new kitchen curtains

Last week, I finally got started on a project I’d been thinking about since we moved in over 2 months ago—I sewed my first curtains!

There are a lot of windows in this house, which I love. Most of the window treatments left in the house were not worth keeping, so we threw them out before we moved in. However, with the kitchen, I didn’t want to toss the curtains before I had replacements ready. They weren’t terribly ugly. but they were old, dirty, and just not my taste.

On the right, you can kind of see that there was some blue and pink in them.

They were see-through, so they let in a lot of light, but you couldn’t open them to see anything clearly out the window. In addition to that, our neighbors could see right in once it got dark outside.

I bought four yards of gray and white chevron fabric from JoAnn’s for $15 (with a 40% off coupon). Once I figured out how to sew the first one, the other five came together pretty quickly.

I absolutely love how they turned out—I think they’re the perfect modern addition to the kitchen! 

And we’re extremely happy to have privacy in our kitchen now, especially when it’s getting dark earlier :)

a braveheart halloween

 

Here is our little William Wallace.  

A little background as to why we wanted to dress up our 1-year-old in a Scottish kilt like Mel Gibson in a 1995 classic movie...

Summer camp played a special role in our lives, as it is where Steve and I fell in love.  Every week at camp, we would play a giant capture-the-flag style game across the whole property, a game called BRAVEHEART.  The campers would practically beg to play Braveheart, and I have to say, it probably is the best game I have ever played.  You get to wear face paint (red for English, blue for Scots), run around camp pulling people's flags and searching for medallions.  There is so much hype and energy around it, it's amazing. Needless to say, this costume has a lot of meaning to people in our camp circle!

 

I sewed the kilt and the wrap-around sash last night with $3 fabric from JoAnn's.  The face paint is Snazaroo, supposed to be really mild and safe for kids.  I got it at Michael's with a 50% off coupon.

Trick-or-treating in our town was canceled tonight because of Hurricane Sandy-related weather.  So we will have to wait until next year! 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

crib sheet

Nolan was in need of a sheet, since he only had one that fit his bed well.  I stumbled upon a crib sheet tutorial, and decided that I would make him one, that way I could choose any fabric or pattern. 

"luvinthemommyhood.com" crib sheet tutorial

Something to watch out for with the tutorial:  It says that your 2 yards of fabric should be 45" wide, but at JoAnn's, all I saw were 43" and 44" fabrics.  I bought a 44" and it was still wide enough for the sheet, thank goodness.  Definitely buy the fabric on sale, or with a coupon, or you won't save any money by making your own. 

Also, the tutorial says you can leave your seams raw if you don't have a serger, but my seams started unraveling the minute I finished my casings for the elastic.  It was a mess.  I ended up putting "Fray Check" on everything, and sewing my heart out until I felt like it was going to stay.  I would try a zig-zag stitch over all of the raw edges next time.  So needless to say, the sewing I did was not very pretty.  But, it worked!  Proof it fit the mattress:

 

And he's been sleeping on it ever since. :)

baby age photo prop

Last summer I posted about sewing fabric numbers and letters here.  I want to show you how they ended up in my photos!

This is my less-than-a-week-old baby last September!  I wish that I could go back to one day of holding him when he was this tiny, and still wanted to be cuddled for hours.

  

In June, he officially had been out in the world for as long as he had been inside me :)  This is also one of the best Nolan smiles ever captured on camera).

And these photos were no easy task after he learned how to roll over.  But I am so glad that I persisted every month on getting a good shot, because look how adorable they turned out:

sewing creations

These are some of the things that have kept me busy the last few weeks:

 

Caitlin encouraged me to make these letters & numbers!  They are for when I take photos of the baby: to mark how old he is at different points during the first year.  To be honest, I was about to give up after attempting the "S", but my mom walked in the room and encouraged me to keep going.  I am glad I did!  Here is the link.

 

I was about to get my hair cut at the salon a few months ago.  Wandering around the adjoining gift shop, I giggled to myself when I saw "Pee Pee Tee-Pees", for moms and dads to protect themselves while changing boy diapers.  I took a cell phone pic to show Steve.  Later, I stumbled upon this blog where she created her own: "Wee Wee Wigwams".  They have fun fabrics on the outside, with a soft fleece on the inside, and can be put in the washing machine :)

 

This was the real troublemaker.  I committed to making Steve a chef's hat for his skit during VBS week, later in July.  The VBS this year is called "Shake It Up Cafe"--all kitchen themed.  Steve will be Chef Basil, and that will transform him into some kind of celebrity to the kids, as he was at 2009 and 2010 VBS's, haha.  Anyways, after a few failed attempts, the chef's hat finally came together!

 

This is a nursing cover that I found on this site.  It was easy, but took me quite a while.  I spent a long time choosing the right fabric at Joann's, and this particular home decor fabric had a sale sticker that said "7.00" on it.  I had 1.5 yards cut, and got in line, where it rang up to $30!  Apparently it was $19.99 a yard, and the 7.00 sticker meant how many yards were on the roll.  Luckily, the cashier pulled a 40% coupon out of her pocket and saved me some money.  (This was before I learned how to be a Joann coupon connoisseur.  A couple weeks later, spending three mornings at Joann's, I was able to buy $74 worth of merchandise for only $13!)  I will never buy anything there without a coupon again!

 

and then I've used some extra fabric to make headbands :) 

-Rachel.