By Kathryn  , on January 9th, 2012  For months before Christmas, I was planning on making some homemade gifts. During this process I found I was really good at planning, and even better at procrastinating in the execution. So, during the month of December I managed to crank out a whole slew of gifts for the family. It would have been nice to complete more, but I just ran out of time. Now that all of the gifts have been received I can finally post them here.
This is the first project I finished. I wanted to make an infinity scarf; however, since I couldn’t decide on one fabric to buy, I combined two tutorials (Tea Rose Home’s Five Fat Quarter Scarf and The Cottage Home’s Infinity Scarf) to create this fat quarter infinity scarf for Amelia.
 Fat Quarter Infinity Scarf Next up was this zippered toiletry pouch, also for Amelia. I got a remnant of cow print fabric at Joann’s and knew I had to make something for Amelia. Once I came across this tutorial for a toiletry case, I decided to make one. You can’t tell from the photo, but I used iron-on vinyl on the cow print and used it for the inside of the bag to keep things clean. The outside of the bag was made using another remnant from Joann’s. To make the bag, I used the fabric measurements from the tutorial, but when I was putting things together I noticed that even though the bag was lined, the seams would still be exposed. So I searched the internet and used this tutorial to keep the seems from being exposed.
 Toiletry Case with vinyl lining With the success of my first zipper bag, I moved onto a second bag for my soon-to-be sister-in-law Rachel. I picked up the outside fabric in the remnant bin at Joann’s (man this is becoming my favorite place to shop at Joann’s), and thought Rachel would like it since it had red in it. For the inside, I skipped the vinyl, and just used a red-white polka dot fabric I had previously purchased at Joann’s. Without the vinyl the bag was more floppy, but I liked it. Being my second bag it came out a little better and I think I’m ready to move onto other projects that involve zippers. They aren’t so scary afterall.
 Lined toiletry bag Next was another scarf, also for Rachel. I also had a hard time deciding on fabric, especially because the fat-quarter bundle I had my eye on at Joann’s while waiting for a coupon was purchased before I could get it. I finally ended up buying it online along with the pom-poms. This time I followed the Tea Rose Home’s Five Fat Quarter Scarf, but I used six coordinating fabrics.
 Fat Quarter Scarf The last thing I made before Christmas was a camera strap for Tysen. I didn’t snap a photo, but you can imagine it. I used this tutorial because I liked the added lens cap pouch, and I used turquoise blue fabric on the inside (from Grandma Louise’s stash) and a blue/white hexagon fat quarter from Joann’s.
My last homemade (sewing) gift was a fleece brobee hat. I got the green fleece from the remnant bin at Joann’s (such a great find), and then used some red and white fleece and black felt from my stash to construct the hat. I started with this pattern/tutorial, then added on a set of long ear flaps using this pattern/tutorial. I added about an inch on the fold to make it so the ear flaps ended up over the ears (based on Tysen’s head). To make the stripes I think I cut 1.5 inch fleece strips and sewed together using a 1/4-inch seam allowance and then cut the ear flap pattern out. To insert the red spikes, I used followed the instructions here. For the facial features, Tysen helped me out with the eyes and I just sort of sized everything else to take up the space on the hat. It seemed to be the hit of the Perszyk gift exchange.
 Brobee Fleece Hat I had a lot of fun making all these gifts and I’ve already started making my list of homemade gifts for 2012, so hopefully I’ll get started soon and get everything finished in time for next year. If there’s something homemade that you’d like, let me know. :)
By Sara , on January 8th, 2012 The deck has been removed and we found bones from a dead possum in the dirt under the deck!
By Kathryn , on November 12th, 2011 I decided months back that Arcadia’s 3rd Birthday Party theme would be Dr. Seuss and didn’t give Arcadia much say in the matter other than to talk up how much fun a Dr. Seuss party would be. Even at the last minute when she was insisting on a fire man’s (hat) birthday party, I didn’t give in and we moved ahead as I planned. I think it all worked out for the best and Arcadia had a great time with her friends.
Once I decided the theme, I started collecting party ideas and saving them to my Dr. Seuss Pinterest board – Pinterest is so fun and useful and unfortunately for me, such a huge waste of time too! Anyway, I collected a bunch of ideas and given my procrastination on execution, I ended up foregoing some decorations at the last minute. On the Wednesday before the party I sewed together the above hat (it stands up better than shown in this photo). I made the hat using this tutorial, but made mine out of fleece and did 5 stripes for an authentic hat.
So first, I’ll start with the decorations. Since we have a growing collection of Dr. Seuss books, we set those up around the room, then I made buntings with some Dr. Seuss books picked up from Goodwill. There were 3 buntings total, one with There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, one with Green Eggs and Ham, and the third with In a People House. Also to decorate I purchased a Dr. Seuss welcome set and put the creatures all over the house. All the decorations (aside from the books which were returned to Arcadia’s bookcase) remain up in the house.
As many other Dr. Seuss party throwers did, we set up a table near the door requesting everyone to leave a birthday message to Arcadia.
Next up, the activities. I have to say, once there were six 3-year olds running around the house, I was quite thankful that I had several activities planned and that the weather was good and we could play outside. We started off with everyone putting together and coloring a Horton Hears a Who wooden puzzle (I found them on clearance at Michael’s) and then moved on to Dr. Seuss coloring pages. Then, we went outside and played “The Cat says” (just like Simon Says) to warm up and run around. Next, the kids went on an egg hunt a la Scrambled Eggs Super – once the eggs were collected, they were opened into a bowl and a few extra ingredients were added. While the mixture set, we went on a music parade a la And to Think I saw in on Mulberry Street. When we returned, we checked out our egg mix and found play dough (I had filled all the eggs with flour, salt, cream of tarter, and glitter then we had added the water and oil following this recipe). The kids enjoyed playing with the dough then ran around the front yard and climbed (with parental help) our maple tree. We don’t have any photos of the activities as Tysen was busy with Hazel and finishing the green eggs and I was leading all the activities. Regardless, it was fun and generated many great memories.
 Hazel had fun being Thing 2! And, a Dr. Seuss party isn’t complete with out some Dr. Seuss themed food (recipes linked). We had Oodles of Poodle Noodles, Colored Goldfish, Green Eggs, Caramel Turtles, Truffula Fruits (fruit platter with grapes, strawberries, tangerine slices, and pineapple), 3 Cheese Trees (cheese cubes sticking out of Styrofoam cones using toothpicks), and Cat in the Hat Cupcakes. To drink there was Pink Yink Drink (strawberry lemonade and strawberry milk). I made the milk by pureeing a bag of frozen strawberries with milk, then threw in 1/4 cup of raw sugar which made just shy of a 1/2 gallon of milk). And, I have to give a big thanks to Tysen who executed all my food labels by photographing pages of the individual Dr. Seuss books then editing them in Photoshop.
By Kathryn , on October 3rd, 2011 A few weekends back I finally conquered the buttonhole sewing feature on my sewing machine. I had done buttonholes once before, but I didn’t remember it being so difficult. After many trial sews, I finally managed to finish a shirt for Arcadia that I started a while back. First, here’s the buttons I slaved over:
Ideally there should be more buttons, but when I bought the fabric I only bought 2 buttons, not knowing what I’d make. Possibly I’ll buy 2 more buttons to finish off the shirt or even sew the bottom of the shirt together, I’m just afraid the shirt won’t fit very well if I do that. I had already cut off a few inches from the bottom (I had intended to make this more of a tunic top to wear with leggings) because I didn’t think it’d fit well around her hips/belly. I’m still working on my pattern making as I have yet to make the perfect shirt pattern – the resulting clothes always end up too small or too big. But either way, Arcadia still likes it and likes all the clothes I make for her, which keeps me going.
To make the shirt I followed the Pleated Top tutorial. Reading the tutorial made pleats sound so easy, but I cursed and complained all while trying to make the pleats for this shirt. They turned out well, I just didn’t understand where to sew and how to fold the fabric. I vowed not to try pleats again, well at least not for a while.
Then, this weekend I busted out quite a few projects. First up was a pair of leggings for Arcadia from an old shirt of mine. I made Arcadia’s leggings from the arms, they turned out to be a good width for the leg, and had the main part of the shirt leftover, so I made Hazel a pair of leggings too! Don’t mind the stains on Hazel’s, I had to pull them out of the laundry.
My next shirt upcycling was a shirt for Arcadia. This time, I modified the raglan tee pattern, and used another long-sleeve shirt I had on hand from my closet. I added some bias tap that I’d made when making a bapron for Hazel. (I was going to link back to the bapron I made, but I guess I never posted the one I made Hazel or the ones I made my cousin’s son…guess I need to get better with my posts.) The shirt ended up a little big, but that didn’t stop Arcadia from wanting to wear it right away (hence the stains – again, I had to pull the shirt from the laundry to photograph for this post).
And finally this weekend I sewed Hazel a baby blanket. I bought the flannel fabric for the blanket months ago from Joann’s, and then cut out the pieces at least a month or so ago. Then, during my scheduled sewing time on Sunday I finished it. I proceeded to try to take pictures of it with Hazel and this is the best photo of the bunch. You can’t really see the blanket, but you can pretend. It’s basically a square blanket with elephant fabric on the front and pink flannel with multicolored polka-dots for the back and binding. Its super soft and will be Hazel’s school blanket (in fact, it went to school today).
 And that’s all. Whew, I should post more frequently so I don’t have to make such long posts of all my projects!
By Sara , on September 25th, 2011 We rode about 65 miles for brain cancer. Went over 13 biridges (two we went over twice – so 11 different bridges). Great ride! 
By Riley , on September 9th, 2011 A couple of months ago I had the idea that I should keep a bike on campus so that when I need to go from lab to class and back. So I bought a cheap bike from a lab mate and its been pretty nice, but I was thinking I needed to bam it up a notch. The other weekend Amelia and I decided to make the BikBee, which will be the future of children’s characters bike crossovers.
There’s a party on my bike! Let me know how many you’d like to order.
By Sara , on August 26th, 2011 Sorry, but these cute frogs were not engaged in any kind of mating ritual, but simply hanging out inside our outdoor table umbrella. We found them when we opened up the umbrella last week.
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2012.01.09 21:15:10 | 
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