Flower Hooded Towel Tutorial

Brighton's old towel was dying, so I decided to make her a new one! Here's how I made this super cute flower hooded towel.

You will need:

large bath towel (lime green)

two hand towels (hot pink and bright yellow)

flower petal pattern (we'll make one)

batting scraps

and basic sewing supplies

1. From a piece of paper (I used card stock so it would hold up better to multiple uses) cut a rectangle 5"x4".

2. Round off the top corners. Not too much, we still want our petal to be nice and round at the top.

3. Cut your yellow hand towel in half. Save the other half for another hooded towel to give as a gift!

4. Place a pin in the middle of the hemmed side and the raw edge you just cut.

5. Place a pin in the middle, on the edge, of your green bath towel.

6. From your pink hand towel, but 10 petal pieces using your petal template. Also, cut 5 pieces from your batting.

7. Layer two pink petal pieces and a batting piece (in that order) and pin in place. Sew around the edge with a 1/4" seam, leaving the bottoms open.

8. Repeat, until you have 5 petals.

9. Turn them all right side out.

10. Pleat the bottom edge of the petals to give them a little shape, and baste in place.

11. Find the hemmed edge of your yellow towel (the hood). Using your pin that marks the center, place your petals along the edge of the hem, and NOT the edge of the towel (refer to next picture if you've got questions).

12. You want to turn the hem up over the bottom edge of your petals and pin in place.

13. Sew the folded hem down as close to the edge as you can get.

14. Fold your hood in half lengthwise. Pinch the corner (here's where any mad origami skills will come in handy).

15. Bring the corner INTO the hood, sandwiching it between the top and bottom. Line up all the edges. Do the same on the other side.

16. Sew in place (but not the very top layer- we don't want to sew our hood closed!). Zig-zag stitch the edge to prevent too much shedding of your towel.

17. Using the other center marking pin on the yellow hood, line it up with the center pin on your green bath towel. Some towels have a right and wrong side- take note if yours does.

18. Pin the hood (matching up center pins) to the INSIDE (wrong side) of your bath towel. Sew in place.

And there you go- a cute towel for a cute girl.

Mount Vernon Photoshoot

A few weekends ago we went up to Mount Vernon to practice taking photos. We've driven through and thought it looked like a great place for backgrounds. We had a lot of fun- so many cute pictures, I just picked a very small few of my favorites to put on the blog. You can see the rest of them here.

The kids had fun.

Ok, maybe we didn't have fun the whole time (haha, no we did! It was just windy, and I hate hair in my lip gloss).

See? I'm happier here, and not nearly as scary looking.

And of course, my hot hubby.

PS- I took most of these pictures, despite the fact that Dale is the photographer in the family. I'm pretty proud.

Mason

Dale just wants to make sure Mason knows how fat his feet were when he was little. They are SO FAT!

We got out Mason's carseat and he went straight for it. He just wanted us to know that HE knows what it's for and that he can do it himself.

Brighton's Fashion Corner

Brighton decided to stick one of her fruit snacks on her nose and just walk around like that. The accessory that's for now and later.
I made B some skinny jeans! I found a pair of pants at the second hand store for $3 and used this tutorial to make them skinny. We all know how I LOVE skinny jeans.

And finally, the pumpkin hat has reappeared to inspire this little artist. Those are flowers, in case you're wondering.

Stuff I've Made

I have been absent, but don't worry, I'm still up to my old habits of crafting. I'm just lazy and haven't posted anything.

So- here it is, a collection of the things I've made in the past few months. It's not much (well, not as much as I'd normally be cranking out).

I bought this dress while in AZ at Forever 21. It was $7 and a few inches too short. I hit up the Hobby Lobby near my parents' house and found a cute ruffle. The work was mostly done for me! I just sewed it along the bottom of the dress and the lining. Viola! Now I can wear it out without showing off too much leg!

I made this shirt for my sister for her birthday. She loves yellow and Anthropology. I searched their site for inspiration and came up with this. The knit was $1.50 in the remnants at JoAnn's and then I used lace, ribbon, a crocheted doily, and knit scraps to embellish it. Fab-U-Lous!

I made this dress for a birthday party/ charity event. I got the pattern from BurdaStyle, here. I got the fabric at the second hand store for $8. It's a somewhat stretchy suiting material.

And this is the back. I decided to go with a big jacket zipper on the outside (which I've seen on

the runway).

And finally, my jacket I've been working on since the fall. I had this totally cute white coat from Forever 21 that I loved, but it got some weird stains on it that wouldn't come out no matter what I tried. I bought this long wool trench coat at the second hand store for $12 to be my new coat and took apart my old one to use it as a pattern.

And here's the final product. A new white coat for me to love!

Tulip Town

The day after I got back home from AZ, we went to check out some Tulips. Dale takes me every year because they're my favorite! Here's just some tidbits- you can see all the pictures we took on our online album here.

Birthday Party

My best friend from HS, Jill, had her son Graham's one year birthday party while we were down in AZ. It was nice to finally be able to go to some of these things!

Brighton found the car and thought it was amazing.

See? It's so cool!

Driving around the yard- and I've included a video for your enjoyment. Please ignore my totally annoying squealing voice. I hope I don't always sound like that?! It's bad.

Brighton's Fashion Corner

Brighton found my brother's spy goggles. She's on my lap right now as I'm blogging, and she just said, "I look so pretty."

Fabulous!

This is her good side.