Pacifier clip

Another project I have been meaning to do is a pacifier clip. My two year old still uses a pacifier.

Ok so here is the story. She NEVER took a "dummy" (thats what we call them in England) but when I had to stop nursing her when I got pregnant this time my wonderful, amazing, extremely helpful 8 year old thought it would be a great idea to give her a pacifier that she found from when the 18 month old was a baby. BIG MISTAKE! she loved it. So much so in fact that now she is completely attached to it and I fear that she might hide it in her purse on her wedding day for a quick suckle to settle nerves :)

No but honestly she loves it. The only problem at the moment is when it falls under her crib in the middle of the night and she cries cause she cant find it. Me and my 9 month pregnant belly have a little bit of a difficult time crawling under the bed to get it. So for months I have said I really need to make her a dummy (pacifier) clip. So last night I finally did it.

Again this was so easy I have no idea why I waited so long. I could have saved myself so much discomfort in the middle of the night especially these last few weeks.

All I did was:

Buy:

Ribbon

Clips

cute bows

cute buttons

I cute the ribbon long enough to double it over and hung the clip at the bottom. I ran a couple stitches across the bottom to keep the clip in place and a single stitch up either side of the ribbon so that it wasnt a loop. I wouldnt want it to get stuck around her neck. I them added some velcro and the cute bow and button for decoration. And that was it.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

Boppy Cover Remake

So I was given a boppy a few months ago and it has been sitting in a closet with all the other baby items just waiting to be used. Last night I pulled it out and decided to finally redo the cover. It needed a serious make over. It was so simple to do. I literally took the old cover traced around it on some really cute fabric, cut it out, sewed a zipper on it and then sewed the whole thing together. It only took about 1/2 an hour to do. I have no idea why I had been putting it off for so long. Now that I have done it I think I will make another one as a spare. Here are a few pictures :)

Here is while I was tracing and cutting the fabric. And that is the old cover.

Here is the finished Boppy cover on the Boppy. So easy Im not sure why anyone would ever buy a cover over making one :-)

Handmade Puppets

This week my 7 year old decided it was time for her to learn how to sew. We decided it would be fun for her to learn a few hand sewing stitches so we went to the craft store and bought a few things to make a couple of puppets. Can I just tell you how proud I was of my little girl. When we walked out of the craft store she looked up into my eyes, which isnt a far look up since she is almost as tall as I am :), and said Mummy, in her cute little british accent which I could never pull off being American, You know the craft store is just like a bit of Heaven to me. I think I literally wiped a tear of joy off my cheek as I squeezed her :)

Anyway enough sappy proud mommy moments. We decided to make a moneky puppet this week. Next week its a Zebra. Im going to put step by step instructions here and have to apologise in advance for the lack of pictures. See because I was helping her sew hers and sewing one for my little boy at the same time I didnt really get a chance to take many pictures, but next week when we do the Zebra I will try harder!

Here is what you will need:



Dark brown A4 felt x 4
Cream A4 felt x 1
Light brown A4 felt x 1
Contrasting felt for inner ears and accessories
Embroidery thread
Embroidery needle
Eyes
Scissors


Monkey Puppet Instructions:

1. Using the template cut out all the required pieces.

2. Sew the inner ears to the outer ears then sew the tummy onto the body and sew the arms together.

3. Put the ears in place (as marked) between the face and back pieces of felt. Pin all layers together and then sew using a simple overstitch.

4. Fold the mouth piece in half and stitch along folded edge with a running stitch. This prevents the mouth opening too wide and getting stuck.

5. Sew the bottom lip to the body (B to B), then the top lip to the nose (A to A).

6. Lay the body on top of the back and line up the nose with the face (C to C), overlapping the felt by about 1cm. The body will be longer than the back at the base of the puppet.

7. Stitch the nose to the face then attach the eyes. You can use buttons, felt shapes, beads or teddy bear eyes. Note: where you place the eyes really alters the character of the puppet.

8. Start sewing each side of the body together inserting the arms about 5 cm down from the mouth.

9. Decorate your puppet by making hats, necklaces, glasses or other accessories of your choice.

Doesnt my little moneky just look so happy with his little monkey? ;)

Beach Sarong and matching Flip Flops

As you know I am unable to do much sewing at the moment. But I have been looking at all the things I have been wanting to make and sew and look how cute these are:




You dont even have to know how to sew to make the Sarong you can easily just use heming tape or some kind of heat Activated Adhesive Tape. I found this easy make at FavCrafts I get emails from this site all the time and I just love it. Hope you enjoy the link too!

Girls Ruffle Dress from Pillowcase

Well as you know at the moment my crafting has been put on a major hold. I keep telling my wonderful hubby that surely I could sit at the table and make things for our precious Angel (whom by the way is a little girl!)but he is just not letting me move from the bed unless it is to go and lay on the couch or the couch unless it is to go to bed. I am grateful his work is letting him work from home during this difficult time but Im getting BORED!! I need to sort out some needle crafts and quick.

In the meantime I am looking up so much fun stuff on other websites and I have decided that I will just share some of my fantastic finds with each of you as I find them. So look what I found this morning:



I have seen so many pillowcase dresses but I think this is by far my favorit. Plus major bonus is you only need 4 materials:

•A large pillowcase (40 x 20 inches) or same amount of fabric (40 x 40 inches)
•Matching thread
•2 inch matching ribbon
•A button

So cheap and so Easy. To look at the fantastic Tutorial have a look here

I also wanted to thank everyone for their prayers and kind words. I have a lot of faith. I know that all is up to the Lord. Yesterday the Nurse told me she couldnt belive that I have made it to 22 weeks (I will be tomorrow) because when waters break before 20 weeks, and mine went at 19, it is unlikely to make it this far let alone to 24. Our baby is already a fighter and a miracle! Thanks again to everyone. I appreciate it more than you know!

Oven Dress and Grocery Bag Holder

how adorable is this idea! the top part is the "blouse" and the bottom part is a dishtowel and it hangs over your oven door handle. i saw the idea at a craft fair and just kinda winged it with the design. if anyones interested in a tutorial, let me know and i'll see if i can put one together.
but how cute would the oven dress be with the matching grocery bag holder that i found over at the make it and love it blog. her tutorial is found here...

Car Cozie

introducing the car cozie. it's a perfect solution for storing your little mans cars on the go. it has 6 pockets on one side, and a road on the other side.

when it's not in use, you fold it up, roll it up, and tie it up. thanks sharla w/ my little gems for the idea and especially for sharing how to make it here.

Snuggie, Snuglet, Slanket, whatever you want to call it!

who hasn't seen the infomercial for the snuggie? if you're not familiar with the concept, it's basically a blanket with sleeves. i was totally sold on getting one! but i wasn't a fan of the basic blue thin fleece it came it. so i started googling for a free pattern and found the SNUGLET.

my dh "model" didn't want to show his face, lol...
i was even able to find the fleece on sale at joanns for only $5/yd! so i paid $15 and spent 1 hr making it and it's TOTALLY worth it! i also added a pocket at the bottom for your feet. my hubby says he wants one with a pocket for the remote, lol. again here's the pattern.

Eyeball t-shirt

Thank you ONCE AGAIN martha stewart for a great tutorial on how to make this eyeball tshirt.
it really was as easy as they made it seem!

Car Trash bag

So I have two little children and though I love them dearly I have to admit that they LOVE to make messes. One of the places my children cant help making a mess at is in the car. They dont know what to do with their trash once they are finished with it. So this morning I decided to make them each their own little trash bag for the car. Hopefully it will help them to keep their bits of the car clean. Here is a tutorial on what I did. Let me know if you like it or if you think you could do something to improve on it.

Also I love to use scrap bits from around the house. So the fabric for these comes from my daughters new pants. They were way to long so I cut them and hem them up. The rest of the leg is now trash bags.

The best part about this bag to me is that it is lined and so the material wont get dirty and I can always flip it inside out and give it a wipe if necessary.
Items Needed:

• Ribbon
• Empty Old Shopping Bag
• Bottom of old (or new in my case) pairs of pants. The size depends on how big you want the bag so I will leave that up to you.
• Sewing Machine

Step 1: First I cut the front and back of the pants off and into matching size rectangles. I left the bottom hem on the pants.

Step 2: Cut the shopping bag the same size as each piece of material. You will need two pieces. One shopping bag was more than enough for me.

Here is what I mean about cutting them the same size.

Step 3: Pin the shopping bag rectangles to the rectangles on the Pants. The shopping bag is the inside of the trash bag so you want to pin it to the wrong side of the material.

Step 4: Sew the shopping bag to each piece of material. It should go through the sewing machine supper easy. Mine did. When you pin it pin it tight it will make it easier to get things in and out of the finished trash bag.

Step 5: I then sewed interfacing to the top of my bag. I used the side with the hem from the pants as the top. I wanted it to be thicker so that the opening stays open most the time. Hopefully the picture above shows what I did. The one on the left is the side pinned down with the interfacing it in already and the right is when I was getting ready to pin it down and then sew it.

Step 6: Once the interfacing is sewed in you will need to sew on ribbon for it to hang in the car. You only do this to one of the pieces of material because you only want the handle on one side.

Step 7: Sorry I forgot to take a picture of this. You will next pin the two sides together. ready for sewing.

Step 8: I also pinned some ribbon on the inside to cover up any stitches I had made and sewed it on one end. Hopefully the above picture shows this well enough.

Step 9: Once the bag is all sewed up on all sides turn it inside out.

Step 10: Hang inside the car and hope that the kids use them.

I hope that this makes sense if anyone has any questions email me on alisha@homemakinghoneys.com. If you make one email me pictures I would love to see how yours turns out!

Reusable Shopping Bag Makeover!

duh! why didn't i think of this earlier? my girl becca over at naptime journal has a great tutorial on how to take your boring, blah, reusable shopping bag and turning it into something adorable!!

go have a look see at her awesome ideas!

Shopping Bag Holder Tutorial

So I have a secret. You know how everyone has one place in the house where there is just loads of mess that really needs to be sorted out? Well I have a few places like that. But one of them in under my kitchen sink. See I have this problem with grocery bags. First and probably the most serious problem is the fact that I keep forgetting to take my reusable bags to the store with me. I know I am evil my 5 year old keeps reminding me how I am DESTROYING the environment. But the second problem is that I keep all the silly bags I get from the grocery store. I fold them up into a tidy little ball and throw them under the kitchen sink if a box which is designated for them. Ok so it isnt a tiny box either it takes up half the under the sink cupboard. So this week I decided I have had enough of them all falling out on me everytime I open the door. So I made a Shopping bag holder. All other bags which wont fit in the shopping bag holder for now on are going in the recycling box to be taken back to the store. Well I am going to try and take them back. I have a hard enough time remembering to take the bags I am supposed to let alone the bags I am not supposed to :) Anyway I thought I would share an easy way to make a simple fabric bag holder.

Here is what I used:



A Dish Towel (I love using them because they are the perfect size)
Elastic
Ribbon
Sewing machine and various bits to sew it

Step 1: As Always wash and iron the Dish Towel. You dont want it to shrink when you wash it.



Step 2: I had a lot of spare ribbon and wanted to decorate mine a little so I sewed on Ribbon to the top and bottom of my dish towel. The same way I had done with the previous Apron.



Step 3: I then sewed elastic to the top and bottom of the dish towel just under the ribbon. It is important to NOT sew the elastic too close to the top or else it will show when it is done and look a little silly!



Step 4: Take an 8" piece of ribbon and fold it in half. Sew this to the top of your Dish Towel on one of the sides. It will need to be sewn on the back of the dish towel so that when it is finished you dont have the seam showing on the outside of the Bag holder.



Step 5: With the right sides facing each other sew a straight line down the long edge of the tea towel.



Step 6: Turn it right side out and fill with shopping bags. The picture above is rubbish I should take another one showing the bottom which looks exactly the same as the top..

Happy Sewing!!

Pocket Tissue Holder

I have been looking for something to give my my daughters teachers at the end of the school year (here in the UK they dont finish until the end of July). I have decided to make them each an Apron and a tissue holder. I thought I would post the tissue holder on here to start with it was so simple to make and only took about 10 minutes. Plus it turned out really cute.I found this simple pattern on Skiptpmylou. Anyway here is the simple tutorial!! Enjoy!

you will need two pieces of fabric 6 1/2" x 7"


With right sides together stitch 1/4 inch from the edge all around the outside of the fabric. Leave about 1-2″ opening on the LONG side for turning.


Turn and iron. Make sure that you iron the opening to the inside.

Bring short edges to the middle. Place the fabric you want on the outside in the inside. At this point you can choose whether you want the opening to over lap a little or to leave a little slit for the tissue. On mine I have over lapped it. Only because I dont really want to see the tissue on the inside.

Stitch 1/4 inch from the edge along each end.


Turn your tissue holder right side out and fill with your little pack of pocket tissue. On Skip to my lou she says to put a slit in the pack of tissues so that it is easier to get the tissues out. I in fact took the tissues out of the packaging and placed them in the holder.



I sewed some buttons across the slit of mine but only for decoration on the top slit. I thought it added a little to mine. Obviously you be creative and if you have a really cool idea please tell us about it in our comments I would love to know what you do!!

Fabric Flowers

**Quick update. Here is a picture of a two fabric flower that I made. I then sewed it to an elastic hairband for my daughter. She has to wear a school uniform to school and so I made it in her uniform colors so that everything would match. Let me know what you think!***


The other day when I made my canvas bag I said that I would post how to make the Fabric Flowers. So here is a little tutorial. I love these flowers they can be put on anything. You will likely see them on a few things that I post over the next few weeks. If you like these please comment. They are so Simple to make!

Step 1: First choose your fabric. You can use one or two colors. On the one above I only used one color. But it looks very effective with two colors as well!

Step 2. Trace a circle on your fabric. I used the top of a candle on these ones. The more you do them the more you will realize that the bigger or smaller the circles the bigger or smaller the flower. 

You will need 8 circles in total. If you are using two colors colors then you will want 4 circles of each color. 

Step 3. Fold the circles in half and then cut them in half. I find it easier to get them right in the middle is you iron them in half first.
Step 4. Fold each half circle in half again wrong sides together. Then you will sew 1/4 " down the straight side of the flower.
Step 5. Cut the excess thread from each "petal" and turn them right side out. They will look a bit like a cone.
Step 6. To make the bottom layer of the flower Stitch a running thread through the bottom curve of each petal.  You can alternate colors or have the whole bottom layer of the flower one color and the top a different color. On mine I use 9 petals on the bottom. 
Step 7. Pull tightly on the thread to form the flower and secure it with back stitches. Leave approx 8 inches of thread on. TIP DONT CUT NEEDLE OFF!! YOU WILL NEED ANOTHER NEEDLE FOR THE NEXT BIT!

Step 8. Repeat the above steps for the top layer of the flower. I only use 6 petals in the top layer of my flower. REMEMBER TO NOT CUT THE THREAD ON THIS LAYER EITHER!! You will need it to sew the button on.

Step 9. Using the left over thread from the bottom layer hand stitch the top layer to the bottom layer. Secure it with a back stitch. Now you can cut this needle off. You are done with it. 

Step 10. Select the button you want to use and sew it on to the top layer of the flower using the excess thread from the top layer. You can use any kind of Buttons. Here is a picture of one of my flowers.

If you wanted a really cute elastic hairband when you go to sew the two layers together sew a ponytail into it as well. These look adorable in little girls hair!! Good Luck. If you have any questions please let me know!!