Calling all sewers!

This is one of my newest additions to the baby blankets I am doing. This was satin and cotton. Oh man, the satin gave me a run for my money! It is hard stuff to work with! It didn't iron well and it was always slipping around. Does anyone have any great tips for working with different fabric? I am looking for great tutorials on blogs or YouTube for beginner sewers and I pretty much don't even know where to start. So if any of you sewers have any suggestions or know of any great blogs and tutorials, send them my way! Pretty please!

So I wanted to make a shirt...

Have you all heard of the store called NPS? It's out by California Avenue for those of you who know Salt Lake valley. It's spack in the middle of lots of industrial buildings. My client told me about it so me and my cousin Amy went to check it out. They have amazing fabric there for $1.29 a yard!! It was pure heaven. We found this stripped jersey and Amy mentioned that it would be a cute shirt. I thought about how I had never tried to make a shirt... and soon I was in action.

I have looked at many patterns, but they are just so confusing! So I decided that for my first shirt I would play it safe. I got one of my other shirt that I love and used it as my base.

 I cut around the shirt on one side, then flipped it over for the other side because I didn't want a seam on the top of the shirt. (Does that make sense??)

I folded it over to make sure that the sides matched. Jersey can be hard to cut because it rolls on the edges, but it hides mistakes easy!

I folded it in half again to make sure the edges matched up.

This is what it looked like full out.

I hemmed all of the edges next.

Then I folded it in fourths and cut the hole for the neck.

Next I pinned what I needed to sew together, which was just the sides of course. Make sure to leave room for the sleeves!

I sewed where it was pinned and I was done! Easier than I thought it was going to be.

Yummy Recipes

Last Saturday, we threw my friend a wedding shower. She is such a doll and I'm so excited for her! I tried out a couple new recipes that I found online and I loved them so much that I want to share them with you!

Coconut Lime Slush

Found on the blog My Columbian Recipes

1 cup cream of coconut (not coconut milk, find by the margarita mixes)

2 1/2 cups crushed ice

Juice of three limes

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.

The recipe also said to add sugar, but with the coconut it was already so sweet that it didn't need it.

It was super yummy and a huge hit!

Coconut Cream Fruit Dip

Found on the blog Dessert Now, Dinner Later

4 oz. cream cheese

15 oz. cream of coconut (not coconut milk, find it by the margarita mix)

8 oz. Cool Whip

Whip cream cheese and cream of coconut in blender until smooth.

Fold in whip cream.

Serve with fruit or graham crackers.

I have to admit that I usually don't like fruit dip, but this one was amazing! I could eat this with a spoon!

Scrapbooking New Port

Out of all my crafting passions, scrapbooking is my favorite because it means the most to me. One of my favorite places in the world is New Port. I know I have a lot of favorite places, but this time I mean it! :) These pictures come from our October 2010 trip with my family. Hopefully you can get a couple fun ideas!

For the sun, I cut out strips of paper and twisted them. I had to use hot glue to keep it down since the paper was so thick.

The tree trunk was done just by crinkling the paper up. Texture is very under-utilized in the scrapbook world!

Flower Door Hang

It's pretty obvious that I love flowers, right? When I walked into Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago and saw these giant daisies, I couldn't resist! I decided to make flower door hangs for my mom and mother-in-law for Mothers Day. They  turned out so cute that I made myself one as well!

These are the boards that I used for the Mother's Day gifts. You can find them at Hobby Lobby.

I hadn't planned on making myself one, so I didn't buy the board. But I had bought this wood board on clearance for $1 a while back and decided that it would be perfect. I tried painting the different squares at first, but I didn't love that so I ended up modge-podging it.

I sanded it and stained it. Then I gave them a few coats of color. Green for my mom and yellow for my mother-in-law. The center doesn't have to be painted perfectly since the flower covers up most of it.

No wonder the wood board was on clearance! The wood wasn't cut straight at all. When I cut out the paper it didn't cover the whole board. But remember that the flower covers the center, so no sweating it! :) Also, a 12 x 12 paper wouldn't cover the whole board so I put the crease in the center where you wouldn't see it.

Another tip about modge-podge... It can really bubble up when you put it on. People always worry that their project is going to be bubbly for eternity. What they don't know is that if you give it a couple of days  all the bubbles will go away.

I had teared apart the flower and glued the petals on one by one. That way I could place them exactly where I wanted to. This is when it is easy to cover up any mistakes.

See? No more crease in the paper.

I put in two nails on the back. Then I wrapped wire around each nail so it has something to hang on.

It's a really easy project to do. Besides waiting time for the stain and paint to dry, it took me less than 30 minutes. But look how cute they turned out!

This is me and my momma on Mother's Day. She's a cutie pie, right? Love you mom!

Key Box

I remember seeing something like this when I was a little girl and I have always thought about doing it with my own home. I had made a key copy of my old house before we moved out and I made a key copy of our home now. This was super easy and cheap! What I like about this is that you can make it as simple or elaborate as you like and it has sentimental meaning.

I got this shadow box at Ikea. They are a really good price there. Instead of putting in a picture, I just wired the keys to the backing. You could also hot glue it down if you don't have wire.

Get out there and enjoy that beautiful weather!! :)

Dana-Made-It Circle Skirt

Have you guys read the Dana-Made-It blog? She has so many great tutorials and they are super easy to follow (which beginning sewers like me really need!).

I got done with my finals on Tuesday so when I got home I decided to celebrate by sewing! I have been dying to make this skirt for a few months now and just haven't had time to make it. I pushed aside the dirty dishes and didn't go to the gym that night because I was so excited to make this skirt! Honestly, it only took me a couple of hours to make this. Any beginner can make this skirt because the tutorial is so great. You can find it here.

Thanks Dana!!