A Perfect Pair!

From the day I bought my blue tooth I have been clipping it onto a pocket in my purse, using the ear piece.  But I cannot count how many times it's 'jumped' off the pocket and settled at the bottom of my purse, inside the pocket, or underneath one of the myriad contents of my ever growing handbag.  I knew I needed a solution, but I wasn't sure what that solution was going to be......until today.

It's certainly not the world's smallest drawstring bag, but it is pretty small, and in my opinion, pretty cute.  It will be the perfect companion to hold my blue tooth in place, exactly where I want it.  Just in case you're curious, since the blue tooth is made of plastic, it's prone to slipping and sliding.  A fabric bag will be much less apt to move around my purse and should, more than likely, stay where I put it.  Notice I said 'should.'  :)

I made a similar bag, with a double draw-string for Cayla's headphones - but I didn't take a picture of it :(

I don't know why I never thought of this before, even though I've been a touch paranoid that I was going to lose my blue tooth.  It's not that I couldn't buy another one if I did, but who would want to do that?!  Besides, I got this one at 75% off and the chances of finding such a bargain again are probably slim!  So there you have it.  A tiny blue tooth and a tiny bag.  What a perfectly CUTE pair!

A Banner & A Bag!

In early January I put away 8 Rubbermaids filled with Christmas decor.  So you can imagine my sadness when I hauled up my one, lone Valentine's decor box.  In an effort to expand my decorations for V-Day, I created this simple heart banner.  Made of 12 felt hearts, top-stitched and adorned with hand-sewn buttons, it gave a bit of flair to the window across from my dining room.  Now I only need to make about 700 more items so my Valentine decorations boxes can rival my Christmas boxes!

Heart banner; felt with buttons!

Last week at the LifeWay store I found this darling fabric placemat in the clearance section for a mere $.39 cents.  I couldn't resist.  I brought it home and Cayla instantly loved the bright colors; so tonight I created a simple church bag that she can't wait to carry with her next week!

Weekend Wrap-Up Party Here:

Owl Craze!

Inspired by a cute little stuffed animal my friend makes, I set out to design my own fluffy stuffie.  After looking online for a while, owls seemed like the most logical choice since they're easily identifiable just by the shape of their eyes and nose.

I created my own 'pattern' on paper and it took a bit to get the 'body' correct.  If it's too round, it looks more like a cat, so it needed just a bit of bulk.  After getting it where I wanted it, I sewed up the green owl in about 20 minutes.  The green one has jersey knit eye-whites which are reinforced with fusible pellon.  The other two are totally made of fleece so they went a little faster.  Cayla's is the pink one (named Hootie) and she chose white buttons for her eyes.  The purple one is just another demo I made to play with eye direction and shape as well as other features, like the hair bow and size of the nose.

At roughly 5" wide by 6" tall, they go pretty fast and require minimal materials, so I'm looking forward to shopping for some adorable buttons and maybe some crazy-patterned fleece (like plaid) to give them a ton of character.  OWL be sure to show you pictures as I create more of these little guys!

Not Your Normal Pancakes

It's no secret.....I love pancakes.  Well, really I love breakfast, and that includes anything of the pancake variety like waffles and french toast.  So it's no surprise that breakfast for dinner is almost a regular occurrence in our home.  And tonight it was the dinner of choice.  While Cory worked on sausage patties, I whipped up some whole wheat pancakes.  And to give them a little extra kick?  I added shredded coconut......but only to mine.  The rest of the family is not a fan of coconut, so those are all mine!

I'm pretty sure these pancakes count as healthy since they're made with whole wheat flour and the new wonder food....COCONUT!  The syrup probably negates the whole thing, but I didn't care.  They were heavenly!  And they were a cinch to make.  I cheated (What?  Shock!  Gasp! but we ARE talking about MY cooking here).  I started with a package of Hungry Jack Whole Wheat Pancake mix which only requires 1 cup of water, and then I added coconut to my hearts content.

PURE BLISS!!!!

Heart Attack!

Although I'm trying to enjoy winter by keeping snowmen, snowflakes and January related decorations up in my home, my mind (with the help of Pinterest) keeps wandering to all things Valentines.  And due to my recent thumb surgery, sewing was not an option last week.  But this weekend, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I broke out the felt, pink fabrics and pinking shears to begin sewing up dozens of hearts.

I have to admit, the pinking shears hit my thumb in such a way that it was painful to cut, so I asked Cory to cut out the hearts and he kindly obliged.  Below is a sampling of the "heart attack" that took place in my sewing room......

Made of felt and cut with pinking shears, these sweet little hearts are two layers thick and top stitched in contrasting white.  The girls wanted some for themselves, and some to give to their friends.  These literally took MINUTES to whip up, and I learned that sewing small hearts is much easier in felt than other fabrics.  Because felt is stiff, it's easier to turn the heart as you sew.

These are two layers of cotton fabric, cut with pinking shears, and top stitched all the way around and then stuffed with a little batting to make them fluffy.

Simple and cute, they will really add to my Valentine's decorations.

On Tuesday my sister came over bearing these adorable little 'lacy' hearts in pink, red, white and purple felt.  I provided the ribbon and we strung up a simple banner to adorn our fireplaces.

A close- up of one of the pink hearts.  Simple to string into a banner, we had these done in just a few minutes.

Both of these projects were inexpensive, simple and quick.  An easy task for kids to help with, or to make for friends and family.

Happy Valentine's Day!