Gifts: Lined Drawstring Bags

This past week I enjoyed not only all of the Holiday festivities, but a wedding, too!  We were lucky and blessed to attend my cousin's wedding in St. George and doubly lucky to have Justus' brother and his family host us as well.  As a thank you, I made his wonderful wife and amazing sister in law, a lovely drawstring bag.

I used Jeni Baker's Lined Drawstring Bag tutorial from her blog: "In Color Order."

Here is a picture of the pattern for different sizes.  I used the tutorial to make my bag.

Long note: my sewing skills are beginning-intermediate rising.  This means I can sew a straight line on my sewing machine with confidence, but curves scare me to death.  My background in sewing is mostly limited to quilting, with straight lines all of the time. Plus, I have some experience following a simple pattern.

Here is my result:

Sorry for the poor cell phone pictures.  I snagged these during our drive up to the wedding.  I stayed up too late the night before to finish this blurry bag and wish my cell phone took better pictures.

In summary, I put this bag together in about half an hour and thoroughly enjoyed the tutorial.  It includes both clear pictures (for visual learners like myself) and well-put instructions (for those who actually read all of the instructions before starting).  I used ribbon instead of making the "strings" to save some time.

Plus it features a whole bunch of adorable fabric!  Highly recommended these drawstring bags as a gift or for wrapping one!  The only hard part is selecting which fabric to use :)

Happy Pinning!
Kate

Christmas Charades

Source: Moms& Munchkins

This weekend my littlest daughter and I have been sick with colds. What this means is there has a lot of couch laying and cartoons. Sunday night rolled around and we needed a little movement. I took the opportunity to get out this Christmas Charades Game I'd found on... pinterest.

Emily can't read these words so my husband and I would take turns telling her what to do while the other person guessed. We had a really good time. Of course my husband got the weird ones like 'reindeer games' and 'santa sitting on a beach.'

I realize now I should have taken a video, but we were having too much fun to worry about videos :).

If you need a fun family activity night I would recommend this. I think I'll keep the jar out and pull it out every now and then. Hopefully with Emily being 4 it'll take a few times to catch on that we always have the same words.

Have fun!

happy pinning!

Letters To Santa

December 1. According to my daughter Emily, today is the "First Day of Christmas." She predicted snow and it snowed so we started our Christmas activities. 

There has been a lot of chit chat about what the girlees want for Christmas so tonight we documented it.   I found these two templates on pinterest. One with lots of lines for Emily to write her own letter, and a smaller one for Lyla to "write" her letter on. 

Source: Step into 2nd Grade

 Source: Skip to My Lou

Here are my little letter writers hard at work.

Lyla's letter

Dear Santa,

My name is Lyla. This year I have been good. (I asked her if she was good or naughty). For Christmas I want a purple present and a My Little (wittle) Pony. I love your reindeer. Do they like cookies?

Love,

LylaEm's Letter

December, 1

Dear Santa,

I want a My Little Pony remote control car and baking supplies. I am a good little girl. Thank you.

Love, 

Emily

Hopefully we'll have lots to report this month (at least until the 13th when my vacation starts).

Merry Christmas & Happy Pinning!

Day 5: Color By Letter Turkey

I majored in Elementary Education in college. I don't teach now, but I say I am a teacher at heart. Not to stereotype teachers, but to get our degree we had to color, paint, dance, and sing our way to graduation. Part of me just loves little art projects, coloring especially. 

I am not a natural artist. Not in the least. Not even close. So as a little girl (and a slightly bigger girl) really loved coloring books. I also really loved those color by number pictures. I am now pushing that love onto my children.

Alas, here is the color by letter Thanksgiving Turkey

This was one where I sat down and did it too. Emily had fun, Lyla lasted about 3 scribbles. Emily and I enjoyed some nice conversation, but I would have to say the highlight of the night was at the end while comparing our pictures. 

Emily said, and I quote, "Wow Mom. Ours kind of look the same." 

For being a good sport I told her she could pose however she wanted. 

Original Pin: Reading-with-kids Thanksgiving 

Day 4: Knitted Bow Hat

A few days ago, while I was wasting time scrolling through pins, I came across this picture. Yes, that is a cute baby, but DANG that is a cute hat. 

I crossed my fingers and hoped it would take me to a tutorial, but my luck was run out. It led me only to the picture. Rats. 

I couldn't get the hat out of my head though, so I set out to figure it out. I found a pattern for the hat in a knitting book I own and I googled (gasp) "knit bow pattern". I found one I liked and surprisingly it was really easy. 

I knit a lot of baby hats for gifts and my older daughter has been jonesin' them for a while, so I decided I'd make this one for her. 

I personally like the proportions in the one I found on pinterest better, but I'll toot my own horn and say, I think mine is pretty darn cute as well. 

Credits: Original Pin Life is Beautiful

Bow tutorial A Common Thread

Day 3: The Perfect Fall Playdough

Since I've started looking at Pinterest I've been kind of intrigued by these homemade playdough recipes. The very first one I saw on the internet was a couple years ago and it was about making playdough with all natural ingredients. The colors were made with berries and other things found in nature. I thought it was pretty cool until I read the end that the playdough would stain your clothes and hands. Then I thought it was dumb. Who wants to go through all of that work to have it mess up your clothes. 

We've come a long way in the last couple of years. A couple weeks ago I made jello playdough. It was pretty cool. I would recommend it. 

Today we made the PERFECT playdough for FALL! I'm a little obsessed with fall right now. This is my new favorite playdough. The texture was smooth and easy to manipulate and it smelled AWESOME. You use cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. After playing with the kids for a while I washed my hands for dinner and they still smelled like cinnamon. Yum. I didn't color it and I thought the natural color really matched the smell. 

This is Emily's version of The Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree. Can you see the coconuts? 

Usually I make this kind of stuff and then hand it over to the kids to play with while I do something else. Today; however, I sat down and played with them for a while. It was pretty fun, I recommend that too. 

Pin Source: Be Organized

happy pinning!

Day 2: Balloon Ping Pong

This activity is one I've wanted to pull out and do for a while. Today was a good day. We are taking a go at potty training our little Lyla and so everyone has been cooped up in the house. After a few too many tv shows I busted this activity out. Wasn't the worlds biggest hit (pun!), but it worked for a little while.

It is as simple as it looks in the picture. 1 balloon, paper plates, and popsicle sticks. I used left over ones from yesterday's activity, but the thicker ones would definitely be better. We will do this again sometime when we have friends over. 

Pin Source: Pen N' Paperflowers

happy pinning!