Crafting Up A Storm

Another free collage by Smilebox

I've been keeping busy lately with little projects.  I made a new dress for Megan a few weeks ago.  I think it turned out really cute and she loves it.  

I have a ton of scrap fabric from all sorts of things and have been trying to think of ways to use it up.  I made a "stable" using scraps and cardboard.  It's not very pretty and my stitching is horrendous but it got the job done.  Meg loves having a place for her ponies to sleep.  I also made three diaper clutches but forgot to post pictures of those.  Now all the diapers and wipes are contained a little better inside my giant mom-bag.  I made some wallets out of scrap fabric for when I just want my ID and credit card for when I'm out without the kiddos.  They use a ponytail holder for the elastic to keep them closed!  I loved that the stable, diaper clutch, and wallets didn't cost me a thing and were all very simple to make.  

Now for the really cool stuff - the PLAYHOUSE! My neighbor made a card-table playhouse for her little boy using felt.  It's a barn with all sorts of "activities" for him to do on the outside of it like an orange tree and a stream with fish in it and a mailbox with letters inside.  What's amazing is that she did it all without a pattern and it turned out so incredibly adorable.  I wanted to make a house too but I found a pattern by McCall because I can't trust myself without one.  Thanks to some awesome coupons and a pattern sale ($0.99 each) at Joann's, I was able to make this dreamy little cottage for the kids.  It's supposed to have shingles on the sides of the roof, but mine kept turning out all wrong and I couldn't figure out how to make them look like the picture.  I kept taking it apart over and over and finally just decided it was cute without the shingles.  Oh, well.   It's also supposed to have felt flowers and bushes around it, but I really liked how it looked without them and didn't want to make it look sort of tacky.  I may decide to put them on at a later time.

The magnetic menu board! I made this at my ward's craft group last week and I'm so excited to start utilizing it.   I try to meal plan but I would always end up with little pieces of paper marking all my recipes in my cookbooks and then I'd make a shopping list but then stuff would happen during the week and I'd either forget all about what my plan was or I'd forget things from the store that I thought I had.  

I had a really fun time making the board.  It's all on a sheet of metal and decorated with scrapbook paper.  We adhered the paper onto the board using this AWESOME machine that one of our crafty leaders brought  which turns any paper you roll through it into a sticker...AMAZING!  That way we didn't have to mess with modge podge and deal with bubbles and wait forever for it all to dry.  (THANK YOU AMY!!)  So after we got all our papers layed out we made the magnets - one for each day of the week - and put a cute ribbon through to hang it up with.  I came home and typed up all my "menu items" and came up with an ingenious (I think) system for finding the recipe - I numbered each of my cookbooks and then on each menu item I listed the cookbook number and then then page number.  Then, on the back of each menu item I listed all the ingredients and the amounts so that I can create my shopping list and then be CERTAIN that I have everything ready BEFORE it's time to start dinner.