Everyday Live Happy

Halloween means dressing up. We take this seriously at our house. In fact the main reason I bought a sewing machine was so I could make costumes for this girl. (For some reason my 14 year old son doesn't want me to make him costumes...) This year she was a mummy obviously. But we did a little bit different take on it.  First I tea dyed her long sleeved shirt, leggings and a cream colored sheet, so they would have an old look to them. You can't really tell from the picture but they aren't the white color that they appear to be.  Then I cut the sheet into strips and randomly sewed them onto her shirt. Focusing more on her torso. There is also some ribbon and gold tulle mixed into the wraps. I did add a few more wraps around the arm after she put it on so that some of the strips wrapped around her hands. Those strips I just safety pinned on. The skirt is made from the sheet with lace sewed on the bottom. Then strips of fabric hang down with gold tulle sewe...

My daughter in law Ashley is expecting her and my son's first child - and our first grandchild. We are pretty excited and of course they are too! They have lots to do though and only a couple of weeks to get it all done. Luckily my cute sister in law, Becca, through her a baby shower. Once they had the shower they would know which items they still needed to get. What to buy? Kind of hard because I'd already given her my standard baby gift. Goodnight moon and a blanket or pajamas. I'd given her that months ago. I knew that I wanted to make a gift for them. I had a neighbor that had made her expectant daughter some adorable burp cloths. That's a funny thing to say "adorable burp cloths." But they really are. She used fat quarters and terry cloth. I was able to find really fun fat quarters. They were printed with the cutest boy patterns that I've ever seen. Animals and monsters. The theme of the shower was safari so of course the animals were perfect. Monst...

I don't know why it's so hard to keep closets organized. I try to put like colors together or type of shirts together or some other way. For instance, in my daughter's closet I try to keep her play clothes separate from her school clothes and dresses. I always have a plan, but then my husband or kids will help with laundry. They will put things anywhere in the closet. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I think that I would rather have them do laundry than put things in the "right" spot. But it does get a little tricky though because things sometimes get "lost" in the back of the closet. Today we went through my daughters closet. This year I am determined to not buy more than what I need to. So we organized and got rid of old, damaged or too small clothes. A section for play clothes. Okay clothes that I would rather she didn't wear for school. Because they are a little worn looking. A section for school clothes. A section for sweaters and jack...

My daughter disappeared into her room today. Awhile later I peeked into see what she was up to. She hadn't made her bed or picked up her clothes, but she had been busy. She was making an owl. A stuffed animal. For her birthday she got a big stack of felt. I think that she was more excited about that gift than any others that she received! Since I didn't see what she was up to until she was at this point I don't have step by step pictures, but I'll do my best to explain what she did. She hand drew a pattern for her owl. It's basically like a circle or a squashy oval. She adds the ears where the circle would curve. She just goes straight up and then comes back down. You can't make them too small since you need room to sew around them. Then she makes a straight line from one ear to the other for the top. You can curve it a little if you want. She also makes the bottom of the pattern more of a straight line too. After she cut out her pattern for the owl body,...

One thing that we really love at our house is photos. We take pictures of everything! I seriously have no room on my iPhone for any  music because there are so many pictures on it! Lots more than a 1,000! Crazy but they are really important to me. I do have to say that I do a great job actually printing out those photos, getting them on a disk or flash drive and then deleting them off my camera. (Yes I have actually deleted lots of photos and still have that many left!) I would be devastated if something happened to any of my cameras and I lost all of the photos on there. I also don't trust my computer to keep them safe for me because my youngest child has accidentally clicked on things that have given us virus's. Our computer has actually had to be wiped before to get rid of everything on it. For that reason, I don't store my photos on my computer either. A few years ago I discovered Shutterfly and quickly became a huge fan! They are an online company that allows you to ...

The other day I talked about Pinterest and how people have different talents and likes. Today is Make it Monday and my 11 year old daughter showed off her talent by doing something that she enjoys - creating. Unlike me who can copy others creations, she comes up with her own. One of her favorite things to make crafts out of is fabric. We have an entire tote filled with patterned fabric, solid colored fabric, lots of colors of tulle and more. Most of it is left overs from costumes that I have made. (My sewing machine and I have a love/hate relationship. So costumes are pretty much all I use it for.)  She got into the fabric and made it into something that is purely her own design. Unicorn Pillows! She made both of these pillows with things that she found here at home. She started with some chevron material and made both of the pillows. She then used a red thin felt type material and free handed a unicorn head on the opposite side of the fabric which she doubled over to cut out...

I have to admit that I LOVE Halloween!!!  Everything about it makes me happy.  The only thing that I'm not completely on board with is dressing up.  I don't really like that, but I love to dress my kids up.  This year my daughter has decided that she wants to be a peacock for Halloween.  I really don't like the cheesy costumes that you find sometimes so I decided that I would make one.  But I really wasn't sure how to go about it.  I knew that we could start with a tutu, but I didn't want it to just look like a girl in a tutu.  So I looked all over the internet and pinterest.  I found lots of costume ideas, but I also didn't want to spend a lot of money (costumes that had a complete tail fan of peacock feathers) or too much time.  I am not great at sewing so I couldn't pick anything too complex either.  I think that we finally have it worked out.  The tutu is done and now it is onto the finishing touches.  A few peacock ta...