Round 2 vote!

Remember to head over to Sew Dang Cute to vote for your 3 favorite projects of Round 2 of Crafting With The Stars! You can only submit your vote once, so select all three and then submit. K? Voting starts at 12:01 am Sunday and ends sometime on Monday, so don't forget!

I've been having fun working with Jill on these past few projects. It is easier to make a decision when you have an experienced craft brain to pick :). Sometimes all you need is the "go ahead" or "I don't think so" to help move a project along. I only wish she were my next door neighbor for this CWTS competition... I might not stress out so much!!

Brush your teeth after eating all your kids' candy. :)

Kids won't stop moving!

I made the baby a little witch dress for Halloween, but darn it all, she wouldn't stop moving. So, in attempts to be a good mom and chronicle all my children's halloweens... this is what I got so far last week after a party... :)

She is really, totally cute in person with the black spiderweb overlay, and the purple and black striped tights. Those were a size 7-10 girls pair of tights that I just cut off the bottom and re-sewed the toes shut. Works amazingly!

I'm crossing my fingers I can get a good in-action photo of this little one begging for candy this weekend. They just won't stop wiggling!!

Have a safe and fun Halloween weekend! I'm working on a really easy shirt refashion- stay tuned!

Fog Fairy Top

Fog Fairy Top

My submission for Round 1 of Crafting With The Stars was a knock-off of ModCloth's Fog Fairy Top. Basically, it is a cap-sleeve bodice with fancy sleeves, but I'll show you the steps on how to make one too.

Gather your supplies:

Jersey knit or existing shirt

fabric glue

stretchy mesh fabric that matches your jersey or shirt

decorative trim

Begin with your top: I cut one out of jersey knit, but you can use a pre-existing DownEast top if you like; the bottom won't be quite as loose as the ModCloth version, but the sleeves will still be awesome. I just traced an existing shirt and added a bit for seam allowances. I cut it where the shirt would fall below my bust-line.

For the bottom of the shirt, I cut an A-line shape. Measure from your bust-line to your hips and add for seam allowances to figure out the shirt length.

Get your mesh out (I found this by the prom and wedding fabrics) and cut 2 pieces about 12" wide x fabric width. Bust out that trim and sew it to one edge of your mesh.

Cut your bias jersey pieces and sew the individual strips wrong sides together.

Lay your mesh down on your preferred design (I tried to copy the ModCloth one).

This is your new best friend for the project: Liquid Stitch, or whatever other fabric glue you have on hand. This is machine washable when it is all dry.

Put down a line of glue over your design, and add your bias jersey.

Pretty soon, you'll start thinking you are pretty darn cool.

When I was done with the first mesh design, I lined it up with my bodice piece and measured where to cut the mesh so it would be even with the bottom of the bodice, and cut both 12" pieces to that size. Don't forget to do that! Trust me... trust me. When your mesh lines up well, go ahead and do the bias jersey on the back side :) Then pin the sleeves to the bodice making a v-neck front and back. You can barely see, but in this picture below, I have the underarm mesh all scrunched together so it would meet the side seam in my bodice. Pin well!

Sew your sleeves and bodice together.

Pin your bodice to your shirt bottom, right sides together. Sew and turn inside out. I top-stitched after I was done to ensure the seam faced Down.

And then I ran outside with it on, without makeup or cute hair, so Mike could snap a picture to send to Jill.

Because it was pretty dang cool.

This is why I am glad my friend Kandis modeled, and my cousin Kendyl took the pictures. :)

Ok, now I'm ready for Halloween

I've been slowly adding to my little spot of Halloween in my house. And, with Halloween now only 6 days away, I figure I ought to let it be and add more next year.

I added a yarn wreath, with little felt halloween things- bat, spiderweb, and weird ghost- on the embellishments.

A bag of black-eyed peas are kind of eye-ball-ish (hence their name) so I poured some into my spiderweb glasses.

My apothecary jar just has those foam floral bead things with some pumpkins in it- simple, really cheap, and it looks pretty darn cute.

Don't forget, today is the last day to vote for your favorite projects. Rules have changed so now you can vote for more than one project. There are some amazingly talented people out there... wow. Go ahead, take a gander and vote!

Voting Time!

Wonder why I was MIA this week? I was working non-stop on my knock-off project for Crafting With The Stars. I am SO proud of how it turned out, and I can't wait to show which project was mine after voting is over. In the meantime, I'll send you over to Sew Dang Cute to vote for YOUR favorite. Competition is pretty stiff! Voting Ends Monday at 10pm MST. Don't forget!!!

Gooooooo VOTE!!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Comfy Cozy

Can I just say how much easier this would have been if I had just purchased a pattern? Cluck Cluck Sew has a pattern JUST LIKE THIS except cuter with bigger squares, and it would have specified yardage and all that goodness. I barely had enough for the backing. Barely eked by with what I had. So, the back isn't my favorite but that is ok!

I hit the stash for this quilt, pulling everything pink and green. It turned out really cute, and simple too. I did a lot of chain stitching which made it go really fast.

The binding is just solid pink Kona cotton. I quilted a really loose stipple so it would be softer. I am going to pre-wash this because my baby grabbed it with food all over her hands. Sorry, quilt receiver! I am a mother!

This baby has already arrived, so today my goal is to wash, dry, package and mail this beauty. And all the other things waiting to be mailed off. I hate going to the post office with my kids, so I put it off as long as humanly possible. You know?

Running on Happy Pills

I was up late last night. Late late. I was all ready to go to bed right before 11, but was silly and decided to check my e-mail one last time. And I had a new message from Tam, from Sew Dang Cute.

Guess who's Crafting With The Stars?

YOURS TRULY!!

I am really excited, and I started brainstorming right away, if you can consider mushy midnight brain any good for brainstorming. But do you know what makes this whole thing even more exciting?

...My Star of a Crafter partner, Jill from Homemade by Jill. I was really happy about this because she is the reason I started a craft blog in the first place, almost two years ago. I happened upon her burp cloth tutorial and stayed surfing her blog for hours, since it was the very first craft blog I had ever seen. And a week later, I started a blog. Thanks Jill!

I can't wait to get started. I can hardly remember what I was doing last night in my planning and such, so I have a lot to do! Good thing I am so excited, or I'd fall asleep this second and drool all over my keyboard. Lovely.

The other ladies competing with me are:
Amanda from Crafts by Amanda
Heidi from Honeybear Lane
Mandi from Vintage Revivals
Michele from The Scrap Shoppe
Emily from The Boy Trifecta
Kathryn & Ashleigh from Bee in Our Bonnet
Bumble Baybees
Kelly from Sewing in No Mans Land
Kristen from Kristen Duke Photography
Amy from Naptime Crafters
Honeyscrap

Voting begins on Sunday! Have some fun with me!

For a Sweet Baby

I finally bull-dozed by way through those quilts I was working on. This one I finished at midnight the night before the baby shower. But I got it done! :) I think it is my favorite quilt to date. I am glad it is going to a good home with some ultra fun people! I still thumb through the Flea Market book she gave me (and I found one of those blue canisters at an antique store. $150. The world wept with me.)

Mike helped me out by taking pictures while I got ready for the baby shower. He's so great- he did it without me even asking. He just knows how I roll.

Finished Front:

Finished Back:

Mom-To-Be:

Everything but the binding is Verna by Kate Spain for Moda. The binding is from Wild Rose by Marti Michell for Maywood Studio. It matched perfectly, and it was 50% off :) I used THIS pattern by Vanessa of V&Co. I love it!

Cupboard Space

Hi. Are you wondering about that last post? My husband thought his computer game was way more exciting with me sewing next to him- until I moved on to actual quilting and blanket kept getting all over the keyboard and in his face. I think marriage will be better strengthened on a date. :)

Anyway, did you know I have a Flickr group? And did you know it is SO lonely??? I begged and begged my sister to upload her very first quilt to the Crafty Cupboard Flickr group, since she followed my Make Life Square baby quilt tutorial. It is seriously easy, for you beginners out there, especially with a charm pack.

So, want your own Cupboard Space? Upload your Crafty Cupboard-inspired projects and you just might see your projects featured here!!

Pretty Please?

:)

BATTLEFIELD HEREOS

Alright...so there is this game that I recently discovered thanks to my brothers called BATTLEFIELD HEROES.

It may look childish, but trust me- it's a fun game. My name is Mike and I'm Melanie's husband. My friends on Battlefield Heroes call me "MBronx," and my enemies aren't alive to give me a name. Needless to say, I invoke fear.

Melanie disapproves of my gaming...hence I keep it on a pretty low key. However, lately I've discovered that her fabric sewing and my gaming can make our marriage stronger! How might you ask?

Well, lately we've started spending more quality time together. You see, our computer and her sewing machine share a desk (a wobbly one at that) and whenever she sews, our table shakes. Now, picture yourself flying and shooting your machine gun in the image below while the desk is violently shaking!

It's practically real-life experience. For all you husbands out there...give it a shot!

-THE SEAM RIPPER (aka "MBronx")

Halloween flashback

I've been seeing a lot of people posting their past halloween costumes, and I thought I'd join in. I left my camera's SD card at my mom's house, so my recent projects will have to wait! In the meantime, enjoy.

Year? Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, in totally different outfits. My sister and I had a good time doing this with thrifted overalls that were size Gigantic on us.

I made this little bear costume in 2008; and I vowed never to sew with faux fur ever again. But she was adorable.

2009, a little baby fairy. Tu-tu, silver wings, and petals on a onesie.

The most complicated fairy costume ever... but really pretty. She still wears it as dress-up.

This year I convinced myself and my daughter than our store-bought Aurora dress will do, but I am making a witch costume for the baby. She already loves her Target $1-bin hat :)

Framing Halloween

It seems like silhouettes and spooky are one in the same during this holiday season. I googled a few times to find the perfect ones, but after a few failed attempts (and, tracing to black paper is nigh unto impossible) I just drew some and cut them out with little scissors.

I used this frame and just swapped out the eggs. Free is good!

My spiderweb runner now sits on the dresser in our family room... our ghetto tv got sold at the garage sale, so it was needing some holiday get-up. :) I think I prefer it all here instead of the table!

It is going to be a long weekend

I am pausing our garage sale preparations to post a progress picture of one of my quilt projects. Now I have 2 quilts to baste, quilt, and bind before babies start popping out all around me. Ladies, keep your legs crossed, I'm not done yet!

But first, garage sale. Love shopping them, hate having them.