Just Jen

Andie Hat Makeover

Last night, I decided that one of Jack's old ball caps needed an Andie makeover. Though he did not see the improvement, I think she was a fan. She is such a hat girl. And a shoe girl. And a dress girl. She is such a girl!

The flowers and petals are much easier than they look. I cut strips of t-shirt and sort of folded and twisted them around like a cinnamon roll, starting in the center and sewing with my machine to keep the swirls in place as I went. The key is to not try too hard to make them perfect and just go with it!

I'd do a little tutorial, but I can't take pics while I'm sewing, so...
There are TONS of fabric flower tutorials already out there anyway, so take your pick!

I hand stitched the flowers to the top part of the hat and hot glued the one on the bill. Before I knew it I was done! So quick and easy!

Andie's Amineko

Andie doesn't know yet that we're dog people. She loves her "meows". I decided a stuffed one would be better than a real one, so I set out to find a cute kitty crochet pattern. I discovered the popular Amineko pattern (how have I missed this?) and decided to make it for her.

I love the way it turned out, and I think she does too. Now brother wants one - in blue and red, and minus the bow. Of course.

 

Lunch hour crafting - old school granny plastic canvas tissue box cover

In progress. For my desk at work. So tacky it's going to be awesome.

Wood bead t-shirt necklace

Jack has a few special friends that we made (ok, I made...) these cute necklaces for as Valentines. It's never to early to start training him that girls love to get jewelry on Valentine's Day...right?

Here's how to do it:

Paint wooden beads with acrylic craft paints and spray them with a clear acrylic sealer when dry.

Cut a 1.5" wide strip horizontally (so it will have some stretch) across the bottom of a white t-shirt. (You'll want to cut off the bottom hem of the tee first and then cut your strip. ) You'll end up with a big loop.

Cut into the loop so you end up with one long strip.

Center the first bead in the middle of the strip. Knot the fabric on each side to hold it in place.

Add the remaining beads to each side, knotting as you go.

Tie a simple double knot at the top to close it, and done!

Of course, we had to make one for little sister, too!

Jack's Valentines

For the kiddos in Jack's class, I made these owls with paper lunch sacks and filled them with popcorn. I was inspired by these, but wanted to "man" them up a little. I thought they looked a little more mean and tough...

And his teacher got a jar of my salted caramel sauce. I was a little distracted while making this batch, so I am afraid it was a little grainy...but it still eats good anyway!

Jack's Superhero 4th Birthday

A few days ago, my little guy turned 4. I am still having trouble grasping that, but here we are anyway! This is the first year he had an opinion on his party theme, and he most definitely wanted an Iron Man party. Now, I LOVE planning the kids' parties and have dreaded the day when I would have to do a generic party based on a licensed character. I narrowly escaped that this year though since I was able to talk him into a general superhero theme with lots of heroes included. After all, we couldn't have Hulk and Thor and Captain America get their feelings hurt by being left out, right?


After looking around online, I found there was still a lot of room for creativity with this theme. Lots of fun, cute stuff. We have always had the kids' parties at home, but this year with all the friends he has made at school and church, the guest list had grown to the point that we couldn't accommodate all the kids+parents+family in our little space. And we certainly couldn’t count on the weather to be nice enough to have it outside, so we decided to have it at one of Jack's favorite places: Main Event.  (He has even on occasion thanked Jesus in his bedtime prayers for this place. Such a sweet kid.)

My husband had a great idea for the invite, and I'm glad he talked me into it. He took all the pics for the invite and photoshopped them together, and I did the rest of the layout and finished off the tubes. These were ridiculously expensive to mail because of the odd shape, but luckily we were able to hand deliver most of them. They went over really well!

By having the party outside the house, I knew I was going to have to let go of my usual over-the-top decorations because of the limitations of the space we were going to be in. Instead I focused on the things I could control - the cake and the favors.

I had played with fondant once before for Andie's party with decent success and thought I was ready to graduate to something a little more involved. I found these adorable cupcake toppers online and decided to do my own version of them. I was really pleased with the way they came out, but I do think I can cross cake decorating off my list of back up careers… Fondant is HARD and I am officially in awe of anyone that can master it! Jack loved them, though (which is all I really cared about) and repeatedly told me what a great job I was doing. Once I even heard, "You are so wonderful for making those, Mommy." Totally worth all the effort just for that. I bought the cupcakes and icing (because I had long ago crossed baking off my list of back up careers) and plopped these on top. Done.

I had enough fondant and icing left to make Jack a special cake (blue, of course - his favorite color) with his own superhero logo.

For the favors, I thought it would be cute to make capes for the kids wear while they bowled and played games at the party. I found a couple of good t-shirt cape tutorials on Pinterest and decided that would be easy and cheap. It's not necessary to hem them, but I did turn the raw edges under with a zigzag stitch to give them a more finished look. I drew the symbols for each of the superheroes and printed them on the back of each cape like we do our personalized tees. The kids looked so cute!

I knew there would be balloons in the room, so I made masks and brought them to the party to tape on. Then I scattered a few comic book looking word burst graphics on the tables with some ribbon and called it done.

The party was a blast, and he had a great time, but we are definitely partied out. Well, almost…I may or may not already be gathering ideas for a sweet little girl's birthday coming up in August. :) I just can't help myself.

Crochet Baby Blanket - DONE!

I just delivered this blanket to a very sweet new little one. I have made this pattern a couple of times, and I love it. It takes forever, though, so I save it for very special times. This baby's momma and I have been BFFs since the 4th grade, so it definitely qualified as "special". Plus, I got a head start back in the summer instead of waiting til the last minute like I usually do.

I love working with this yarn. It's super soft and washes well, and it looks like mint chocolate chip ice cream. I also used it on Andie's hat and scarf and a new little poncho - more on that later! The pattern is from a little book called Crochet: The Portable Crafter.

Welcome to the world, Miss Addison!

 

Christmas ornament making with Jack

This year as a little gift for family and neighbors, Jack and I made these swirly paint ornaments. He loved making them - about 18 in all. They're super easy. Just squirt in some acrylic craft paint into clear glass or plastic ornaments and swirl like crazy. We did 2 colors in each, and let the first color dry for a bit before adding the 2nd one. A word of warning: these take FOREVER to dry, so don't wait until the last minute to start. It's a good idea to turn them upside down to let the excess paint drain out to help them dry faster. Once they were mostly dry, I put the tops back on, tied a little ribbon to the top and wrote on the outside with a white fine tipped paint pen. Everybody loved them, and Jack and I had fun making them together - and well, that was the best part of all.

Texas White Christmas

It doesn't happen often - almost never, actually. But this year we had a white Christmas in Texas. Couldn't have been more perfect!

A ruffly scarf to go with the hat

A while back I posted about this hat that I had crocheted for Andie to wear this winter. Well, recently I decided she needed a scarf to go with it. I used the same yarn from the hat, and used this free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. I had to size it down, of course. I chained only 100 in the beginning row and skipped the 3rd row altogether. I alternated colors for each row.

Since it was so small, I was able to work it up pretty quickly, just in time for a tree lighting last Friday night. She also had her first picture with a Santa that wasn't daddy:

I think it's safe to say she's not a fan. And the look on Jack's face was like, "What's wrong with her?!" I love the pic; I only regret not having a better camera handy. I didn't know we were going to be sitting on Santa's lap for pics, so I was unprepared. Still golden.