So I found a way to make these cute little Easter Baskets here.  I made them this week and they didn't take too much time or effort.  Probably an hour for the first one, and less for the second.  I had Westen do a practice Easter Egg hunt to model the Easter Basket.  Plus, I thought he could use a little practice:)

I love the lining in this one.  Cute little birds - very springy.

And I liked the Navy/Yellow combo for this one.  This one's Baron's.  Anyway, the tutorial I mentioned calls for 1/4 yard fabric, which I didn't think was enough.  I had to make some extra cuts to get mine to work and they're still a little smaller than the ones in the tutorial are.  Next time, I'd go ahead and buy 1/2 yard for each.  I'm thinking of adding their names to the plain fabric at the bottom... or maybe a little cutout of a bunny rabbit.  But, they're cute the way they are and I kinda worry I'd mess them up by doing anything else.  Whattya think??

Next week I'll be tackling another Easter project that I'm super excited about.  I just hope they turn out.  Have a great weekend!

Linking up to

Just thought I'd share this quick little bit of info.  A couple other bloggers out there are featuring an entire month of sewing and other projects specifically for boys.  The bloggers are Made by Rae and Made.  I know I will be checking it out.  Just wanted to share for those of you who have boys (or maybe nephews!).  I'll keep their button on my side bar (scroll down to see it) for the rest of the month.  But here it is if you want to check it out now.

Happy Tuesday!

Remember these cute little costumes??  That's my project to share this Friday.  Here's  a look at Westen's.

It was pretty simple.  I found the brown shorts at Kohl's for $2.00 which he wears all the time with other shirts.  The hat I actually had left over from what I bought for last year's Halloween costume so that was free.  Sweet!  Finding a plain dark brown shirt proved to be a more difficult task.  I finally found this one on clearance at Gymboree for $11.00 - I know a little more than I'd want to pay for a Halloween costume.  Under the UPS emblem is actually a little yellow star that says "Sheriff" on it.  It's a cute shirt and at $11 I wanted Westen to be able to continue wearing it after Halloween.  So here's what I did to put the UPS logo on both the hat and shirt.  I found and printed out the UPS logo online on regular printer paper.  I then freezer paper stenciled it onto an old brown tshirt that I had in my pile to go to Goodwill (which I have yet to take because I keep finding ways to recycle those items - a dress coming soon) using yellow fabric paint.  To learn how to freezer paper stencil, click here.  I then put fabric adhesive tape (like hem tape) on the back of each logo, cut them out, and applied them to the hat and shirt.  Voila!! This was a super easy costume to make and was less than $15 which was my goal.  And now, I can just pull the logo off the shirt for Westen to walk around as Sheriff! Here's a closer look (and yes I know the browns don't match exactly, but homemade costumes aren't meant to be perfect, right!!).

On to Baron's which was even easier.  I just used a long sleeve white onesie and fabric markers.  A friend had bought him that cute little fall hat, and since I wanted him to match that, I used an orange fabric marker.  And I just wrote what I wanted on the front and framed it in black to make it resemble an envelope.  It was addressed to The Brownlee's on With Love Rd. in Blessings, FL.  The return address was from HEAVEN.  And I drew the little UPS logo on his so he could match big brother, of course.  Here's a closer look at Baron's.

What did you do for Halloween?  I'd love more ideas for next year!

Like I said last week, Friday is going to be my day to share projects.  I've been working on so many that I thought I'd share 2 today.  First is a baby blanket I made for my friend Storm's baby Kohen (due Oct. 20th).  Take a look at the finished project!

This is the 3rd blanket I've made like this and it's not perfect, but I get better at it each time so I'm making progress.  I had to order the Alabama fabric (you can usually find any sports teams online at JoAnn's or Hancock's) and I ordered 1 yd.  It's fleece.  I also bought 1 yd. of black fabric and some Wright's satin trim.  Basically, I put the 2 fabrics together and cut out the biggest square I could.

Then I sewed a straight line around the perimeter of the 2 fabrics put wrong sides together with I think 1/2 inch seam.  Next is the tricky part - the satin trim.  I looked it up online (there's a million tutorials and they're all pretty much the same, so just google it. I can't find the actual one I used).  Actually, before I looked it up online I tried it myself thinking I could wing it.  Not so much.  I thought I'd have to cut 4 pieces of the satin and sew one to each side.  After the first side I could see that wouldn't work so I had to seek help (gotta love the internet).  It's actually one long piece that goes around the entire square and 1 package of the Wright's satin trim was enough.  The hard part is the mitered corners.  The rest is a piece of cake.  And, of course, you'll want to use a coordinating thread for this part as it'll show on both sides.  That's it.  A custom baby blanket for our Alabama fan friends (uggghhh!).  Go Gators! 

Next is, obviously, Cousey's new bowls!  We've had just 2 regular looking bowls sitting on a little mat for Cousey's whole 4 years.  I saw this idea in a magazine probably 3 or 4 years ago and have since wanted to do it for the Cous.  First, I had to find 2 sweet little chairs for a reasonable price (that took probably the first 3 years and I finally found them at Ross so you know it was a good deal although I can't remember how much).  Then they sat in our garage for about 6 months before I finally did anything with them.  Here's what they looked like when I bought them.

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, both were taken at night.  So, I found the center of each wood seat and marked it with a pencil.  I measured the chairs and found I'd need about 6 in. diameter bowls that had a lip around the top edge so I could drop them down in the chairs.  I found those at Ross for $2.50 total for both.  I then traced a circle where a hole would need to be cut using a bowl I had that was 6 in. in diameter.  To make a long story short, I used a jigsaw to cut the holes out.  I had to start it by drilling a single hole into the chair so I could have a starting point for the jigsaw.  Then, I unscrewed the wooden part of the chairs and took them off so I could paint them black.  I used all spraypaint for the primer, black spray paint, and sealer (which I figured would be helpful since it's bound to get wet).  Before the sealer, however, I used a stencil I printed from word's clipart to paint little white paws just using acrylic white paint and a small paint brush.  Last the sealer.  After all was dry, I screwed the seats back on, and dropped the bowls in, then Cousey had dinner.  I must admit, the chairs are a teeny bit high for Cousey.  He can totally reach it but has to adjust his eating style:)  We may try to cut those iron legs down a bit.  Any suggestions??  I love the way they turned out!

Like I mentioned before, I'm a little addicted to a couple of do-it-yourself bloggers.  So this is thanks to Cheri over at www.Iammommhearmeroar.blogspot.com.  She also has 2 little boys and is always recycling clothes to make things for them.  One of her projects is using old tshirts to make autumn/winter-time hats for her boys.  (This could easily be for a girl, too).  I guess I'm in a pretty intense nesting mode right now because I have about a million projects I want to work on around our house and things like this for Westen and Baron.  For this project I grabbed 3 different tshirts from a basket I actually had full with clothes to take to Good Will.  I thought I'd try my hand out at using Cheri's instructions to sew together a little hat for Westen.  This is how it turned out.  Since it's from tshirts, it's thin, but I would imagine comfortable (maybe perfect for us Floridians) for when it begins cooling off.  I thought it turned out pretty good and I intend to make at least a couple more.  Also, this is without any boyish embellishments which Cheri added.  I may add some, but thought it was cute just like it is.  To try your own hand out at this, visit Cheri's blog for instructions.

Westen modeled for me this morning so I could take a couple pictures of his new hat.  These are him being silly before school.  Such a little ham!

An update... To see more on these hats, click here.  Here's another one I made.  Go Gators!

I'm linking up to...