Crafting for new baby

A new addition is due to come any day. (or at least I am hoping any day soon)  While I wait for her arrival I've kept myself busy doing some crafting. As always I am a procrastinator so I've felt like I am rushing through projects. There are also lot of other things I'd like to make but know I won't have time to do it.

Here are some of the projects I've finished already.

One of my mommy groups this hat was talked about so I decided that I have to hurry and make one before she is born. It is a cabbage patch hair hat. I can't wait to put it on her. May just have to make some more in different colors and styles.

I am a HUGE hello kitty fan therefore of course new baby will need her own hat. 

I made an owlie sleep sack for my son and I loved putting him in it when he was small. I knew I wanted to make another one for this new baby. I've had this yarn around for awhile and I have a lot of it so that's why I went with it. I think if I could do it over I would of just done a solid pink or purple color. 

To go with the Hello Kitty hat I had to make a matching little dress. The dress is crocheted also in matching HK colors.  Can't wait to see how she looks in this. 

Pom Pom hats seem to be the "in" thing to do so yes I jumped on the band wagon and knit up a super easy hat and added the black/pink pom poms. 

 I love this heart blanket pattern from Fibertrends. Sadly I did have one row that goofed up the entire blanket but while it may not be perfect I am sure the new baby will love it. Knit in a cotton/acrylic blend it should keep her nice and toasty.

I'm hoping to try and maybe get a couple other yarn crafts done. I do have a small list of sewing projects I'd like to do before she is born but dragging out my sewing machine does not sound very appealing right now.

Crafting for a baby girl is so fun as there is just SO many things one can make. It's definitely a lot of fun!

My daughter's vision of My Little Pony Costume

For Halloween this year my daughter wanted to be a My Little Pony. I tried looking around the internet and local store for a ready made costume but 1) couldn't find any locally and 2) the price just seemed too high online.

So what did I do in this case? I got creative. I went to youtube and pinterest to look up My Little Pony costume ideas.

Over one weekend we went to a local thrift shop to try and see what we could find. While we couldn't find any My Little Pony Costumes we did find some items that could be put together to make her vision a reality. Her costume idea is based on the character, Flutterbye.

Found this dress. While the dress didn't fit her she liked the bottom half quite a bit. I figured that I would cut the top part off and use the tulle skirt. To make my life less complicated (meaning less sewing and altering) ended up cutting the skirt and adding some of the pink fleece to the back of it for a tie.

Found the perfect yellow top for the top portion of her skirt. It is just a plain yellow cotton shirt.  The shirt was not altered at all. What I did was cut the tulle part off of the sleeves of the above dress and just safety pinned it to the shoulders of this top to add just a little decoration.

For the tail I found this pink fleece scarf.  All I did was cut this scarf up into long strips and sewed the seam together to make the tail. The tail was then sewed on to the very bottom of the top.

For the ears I just used a pink child's headband and fleece. I used this tutorial for the ears. Super easy and quick!

We bought wings at a local store and wa la costume completed. On the day of Halloween parties and Halloween we sprayed her hair with some pink hair color and she was all set. She was very happy with the costume and it was very budget friendly! Here is the finished look!

Altered Hello Kitty Binder

The other night I was thinking to myself how I needed a quick crafty project to do. I decided on making an altered notebook binder which I can easily carry around. I am a Hello Kitty fan and I love incorporating her into my crafts.

So I have a couple of these binders which have been sitting around for awhile. I picked them up at the kinokuniya stationary store in Japantown a few years ago. I do remember that they were on clearance. I originally had planned on using them to keep track of my knitting projects, but my knitting slowed down a lot. Anyways here is the binder before being altered:

                               Front View:

                           Side View:
                                      
                                        

I wasn't sure if I wanted to use some type of Hello Kitty themed paper and decorate with stickers or to use fabric. Then I happened to look over at this one section of my desk and saw my Hello Kitty duct tape. Perfect!!!!!

So basically all i did was cut strips and pretty much just taped all around the binder on the inside and the outside. I felt then that I needed something to help break up the busyness of all the HK heads so I added a few stickers to the front.

Here is what the end result looked like:

I am still a big fan of writing things down, so I have scraps of paper all over the place. (Yes I know we live in the digital age, but you know sometimes these electronics just don't always work when we want or need them to. ) Sometimes I need to have these notes with me so I decided that I'd keep this in my binder, but where would I put them??

Well I decided to make a little pocket on the inside. This was super simple to make. I took an old envelope from throw away mail and just cut the sides to fit and then I took the Hello Kitty tape and taped it in the inside cover. I then added a couple more stickers and wham a cute completed inside pocket.

So that pretty much completes my project. I enjoyed making it and am glad to share it.

New Obsession-Nail Polish

I've always enjoyed painting my nails but sometimes it just feels like a lot of work therefore I never really keep up with it. Well now I'm back on the wanting to paint my nails kick. With the discovery of pinterest and nail blogs I have rekindled my interest in trying my hand at some different type of nail art.

 For now I am just keeping it simple and hopefully in the future try new things. China glaze is one of the very popular brands that I have finally gotten to try. I will admit I had never wanted to really try the higher or well known brands, therefore just sticking with some of the inexpensive store brands. Well after trying China Glaze I have been converted. Below is my first time using China Glaze. The main color is called Dorothy Who? from the Wizard of Oz collection. The tip is done with glistening snow from the Holiday 2012 collection. I used 3 coats for each color and topped it off with Seche Vite topcoat.

Bottom line is I LOVE this look. I am in love with the Wizard of Oz collection and the Holiday 2012 collection.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

When I was out grocery shopping last week there was a great sale on green bell peppers that I couldn't resist. I had not had stuffed bell peppers in so long and when I saw them I knew I had to pick some up.

People ask me for recipes for some of the dishes I make and I always feel bad because I don't have exact recipes. The way I cook I don't always follow recipes and I don't always measure. (In fact I hardly ever measure if I am making something out of the blue) I am a type of cook that kind of wings it as I go along. I know what my family likes therefore I add/omit many things. ( A dash here, a handful there, you get the picture)

I've decided if I want to try and blog some of my dishes that I should at least try and keep a log of the ingredients and their measurements. (note i said try)

Anyways here is an estimation of ingredients and cooking times.

Ingredients: (for this dish was)

6 green bell peppers
approx 1 lb of ground beef
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 box of rice a roni (prepared as instructed on box)
1 can diced tomatoes, drain the juice
1/4 of an onion, diced
6 small to medium mushrooms
1 - 1.5 cups of shredded cheese (your choice)
1/2 cup black beans
small amt of oil
salt- to taste
pepper - to taste
tomato/chicken bouillon - to taste

Meat Mixture (stuffing for bell peppers)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Saute the garlic,mushrooms, and onion in oil until the mushrooms are almost tender.

2. Add the ground beef to the above mixture. Add salt, pepper, and tomato/chicken bouillon to taste. Cook until there is no pink left in the meat.

3. In the meantime start the rice a roni (follow the instructions on the box)

4. Once meat is cook drain the oil and add the diced tomatoes and black beans.

5. Turn heat to medium-low and stir the ingredients in the pan. Basically since everything is cooked this step is to warm the newly added ingredients with the meat.

6. After a couple minutes add the rice mixture to the ground been mixture. Stir everything together well.



Preparing Bell Peppers:

1. Wash the bell peppers.

2. Cut the tops off the bell peppers.

3. Cut and scrape out the membrane and seeds inside. Discard

4. In a baking dish place the 6 bell peppers on their bottoms. Add a small amount of cheese to inside of each bell pepper. (Basically you want to just cover the bottom of the part of the bell pepper in cheese)

5.Stuff the bell peppers with the meat and rice mixture all the way to the top.

6. Top off with cheese

7. Place about 1.5-2 cups of water in the baking dish. ( or just enough water to cover the bottom of the bell peppers so they don't burn and to help them cook)

8. Place in 350 degree oven for about 35-40 mins or until the peppers are tender.
(please note this cooking time is approximate)

Here is a picture of the finished bell peppers:

Here is the picture of what the inside looks like:
(this bell pepper is on my daughter's dish)

This is my first time writing a recipe online to share with others (or have others read). I am no way an expert on doing this.

Recipes are great to follow but always feel free to make dishes your own. If there is something in my dish that you don't like take it out. Want to add something different, go ahead. I'm all about experimenting and making up things with what I have on hand.

I hope you enjoy.

New Hobby-Cooking

Lately instead of crafting I have been cooking. I have always enjoyed to cook and make new dishes for my family but never had the time. I have had some free time open up and besides taking care of new son I am watching a lot of Food Network and scouring all different types of cook books.

I recently just started trying to cook Asian food. I have always had a little trepidation with trying to cook any type of Asian dishes as I just never thought I could. Recently I was craving pot stickers and I decided to look up some recipes on how to make it. Once I had my ingredients written off to the asian supermarket I went. I was a little terrified at the time commitment that it takes to make potstickers so I had tried to start early. Let's just say it did take awhile but it went a lot faster once I found this great gadget that formed the potsticker wrappers for me. Eventually I will learn to fold them correctly. The potstickers turned out wonderful and we ate them all up within a couple of days.

Half of the potstickers were filled with a mixture of cooked chicken, napa cabbage, bamboo shoots and garlic. I basically just used my food processor to chop it extremely fine. The other half were made with the same ingredients except they had a ground beef/pork mixture.

I personally enjoyed the ground beef/pork mixture.

I am planning on trying my hand at some more Chinese cooking later this week.

July 16th weekend sewing

I've been itching to sew for the past week but due to time contraints and pregnancy issues just couldn't find the time. So when the weekend came I decided I was going to make it a sewing day. I have a list of projects I want to do and finally tackled some of them.

I had this really cute cupcake fabric in my stash that I wasn't quite sure what to make with it for my youngest daughter. I asked her if she'd like an article of clothing or would she like a purse. She chose a purse. She liked the size of my prior asian inspired purse so I chose the same pattern and off I went.

This is the 2nd time using this pattern and the instructions finally clicked for me. I was able to figure out how to do the lining. It did end up making the inside look much more finished inside. (Not like my first one). The pattern calls for a magnetic snap. I personally don't like snaps on my purses as things may fall out, so like my previous one I added a zipper. I still have to figure out in between which step I should be adding the zipper because I'm still having trouble getting to look right. I did think I was brilliant by sewing the zipper on the lining prior to understanding the directions. Big mistake. Since I didn't have the patience to actually use my seam ripper to rip out the zipper I just cut it off from the lining and left the strip of material on it. Messy I know, but I'd probably pull my hair out trying to fix it properly.

All in all it came out much better than my first one. Guess practice makes perfect.
Here's a picture of the finished Cupcake purse:

And here is a picture of daughter modeling it.

Next up was to try to make an infant light jacket. I used a knit jersey material. The pattern was simple. 3 pieces. I love it. This was my first time working with this type of material and I must say I was pleased with it. I did make a mistake though when cutting the fabric out as I had a decided to try and save some material. Oops cut against the grain. Oh well live and learn.

I took the same pattern from the little jacket and used cotton flannel material to make another jacket. Since I had enough material I also made some pants. These look like little pajamas. I can definitely tell that the cotton flannel lacks the drape from the pattern of the jacket. Oh well. I think it'll look when it gets on him.

So all three projects were made in one day. My sewing area was quite the mess but at least I got something I wanted done accomplished.

Camouflage Fleece Outfit

Every boy needs to have at least some type of outfit which is made out of the camouflage pattern. Originally my idea was to make a jacket that would fit our soon to be new arrival within a couple of months of his birth alas I wasn't thinking when cutting the pattern out and the size used. So instead of having a jacket for a younger age he'll have one for when he's probably closer to 9 months or a year. Knowing me though I'll stick him in it when he's little just because I'll have to see how it looks on him.

Since I had extra fabric left over I decided to make a pair of pants also to go with the jacket. I used the same pattern from my other pants but just cut the fabric a tad bit bigger once I realized the jacket was going to big. So here is the end result:

Here is the back. The hood seems a little big but I just left it as it. Chances are he'll be wearing one of my handknit hats:

Here are the pants:

I'm really happy that I was able to make something like this. The pattern originally called for a button front but if you have kids it's quite well known that the child does not always stay still enough to get it buttoned, so I opted for a zipper. I was proud of myself that I remembered to buy a zipper that separates. (I didn't for when make my daughter's jacket)

Now I can't wait for the "little dude", as my husband calls him, to come.

On a sewing roll

I've spent a lot of time reading the web and books all about sewing. I finally decided that I had better start sewing. Here's a list of projects I've finished this month.

The first project I worked one was a purse from a McCall pattern. The purse picture on the package looked simple enough. So I start. This pattern caused me so much aggravation. I had quite the potty mouth while working on it. Here's a list of what happened:
-Apparently I didn't read the instructions well enough so after I had the pattern and my material and interfacing out, I realized that there was a lining! So back to the pattern to cut out the lining and more interfacing.

-Realized that I didn't cut out all the pattern pieces. Back to the pattern.

-I never realized just how many pieces it take to make a purse.

-Irritated over the instructions on the construction of the purse. So what does my wonderful crafty self do? I wing it and sew it together the way I want to using the pattern as a guideline.

- There are many thick areas on this purse. I'm surprised I didn't break my machine.

Overall I learned a lot from this purse and it's my first and I have pleasantly pleased with it. It's not perfect but it appears to be functional which is what count right? Here it is in in it's finished state:

The next project that I just finished today was making my daughter a pair of shorts. I used a video tutorial by The Crafty Gemini to guide me. Instead of an actual pattern I used a pair of short which she wears. I was going to make it with T-shirt material but there wasn't enough so I just used regular cotton fabric I have in my stash. I'm 50% happy with the results. For some reason there seems to be bulk in the front crotch area. I'll have to read how to fix this.
Picture of the shorts:

And here she is wearing them:

A new baby should be making his way into the world in about a month. The best thing about babies when being a crafter is that because they are small one can make so many cute things and a lot of material isn't use.

I found this pattern on line to make baby pants. It's from Made By Rae blog. Super super easy and fun. My first pair I did take a bit longer and the second pair I had done in less 30 minutes. Totally in love with this pattern and plan on making a lot more pants.
First pair-crayon pants

2nd Picture-pirate pants.

So overall I'm pretty darn proud of myself. I'm having a blast with sewing and I'm learning a whole lot.

Baby Gifts for Ashley

On this pregnancy message board I belong to I was paired with what is called a due date buddy. This is usually two ladies who have similar due dates. This was my first time doing this so I was a bit tentative at participating. I am so glad I did. I was paired up with a wonderful lady by the name of Ashley. She is expecting a little girl on the same date as I.

As a crafter, primarily a knitter, I was overjoyed to find out she was having a little girl. Since I'm having a boy there would be no cute little pink and purple girlie items. So as soon as she found out the planning began.

The first gift I made her was this adorable pink hearts blanket. I have had this pattern for a couple of years and have always to make it. Well now was the perfect time! It was a fun knit and I was pleased with the results.

Next up was to make some hats for her. She was showing me some picture of hats from etsy so I had an idea of what she liked. I made her a minnie hat since my first one turned out so cute for my niece. (The picture shown is the one I made my niece. I apparently forgot to take a picture of the newest one)

Up next was a cute little crochet hat with ears:

And last but not least this is the daisy hat from Itty bitty hats. I couldn't find green yarn to make the stem so I just made the daisy and the stem all the same color.

I also made some knit burp cloths which I forgot to take pictures of.

The one item I made that was not yarn related was a cloth covered diaper wipe case. Ashley loves purple (so do I no wonder we get along so well) so I used a mixture of purple fabric and ribbon for her case. I was a bit disappointed with how the case turned out but Ashley loved it. It was my first one I did.

The other non yarn item was the tag baby block which I had made. I was inspired by the tag baby blanket but I wanted to make something different so I found instructions on how to make a tag baby block. It was a lot of fun to make. I added bells inside to help make it a little more entertaining for baby. They are totally child proofed inside so there are no worries that they will come out.

So overall I had so much fun making all these items for my due date buddy, Ashley.

The pillowcase dress that turned into a skirt

I came across some tutorials on how to make a pillowcase dress so my interest was peaked. I spent quite a bit of time watching and learning how to make them. So last night I decided to dig through my linen closet to see what I could find.

After taking inventory there were only a handful of cases that would work due to the patterns. (I was tempted to use my husband's star wars pillowcases for the heck of it). My youngest daughter decided to pick an old Powder Puff girl pillowcase.

So here starts my adventure. Since it was a pillowcase obviously the pattern will be horizontal rather than vertical. (this realization did not come to me until I put the case up against her). Hmmm sideways powder puff girls wouldn't work.

Bright idea #2! Let's open up the pillowcase and then the designs would run vertical! After an hour the pillow case was finally open all the way. Stupid me didn't realize that now the characters on the back side would be upside down. Time to take a break after that.

Pillowcase dress is now out of the question. After spending all that time I decided to make a skirt. I used my Bobbin's nest pattern as a guideline.

Here are the problems I ran into with the skirt:
- I apparently am no good with using a rotary cutter yet. I ended up cutting the skirt about 1 inch too short on the width.
- I wanted to add a ruffle to the bottom. My strip came out way too short
- When making the casing for the elastic I forgot to sew up the side hem before doing this

The plus side:
-I finally figured out why my first skirt seemed so tight. I was able to make the skirt have more ease and not be as constricting
- I improvised my own bottom edging.

All in all I spent way too much time tweaking this, but it helped me learn a couple new techniques.

So after spending the entire afternoon working on the skirt here is the finished result:

Here is the happy new owner happily wearing it:

I will attempt a pillowcase dress sometime in the near future.

New Skirt

So it appears that I'm back on the "I want to learn to sew" kick. I think part of this new craze is because I'm expecting a new baby in August and would love to make some handmade clothes for him. One problem I'm running into is that "cute" boy patterns are hard to find. Luckily I have 2 girls so I can indulge in making pretty girly items for them.

My local sewing/yarn shop, Bobbin's Nest, had a free demo day to make a girl twirly skirt. I figured this would be great to attend to see if I could actually attempt sewing again. The demo was quick yet informational. I was excited the skirt seemed so easy to make. No real pattern just taking measurements of the garment wearer and go from there.

I had a lot of the materials to make it at home so I let my daughter pick out her choice of fabric. Here is the end result:

I can see some of my mistakes and the next one I hope to make will be a bit better. She loves it though and it isn't falling apart on her. So I'll take this as a win in the sewing column.

Brithday Crochet Penguin

tricias penguin 8-2009 (1)
Originally uploaded by Catheaven.

It's been quite awhile since I sat down and did any crocheting. For my sister in law's birthday I made her this cute little penguin since she likes penguins.

It was easy enough to make. Yarn used was just standard acrylic yarn. This should of taken only a few hours to make but I got sidetracked so it took me a couple of days.

I think he went to a happy home!

One of my first "REAL" scrapbook layouts

This is a 2 page layout of one of my doggies. I was pretty excited to finish this one as this is one of my first "real" layouts which I've completed.

The paper and embellishments are from CTMH. It's one of their Workshops on the go packages. Due to some picture cutting errors I wasn't able to follow the exact layout in the instructions, but I like how it turned out.

This layout has started me back on my scrapbooking bug. I"m planning on organizing all my photos and start figuring out ways to get into full on scrapbooking groove.

Close up of 1 page


Close up of 2nd page

Oh my another sweater!

juliannes sweater 6-12-09
Originally uploaded by Catheaven.

Here's is my 3rd February lady sweater which I made. This was for a graduation present for my friend. I had this finished way before her party but I was lazy on the buttons and sewed them on about an hour before her party.

Still love this pattern.

This story always brings a tear to my eye

I know this is my crafting blog and I should try and stick with the theme but sometimes there is a story that just holds so much meaning that it must be shared. This is a story which has circulated around the web for quite some time now. Every time I read it I always get a tear in my eye. It's probably one of the most heart touching stories that really expresses how a small bit of kindness can change a person's life.

Today's society and lifestyle it is very hard to forget to be kind to others. I admit that I even forget. I try my best though because I really believe in karma. Bad things done to another will always come back to bite you. It may not happen right away but eventually it will happen. A good deed done to another and the reward is reaped right at that moment in your heart and soul. Just remember treat others as you would like to be treated.

Okay enough with my battering here's the story. Enjoy!

Inspirational Story

A GLASS OF MILK - PAID IN FULL

Author Unknown

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?” “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.” He said, “Then I thank you from my heart.”

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Year’s later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She began to read the following words:

“Paid in full with one glass of milk”
Signed, Dr. Howard Kelly.

My red sweater

0506090906afeb lady sweater
Originally uploaded by Catheaven.

I finished this sweater almost 2 wks ago but didn't get a chance to blog about it. I used the same pattern that I made my daughter's in for mine. The pattern is just so easy yet the end result is so striking that I knew I had to have one for myself.

I picked up this yarn from Yarn Paper Scissors (which sadly is soon to be closing their doors) on sale. The yarn is Cascade Sierra which is a cotton/wool blend. I LOVED working with this yarn. It was very soft to work with and I didn't have any problems with any splitting while working with it. I think because of the amount of cotton in the yarn this didn't make for a good yarn to block with.

The sweater is extremely comfortable to wear and it's not too hot nor heavy. I think the lace pattern also helps this. There are two things which I am not overly pleased about. I wanted long sleeves (as in all the way down to my wrist). I thought that I had made the sleeves long enough but I didn't account for when my arm bends that the length goes up. So now I'm debating to rip out the garter stitch rib and making the sleeves longer. I think since I did each sleeve in two separate sittings that I was just antsy to get it finished. Each sleeve had 23 repeats of the lace pattern.

The other issue is the collar. I found instructions on ravelry on how to incorporate a collar so I may just try it out and see how it turns out.

Overall I'm still really happy about this sweater and i"m pretty darned proud of it.

Scrapbook Dilemma

As those with children probably know the camera is constantly going off capturing those one of a kind moments. Personally I have thousands of these pictures since I have two daughters.

I've been debating for many years how I should do scrapbooks? Should I do one for each child and have another one to scrapbook family things?

I'd love to hear suggestions and comments about how I should scrapbook these memories.

Mother's Day Gift

Elaines altered gift 5-10-09 (2)
Originally uploaded by Catheaven.

I wanted to try to make something crafty and cute for my mother in law for Mother's Day. It took me a couple of days to figure out what to make. I decided on making her an altered tin. My sister in law had got me a bunch of different tins for a present a year or so ago so all I needed to do was decorate it.

I first started with origami paper. I lined the entire outside body with blue floral origami paper. I then used this adorable Japanese girl in a kimono stamp and stamped her 10 times. I colored half of them red and the other half. I used little rhinestones to put in the middle of her stash in red and clear.


The front of the altered tin has a little Japanese boy and girl sitting. I stamped them and colored them. They are attached with a foam 3d dot.


The top and bottom of the tin are outlined with an adorable red ribbon. The handle has the same red ribbon as the outline of the box along with light blue ribbon.

There was a small dilemma of how I was going to decorate the top of the tin. I didn't want to try and cut out the origami paper to make it fit on the top so I ended up taking the same color origami paper and using CTMH stamp set Baroque and stamped out "MOM". To also add a little bit more to the top I took the same red rhinestones and attached them to the sides of the top.


To make it personalized and signify that this was a mother's day gift I took pictures of her (adult) children and attached them to the inside lid. I then took some chipboard designs that I had that were appropriate for the occasion and attached those.

Overall I was very with the result and so was my mother in law. I loved creating this tin and for me it shows that i can be creative when the mood strikes.