quick T's for kiddos

I've been working on several projects for a craft boutique i'm hoping to be a part of in greeley this month. Here are a couple trial run ideas that were super easy and fun :)

here's t-shirt #1- the "tie"

supplies: onesie, cotton fabric, no-stich glue, scissors

Cut out the shape of a fat tie.i cut the "knot" out separately.

glue to shirt w/ this handy stuff

 if you're in a rush, you can leave it like this (and wear it as ben did last weekend) until you can top stitch around the edges.

here's design #2

I cut the little car, windows and wheels out of scrap material. The body of the car  is an old knit t-shirt of mine which is especially great to use because it won't fray like a cotton fabric would.

 I glued the pieces down then I (still need to) topstitch around the whole design

 here are a couple of burp cloths i made to match

pumpkins and leaves

here's a somewhat long string of "fallish" pictures beginning with our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. always great fun. although looking at madeline's expression, one might think the whole idea was a bit overrated. ;)

hayride!

 barrel ride




carving pumpkins. this year will designed a castle/ goofy face carving on his pumpkin and andrew went the Martha Stewart route w/ his.  the girls just enjoyed digging out the sliminess and i took pictures.

 will's castle is on the back side of the pumpkin on the right and of course, andrew's is on the left. talented isn't he?!

last sunday we took advantage of the beautiful leaves at andrew's parents house and coerced everyone into acting photogenic.

baby ben got in on the fall fun too

will and uncle nathan- accidental twins last sunday

the schmidt girls and guys

all six

here are some snap shots we took this weekend of all 6 of us!

 
 

paper chandelier/mobile

 Ben's room needed a mobile. i had seen something similar to this online with a price tag of over $50.00. Here's what "handy andy" and i came up with (fyi- this is my new name for husband. those of you with preschoolers have probably met "handy manny" on tv. my handy andy is waaaay handier. in fact, i think he could probably take over this blog with all his handiness. Yesterday he made homemade yogurt. today he reupholstered the top of the footstool in baby ben's room! such an over-achiever :)
Here's how YOU can make one too:

1. First, i cut out about 100 circles. i used Creative Memories circle cutter to cut 3 different sizes in 3 different shades of yellow.


 2. Then i punched a small hole (i used a needle) in the top and bottom of each circle




 



3. Then i laid out the circles in 9 rows and slightly varied the lengths

 4. Then i thread fishing line through the top and bottom holes of each circle in each row

 5. Here's where Handy Andy came in: i had already spray-painted this dowel that was probably 2 ft long? (bought at hobby lobby for less than a $1) He cut the dowel into 3 pieces and then glued them. This part looked pretty tricky to me. I don't know exactly what he did but i do know he used a strong white glue, crossed the rods atop a plate, taped them and let them dry overnight.

 5. then i tied 1 strand on each of the 6 ends and then tied 3 more strands in the middle triangle area to give it some depth. *TIP- leave extra fishing line to the bottoms of each strand so you can move the circles up and down or add/remove circles to make it look right.

 6. This step also required handy andy's help. to make it hang evenly, he tied fishing line to every other rod(3 ties) and then tied a knot at the top, then tied it to a long piece of line to tie around a screw that was put into the ceiling. **Wow, i used the words "tie" and "tied" 5 times in that run-on sentence...

 Here you can see  how i left the fishing line long so i could adjust them once it was hung.

baby ben

here's  benjamin or "baby ben" as the girls will adamantly correct anyone who refers to him as "benjamin" or "your little brother" or any other term. he's a little over a week old and just as sweet as can be; which makes up for the lost sleep and hormones that have gone berserk. :)

My next post will be a baby room post...i hope :)