christmas, Birthdays, etc. This last year was no exception. The only exception was that we didn't give them a present at Christmas...

Sarah and her husband welcomed their baby girl into the world in September and I wanted to give them stockings with their names embroidered. Now, if I've learned anything from my sister-in-law, its that some things are worth paying extra for. I feel that stockings are one of these items seeing as families usually keep them around for years and years. For this reason, I didn't end up buying the stockings to embroider until sometime in February(When Pottery Barn FINALLY put them on sale!). They turned out adorable!

I even made one for their dog, Charlie!

Next time I do stockings for someone, I think I'm going to try and make the entire stocking from scratch. It is SUCH a pain to embroider an already assembled stocking...

Of course, I couldn't get away without making something for baby Ava! Bryan's mom bought us both a pattern to make these little letter pillows. Since she has a super short name, I thought I would try them out. I made then in a fabric that I already had so they didn't cost me anything! Also, I picked a fabric that matched her room so they could use them as a decoration. They ended up going in her crib(that she never uses... lol).

Better late than never!

...Right?