Friday, June 29, 2012

Baby Bubble Rompers redesigned into Children's Tops

I had bought some bubble rompers for my grand daugher Gracie when she was born, she didn't get to wear them very much...


 At the prime time when the fit her perfectly it was winter time and she is so long anyway, she going to be a tall little girl.  They fit her perfectly now but the length is to short to snap them.  These outfits are just darling, so I decided to make tops out of them, this was a hard decision to make because these were new outfits.  But isn't the whole idea to get as much use out of the children's clothes as possible?  So we buy them as big as we can, but not to big.  The longer you keep them in the cloths the less you have to buy.... we want to keep the littles ones in clothes as long as possible, correct!?! 




 



Now... what I did on these rompers is cut the bottom portion off just above the snap at the crotch.  Then I took and sewed a piece of bias tape onto the bottom the little top, then I turned the bias tape under and top stitched for a finished product.





They just grow so fast at this time of their life!


Ahhh... these tops are just so cute.  Now she will get to wear these tops instead of just giving them away!  This makes Nana very happy!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Memories and Reminiscing about Montana

I remember spending many a day in my childhood picking wild berries for jams, jellies, and syrups.   Many holidays and summer vacations where spent with my grandparents where I learned many things from the old days.  I do cherish those times that I spent with my grandparents in Western Montana.  

On my birthday the last couple of years, my mom has sent me some jams, jellies and syrups made in Montana, they brought back very happy memories just seeing them... but tasting them was even on a higher level than that... the memories came flooding back... What a treat!









I'm so happy to have found that I can buy these products online now.  Here is just a few products from
Huckleberry Haven Mountain Cannery were you can truly taste the wilderness!




These products are Made in Montana. 


 





Now I'm just showing a few products from each of the sections.









 


Huckleberry Haven has many more products, there are just to many to list.  I will share with you their sections and in each section they have much more.    


They have several teas... I even found a Wild Blackberry Tea also!


I remember so well picking wild raspberries and wild blackberries, this would be something that I would enjoy doing again, picking some berries and then canning them up into jams and jellies.   When we lived in North Carolina, I guess this was back in the early 80's my son was about three years old, we lived in the middle of a large apple orchard I canned about 12 jars of applesauce and some apple jelly.  No to long after that we moved back to Vallejo, California.  They have a place there called Apple Valley, well that's another story for another time!


Candles that have these scents would be just awesome...  I can't wait to try them for myself!  Even though I make candles... I have try their version since it is made in Montana! 

























I promised to share their sections so you can see what a variety that they do have in their shop.   


Wild Berry Syrups,
Wild Berry Tea & Honey,
Wild Huckleberry Coffee & Cocoa,
Wild Huckleberry Candy & Chocolates,
Gift Ideas,
Huckleberry Flap Jack Mixes,
Wild Berry Dessert Toppings,
Huckleberry Pie Filling,
 Wild Berry Vinaigrette's, 
BBQ, Salsa & Chipotle Sauce,
Sugar Free Products,
Candles,
Wild Huckleberry Body Cream,
Lip Balm & Potpourri,
Wild Animal Cookie Cutters,
Lewis & Clark Provisioners,
The Journey 1803 - 1806.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Flower Capri Pants and Sun Hat ~ Children's Clothes

I promised that I would share with you the Flower Capri's and Sun Hat so here it is... now this goes wonderfully and is a perfect match tot the flower top with the Beatrix potter buttons.


Now on these little capri's...  I used a pair of my grand daughter pajama bottoms and made my own pattern for these pants.  These pajama pants were so easy to make a pattern from because they were small, simple and not made of bulky fabric.




Now for the finished pair of capri's just in time for the hot SoCal summer!






There are a few blogs on children's clothing where I have made several outfits where the pieces are interchangeable... tops bottoms and hats!



  


 Now for the sun hat, we wanted this hat to be versatile and to go with several of the outfits we were making.  We choose this light yellow whimsical flower pattern.... it is so darling, then the tie we made two-tone with the green polka dot fabric.





I started to assemble the sun hat, it came together reather quickly. 







I finished this little sun hat just in time for the summer.  

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Quilts for My Nieces Shelby and Amanda

Years ago I made Shelby and Amanda quilts...  There is a real story behind this project!  We will call it the



"The Drama of the Quilts"



Let me start by saying that my nieces are just 3 months apart, so I decided to go with this star design, so that I could do both the quilts at the same time.  I gathered all my fabrics for this project and decided on a pattern before the girls were born, but didn't start on the quilts until they where born.  


I started off with crib size quilts in mind, then thinking about that it would be nice for them to be able to use the quilts for many years to come not just in there their toddler years, so I decided on full sized quilts.


I was a little over half finished with the tops for both the quilts when we moved, and not just into another house.  This house was a major fixer upper and on top of that it was a down size in square footage also.  So my craft room got pack up and store for awhile, (a couple years) you know how that goes out of site out of mind!  My husband Tim has a construction background and we moved forwarded with the project of the remodel on our little bunglow in Vallejo, California.  We were in major remodel for about 5 years total in one section of the house or in another.  During the remodel, the craft room was a storage area for furniture and boxes from the other rooms of the house.Then towards the end of all the remodel I started pulling out the boxes for the craft room and trying to get organized in my craftroom/guest room.   This allowed me to be able to finished the tops of the quilts and then we found out we were moving to New Mexico, so I packed up the craft room again into boxes.


We got all settled in our new home in another state... New Mexico, who would have thought... I sure didn't!  I really didn't want to move, if you asked my husband I guess I put up a little fight, we had just finshed our remodel of our Home and Gardens house... it turned out that good!   (I was just sick inside about moving). 




Shelby's Quilt




Amanda's Quilt




A Pillowcase for each of the girls!


We decided to rent until we got a feel for the new area in which we were living now and then we were familiar with the area we would buy. Of course it took me awhile to get my craft room settled and get back to working on the quilts. I'm so glad I decided on the larger sized quilts for the girls since they were about 6 years old at this time.   After moving to New Mexico it was about another year and a half before we bought a house and then after moving in and getting settled into my craft room... I pulled out the quilts and finished them up pronto... I sure didn't want the girls to graduate before they got their quilts!



I guess the girls were about  8 or 9 years old when they recieved their quilts.  I was real happy after all that they both loved their quilts and still have them on their beds, the girls are about 13 years old now.