Father's Day Gifts

I have to get real crafty in June.  There are three Father's Day gifts to do, two family birthdays and one best friend birthday, so June can get kind of pricey.  Therefore, the boys and I started working on their Father's Day Gifts yesterday. 

This is such an easy (if the kids feel like cooperating - which mine didn't quite do) project.  All three of the Dads in question spend tons of time wearing what we around here refer to as lounge(y) pants.  None of them spend tons of time wearing t-shirts.  So purchased three pairs of plain gray pants ($8 a piece from Wallyworld) and some fabric paints.

We laid them flat on a giant drop cloth.  Then I had the boys dip their feet in fabric paint and place them on the pants.  I used some stencils and fabric markers to spell out "My kids walk all over me" for their Dad and "My grandkids walk all over me" for the granddads. 

What's funny is that when you live with the kids, their growth always takes you by surprise.  When I envisioned this project, for some reason my mind expected their feet to be much smaller.  Hah!  The Eldest's foot size is the same as mine!  I really knew this, but I didn't "Know This" in a crafty sense.  The Youngest took me by surprise in this as well. 

I ended up with huge gaping holes to fill in between their foot prints.  So off to JoAnn to look at little foot stamps to fill in the blanks.  I don't stamp that often and had some major sticker shock when I saw the prices.  Nope, I wasn't going to pay that.  I decided to look in the stencils section.  No deal, they didn't have a stencil for that.

What I ended up doing (it was my Mom's idea) was to ball up my fist.  Then I dipped the side of my fist (pinky side) into the fabric print and place that on the cloth.  I then dipped my index finger and made finger print toes over the little foot imprint that I made with the side of my fist.  It worked perfectly!

Here's how they turned out:

Cute huh?  I didn't do the back of the pants, I started way too late to even think about those.   And honestly?  I came close to sending my kids to Siberia over this project.  I don't think I want to tackle another side.  Their listening skills are sub-par and there was one pair of little jean shorts ruined in the making of these.  I should have had them strip all nekkid for this project.  As it was, it was probably quite amusing for the neighbors to see us walking all around our house to get to the outside hose.  We had rainbow feet, hands and legs before it was all over.

Have a Great Father's Day Weekend!

I Saved A Sweater

I'm tackling about twenty projects today and getting very little done.  My multi-tasking-fu is just not keeping up with everything that needs to get done.  I'm sewing more fabric baskets for birthday gifts, pillow covers for my sister-in-law, cleaning the house for company that's coming over this weekend and working with the kids on their Father's Day gifts to Dad and Grandfathers.  Whew!

One project that I did manage to complete today was an alteration to a sleeveless sweater.  This is one of my favorite summer tops.  It's made of silk, nylon and viscose.  It's also very thin and so incredibly soft.

Why does it need altering?  Well, let me show you:

A hole!

If you look in the first pic, that hole is in the right hand side of the sweater piece that hangs down and drapes from the shoulder.  I was so upset and disgusted when I found the hole that I threw the whole sweater under my bed in disgust and left it there.  I figured that sooner or later I could make it into something new or throw it in the trash. 


So, about eight months and lots of cat hair later, I got it out again.  I intended to get the seam ripper out and just remove the whole drape-y piece and just have a simple tank top.  But when I looked at the hole again, I had an epiphany.  There was enough fabric that I could fold it over carefully and hand stitch it down to cover the hole.  Guess what?  It worked:

 Look Mom!  No hole! Yay me, I save it from the landfill!  I'm feeling so green and recycley!  (You like my new made up word?)  Now to get all that cat hair off of this sweater.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Theater

While the Eldest is in Cub Scout Day Camp this week, the Youngest and I decided to head out to the Regal Cinemas Free Movies this morning.  While driving, we began playing the "I love you more than" game.  It's simple and keeps a four year old very entertained while stuck in the car seat.  It began years ago with the Eldest and the tradition has carried onto his younger sibling. 

Here's how you play:

1.  You begin every sentence with "I love you more than..." and then fill in the blank.  You can start out all sweet and sappy if you want with something like "I love you more than strawberries."  That's always a good one. Then you wait and let the child say one of his own sentences. 
2.  You continue number one for a while, swapping back and forth, and then change your fill in the blank answer into something a little weird such as "I love you more than chocolate covered corn on the cob."  (We typically stick with food items, you'll see why in a sec.) By this time the kid's getting the giggles.
3.  Continue number two for a while and then the fun starts.  Now you get to get all four year old yourself and come up with some really disgusting stuff.  Here's a few examples of what was said today:

"I love you more than worm pie." 
"I love you more than dirty sock soup."
"I love you more than snail souffle." 

You get the idea.  I really thought I was winning this one today and coming up with some great gross stuff until the Youngest ended the whole thing with:

"I love you more than poop waffles."   At that point it became time to change both the game and the subject. He won that round, but you just wait until next time!



Oh, and the stole?  It's still growing:

Aren't the colors pretty?

I'm Dyeing Again

At Christmas my parents gave me a set of four leather parsons chairs.  I went out shortly thereafter and purchased some chair covers for them from Bed Bath and Beyond.  They only had a couple of colors and most of those (to me) were hideous, except for the white ones that came home with me.  I bought them on sale for $1.99 a piece, which was an excellent bargain.

Such a good bargain, in fact, that I decided that I could dye them and if the color turned out to be horrid, I wouldn't feel guilty about tossing them.  With that thought, I promptly put them away and forgot about them until this past weekend.

When the Eldest had his birthday party in September, we used some RIT dye to make some camouflage shirts.  I had one container of Tan dye leftover and that's the color that I threw in the wash with my chair covers.  The covers are cotton, so I knew they wouldn't take the dye as readily as some other fibers would.  I ran the water in the washing machine then added the dye and covers and let them sit for a few hours.  Then finished the wash cycle and then re-washed with detergent after that. 

So how did they turn out?  Lovely!  I got the most beautiful champagne color and it was exactly what I wanted.

It's difficult to see any color in the above pic at all, so I added a white piece of paper:

Look closely at the bottom right of the pic and you'll see how pretty the gold/champagne color really is.  I'm very pleased with these!  Now to get a good table cloth that will compliment them...


By the way, My neighbors must think I'm an absolute nut.  I drag the weirdest things to take pictures of out onto my back porch all the time.  One chair, with cover, one piece of paper with a knitting pattern on it.  yep, weird.