My little Halloween decoration

I have been seeing so many cute little decorations for Halloween. The ones in the jar where you layer different beans and popcorn kernels and I LOVE them. Last week I was at Grandma Shirley's house and she has this Beautiful tree with these little orange berries on them.

                                                                          Here's her Tree!

Well After seeing these it hit me. I wanted to make a layered jar out of these. Awhile back I saw this Triangle shaped jar at the DI and it was like .75 so I bought it.

I had some Black beans left over from a bean bag project I did a while back. So I asked Grandma if I could have some berries. Of course she told me yes her exact words were " take as many as you would like". I made sure there were no stems left on the berries. Then I put a layer of berries on the bottom then alternated berries and Black beans until the jar was filled.

It looked like this

I added a ribbon

Then put it on my table.

I love it so Simple, Cute and Cheap. Thanks Grandma Shirley for letting me have the berries.

Gracies Cowgirl Costume!

So this week I have been slowly working on Gracie's cowgirl costume. She pretty much loves it. She is sad I wont let her wear until Halloween. She also says she is not a real cowgirl because she does not have a cowgirl hat. I will hopefully be finding one I like this week.

Here it is all finished.

I think for Halloween we will have her wear a white shirt instead of a pink. 

What I Bought for this costume.

1 yard of the printed material

1/2 yard of the pink

that's it I already had the rest

Pink/white shirt

Elastic ( I actually used elastic from a skirt I made last year that was to short but still fit around the waist.)

Vest pattern

Velcro dot

Black thread (although I should have used pink)

1 yard was way more than I needed I ended up making a bag and still have about 1/4 of a yard leftover but I love have left overs.

About 2 months ago Gracie decided she wanted to be a Cowgirl. I love the idea. I was looking on Etsy for some Ideas and came across this skirt

I love it. I decided I would make it and a cute little matching Vest. It was actually hard to find the material I wanted I actually saw some a while back but when I went back it was gone.

I found this and Its pretty cute.

So the first thing you do is measure how big around the waist is and then how long you want the skirt. I wanted it just above the knee. The waist measurement was 19. You double that I just did 40 inches. The waist to knee was 10 inches (I believe) I take notes but they are all the way in the room next door. I added 1.5 inches to that for the top hem. For this skirt I don't need to add a bottom hem since I will be making some Bias tape out of the alternate material. I cant seem to find that link now but I read somewhere for this skirt it was about 3 inches hanging out the bottom of the skirt. So I cut the bottom (solid pink) 11.5 inches by 40 inches then the top (printed) 8.5 inches by 40 inches. Then of each material I cut one piece 2 by 40 inches. This will be the Bias tape. I like to use french seams they look nicer to me and they aren't that difficult so I figure why not. If you do use them I will add a extra inch to my measurements. This particular skirt it does not matter since it will be gathered up so much. For the french seams you sew it wrong sides together first

Like so.

I normally sew with the foot right at the edge of the material. Then you flip the material inside out. Its completely up to you where you iron it at this point. Sometimes I do sometimes I don't. then you sew. Making sure that while you are sewing you are not catching any underneath material.

Then you sew. Making sure that while you are sewing you are not catching any underneath material.

From the back it should look like this

                                                                               and this

and this from the front.

I hope that makes sense its kinda hard to explain.

I did that with both the top and bottom piece. Next I mad the Bias tape. I took the 2 by 40 piece and ironed it in half

Then opened it up like so.

Then folded the ends into the middle

It looked something like this. I ironed it down.

then I folded it in half and Ironed it again. I should look like this now. The Bias tape is finished. Time to attach it to the skirt.

Fold over the edge like so.

Line it up so that the edge of the material meets the creased edge of the Bias tape. Then sew all the way around and Fold over the edge again before sewing down the edge.

It should look like this now.

I know you are thinking if I cut the main skirt piece and the bias tape the same length then when I fold the edges over it will make the bias tape to short. It wont since you put the seam in the skirt and not in the Bias Tape. Do that with both the top and bottom piece. So remember I read that it should be about 3 inches hanging out of the bottom piece well I did not like the way it looked. I thought it was to much and made the top look way to short. So instead of cutting more material, I did it the hard way. I will explain I how I did it and the way I will do it next time. The way I did it was I put a small hem in the top of the bottom piece (pink)

Its about 1/4 of an inch. then I folded it over again and sewed it for the elastic. This fold was about a inch. The same width as the elastic. Remember to leave a hole big enough to thread the elastic. Next time I will just keep the top and bottom piece together. Sewing The hem hem and the space for the elastic onto both top and bottom pieces. Back to the way I actually did it. I pinned the top piece to the bottom piece. Right over the top where you See the stitch from the elastic hole. Try to get as close to the stitch as possible. Don't go to high over it or your elastic wont fit in.

This is what it looked like once I got it all pinned. I sewed it down. I left the hole from before ( where the elastic will go in.) Then I added the elastic. Using a safety pin to hold the elastic as I threaded it through he material. I sewed the elastic. Make sure you don't have any kinks in the elastic. Also when I sew the elastic together I don't use a back stitch it always seems to mess up my sewing machine I do sew in the pattern of a X. I sewed up the hole. Now all I have left is the cinched up part. I took a piece of material it was about 2 by 2. I sewed it in half. Then I flipped it right side out and ironed it. I took one end of it and put it underneath where I wanted the cinch to be and then bunched up the material and folded it over and sewed it down.

It looked like this. I was not a huge fan of the way it looked.

So using a thread and needle I hand stitched it to look like this.

Its good enough for a costume but if I am going to make another one I need to find another way of doing this part. Any Ideas?

Now I am totally finished and tried it on my little cowgirl.

                                                                          The front

                                                                   Another pic of the front

 The back. Its so cute and I love how you can see her cute little bo-legs in this pic :)

Then I made the vest. I had a pattern that I used for this. I made my own bias tape for it and followed most of the directions for the vest.

Here is a pic of it again. I think it might be a little big but its fine for a costume.

Then I made her trick or treat bag. I cut the material 12 by 26 folded it in half and sewed it together and added straps they were about 13 by 2. I made 2 of those of course. Sewed them in with the top hem of the bag and Viola a matching bag.

Her is the only pic of the bag I have.

Well I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. I promise one day I will be good at these things. Have a happy and Safe Halloween.

Todd's Fall break.

So Todd got a few days off from school for Fall Break. He was so excited. He has been studying so hard I was even excited. We got to do some family time. So he was off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday on Monday he had math for about a hour then he was off again on Tuesday. So that was a long break for him. Well I had to work Thursday through Saturday. I was off on Sunday we just kinda lounged around the house. Same with Monday. I was supposed to work on Monday but ended up not having to. We took the kids to the park instead. We felt like the park we normally go to over by the library was getting old so we looked up Layton City parks. I had no Idea there were so many parks in Layton. Here is a link to the site with all the parks if your interested. layton City Parks. We decided to go to Ellison Park. The kids loved it.

                                                    The Giant slide made Ryder love this park.

But look at how cool it looks.

But Tuesday was our best day of Fall break. We decided to drive up the canyon. We packed a lunch and had planned to go to North Fork and have a picnic. Well North Fork was already closed for the year. That was ok we decided to drive up Avon. We did not go all the way to Logan but we went pretty far. It is so pretty this time of year. Well anytime really but I love the fall leaves. We stopped at a little pull off and had our lunch.

                                                        There were no picnic tables.

So we made do the these rocks.

                                                             Ryder crossing the lake.

                                                 Ryder takes pretty good pics for a 4 yr old

                                                                      My cute Kids!

                                                                    They are so cute.

                                                                    Me and the kids.

                                                      Gracie Did it! (crossed the lake)

                        They felt like this was a small lake. Even though it was a really small stream

                                                                Todd and the kids.

A few pics of the scenery. It was so pretty.

We came out at the North Ogden Divide. We stopped by Grandma Shirley's House. We brought her some of the pretty fall leaves. Then we went over to Uncle Tony and Aunt Carries house. The kids really enjoy being around their cousins. We eventually got home and all of us crashed on the couch at about 9:30. All in all it was a great Fall Break. Lets have another one.

Catepillar Skirt!

So for my Birthday my mom sent me some super cute material. Thanks mom! There are several different cute ones but there was this one catepillar pritnt that I loved and I just did not know what to do with then one day it just clicked. It took me a while to get it going but I finally did it.

The white part of the material was see through so I had to back it and I saw this super cute stripe material that was on sale so I grabbed it and I had all the scraps of material. I got to work. I cut the green part out like I would any regular skirt I am making for Gracie except I did not make it as wide as I normally do. I wanted it to be more straight. I also made it a little longer than I do most spring/summer skirts because summer is well lets just say it its over. I want her to be able to wear it next year. Then I figured out how tall I wanted the catepillar to be.

It was a very technical process.

This is what the catepillar looks like up close I wanted the catepillar that I was making to look similar to this. So I cut our my circles then I used the steam a seam stuff and had it attached to the material. I then sewed them down.

They looked like this. I then added the printed material that I had measure out and cut earlier. I cut it the same width just shorter than the green. I believe it was about 4 inches shorter. I then sewed up the top like you do on any skirt a small hem then the bigger so that the elastic can go in. I hemed both the top and bottom pieces and I was almost finished. Remember I wanted it to look like the catepillar on the material. So...

...At this point I used a fine point permanent marker. I put a Magazine (it may or may not have been the hubbys magazine) in between the front and the back so the marker would not bleed through. All that was left was to put it on my little beauty.

She loves it!

                         I love that she knows she has to turn around so I can take a pic of the back.

                                                            A close up of the front.

Another close up of the front. She wears this skirt about every 2 or 3 days. She does change about 10 times a day. It drives me crazy that she changes so much but it makes her happy :)

My sister in law pinned this today

She saw it on etsy from This seller. I like it but I dont want the polka dots So I think I will have to make one to match.