sewing projects for New Beginnings

I made a cute banner for our New Beginnings decor!  I used the colors for the values, and most of it was from fabric donated by a sister in the ward.  I had white in my stash, and had to buy a bit of orange.

The theme this year is "Stand in Holy Places" so we had each girl bring a pair of shoes from something they did that tied to a PP value.  They brought shoes they wore to their first temple trip, or shoes worn during service activites, etc.  I used little baby shoes in each value color as display.  (except I forgot the shoes at home for Good Works, darn!)

The nice thing about church activities down here in Argentina is that the expectations are low. Pretty much anything you do is super appreciated. It makes me think of all the fluff we do in the states that we think is important. :) 

I also made some book holders for the girls so they can keep their PP book, journal, a pen and strength of youth together.  The YW were super excited and now maybe they can keep track of their stuff and keep working on it!!  The tutorial came from pinterest...
http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/young-women-personal-progress-book.html
I didn't want to do the ribbon, cuz I knew it would get knotted and frayed and wrinkled.  So I just sewed on some velcro and glued a big decorative button on top.  It ended up taking me like an hour for each one.  I did one step for 6 of them at a time, but it took forever!  Plus, I kept messing up and having to un-pick.  Will I ever grow out of that?? 

Sarah cried her eyes out and said I never make her cool things.  Seriously??  I made her something very similar for her to keep her journal in at school.  I get no credit around here! 

:)

easter bags

Every Easter, I always wish my kids had big easter bags for egg hunts. Baskets just don't work well, especially in big groups of scrambling kids.  So this year, the night before an Easter egg hunt at a church near here, I busted out some cute bags.  They certainly aren't perfect, but I guess I think they're kinda cute.  I can't believe I've lived my life without getting into applique!  It's so fun and relatively easy for a big impact.  :)

Best part of this project:  FREE!  I made these from supplies in my stash ... bags made from curtains I trimmed and hemmed, the rest of the scraps are just from the endless pile! :)

Twirly Skirt: Navy, Pink & White

Finished sewing this skirt last Friday morning.  The fabrics are from Jo Ann's (last Spring), isn't the navy flower print with dots so cute!  I think the pink ruffle is a Heidi Grace fabric.

 

It'd been cut out ready to sew since last Spring when I taught a class on how to sew twirly skirts for girls.  Glad I finally got around to sewing it; just in time for a church Easter activity and egg hunt K* went to.

Easter Banner

Easter banner made by my mom.

It's so happy, bright and colorful! 

If I weren't trying to figure out an Easter dress for K* I might have made one for myself.

Emmeline Apron in Good Fortune

 

Emmeline apron from Sew Liberated in Kate Spain's dragonfly & sakura prints in harmony from her good fortune line with bella solids purple (9900-21).

 

The purple sakura print is probably one of my most favorite prints ever! I bought it last year knowing I was going to make myself an apron with it.  I just love it. I have some more, not sure what I'll make with it yet, perhaps a sewing machine cover?

Over the years, I have sewn Emmeline aprons as gifts for friends and my sweet K* always asks when I'm going to make one for myself.  Well, finally I did, just before my birthday at the beginning of February.

Photo Booth Props

 

Last week my friend came over and we cut out photo booth props for the upcoming Spring activity at the elementary school.  She took most of them home with her, but I snapped a shot of the few I finished up after she left.  She's going to laminate them and then attach them to sticks. We cut out hats, cowboy hats, lips, mustaches, crowns, glasses, bow ties, ties and thought bubbles {she's going to laminate those and then you can write on them with a dry erase marker}.

This blog post by kensi kate is where all of the fun & free prop images came from.  I traced them with my silhouette software and cut them out on card stock.

Valentine's 2013

 

o "fish" ally the best idea from eighteen25.

I formatted my own, but she made a printable you can use. 

And a great compilation of valentine ideas at simply kierste.

ah-MAZE-ing valentine printable from balancing home. 

This is what S* & K handed out to their classes.  K* wanted to add hearts to the pencils to make them look like arrows {like they do on balancing home} but I was feeling a bit lazy, so we just did plain pencils.  I did happen to have 4 boxes of 12 pencils already in my office supply stash, so no running to the store was necessary to make these.

 

And some more fun Valentine decor my mom made:

Chore Card booklets

 

During January, we talked with S* & K* a lot about being responsible.

 

{I deleted a long winded few paragraphs here.  It felt good to type some thoughts out, but then I decided to keep them to myself so this post wouldn't be so long and boring.  Mainly, the classic struggle of parenting and that I don't want to disservice my children by not letting them learn to be responsible and motivated in life.}

 

So, I made up these chore card booklets for them.

 

I thought it would be helpful to have down what is really expected of them each morning, afternoon, evening, daily, weekly, etc.... I also thought that they might like to have a place listing various activities they have, what time they need to be ready so we can leave and what they need to have with them to be prepared.  I don't have to tell them, they can look ahead and know.  Hopefully this will mean I won't be "nagging" or "refereeing" as much.  And that I will have to let the natural consequences of not being prepared teach them lessons instead of me always trying to make it all perfect.  This of course assumes they will even look at the booklet and want to mark things off.  The booklet lists several things in certain areas because I want them to feel like they are making progress each day by being able to check things off.  Who doesn't love checking things off on a "to do" list !?! And hopefully in the future, they'll do these things automatically out of habit{most of the time anyway}.

 

 

With some of the leftover paper scraps I made these bookmarks with my silhouette and a Patty Young bookmark file.

 

Which, I then placed in these Valentine's mailbags{another item found in storage!!} that I made previously.  I tie them on the backs of S* & K*'s kitchen chairs at the beginning of February and they have fun putting little notes in there for each other. I try to put little things in there for them to find after school most days.  I just LOVE Valentine's Day.

Activity Days: To Do Jars

 

We made" to do" jars back in the Fall of 2012 for activity days, but I just got around to finishing some for S* & K* in January.  I hope that they are sort of a "fun" way to mark off chores for the day, but I know they can't cover it all {so I have something else new for chores too}.  I think these "to do" jars might be better suited for the summer when there's no homework and less activities going on.  They would be great for drawing extra chores for extra $$, I'm bored ideas, or fun activities to do.  There are all sorts of ideas for craft stick to do jars on pinterest.  The website I came across first with the idea was cinnaberry suite.

 

For activity days, we used a rainbow of colors of scrapbook paper, Elmer's glue, mason jars and markers to write the to do's on the craft sticks.  The girls just traced the craft sticks onto squares of paper I had cut out ahead of time {so that everyone got the exact same colors and amount}, cut the paper out and glued it on before writing some "to do's" on them.  We also glued cute white ribbon with multi colored polka dots around the jar to make it cuter.

 

For my kids' to do jars, I used the same rainbow colors of paper and vinyl for the "to do's"{pea faith dots font}so that if I want to change them, I can just peel the words off.  I hope my kids don't pick at them though.....