I made it better!

It's Thursday, Time for Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop!
This week's prompts were:

1.) Describe the best/most creative punishment you have ever given your children or received yourself.
(inspired via Twitter by Maya from Musings Of A Marfan Mom)

2.) Tell a friend or family members story as if it happened to you.

3.) Tell a story about a moment in time when you were so happy you were you and not someone else in the room.
(inspired by Baby)

4.) I picked up the phone and I could not believe what I was hearing...

5.) Show us something you did yourself!
(inspired by Kimba from A Soft Place To Land ps link up with her too for a chance to win something pretty. ps she just switched to wordpress and lost all her followers...be sure to update your readers!)

So head on over to Mama Kat's and Join in!

---------------------------------------------------------

I choose number 5 because I have been wanting to show off share with you some of my recent projects for awhile! I have always been pretty crafty. But since I have entered blogland I have found so much inspiration, project ideas, and tutorials that my list of projects is huge!

One thing I have really wanted to get better at is sewing. When your petite it's sometimes hard to find dresses that fit. I also have a daughter and there are so many cute patterns out there. However, pattern sewing has frustrated me in the past so I have been even more excited by all the tutorials, easy to understandd patterns, and even FREE patterns I have found online.

The first thing I wanted to tackle was this:

It's my husband's family reunion shirt and it was down to my daughter's ankles. So I thought...hmmm I bet I could make that into a dress, just copy the shape of one of hers and trim it up. Well I doubted my abilities and decided to Google turning a t-shirt into a dress. Apparently there is a whole world of people out there who refashion clothes from old clothes! (and my project list grows!) I decided to use the pattern from Blueprints and with some old fabric I had laying around I turned a too big t-shirt into this:
It looks so cute on her, and since I was a little nervous about doing a new neckline (I was on a deadline with the reunion) it's a little big and will fit her for years!

Bolstered by that project I wanted to do another (and another, and another!). We are very blessed that my daughter gets hand-me-downs from several different friends. So apparently these particular pair of jeans was very popular a few years ago:We got 4 pairs of these all in the same size. So I donated one to a clothing swap, gave one to a friend whose daughter was the same size, kept one and needed to come up with something creative to do to the last pair. I had seen, and wanted to try for myself, jeans turned into a skirt. Since my daughter loves skirts, dresses, anything girlie I thought it would be perfect. There are many, many, many tutorials online for how to turn jeans into a skirt, this is the one I used, modified a bit because little girls jeans are different than women's. It came out so well, It just made me want to make more and more projects! Here it is:She loves it! She always wants to wear her "mommy one".

Now that Halloween is over I can focus on Christmas. I have a long list of presents I want to make. It won't be a totally hand-made Christmas because I don't have the time for that and my kids still want toys, but here are some of the things I will be making:

For some friends: Just Add Snow, Snowman Kit

For the teachers: Cookies in a Jar

For the in-laws: Decorative Dish Towels

For the grandmas I am going to make take tote bags and applique something cute one the side (I think they may check in her sometimes, so I can't say what!)

For the kids:
Legwarmers

Fleece Jumper

Tees ala MiniBoden. We will be doing an owl and a bunny for Peanut and a Monster and a Dino

Finally if there is time, I may make the whole family some matching Christmas Cozies!

Now if only I could figure out how to add a few hours to the day for all these projects!