Ruffled Puff Sleeve Shrug

Here is the pattern for this fun shrug. You will need: Worsted weight yarn (I'm not sure of the yardage yet because I used a big huge lb skein, and I used part of it for another project, plus had left over from this one. Maybe if someone else tries the pattern they can share their yardage with the rest of us. size 13 straight needles size 9 29" circular needle (you could probably use any size larger than an 8 or so) size 7 16" circular needle Begin by casting on 90 stitches onto the size 13 needles. Knit in garter stitch for approximately 24" and then cast off.

You should have a rectangle that is approximately 24" by 30". Fold it in half so that it is 30" by 12".

Seem up 6" on each end of the open edge.

The above picture shows one side seamed up. You can decide to only seam 5" or 7" depending on your own body. Turn the garment right side out and try it on. Make sure you don't need to make adjustments on the length of your seem. It will look like this.

Now you will use the 16" circular needle and you will pick up stitches around the sleeves. Do this working right side out. You are going to be decreasing the number of stitches as you pick up your yarn. For every two stitches you will only pick up one. Insert your needle into each valley in between the garter stitch.

You want to end up with 57 stitches on your needle. If you have to skip a few spots here or there to get that number that's okay too. If you have more rows than me in your original triangle then you may have to make adjustments to this step to get 57 stitches, or you need to have around 57 with a number that is divisible by 3 and that when you subtract 1/3 from the number it gives you an even number. Hope that made sense. Once you have 57 stitches on your size 7 16" circular needle begin working in the round. On the first round k2tog, k1 all the way around. You should now have 38 stitches. After that k1,p1 for 4 inches and then cast off loosely. I knit my knit stitches and purl my purl stitches when I cast off.

Repeat this on the other sleeve.

Now you will switch to the size 9 29" circular needle. You will pick up one stitch for each stitch in your center opening. The number of stitches will vary depending on how many inches you decided to seam up for the sleeves. It is not necessary to have a particular number of stitches.

Round 1: Knit Round 2: Purl Round 3: Knit Round 4: kfb of each stitch Round 5: Purl Round 6: kfb of each stitch Round 7: Purl cast off.

Weave in any

Gone Fishin

I recently helped plan a baby shower for my nephew who is on the way an day now. I wasn't totally in charge of things, and I was very lucky that those colaborating with me were so willing to take my suggestions and then do all the work themselves. Haha. I suggested that the theme for the baby shower match the nursery theme. That way some of the decorations, such as little duckies and stuff, could be sent home with the new mama. Plus it let people invited to the shower know that "Pond" nursery items were welcomed. All I had to do for the shower was make the fondant toppers for the cupcakes. They even made and iced the cupcakes ahead of time for me. Made it really easy for me to just show up.

At the last minute I thought to arrange the cupcakes like an actual pond instead of just sitting them out on the table in any old order.

We used metal pails that had been used at my sister's wedding last year to float duckies in as centerpieces on the tables. Someone was nice enough to cut out lily pads to go under the buckets, and each table got a cute little wooden turtle that I think they found at Wal-mart for a dollar a piece.

I also whipped up some little dirt cups last minute. These really can be made last minute. It's nothing but instant pudding spooned into the bottom of a individual baking cup. Then sprinkle Oreo cookie crumbs on top, and place your gummy worms in the desired spot. It is best to do these last minute though if you are going to use these little paper baking cups because the pudding is a little to moist for this type of cup and it will make the paper a bit mushy. The cup will loose its shape. There are a lot of things you can do for a Pond Party. Cucumber salad could be "lily pad salad". The punch could be "pond scum." Little Smokey sausages on a skewer could be "cat tails." One of the delicious treats at our party were grapes on a skewer made to look like caterpillars. They were very cute but the eyes kept sliding down, and I didn't get a good picture of them. Chicken/Tuna salad sandwiches could be cut into butterfly shapes with a big butterfly cookie cutter. I mean really there are so many ideas. I was happy to be a contributor to this event, and I was really lucky that my sister has some other great friends who wanted to do so much.

All Hung Out

It looked great hanging out. It actually rained on it a little bit, and didn't ruin it either. I was pretty excited about that. I was for some reason imagining that it would mildew over night or something, but Nope.

Family

Just an example of the fun sign I made with my mother-in-law's nifty cricut. I really don't use it enough, but those cartridges are just so darn expensive. Although they do go on sale a lot. I made this as a gift for a friend. Basically it is just a 1x12x8 that I bought at Lowe's for $11. I was able to have my husband cut it into a bunch of smaller boards. This one is roughly 1x12x30". The black lettering is just vinyl that is sold with the cricut stuff in the craft section of walmart, and the white lettering is just contact paper. That's what I had around the house. I primed the board with some primer leftover from priming our fence and then I covered it in lavender acrylic paint. Done. I would be pretty excited to get it as a gift.

4th of July Hand and Foot-Print Flag for Hanging

Today we went to Lowes to find a outdoor garden flag to hang outside my mother's house on the 4th. They had really small ones, but no larger flags. We were disappointed. So then I started thinking that I had seen some cute hang and foot-print flags on pinterest. There are some really great ideas online for this type of flag, and honestly a lot of other peoples actual hand and foot print stamping look better than mine. Most of the flags I saw though were flags to frame and hang on the wall. I wanted to make one that I could actually hang outside on the 4th, or possibly hang inside on a curtain rod mounted to the wall later. So here is what I came up with. Maybe I'll do it again next year and lay out may hand prints more like THIS. I started with some white fabric that I already had around the house. It is 100 percent cotton and probably not a good idea to actually use outside, but I'm only planning on using it outside on the 4th and then using it inside later. Maybe it will be fine. I bet that there are outdoor fabrics available that might be better. I've never looked for solid white outdoor fabric though. If you have ever bought fabric before then you know that it is folded in half on the bolt. This worked out nicely for me. I unfolded the fabric but used that center fold to differentiate between the two sides of my flag. I only decorated one half. I took a pencil and lightly sketched out what section would have the hands/stars and then where the stripes/feet would be.

The length of your fabric can vary depending on how long you want your flag to be. I just sort of eye-balled how long I wanted it, and then I added about 5 inches. You can cut your fabric there. I squeezed out red paint onto a disposable plate and then used a paint brush to paint the bottom of one foot of my willing children. I set this whole project up on our kitchen table because it is a huge work surface, but if you are really worried about getting acrylic paint everywhere then you may want to do this outside. I had their daddy there to help me steady them, while they were standing on our table with one foot in the air having it painted.

Then just stamp their foot down onto the flag in your guidelines. It works good if you ask them to stamp with their painted foot then step forward with their other foot one step before picking up the painted foot to get painted again. This way they will be lined up to stamp their next print.

Next repeat using your blue paint and a small critter of your choice with precious hands.

Again, I recommend checking out the flag on the blog link above and seeing how they positioned their hands. I think it is much cuter.

You can see from the picture above that you have one big piece of fabric, half decorated with a flag and half plain white. Next you will fold you fabric in half. Fold it so that wrong sides are on the outside and the picture is on the inside.

You are going to sew closed two sides. First sew the short side without stars/hand prints, or the bottom of the flag. Then sew closed the long side that is open. You know, not the folded side. You obviously will not have to sew that side. I used a 1/4" seem. You will end up with something that looks like a pillow case once you turn it right side out. At this point it would probably be a good idea to take your pillowcase and iron it, so that latter everything is even when you topstitch around the outside. I didn't do that, and my flag did not come out horribly wonky. If you want the perfect flag though then now is probably the time to bust out the iron. Of course I would recommend not ironing directly on the side with the acrylic paint. Also probably don't do it on a high temperature.

After you have turned it right side out pin back the raw edge of your open side about an inch towards the undecorated side of your flag. Stitch that in place.

Next top stitch around the other 3 sides of the the flag. I usually just stitch as close to the edge as I can, but roughly 1/8" from the edge.

Once you have finished stitching around the edges, direct your attention back to the top short side. Make another fold. This time fold the remaining 4 inches of white at the top of your flag to the back side of flag to create the loop that you will hang your flag from, and stitch it in place.

Here you can see the resulting casing.

Then you are finished. I'm thinking of taking a decorative curtain rod and mounting it somewhere in the house, and then rotating flags on the rod for various holidays, but I haven't gotten that particular project taken care of yet. Sorry for this boring picture of the flag, but since I don't have a decorative curtain rod yet, and I'm not at my mother's today to hang the flag up and take a picture, this will have to do until I get a better one.

Also it would be cool to decorate both sides. You could use puff paint, fabric paint, or more acrylic paint to write Happy 4th of July on the back or do another flag on the other side. Whatever floats your boat. I intend for only one side of the flag to be seen for the most part, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Funfetti Cool-Whip Sandwiches

While browsing pinterest...not that I do that a lot or anything...I found the best idea ever. Funfetti yogurt dip. The recipe is here on this blog. I made the yogurt dip and dipped green apples into it. It was the most amazing thing ever. Funfetti is basically the only type of cake that I will eat. Seriously. Why waste time on anything else. After I made the yogurt dip I had a mostly unused bag of funfetti cake mix, so I was wondering what to do with it. This is what I came up with: Funfetti Ice Cream Sandwiches.

I took a tub of defrosted cool-whip and then mixed a bunch of the cake mix into it. I didn't exactly measure. It was less than half of a bag. Once is was all mixed up I spooned it out onto some graham cracker halves, and then topped them with another half. I popped them in the freezer for an hour. You might could do it less or more. They were delicious. I will honestly say they are not as delicious as the yogurt dip with the apples, but still it was a good way to use up the rest of the cake mix without baking anything.

So I have seen some similar pillows on pinterest and in a few pictures. I am in to all things cameo and I love projects that involve my own children's silhouettes, so I thought this would be a great DIY project. Here is what I did. Things you will need: felt for silhouette printer camera scissors spray adhesive/ or fabric glue sewing machine stuffing for your pillow needle and thread fabric for your pillow Start out by taking a picture a side profile picture of your subject

Something like this. Let me add that it can be really hard to get a toddler to cooperate with you on this, and it might need bribery. Next print out your picture. I printed it out 8 x 10 size. So that the image would be big, but you can print whatever size will look best for your needs.

My printer is running low on ink in case you are wondering why the picture looks so bad. Next cut out your image. Be very careful cutting around the details of the nose and mouth. You want to get that as accurate as you can. The rest of the image you can can or doctor up and cut it however you want the hair to look. The picture I took didn't look that aesthetically pleasing around the pony tail, so I cut the pony tail a little different.

Next lay you image on top of felt color of your choice. I used felt because I didn't want the edges of regular fabric to unravel. There are ways that you could use fabric and fusible interfacing and such to do the same thing but I'm lazy, and so that will not be included in this tutorial.

Cut out your image, again be careful around the facial features. I traced the hole of the pony tail and then cut it out after I had already removed the paper from the felt. Did that make sense? Or you could not cut out that little part.

I cut two pieces of fabric in the size and shape that I wanted the silhouette mounted on. I like to use a rotary cutter for this, but you can use scissors. The rotary cutter just makes things a whole lot easier to get your edges and your fabric straight.

I like to use a spray adhesive on the back of the felt, and then stick the felt to the desired place on one of the fabric rectangles. You could use fabric glue of any kind, or I guess that you could pin the felt in place, but I would recommend using the glue so that you don't risk the felt slipping into the wrong place. This will hold it in place when you topstitch around the outside of the felt.

Once you are done stitching the felt to the fabric then put your two rectangles of fabric print side together and stitch around the outsides of the pillow leaving a small opening to turn the pillow case right side out.

Before you turn the pillow case right side out it is beneficial to clip the corners so that when you turn it the fabric wont bunch in the corners.

Next turn you fabric and then stuff it.

Next use your needle and thread to stitch the opening closed.

That's it. You're done! Hope you enjoy.