Child's Apron #500

 So for my VPLL (more on what exactly that is later) first project, I accidentally ordered the child's apron project #0500, I meant to order the child's dress pattern, but a slip of the finger and I got the apron. But it worked out because one of my little boys has decided that puppies are all the rage right now and that he HAD to have a new apron. Well, Mommy found just the right fabric for this project. I decided to make it reversible and flipped the pockets on one side since I had a collection of puppy buttons for him. I also chose not to do the embroidery as this mommy doesn't get a whole lot of time to do hand work.

The first picture is of the pattern laid out and taped together ready to go.

 Here's the pattern pinned and ready to be cut out. You can see the feet of my little helper whom this apron is for.

 The fabrics ready to go after being cut out.

 Pockets pinned together.

 Sewn and corners trimmed.

 Pockets turned right side out and finger pressed seams.
Here's a secret about me-I hate ironing! I also have the great excuse of no room for an ironing board.

 Pockets were sewn to both sides and then the sides were pinned together and sewn with a small opening left for turning it right side out.

 Snipped small spaces in the curves so it would lay straight.

 All ready to be turned inside out.

 Proudly wearing his new apron. This side has the pockets the right way according to this pattern. Can you see the puppies on his pj's too?

 The back

 The fun buttons that mommy had just for him

 The other side of the apron.

 I flipped the pockets upside down and folded the point down and anchored it with another button

 The other pocket on this side

I doubled the buttons on the top part so they would always button right.

Here's the original pattern picture.










Pattern Review Checklist:

1.  Pattern Description: Child's Apron
2.  Pattern Sizing: ages 3-5 (my son I made it for is 4 yo)
3.  Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing  it? YES!
4. Were the instructions easy to follow? most assuredly yes, I didn't even really follow them, just read them once and then took off
5. What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I loved the simplicity of it
6. Fabric Used-quilter's cotton
7. Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: made it reversible and flipped the pockets
8. Would you recommend this pattern to others? yes
9. Conclusion: Great little project, can be made in a short time

VPLL Checklist

1.  Pattern Name:
   

   Child’s/Boys’ Apron – #0500

2. Sewer’s Skill Level: Advance, Intermediate, Beginner: Intermediate/Beginner-self taught so I know what I've had to look up or ask questions about
3. Pattern Rating: 1-Not a Fan, 2 – So-So, 3 – Good/Average, 4-Better than Average, 5-I LOVED IT! and why? 5-I have a similar pattern for adults-this would be fun to make mommy/miss aprons
4. What skill level would someone need to sew this pattern and why? Beginner-gives a great jump start for other projects
5. Were the instructions easy to follow? If not, what needs to be changed? Yes, I read through them once and then was able to make it.
6. How was the fit/sizing?  Did it correspond to what you thought? The sizing was just right
7. Did you make any pattern alterations? If so, what alterations did you make? Where they fit or design alterations? I made design alterations-reversible and flipped pockets
8. Other notes:

Music Journal

Another project for Imaginisce, my oldest son requested this one as soon as the paper came out. He has dreams of playing the drums and guitar and loves it when I craft to the Trans-Siberia Orchestra. This is an older collection called "Live Loud", and I forgot to take a picture of the back of the notebook, but it is covered with the back-side of this paper as well.

Camping Journal

Has it really been that long since my last post? Life sure has a way of getting away with you when everything happens all at once. I have been doing stuff still, and taking pictures of each project, but they don't always get put into a coherent post or even onto the computer from the sd card.

I have been keeping up with the crafty world and just had to participate in this months challenge over at Imaginisce. As soon as I started looking through my imaginisce papers, this project jumped out and yelled at me to be made. I used the "Happy Camper" papers and turned this composition notebook into a hiking/camping journal for our family with a smaller notebook to go with it and us on our trips.

Back to the Beach

I have found a few different companies that I absolutely love. This project is specifically for one of my new-found loves. Their challenge this month was "Back to the Beach." The company is "May Arts Ribbons." I submitted my project idea and got to pick some of their ribbons to work with. I was a little frustrated in the colors, my screen showed some of the blues to be blue, but they were more of a teal. Gorgeous and excellent feel to them, but not all of them made it into this project. They were also very generous with the lengths they sent, I asked for 6-8 inches and they sent me a yard of each one I requested.

Another company that I used for this project was Maya Road. I had received an alphabet of their plastic letters and it came in a really cool tin that worked perfectly for this idea.



Here's the tin with the alphabet taken out and ready to be painted.



Here are the ribbons that I ended up using. I used each one at least once and most of them twice.



Here's the front with the picture placed inside as I tried to figure out how I wanted to do this. I just painted the letters with acrylic paint and the edge of the top as well.



I used the ribbons to make a layered flowers, a giant ric rac base, then the velvet ribbon was folded and looped and then the blue was gathered with a shell button for the center. I also layered my stamp pads around the edge to soften the white and make it look more sand-ish.


I glued the blue around the upper edge for the sky, folded the satin/grossgrain ribbon for the bottom and framed all around it the brown velvet. Then I took a bunch of buttons and cut off the shanks and layered them around the bottom edge.



Just a close up of the bottom corner.



Here's the whole inside of the tin. This picture is actually of me and my hubby when we were dating.


You can see more of the layers of the flower here. (My hubby says the flower is too big, but somehow that's just how it turned out)



My finished project for the "Back to the Beach" contest.

Needed Motivation

Hey everyone out there, have you had a good day? I've been feeling like I've been stuck in a rut and my week of GIU sucked up all of my creativity for a while. So today, after putting the kids to bed and listening to them talk and play for almost 2 hours before they fell asleep, I decided that I HAD to do something. It didn't matter what, I just had to do it. Right after that amazing hectic week, I took four coordinating pages and cut three of them up for "One Sheet Wonders" I did this for several reasons, one of which was so that I would have everything ready to craft at a moment's notice, especially if I needed a card right away. Well, once again the Unity KOM Challenge Sketch helped me out with using some of those pieces of paper. I used two stamps from the latest KOM "Happy Thoughts" and paper from DCWV Stack 7.


I hope you all have a great week, for us it's the last week of school, and I'm going to be helping my son finish up his teacher's quilt and make a card to go along with it.