Cupcake Valentine Box

The perfect Valentine mailbox for your sweet tooth!

My 8 year old picked this design for her class Valentine mailbox, it was super quick to make & turned out scrumptiously cute!

Glamping Party

Glamping party! 

I am NOT a party planner, I like making cakes and food, and that's about it. But I decided it was time for me to learn how to throw a cute party. It was lots of work, but it looked great, and the best part is, I only spent $100 for the decorations, invitations, and food! 

Custom Baby Dress

This was my first attempt at baby clothes. I even used a pattern (strange for me!). My mom has lots of $1 patterns from joanns, the ones for baby clothes, and aprons are definitely the cutest! 

The fabric is from Riley Blake, and I of course I had to make it my own by adding rick rack and a pop of color. We will have custom baby dresses available on our etsy page soon (please check back)! If you'd like to order this dress style, using any fabric of your choice, please email us. 

Beach Birthday Cake

Beach Themed Birthday cake. Lots of frosting, lots of fondant! I loved making the shark fins, and shovel and pail. Playing with fondant can be so much fun sometimes!

Fall Photo Shoot

 Photographing kids can be extremely difficult! Every time I visit my family I try to get cute pictures of all the kids. Sometimes it's hopeless, sometimes I get a few good ones, and other times I get a lot of good ones! This photo shoot we had to bribe with candy, cheetos, and toys. I think it worked out well. Here is the advice I have for trying to get cute pictures of kids who don't want to cooperate! 

 1- You don't need to travel far from home to get nice pictures. We took these in my brother's neighborhood, because we didn't want the kids to have to sit in a car or get fussy before we started. I love this picture of my cute little Rue standing by the neighbor's fence with the mountains in the background. Or this picture of cutie Ez holding his toy and looking happy as can be. He's smiling because he has his toy, not because he likes to cooperate!! 

 2- PROPS! I grabbed this baby pumpkin off my Brother's porch at first I thought I could use it to distract the kids into smiling, but then I thought "hey it is fall they might as well hold it". And they do look super cute holding it in the pictures! Especially Ruby who kept calling it an apple! 

 3- Take candid shots. There are SO many cute photos out there that are completely staged. I'm a little jealous because I don't know how people get a toddler to look, and smile, and play with the right item to create the perfect photo. I'm not a professional, so maybe there is a secret, but I've had to learn that candid photos are just as cute as the super staged cute photos. That doesn't mean I won't give up trying to get that perfectly staged shot. I just have to work harder by running around, getting different angles, and always having my camera on and ready to capture the cute little moments. 

 Ruby and her sunflower

 Alex and Ezrah being buddies

 Trying to get Ruby to smile

$10 Dresses

This is one pattern that I bought for $1. I have used this same pattern so much that I've had to copy it onto tracing paper so it wouldn't wear out. The look changes by adding rickrack, buttons, flowers, embellishments or changing collar or sleeves. All the fabric is from JoAnn's. As Ray stated, their fabric is great for clothes, backs of quilts or even baby quilts. On the polka dot dress I bought contrasting fabric for bottom, flower and bloomers; for blue polka dot I added the cute ruffle tulle on bodice, cap sleeves and tulle underneath skirt to make it fluffier; lastly for the green dress I found the pretty rose pattern and also added tulle underneath. On a sad note, no adorable granddaughters to fit into these at present moment...so they are hanging lonely and longingly in my sewing room closet.

Applique Anyone?

I found this cute kitty fabric at JoAnn's. I made an apron for my oldest granddaughter (wish I would have taken photos), then decided to use the leftovers to make a baby outfit. Ray and I decided the outfit wouldn't be complete without a cute little appliqued fishy on the bottoms. Applique is easy and so fun, especially because my Janome sewing machine has a great applique stitch. I used double sticky-sided applique interfacing to iron the pieces down where I wanted and to give a little stability. Then appliqued around different parts with matching thread. Also, this was an inexpensive outfit because the kitties and polka dot fabric were both leftover from another project.

One-Of-A-Kind Creations

When one has a myriad of children who are very close in ages, they tend to grow up, move out, get married and have children at the same time. Also, I've kind of gone on lawn-care strike, which fortunately has given me more time to persue one of my passions.....sewing baby clothes! I went to one of the many quilting stores with my friend and I told her what I wanted to sew but I didn't trust my taste in fabric so she picked out this pink and black. It wasn't my favorite until the dress was complete. Now I absolutely love it, especially the embellishments. I really wanted a big fancy black flower but couldn't find one, so I went to Google and typed in fabric flowers and found a tutorial for the one on the sash. It was extremely easy and I think it's adorable! Here is the site that I used. After I finished the flower I bought a button and covered it with black fabric. These are from JoAnn's and are very easy to do (no special tools needed). Fabric Flower Tutorial