Fall Creations

I'm a little behind getting these posted.  

It seems like there were so many cute leaf creation ideas out there this year.

I loved this one from Sarah at Clover Lane.

I love the felt leaves from Pottery Barn Kids but didn't like the hefty price of them. $49.

So I made my own.  Using a leaf template I bought from Pebbles in my Pocket.  The best scrapbook store full of ideas, especially for young womens, relief society and primary callings in the church.

I wish I made them a little bigger.

Dana made some cute ones as well. 

I was at it again the night before the big day and found myself sewing like the wind, which always makes me feel like the villagers in the 3 Amigos.

I had bought this fabric a year ago and finally got to making skirts for the girls with it.

It's a light weight corduroy.  I couldn't decide what to make with it.  I found darling sweaters at Target and found my inspiration.  

Its a 3 tier skirt and fun for twirling. 

For the pattern, I used Dana's Market Skirt tutorial and changed the width of each strip to about 4 1/2 inches wide each (except for the top strip, I added 2 inches for the casing).

The girls have loved these skirts.  I made a vow not to make anything for Sadie anymore because she has become so picky and won't wear any of the things I've made her.  But this skirt sure did the trick.  She wore it all day on Thanksgiving with her sweater and headband in tact.

So fun to sew for them.

Tissue Paper Flower

A couple of weeks ago, we had New Beginnings for the Young Women of our ward. 

Our theme was Women of Courage and we decorated the room with lots of fresh flowers.

I stumbled upon this cute tissue flower at my favorite store Jolleys 

and just had to re-create it for the center of our refreshment table!

A tissue pom pom hot glued to a bamboo stick.

Easy, cheep and adorable! :)

Ode to Mod Podge

I got a little Mod Podge crazy and discovered a few new things.  I needed to house all the kids craft supplies in our new computer hutch and decided to spice up these drawers from Ikea with a little paper and Mod Podge.

I love all of the different finishes you can use.  Glossy, Matte, Fabric, Glitter, Glow in the Dark and many more! 

The finished project...

fits perfectly. 

Oh and I was so happy to use my little label maker to itemize all the drawers.  My kids use it everyday!  It is so fun to see them use their creativity and imagination with all the fun supplies in there!  Markers, Colored Pencils, Stickers, Glue, Scissors, and Beads.

This is where I used the Fabric Mod Podge.  A Perfect addition to my new kitchen! ;)

I've also glittered pumpkins like Martha Stewart.  They are way easy and festive! 

Checkout this great blog for more Mod Podge fun!

A Lemonade Stand

Cole and Sadie have been into earning money this summer and have just BEGGED me to have a lemonade stand!  A simple task that I couldn't allow to be too simple.  My brain went a little crazy.  After all of our recent busy changes,  I was MAJORLY craft deprived!  And the two colors that popped into my mind were tangerine and yellow. My inspiration had begun.

We took our sweet time preparing our lemonade stand.  Coloring posters, sewing a banner, and paint/build the stand. 

 And FINALLY just two days before our big departure to D.C...

we made cookies...

invited some friends...

and had our LeMoNaDe StAnD!!!

My favorite customer of all...

cute and adorable Mia, who couldn't get enough of those cookies!

I can't decide who enjoyed the stand more...me or the kids...I think I'm going to have to say me!   

We had a great turn out and the kids made $10.00!!  Thanks everyone who stopped by!  We even had a local city worker stop her GIANT construction TRUCK to have some cookies and lemonade!  I love it!  We'll definitely have to do this again!

* to build the stand, I found wooden crates at the craft store and found the rest of the wood in my garage.  Can you believe with my man out of town that I build this?  Not that hard.  I just nailed the top board onto the creates.  Easy.  I had lots of Acrylic paint on hand already and painted stripes on the wooden dowels using tape.  I'll have to do a tutorial on painting stripes.  The table cloth is just fabric, which I don't know the name of right  now.   

Baby James

This is my friend Marilee's cute new baby boy James.  Luckily I was able to meet him and take a few pics before they made their big move to Arizona.  

This is the fun little onzie I made him.  So easy to make!  

What do you think?

So for a while now I've wanted to start a little "Craft Night With Amy" group.  Where maybe once a month I'd pick a craft, sewing project or even feature a guest to teach us a craft/project.  We'd all bring our machines and learn together!  I'd charge $ for any supplies or fabrics and have them provided for you,  all you would have to do is show up with your machine!  

My cousin gave me this idea months ago but I just haven't had the time to even think about it.  How fun would that have been to have a class showing you all how to make the Valentine Chair Backers?  Maybe next year!  

I thought for my first project we could start on something simple!  This little shirred dress I made for Sadie and MaryJane which was so fun and sooo easy!  Shirring is elastic thread which creates this cute stretchy smocked look.

Major Disclaimer:  I am no professional in ANY way.  I'm not some knowledgeable pro.  I just thought I could help you learn what I have learned in trial and error.  And if you have something to teach us all or want to learn how to do, let me know and we could make a class out of it.  We can all inspire each other!

So, what do you think?  Would you be interested in my little "CNWA?"  What are some ideas of projects you'd like to complete or explore?

Color Me Mine

For gifts to my Mom and MIL I decided to get the kids involved this year.  I took them to Color Me Mine and they picked out a piece for each of them and painted it together.  

This was our first time ever trying this and it was a lot of fun!  I was able to draw a pattern with a marker on the piece so the kids had something to follow.  (And yes, that is Cole wearing his General Grievous Costume!)

I think they turned out REALLY cute!  It was so fun to see how excited the kids were to give them the gift!  Our Mom's just loved them!

Green...Really?

How does one decorate for St. Patricks Day?  Blah!  After all the cute pink and red that has adorned my house the last month, everything just seems so bare!  And now that Easter is FINALLY in April, for the first time I get to decorate for St. Patricks Day.  After not finding ANYTHING not cheesy to decorate with, I decided to make some green of my own.

And I've changed my mind now. Green is GREAT!

It first started with my green banner.  I had to have a cute banner!

Then using the leftover fabric, I made a little table runner.  And added some shinny green apples!

A little bit of green ribbon,

and a jar of bright green gumballs,

There you have it.  My St. Patty's decor! 

 All I need now is a CUTE glittered green shamrock.  Any ideas where I could get one of those?

Making Valentine's!

I have a very creative friend named Amy who introduced me to these adorable paper heart pockets.  Unfortunately, she doesn't have a blog to share all the fun things she does.  So I decided I'll share this one for her. ;)

I usually just make these paper hearts for the kids teachers and the preschool class of 10.  Somehow making 35 + seams a bit overwhelming to me.

The kids and I had a fun evening of making their class Valentine's!  It was so fun to just throw everything on the table and create together while making fun memories! 

I printed these adorable free Valentine's from the cute Secret Agent Josephine's blog.  I just can't get enough of them!  Sooo cute!

I also added these cards on the paper hearts.

LOVE them!

Valentine Treat Box

I love this idea!  Martha Stewart made these cute easy little Valentine treat boxes on her show.  It is very similar to the gift I make for the kids teachers and preschool friends.  Stay tuned for another cute Valentine pouch! 

Valentine Chair Back Tutorial!

 I finally have finished the tutorial hopefully in time for some of you to make these bags before Valentine's Day!  ;)  This is my first ever tutorial so let me know if you catch any errors so I can correct them!  Click here for the tutorial or email me at ourscoop@gmail.com for the pdf.  Happy Sewing!

Valentine Chair Backers!

These fun bags hang on the back of the kids' chair on Valentine's Day at breakfast filled with goodies from Mom and Dad (usually a book and a few little chocolates).  

Ever since last summer when I saw these cute bags on Jon and Kate Plus 8  (have you seen that show?) I thought they were adorable and wanted to add that fun tradition to our family Valentine's Day!  They were from Pottery Barn Kids and these mail bags can no longer be purchased.  I've seen a few sell on eBay for way too much!  Like myself, people are going crazy for these things!

After seeing these cute bags made by Heather Bailey, I almost couldn't wait to start my project!

My plan is to have the kids names monogrammed on these.  

Cole's is the one without the cute ruffles.

The cute little buttons on the back are my favorite!

Polka dots on the inside. 

Aren't these fun?  You must make some!  For these I embellished the pattern that I used for the Halloween Candy Bags.  I added a 3 inch side and bottom piece to make them look a little more square, a flap on top to close the bag, a little peek a boo heart and backpack straps with buttons.  But you wouldn't even have to do all that!  The pattern would work as is!  And it is such a cinch!  

I don't know what it is that I love so much about Valentine's Day!  Maybe it's because I love all the pink and red colors I get to put up around my house! ;)  For the pdf pattern, try this tutorial link or you can email me at ourscoop@gmail.com for the pdf instructions.

Christmas Cottage!

Every year we have a Gingerbread House contest with the family where we get real creative using graham crackers, cereal and candy.   It is a lot of fun but this year I couldn't resist this kit from Costco.   I was very impressed with the candy assortment and amount of frosting etc....

We were debaiting to frost the house either pink or green.  Sadie was very dissapointed that green won.  But I told her that when it was finnished, she would love it.

Which she did.  She said "I want to live that house, don't you?"  

It was a fun project that brought the whole family together.  

Cookie Jar

This Holiday season has been filled will spending some fun quality time with my kids.  Thanks to the Advent!  Playing games, reading stories, dancing to holiday music, baking and lots more.

Nana brought us this cute cookie jar that we just HAD to fill with yummy cookies!  Sadie requested chocolate!  That's my girl!

I love the idea of having a cookie jar on the counter with homemade cookies in it ALL the time!  The only problem with that is me.  Don't know how much my waistline would benefit from that. 

I found this recipe from allrecipes.com and the cookies were DELICIOUS!!

A definite repeat!  Yum! Yum! Yum!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cake Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Bake at 350 for 11 min.

And we finished off the afternoon with

ShRiNkY dInKs!

We had so much fun with these!  Cole even made his school teacher her Birthday card on one. I wish I took a pic.  It was so cute!  A mini Birthday card!  She loved it! 

Sadie really impressed me with her skills of drawing a princess!

Thanks Nana for the fun Cookie Jar!