Bact to School Dress

As I have mentioned before, I make the majority of Eleanor's clothing.  I do this for a variety of reasons.  I find it particularly hard to find clothing that is, in my opinion, age appropriate at a reasonable price.  I also have very set ideas on what I want for Eleanor and can achieve it this way.  Most importantly, I absolutely love sewing her clothing.  I take a great deal of joy out of quilting and home dec/craft sewing, however I just adore sewing clothing for Eleanor.  I am one that still believes you should wear a dress for your first day of school.  Here is her dress from 2 years ago for 3yr old preschool, look how tiny she was:(  I made this dress using the Carla Crim Sew Boutique A-Line Dress using Alexander Henry's Apples and Pears.

 

Using the same fabric, here is last years 4yr old  class dress.  This is the SisBoom Cathy Dress and Top

I do still have quite a bit of this fabric, however I felt like something different this year.  I took Eleanor to JoAnn last week to help me find the fabric.  Here is what she picked.  I have been eyeing this fabric for over a year.  It is one of their quilting fabrics and it was priced at about $10/yd.  I have to say, and this is just my humble opinion, that when I think of the quality of fabics I buy from quilt shops this does not measure up.  I do go to JoAnn for fabric for her clothing all the time, primarily because it is a great value for the amount of wear she will get out of it.  This, is not $10 fabric.  It does not have the same hand; it is fine, just not worth $10.  Yet I digress.  We found this in the clearance section for $4/yd. 

 I even bought some of this, which is a coordinate, to make a skirt out of. 

Here is the finished dress.  It is the Carla Crim Precious Dress which I first made here for Millie. 

 Here is the back of the dress, there are pins holding it together because I can never find the buttons I want when I need them. 

 I am so excited about this dress.  There is a good chance it will be warm the first day of school, however if not she can wear a simple cardigan.  Also, the colors of the fabric will lend it to being worn all fall and winter.   Eleanor starts school in 2 weeks so I will post pictures of her in the dress then.  I have lots more ideas for her fall clothing that I will share over the next few weeks. 

Pay it Forward

I got this fabulous idea from the wonderful and hilarious Selina who got it from the brilliant math and pinterest genius Amanda.  Pay it Forward is basically when somebody does something nice for you, you in turn do something nice for somebody else.  I had never thought of doing it on my blog, however after reading Selina and Amanda's posts, I thought it was a fabulous idea.  So, I entered Selina's and in exchange I put it on my blog.  Want to play?  Here is how you do it, and I am copying this from Selina (who will please tweet me if I am violating copyright laws)

1.  I will make a little something for the first 3 people that comment on this post.  It will be a surprise and you will not know when it will arrive.

2.  I will have 365 days to get this surprise to you.  What is the catch?  To get a goodie from me you must play along.  This means you must pledge to send a handmade goodie to the first 3 people that comment on your blog post.  

3.  You must have a blog.

4.  After commenting on my post, you have to go post this on your blog.  

So, join in the fun!  Even if you are not one of the first 3 commenters on my blog you can still do this on your blog.  Join in the fun, it will be great!

A Bare Wall...No More

*Disclaimer, my walls are not really purple.  They are supposed to be taupe, yet look purple.  This will be fixed this coming fall/winter*

So for the longest time there has been a relatively empty wall in my living room, it was so bad I don't even have pictures.  At Christmas, the tree is there, but my husband will not allow that up all year.  One of my favorite magazines of all time is Country Sampler .  If you like country and/or primitive decor their magazine is a wealth of information.  I have finally purchased some binders and sleeves to store everything I like because the issues were falling apart!  Anyway, I have always loved floating shelves or quilt racks on walls.  The are different than pictures because you can also accessorize on top.  I have been eying up a black rack for quite some time, until I realized I had purchased it years ago for Eleanor's room and it was pink.  So, I broke out my trusty can of Rust-oleum in Canyon Black and the rack is now what I want.  Country Sampler also had a set of lit up houses that were $30 each.  I knew I had seen unfinished wood ones at Pat Catan's.  We went there the other day and I got these for $3 each.  Score!

 I painted the outside and here they are. The pictures on the website of the ones that I am copying showed them unpainted on the inside - the jury is still out on that, however I am not sure what I would do to the inside.  The one magazine showed them with candles inside.  Since that screams burning down the house to me, I bought really small led battery operated candles. 

 The only thing I did not like was that the rack was empty.  I did not have anything to hang except this small table topper that I just finished (will blog about that later).  It is not going to stay up there, however it will work for now.  I have some Saltbox Harvest fabric left from last year and I am going to use that. 

I still need to put something in that frame which has been sitting empty for months and I would like to find a small lamp for that corner.  Other than that, I am so happy with how it looks.

Silhouette Projects

Back in June I enrolled in the Vinyl Decor Kits over at Expressions Vinyl.  These kits are a steal at $29.95 and so far I love them.  They come with everything you need including the vinyl.  They always give you suggestions, however you can easily adapt them.  My past two have been 

 

and 

 

Here is a picture, from the Expressions Vinyl site, of the kit for August

I already had an idea in mind that I was going to need two boards for so I am saving those.  I did decide to try my hand at the burlap square.  This meant using the vinyl as a stencil with a Sharpie marker.  It was difficult to get the vinyl to stick to the burlap, however the directions were very clear on how to do it.  I took this spot 

 and made it over to look like this.  

I have lots of spare pieces of wood that the guys at Lowes cut for me into different sizes.  I spray painted it using Rust-oleum American Accents in Heirloom White.  I then used my lovely Silhouette and, with brown vinyl, cut out the letters for the family sign.  I mentioned awhile back in this post about the plastic silver bowls I get at Pat Catan's.  I sprayed one using American Accents in Espresso and added some pink gerbera daisies, which I figure I can seasonally.  Lastly, I used a fall/acorn scroll design with the letter S for the burlap. I have been unsure how to fully decorate this area for some time.  This is our dining room, however I do keep all of Eleanor's art supplies in it.  I really am very happy with how it turned out. 

Of course, while trying to take pictures Eleanor just had to jump in.  This one was too funny not to post!

 

Fall Table Runner

 Last fall my sister ordered some fabric so that I could make her a table runner.  I kept figuring I had time to do it, yet here we are with fall just around the corner and I needed to get it done.  My sister and her husband have a modern sense of style, while mine is country/primitive so this runner was a big step out of my comfort zone.  Here is the fabric

 

My original plan was to have 3 blocks  like this 

 

with one in the center and one on each end.  Alas, my iron did not feel the same way.  Here is what it did to one of my blocks

 

This little incident left my iron in a state of disrepair and really threw my plan for a loop.  So, I decided to try offsetting the blocks on each end and using strips in the center.  Here is what I came up with 

 

 

Tonight I finished quilting and binding it and it survived its first wash!  Here is the finished project

I decided to use a cream thread to make the quilting contrast the background, however I have mixed feelings about the result.  In the strips I alternated horizontal and vertical stripes.  This was the first time I made a runner that I did not follow a pattern for so I am quite please with the outcome.