Rag-Tie Scarf

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. The funeral is this Saturday in Iowa so unfortunately we are unable to attend due to my husbands school schedule. My FIL is on a plane right now to Iowa to be with his father and siblings during this difficult time. We are keeping our routine the same and living life to the fullest just as Jerra would want. Thank you again.

This is a re-post but all of my friends have been asking me to show how to make this again so here it is!

As most of you know I am a big believer of making cute, easy, inexpensive things that you and your kids will love. So before Christmas I sat down and tried to come up with something along that line for my daughter. The first thing I made her was a rag tie scarf. As you have already seen in this previous post that I did, it is really easy to do rag tie. First you start off with however much fleece you would like to use. I bought half a yard since I wanted to make a skinny scarf since my daughter is only 2. Btw...I got a steal at Joann's on a fleece! It was originally 15 a yard which was on sale for 7.30 and I only bought half a yard which made this less than a 4 dollar scarf! Anyway, back to the tutorial...

Place equal size pieces of fabric wrong side towards each other.

 

Cut 2.5 x 2.5 inch squares from all four corners (or bigger depending on width of scraf) Cut 2.5 inch slits 1 inch apart on all four sides.

 

Tie the strips together following this tutorial and you have an adorable, inexpensive scarf to keep yout munchkin warm!

Woo Hoo! I finally got a picture of her lol

Blue Cricket Design: Show and Tell Wednesday

Baby Shower Gifts

Happy Saturday! Now that the baby shower is only an hour away I wanted to share with you what I am giving the mommy and daddy to be! (Just in case she reads my blog lol) Here is the complete present:

In the box we have a blanket I made (This is the first one I have made):

On top of the box is this bucket I decorated (The bottom is painted with ribbon and button embellishments. The top is covered in fabric:

Inside the bucket we have bottles:

Burp Cloth:

Name sign I made:

Hair bows I made:

And the hand made card:

I hope you enjoyed seeing those as much as I enjoyed making them! Now I'm off to the baby shower!

Baby Shower Gift Idea #1

Happy Thursday! I hope you all are getting excited for the weekend. I know I am! Not only because my hubby will be home but also because we are going to a couples baby shower! I am so excited to have my hubby go with me (esp since I don't know the mom-to-be that well) but it will be so much fun. I am also excited because of all the gifts I am making them! The next few days I will show off what I have made. I wanted to show you the first one real quick before I go fight with my daughter about taking a nap lol.

These were so easy to make that I made 2 in 5 minutes and they cost me less than a dollar each. I cannot wait to make more for the muchkin! I followed Michelle's tutorial @Land of the Misfit Toys. She gives you pictures for each step so it is so easy to do! I hope you like them! Enjoy!

P.S. Don't mind the messy work table, that means I get lots of use out of it! :)

Write It Out Project

I am writing this post with a heavy heart. As soon as I heard about this project I knew that I had to share it with you fantastic readers so that you could make some too. If each of you made one we would be able to add 46 more of these books to this wonderful project. This brings tears to my eyes at the thought of ever having to go through this but this is a wonderful way to help. What Alida @I Make Stuff is doing is making grief journals for widowed military wives. This is a very easy thing to make and she also has shown you how to make it.

As a military wife myself I went through 3 deployments, 2 to Iraq (my daughter was born during the second one) and many time spent apart from each other. Even with the heartache and lonliness that I experienced, nothing comes close to what these women go through with their husbands never coming home. These journals, even though small, will help the women just a little bit to get through these rough times. Here is what Alida has to say:

"I am about to share something deeply personal with you my crafty friends. I am an Iraq War widow. My first husband, Sgt. Daniel Woodcock, was killed in Iraq March 11, 2007.

The reason I am sharing this with you is that the 3 year anniversary of his death is steadily approaching and I have been feeling this enormous sense that I need to do something to commemorate it. Then last month a good friend's husband was killed in Afghanistan and it became clear. I need to help comfort these women.

The reason this blog is called "I Make Stuff" is that making stuff is my reaction to the world around me. When my friends are sick, having a baby, or just having a hard time I Make Stuff. When I am feeling the grief particularly strongly, I Make Stuff. It makes me feel as if I have some control. This year instead of spending the day with my heart in the fetal position, I want to make stuff. Not only do I want to make stuff but I want to SEND stuff.

I am starting what I'd like to call the Write It Out Project, handmade journals for grieving military widows. I read somewhere (and now I CANNOT find it!) that people who journal through times of grief are less likely to need depression medications as people who don't. I know that I found it extremely helpful.

So, to make a very long story short, I am posting this tutorial and asking my crafty friends a favor. Would you be willing to make one of these for a military widow? Composition notebooks only cost a dollar and I bet you have all of the other materials in your stash.

If you make one of these please contact me at alidanicolelee@gmail.com and I will tell you what to do next. Thank you so much my crafty friends! This will be a wonderful project!"

I do hope you can each make at least one of these so that we can all help at least 46 fellow military wives during this hard time. If any of you make them I would love for you to e-mail me your pictures and I will do a feature post with each picture along with your blog site address. Thank you.

**Edited to add...For those of you who do not sew, or do not own a sewing machine, there is another way for you to decorate these. Here is a tutorial on how to cover them in a no sew fashion. No matter how your book comes out it does not matter, all that matters is that we are touching the lives of military widows. I bought 3 books today to start on and am hoping to buy more. I think I am going to do some in fabric and some in scrapbook paper! Thanks.

Top 10 Reasons I Love You

Hello Ladies! I hope the second day of your week is turning out to be a fantastic one! I know I am having an amazing time because my very dear friend and I have been wedding dress shopping since she just got engaged on New Years Eve! I am so excited for her and cannot wait to share my creative talents in helping her plan her wedding! We are having so much fun planning and I will be sharing with you some crafts and ideas in the next few months!

Today's post I am featuring Stephanie @Somewhat Simple who has made an adorable tutorial on a cute gift idea for your significant other! This is so easy and so cute to do that I cannot wait to make one for my hubby, just don't tell him! So head on over to Somewhat Simple to make this adorable craft! Enjoy!

Diaper Cakes

About 9 months ago I was working with my aunt to throw my cousin Sara a baby shower. I wanted to do something special for her as my gift that could also be Incorporated into the decorations. I did some research and heard about diaper cakes. I thought to myself, "Hey I can do that!" So I bought the supplies and made my very first diaper cake. I was very skeptical because I did not know what people would think but I decided to do it anyway.

I brought it to the baby shower and people loved it, especially Sara! She was so excited that it even matched the Winnie the Pooh theme of her baby shower. Everyone could not stop complimenting me and said that I should do this again. So one month later at my other cousin Nikki's baby shower I made a Noah's Ark cake. Once again I was given many compliments and they all told me I should start a business. And that is how Chubster Diaper Cakes was born.

I now have my own website and do a diaper cake about once a month. I am having so much fun doing them and hope that my business expands in the future but for now its perfect.
Check out my website for more information!