Toilet Paper Pumpkins

I'm sure many of you have seen this idea before.  I've seen them all over the internet, so I can't give just one person credit.  We made these during literature today.  We're listening to Johnny Tremain and after I turned it on, I got up and got everything out for the project.  My kids watched me make one and then both joined in.  We made 8 of them.  We would have made more, but that was all the fat quarters I had in Fall colors.

Here's what we used for this project (the list below makes one).

1. Full roll of toilet paper (not just the tube)
2. 1 fat quarter in a Fall color
3. leaf cut out of felt (here is the pattern I used... After cutting we cut them all out I thought we could have bought some silk fall leaves and that would have worked great too, but I wanted to use things I had around the house).
4. 2 green pipe cleaner
5. one brown lunch bag

First, we printed out the leaf pattern, traced it onto the felt and cut them out.  Next, we pulled the fat quarter up over the toilet paper roll and stuffed it down the tube.  Then, we cut off both ends off the lunch bags and twisted them up to look like a stem.  Next, we rapped the leaf around the base of the stem with the ends of the pipe cleaners and twisted the pipe cleaners around a pencil to look like vines.  Last, we stuffed the stem into the top of the pumpkin.  

This was a really easy, fun and a super fast activity to do with the kids.  It took us about 15 minutes to make them all.   I think they're pretty cute!

Embroidered Crayon Apron

I wasn't sure how exactly to title this because I know there are crayon aprons that hold crayons and this is not what I'm referring to. But, I think some of you might like this idea.

Several months ago I was asked to plan an activity for 12 and 13 year old girls. My daughter, Melanie, (who was 13 at the time) thought up this neat idea. She wanted to make aprons where we trace on a pattern, color them with crayons and then embroider around them. We had started to make a crayon quilt before the fire but never finished it (for obvious reasons :D) and I thought it would be a fun and easy activity for the girls.

So, here are the supplies we used to make them.

1. One white or cream colored apron (we purchased them in the craft section at Wal-mart)
2. A box of crayons (Crayola seems to work the best)
3. A pattern (I'll talk more about that latter in this post)
4. Light box - here's the one I own
5. tape (preferably a heavier tape like masking)
6. iron
7. paper towels
8. black embroidery floss
9. embroidery needles
10. scissors

To start, we needed to figure out what pattern we wanted to put on the girls aprons. My daughter wanted a bee, her name and flowers. So to make it easier I just made all the girls the same pattern, except for their names. I found cute clipart at Clipart.com, (which is not free but I use it for my business) but you could find something anywhere online. I added their names with a cute font and we were in business!

Next, after printing off a pattern for each girl, they taped the pattern to the light box and starting tracing on their pattern with a pencil. We also tape on the apron so it doesn't shift. If you are using a thinner fabric you will want to iron freezer paper onto the fabric to make it stiff enough to trace onto. This works wonderfully!

Now that you have your pattern traced on it's time to color. My daughter likes to color in shades to give it depth. Again, if you are using a thinner fabric, leave the freezer paper on until after you are finished coloring. Will will be sorry if you remove it!

After coloring on the pattern, with a medium heat on your iron, you will cover the pattern with paper towels and iron until you leave no trace of crayon on your paper towels. You will go through quite a few paper towels depending on the size of your pattern. I suggest you get the cheap paper towels if you don't usually use them typically.

Once you're finished ironing, you can start embroidering! My daughter likes to use just a straight stitch but she has also used a button hole stitch for a few things as well.

Here's how my daughter's apron turned out.

All the other girls only put their names, with the bee and a couple flowers. But, Melanie was having so much fun that she wanted to add more flowers and stitch around the edges. She had so much fun that she's actually just starting her third apron.

Her second apron she made for my mom. Here's how that one turned out. As you can see there is much more detail. My mom loves it!

Here are some shots of her working on the one she is currently making on for me.

She has started stitching but I didn't get photos of that. I will definitely add photos of the finished apron when she's finished!

Lastly, she has been getting her patterns for her aprons at pccrafter.com. They offer lots of cute patterns for crafts at a pretty reasonable price. You can also preview everything before you purchase.

Rag Quilts

I love making rag quilts! When we lost our house to a fire a couple years ago we lost almost all our quilts and I haven't made the time to make more. Well, my wonderful mother (who is an avid quilter) cleaned out her fabric room (which is huge!) and gave me hundreds of yards of flannel! You can image how excited I was!!! Well, since my beautiful daughters go to school in cold country, I thought I'd make them each a new rag quilt for those cold nights.

Ali (my oldest) helped a lot with the quilts but Cassie has been in Brazil for the last two weeks and has no idea about them at all. She's been wanting to make one for a while and will be thrilled it's been done for her. They leave for college just a few days after she returns from Brazil.

Ali's quilt... she likes a more patchy type... no rhyme or reason.

Close up of Ali's

Cassie's quilt has a pattern

Close up of Cassie's

We used 10" squares and made them for full size beds. We used 8 squares across and 12 squares down. The photos were taken on queens so they fit a full much better. They will actually be on twins at school but the girls wanted them a little bigger. We also used all flannels but you could also use 100% cotton for the front of the quilt to make it a little lighter. To make them even warmer we used a piece of batting in between each square. The batting squares are 8" and we sew an "X" on each square.

Note: When I say "squares" I'm referring to both the front and the back as one square or block, I guess. :D

I'm now making one for my California king. I'm also using 10" squares for that one - 12 across and 14 down. I'm still cutting the squares for that one and will post pics when I'm done.

These quilts are super cute, easy to make and you can make them fast. We took a couple days to make Ali's because we were busy, but I made Cassie's in one day.

If you would like to make a rag quilt of your own, here is a website that gives great instructions.