Fabric rosette hair clip

Remember Ry-pie's hair clip from this post?

Well, here's a quick tutorial on how to make your own.

First start with your fabric.


Make a 1 1/2" to 2" cut along the longest side of your fabric. (The fabric is doubled up here).


Now fold your fabric in half, right sides facing each other and pin in place.


Next, sew together - making sure you are sewing the top and bottom layer together as you go.

Now we have to turn right-side-out. I do this by attaching a safety pin to one end of your "tube". Like this.


Now stick the safety pin through the tube and start scrunching up your fabric while sliding the pin all the way through. (I put the black pin there so the camera would have something bigger to focus on, it didn't work that well).


Keep scrunching.....


When your tube is finally right-side-out, iron smooth.


Now the fun part. I like to take one end and kind of bunch it up into a sort of ball.


Next, just take your tube and start coiling around your center "ball" - into a flower shape.


Anchor your newly made "petals" by hand stitching to the underside of your rosette.

I like to kind of twist the tube as I go to give it a fuller shape. Continue hand stitching so you don't lose the shape of your flower.

When you've coiled and twisted the tube to reach your desired design of rosette tie a knot in your thread.


Now glue onto a hair clip or barette.


Voila! An adorable fabric hair clip - made in no time at all. A great use for scraps you may have laying around.


Don't have time to make your own? Buy them at my shop on Etsy where I will be adding more soon!

Juice Freeze

So we've been lucky enough to get some rain the past few days, but before that it had been nothing but HOT, HOT, HOT! I repeat.....HOT!!! What better way to cool down then with some straight-up frozen deliciousness.

You'll need:
Juice, any kind (I used this strawberry lemonade mixture)
A glass dish
A fork

Can you handle all that? I thought so. :)


Start by pouring your juice into your glass pan.


Then just set it in the freezer for a bit (let's go with a couple hours to start).


After that time take dish out and mix around (gently) with your fork. It still should be plenty liquidy with just the outer edges freezing up.


Wait another hour or so. (Patience is a virtue my friends). Then scrape with fork. Continue doing this every so often until your mixture looks like this.



Wait another hour or so. We're almost there...PROMISE! Scrape all the frozen juicy-ness with your fork so you have a nice light icy consistency.



Then get all fancified and serve them up like this. Pretty - right? Even add a splash of booze - it's hot outside - you deserve it.


Or you can just do it the way we REALLY ate them. (No booze for this one, of course!) Either way they were nice and refreshing and a sure fire way to beat the heat!

Pillow-case dress

As much as I love to sew, I've yet to venture into the clothes-making department. I bought a couple of patterns awhile back and never even made an attempt at them. I'm not that confident a sewer I guess - and I was totally intimidated. Until......THIS tutorial, from the amazing gals over at Prudent Baby.

I changed it up by using the version shownhere. Instead of ribbon, they used bias-tape. And after all the head wraps I've made, I'm a lean, mean, bias-tape making machine. They actually sell bias-tape-making-machines....oh, I should get one! But I digress.

Here is the pillow case dress (that's not even close to being made from a pillow-case), and oh so cute!!!!




That's right, baby got back! lol.


And of course I had to make the matching hair flair. That's just how I roll!!

a little bit of pics

Besides crafting, I also have a fondness for photography. I'm by no means a great photographer (or even a good one for that matter), but I have been trying to work on my photography skills.

I've been reading up as much as I can (thank you internet!). But mostly, I've just had to practice, practice, practice.

I definitely prefer shooting with natural light. I've totally become a no-using-flash-snob. Oh well!

Caleb's been having golf lessons at a park once a week. So while he's busy practicing his golf swing, Ry-pie has been gracious enough to participate in my little "practice" sessions.

Here are a few of my favorite photos that I took last week.










And these two were taken during a tiny little water balloon fight we had. Although, I don't think you can call it much of a fight when CalJ was the only participant. ha!

Easy clean seat-cushion

Mealtimes with Ry-pie have become somewhat, well, disgusting. She's at the stage where maybe, just maybe a quarter of her food gets consumed, while the other three quarters gets either dumped on the floor or ends up all over her lap.

Her highchair is a hand-me-down from big brother but his seat cover had been ripped to shreds so i dumped it. I made her a simple little seat cushion awhile back but after every meal it would just wind up so, GROSS. I hated having to wash it every single time (which I never did), or try and pick off the crusted brown banana bits, or whatever, that would dry up on it.

I needed to come up with something that was easy to clean, but would still offer her a little tush-cush. Luckily, I had found this table cloth at Target the other day. On clearance no less! It's the perfect oil-clothy material that I was needing.

I just measured her seat and added about 1/2" for the seam allowance. I doubled up the fabric and cut out the material, mine measured 12"X14" (including the 1/2" allowance).

Place the fabric right side together and sew all the way around, backstitching at the beginning and end. Leave about a 3" opening on one side for stuffing later.



Turn cover inside out.

This highchair has a 3-point harness so I also cut a 1" by 2" opening and stitched around the entire opening I had made to insert the attachment belt through.


Now just stuff the cover until it feels comfortable enough to your liking or for your little ones rump. Finish by sewing the opening side closed.

Easy cleanup. Just rinse and wipe and we're done. Maybe mealtime will be somewhat more enjoyable.... at least the cleanup part will be. :)