A pink tent

When I was little, my Grandma Beck made us a tent to play in. We loved this tent! It was made out of PVC pipe and army green fabric, but oh how we loved to play in the tent. We set it up inside and outside.

I got the pattern from my Aunt Norine and I set about making plans for a Pipe Tent. I searched all over for fabric. It had to be sturdy enough and since I needed 6 yards, there had to be plenty. I didn't want to spend a ton of money so I searched for months at the clearance sales. I finally found something suitable. Since I was making it for my nieces - 5 girls and no boys, I thought pink was the perfect color.

It turned out a little short, so I added a border along the bottom. I also made a bag to store it in.

Plastic aprons

When we were little, Madre made us some plastic aprons. We used them to when we painted with watercolors, played with play dough or anything else messy. They were great. Madre just wiped them off when we were done.

I decided to make some for my nieces. I found white and pink plastic and used nylon straps around the neck and for ties.

When Madre made ours, she used bias tape all around the edges and for ties, and after trying it a different way, I would do it Madre's way if i ever make these again.

Graduation announcements

Ryan and I both were graduating on the same day. I wanted to send out announcements, but our poor college budget couldn't handle the insanely ridiculous price for official ones. And we wanted both of our names to be on the same announcement. My creative brain started coming up with ideas. And we decided to make our own.

First we drove to about 10 different scrapbook stores looking for the right color of purple. So many shades of purple and I was simply not going to settle for a nasty purple. We bought some official stickers from the bookstore and we set about making announcements.

Ryan decided he wanted to make one as well. I was surprised, but I wasn't going to complain. This is the announcement I created. I found the perfect matching purple ribbon for $1. I know it looks like a wedding announcement a bit, but I liked it. It is probably not noticeable in the picture, but I used a vellum overlay with the print on the white card stock below and the sticker/seal on the vellum.



And here is the one Ryan created. He went hi-tech and downloaded an image of the Campus and printed it on the announcement.


We ended up sending out some of both announcements to our families. It was a fun way to end our college careers together.

Minnie Mouse doll blankies

I bought this fabric on clearance back in 2001 or so. I've hauled it around as we moved. My plan was to make pillow out of the panels. My twin nieces got into a doll phase. I decided to make doll blankies instead of pillows. It was quite convenient as well. Their parents had dressed one of them in pink on the other in purple since they were born. So there was no question of whose was purple and whose was pink.

I machine quilted around Minnie's face, bow and hands.

They were the perfect size for their dollies.

Apron for Cresy

Growing up in my family, we had a Christmas tradition of making homemade gifts for each other. A month or two before Christmas we would draw names and then make a homemade gift for that person. After a few years, we started a rotation. My sister had drawn my Padre's name for the past 3 years and he is one of the hardest ones. So the rotation began and it continues today.

Crescent asked for an apron for her homemade gift. I set about searching my boxes to find some cute fabric that I had to make the perfect apron. I had bought an apron pattern before when I made an apron for Ryan's mom a few years ago. The apron for her turned out okay, but the pattern was not the best. The binding along the edge was done in several strips so there ended up being layers of fabric at the top corners of the apron.

I learned my lesson. This time, I made the ties, neck loop and edges one continuous strip of binding.

Hair cutting cape

One of the first traumatic moments of our marriage occurred about 6 weeks after we had been married. Ryan asked me to cut his hair. I had never used clippers, I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't attempt it again for several years.

Ryan asked me to make him a hair cutting cape. But he wanted it out of "slippery" fabric. I had made one when I was younger as a gift for my father, but it was cotton fabric.

However nervous I was, it was a great excuse to drag Ryan to Joann's as we looked for suitable fabric. This process of looking for the perfect fabric took several months. One day after a shopping trip on my own to Joann's, I came home with the perfect fabric.

Slippery spiderman fabric. I made many phone calls to Mom asking for instructions and advice on what to do. My plan was to use a rolled hem around the edge. However, the "slippery" fabric didn't take to a rolled hem.

I was stuck. I finally gave in and finished the entire thing with bias tape. When Ryan opened it Christmas morning (no surprise this year), our brother-in-law Luke exclaimed "I want one of those"! (One year later, Luke received his own slippery spiderman hair cutting cape.)

Josh, our nephew, wouldn't get his hair cut without the spiderman cape.