Crafts Of The Week

Thought I'd share (and fish for compliments) some of the things I've been working on this week:
I started off Sunday evening cutting out pieces to make a dress for myself, before I got too fat to wear it. Alas, I am too fat. No pictures because Dale had some trouble with the zipper. When I'm not fat anymore (or at least when the zipper has been replaced) I will put a picture up of my awesome dress.

But, I did manage to finish this little guy. I've had this pattern printed off from Made by Rae for almost a year now, never to get around to using it. I have a long time friend from high school (who, I believe, doesn't read this blog, so this shouldn't ruin the surprise) who is going to have her first baby in two months! I thought, what a great opportunity to try this puppy out. I started it sometime in January, on a non-sick day, only to not finish it until this week.
It's a size 0-3 months. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and Dale said he thought it looked like one you would buy in a store. Major points for him. I even used my serger on it. Man, that thing has got some power. It's amazing.

I changed the pattern a little bit. I decided I wanted to add the lining fabric to the bottom, which made it super cute. And then the skirt part was supposed to be gathered into a ruffle. I love ruffles. I'll drape myself in them, but I HATE to make them. I decided to do some pleating instead, which I think makes it look a lot dressier. So, if you make this dress, those are my suggestions. PS- there's also a version for 3T if you've got a bigger girl to make it for, like me.

I'm also participating in a quilt-along. It started on Monday and I didn't know that until yesterday! But all it is is making ONE of these squares a day until we have enough to make a huge quilt. I had so much fun digging through my piles of leftover scraps to make these! I'd love for ANYONE who wants to, to do it too (just let me know, so we can keep up with each other!).
You don't need much fabric- each little square is 2.5" and you sew 9 of those babies together. I made the four on the left yesterday, the other four this morning, and I actually made 6 more this afternoon AFTER I'd already taken this picture. Super easy.
Now to move on to Pay It Forward Gift #2... I have no idea WHAT I'm going to do!

Brighton's New Hat

Dale was trying to be funny the other night, and put Brighton's tights on his head. Well, she needed to be funny, too. So, she ran around with the tights on her head for the next twenty minutes. Here's B and daddy, in cahoots.

Brighton, giving mommy the stink eye (yet again).

They just think they are too cute and funny, huh?

Brighton kept bringing me her pillow, and then sitting on it, and taking it away again. She's weird sometimes. What was even better about this night was that the next day, Brighton found the tights and gave them to me and said, "hat." She thinks they're a hat. I'm just so madly in love with this little girl.

Crafty People Will Make Just About Anything...

So, I have like a billion blog subscriptions on my reader. There are just too many great crafty blogs out there, and I HAVE to keep tabs on all of them. One that I love for it's daily inspiration is Whip Up. Tons of great stuff.

Today as I'm reading through all the new postings, I stumbled upon something a little bit on the "what the heck? people actually came up with a pattern for this? what are people thinking? is this all in the name of being crafty?" side. I'm seriously blown away at the sillyness of it. I warn you, this is not for the faint hearted or those with absolutely no sense of humor. Click at your own risk. (Scroll down to the last image, this is what really made me decide to share this post with you.)

Pay It Forward Gift #1 REVEALED!

I made these quilted coasters for Jenny, who just so happens to love red- I found out this afternoon! Crazy!
I've been wanting to make some of these but since I have coasters, I never made them for myself. And I've never really had an occasion to make them for someone else, until now.
I bought a fat quarter pack from Joann's awhile back and used that. The fabric is from the brand "Jersey Girls." At least, that's what some of the selvages said. I'm pretty sure that one of them is an Alexander Henry fabric (no selvage on that one), but I could be wrong.

I got the idea from this book: Last- Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. It is such a fun book! I bought it when I first started sewing, thinking it would get me in the swing of things and give me plenty of stuff to practice on. I've only made a few things from it, but it has so many great gift ideas in it.

And everything is organized by how much time it should take you to finish- from under 2 hours to over 12 hour projects. If you don't have many sewing related gift idea books around, this is definitely one I recommend. It has great ideas for using up your stash and those scraps you can't bear to throw away (or is that just me?).

Random Pictures To Share

This is Brighton's latest craze- she likes to put on my shoes, grab my clutch and use it for a purse, grab a baby and tell us "bye, bye" as she walks to the front door and knocks. I just love this little girl, she makes me laugh.

I was trying to steal some kisses, but she wasn't having any of it. If you look close, you can see she has red eyes- I was thinking she sort of looks like a vampire trying to attack me. She's reeled me in with her cute face, now she's getting ready to sink in her teeth! This is for all you Twilight fans.

Brighton working intently on her stacking rings. She's so funny with this! When she's gotten the wrong ring on before, I would tell her "no, not that one" and take it off. Now, when she puts on the wrong one, she says "no", and takes it off.

Pay It Forward: Gift #1

I've finally finished my first Pay It Forward project! Jenny, you lucky lady. Be looking for it (and me) to stop by your house sometime this weekend!

20 Weeks Pregnant

So, this picture is almost a week overdue! I was 20 weeks on Monday, and wanted to have something posted by Monday evening, but I didn't feel well that night, and then with the sunshine we've had this week, why would I want to spend time in front of the computer?
I know you were all on the edge of your seats waiting to see how big my belly has gotten in the past four weeks- not really that big. I'm still able to hide it pretty well (I don't wear tight fitting shirts, despite what the picture above would lead you to believe), but most of my pants won't button anymore. It's funny, I look down, and seriously, I feel like I am all belly. Then I see this picture and realize I have so much further to go. Oh well! Halfway done! We're still not set on a name for the little guy, other than the middle name being John. If you've got any good ones, let me know.

It's a...

We had our ultrasound this morning to check that our baby is looking good and normal- and the all important finding out whether it will be a boy or girl. I don't know how some of you do it- being surprised at the very end. Not me! Baby looks good! You can see kind of an Emperor of the Dark Side face peaking out of the shadows in the above picture. (face is sideways)

In this picture is the gender! It was difficult to get a good look, since baby didn't want to move around very much and kept its little knees together, but we DID see this! It's a tiny little man part! It's a boy! Now to get started on finding all things blue...

Brighton's 18 Months!

Man, is this little girl so much fun! A few changes happened since B turned the good ol' 1-8. We decided that enough is enough with the pacifier. She only got it when it was nap time or bed time, but no more! It was a difficult first few days. She's been sans pacifier now for over a week! Go B!

She's totally independent and loves to try and be like mommy and daddy. The other day she put on my shoes, grabbed one of my purses that she plays with, along with a baby, and told me "bye bye" as she walked to the front door. My heart melted. Here she is on one of her happy days trying to walk around in dad's giant shoes.

The flash was too bright for her! When she's not making mean faces, she laughing and making me laugh! She's doing a great job at talking too. It seems like there's a new word every day. I decided to make a list yesterday of all the words she says (some words others may be able to understand, mostly just me, but she's really good at pointing and saying the word, which helps), so I carried around a piece of paper all day. Here goes:

Basics: no, oh no!, uh-oh, cool, hot, cold, hi, bye-bye, up, down

Clothing: shoes, socks, shirt, jacket, pants

Food: snack, milk, water, cup, bib, towel, bread, waffle, egg, cookie, hot dog

Misc. Objects: book, baby, block, chair, phone, light, whale

Body Parts: eye, nose, mouth, ear, hand, arm

Amazing! I'm so proud of her! She also tells the dog "good boy" but only says the "boy" while giving him a good strong pat or hug. And when we tickle her, she says "tickle, tickle, tickle." As of this last week, she also recognizes the letter A.

I love this picture. She doesn't realize that she needs to move the shoes closer to the chair so she can balance AND reach the shoes at the same time. She'll get there. She also finally got the hang of climbing down the stairs. I don't know what was holding her back before, but she is now brave enough to go down backwards, which makes me that much more comfortable with her around our stairs.

Playing with an empty thread spool. She loves to play with the most random things.

Happy 18 months B!

General Conference Weekend

So, I totally forgot to post about the wonderful sun shiny General Conference weekend! It was also a big weekend in the Hibler house because Brighton turned 18 months! I can't believe my little girl is no longer a baby! I'm having so much fun with this older Brighton!

We decided to check out a park that a friend recommended, so we headed off into the sun! Brighton actually kept her sunglasses on- whoo hoo!

Trying to climb up the tunnel. No luck, but she still had a good time!

Having fun in the bouncing plane.

Swinging with Mommy

This was her first time on a playset. At the park we went to, they had a baby sized one, so Brighton had tons of fun crawling, climbing and running around.

She loved the steering wheel!

There was a train nearby, where Brighton got to put her "choo-choo" into action. We tell her that's what a train says, but she's never been close to a real one. And we were sunglasses twins!

I took this really awesome picture of Dale and Sawyer on the tracks. My two handsome boys.

Easter

The Easter Bunny left Brighton a pretty basket full of goodies! (This is about the only smile we got for the day) She loved the bunny (kept saying "hop, hop, hop" because that's what we've taught her that bunnies say) but for some reason didn't want her to wear the dress. So, bunny is naked as of right now. Don't worry, she's still cute in her birthday suit. And the Easter bunny made Brighton some shortbread animal cookies that were so yummy- they melt in your mouth!

Of course, it rained all day on Sunday, so we, I mean the Easter bunny, hid the eggs inside the house. Dale and I are from Cali and AZ, respectively, and we couldn't remember ever having an Easter egg hunt inside. Such is life in the Northwest. I went around pointing out the eggs. Brighton had so much fun that we ended up hiding the eggs 3 or 4 more times, by which time, she was an egg hunting pro.

She even carried around the basket with the eggs until she decided it was too heavy.

See the grumpy girl's face? She was ornery and gave us the stink eye all day.

Searching for eggs...

After she was done finding them, she would sit down and take them all out of the basket just to put them all back in. She's a funny girl. And see her mean face? She making that at mommy, and I have no idea why.

Finished Quilt

I finished this quilt that I was making from scraps on Saturday. I used this tutorial from a crazy quilter mom who has already made over ten quilts just THIS YEAR! That's insanity! And that's why she's crazy.

This is called a "ragged squares" quilt because the squares will all fray with use and washing. I am REALLY liking how it turned out. It's roughly 43" by 52", so a perfect size for Brighton to have when she's little. I love how it looks, but I was really proud of myself for using what I already had. There's something about starting a new project that makes me want to hit up the fabric store. I resisted the urge! I'm pretty sure I already have a fabric stash that would put an old lady to shame. But I did have to get the batting (which was only $5.99 with my coupon- go me). So that's how much this quilt cost me. And I learned a ton, was able to quilt it a lot easier than the last one (because it's so much smaller), and had some more practice with cutting and making a binding. I used the binding and basting tutorials from crazy mom quilts, which were really helpful and well done.

You can see the binding a little bit better in this picture than the top one- it's all different fabrics because I didn't have any fabric to use that went well. I used the left over scraps from cutting up the squares! I think it really adds a lot of character to the back of the quilt, since it's mostly just the blue fowers fabric. The backing is from an old sheet that I found at the 2nd hand store, and there were some tiny holes I hadn't noticed, so that's what those random squares are doing floating around. Also, the fabric wasn't quite wide enough (I'd cut it up for another project), so I made a scrappy strip to widen things up! I have some printable fabric that I was thinking of using to make a little tag that has the date on it, just so that if Brighton ends up keeping it forever (I hope!) then it will say when her loving mommy made it for her.

Easter On A Budget

Though we're not suffering from the current "depression," I still like to be frugal.
(Ok, cheap. I'm cheap. Really cheap.)
Maybe I'm just extremely careful with money... (if you know the reference to that one, let me know, and I'll bake you a cake.)

I still wanted Brighton to enjoy something this year for Easter since it really is her first one that she's aware of. She was much too little last year to worry about doing anything special. I've spent a total of 86 cents, and if I didn't need a basket, then it could have been zero!

Basket from Goodwill, originally $1, and I used my 20% off coupon. The girl looked at me funny...
Some sheer green ribbon from a present? I don't remember where I got it, but I hold onto all that stuff.
Some printed grossgrain ribbon, $1 at Michael's, in their ribbon clearance bin.
And I am IN LOVE with K&Co brads. I make lots of Brighton's hair clips with scrapbook brads. Anywho, they were like $3-$4.
BUT, I had all of that craft stuff already on hand! Go me!

I hot glued some of the printed grossgrain ribbon to the handle, tied a bow with the sheer green ribbon (don't forget to fray check the ends if you don't want unraveling!), and glued some of the brads around the basket. Pretty cute huh? 86 cents.

The Easter Bunny would always leave us little toys in our baskets, along with plenty of candy. Since Brighton doesn't get to eat candy, I'm going to make her some shortbread animal cookies for her basket. Along with this cute bunny! I got the pattern from The Purl Bee. I used some left over scraps from other projects to make her and her little dress! If you plan on ever making this bunny, let me know, because I had a few blunders along the way that I'd love to share with you, along with some changes that I made to patterns and instructions.

I just love her little feet and embroidered face. Hopefully Brighton will enjoy it for a few hours! If you're looking for more budget friendly ideas, check out One Pretty Thing. They have round-ups of a whole bunch of DIY Easter ideas, as well as others through out the year. I also saw this one today from Make It and Love It.

What are you planning on doing to save money for Easter? Leave some comments, share some posts about it, I'd love to see!