My Christmas sewing projects are DONE!!

I have finally finished all of the sewing projects I planned for the girls' Christmas presents!  Actually there's one I haven't done yet, but it's a minor thing that I may just not do.  I'm kind of burned out now when it comes to sewing... I got my sewing machine and got so excited, and I decided to attempt these projects even though I haven't sewn in over 10 years, and even back then, it was on my mom's ancient machine with her help.  So I really had no idea what I was doing, which made every project take me 10 times longer than it should have.  Nothing turned out perfectly (not even close!) which frustrates me, because I am a perfectionist.  I made SO many mistakes.  But I'm still pretty happy with how everything turned out! 

My first project was Naomi's owl.  Naomi has got a thing for owls.  I was just playing around on Pinterest one day, and Naomi came into the office and saw the picture for the stuffed owl tutorial, and she immediately wanted one.  After that day, she continued to ask me every few days about her stuffed owl.  I finished it a while ago, and it has been really hard for me to not give in and just give it to her early.  I'm so excited!!

The tutorial I used for the owl stuffie is found on a blog called Hammer & Thread.

My next project was a stuffed animal for Aleta.  I didn't want to make the same animal, (and I ended up having a ROUGH time making that silly little owl, so there was no way I was making two!) so I picked an elephant for her.  The elephant tutorial was from a website called Birch Fabrics.

My last sewing project was a little tote/book bag for each of the girls for their library books.  Naomi recently got her own library card, and we love the library, so I thought it'd be fun for each of them to have their own library bag.  I found a pretty simple tutorial on 30 Minute Crafts (although I think it took me closer to 5 hours to make mine... definitely NOT 30 minutes for me!).  I did add one little thing to each of their bags--I wanted their initial on it, so I sewed a 4-inch felt letter on each of their bags.

You can't really tell from the pictures, but the fabric is NOT a solid color.  It's a pretty teal color with a cute, small, white pattern on it.  I think the bags look so much better in person since you can see the pattern on the fabric.  Here's a close-up so you can see it better:

See?  Pretty!

I found all of the tutorials by searching around on Pinterest--it's a gold mine for free tutorials and patterns!  Also, I spent a total of 18 dollars on ALL of the supplies for these projects.  I have only shopped for fabric/sewing supplies on big sale weekends (usually a holiday weekend), and I use coupons on top of the sales so I get pretty good deals.  I saved 19 bucks on all of these supplies when I only spent 18.  And with those supplies, I have made these 4 things, a hot air balloon pillow for my niece, and I still have almost the entire bag of stuffing and probably half of the fabric left!

Naomi's Dress-Up Center

For Naomi's 3rd birthday, I really wanted to get her dress up clothes.  I was going to buy one of those Disney dress-up trunks, but for $50, they didn't have very good reviews.  If it's going to cost me that much money, I wanted it to be decent quality and stuff that will last, and I wasn't going to find that in the Disney dress-up trunks.  So instead, I went thrift store shopping!  I shopped at Goodwill, a little local thrift store, and the Target dollar section, and I got some great stuff!  Here's my list of goodies:
2 necklaces
4 bracelets
2 purses
a headband
some fancy velvety skirts/tops (2 sets)
a costume/dress
2 Easter hats (love the Target dollar section!)
2 dressy scarves
1 tie (Well I only bought one, but then I added 3 or 4 more that Jacob was given but won't wear.  Naomi loves wearing Jacob's ties, but I am worried that she will ruin them, so now she will have some of her own!)
I also bought one real dress-up dress from Walmart for like 12 bucks, and Naomi wanted a Disney princess tiara at the craft store when I took her out on her birthday, and I let her get it since it was only $2.

I have been working like crazy over the past week on everything!  I had to alter the 2 skirts so they would fit Naomi, because they weren't at all her size (medium and extra large in girl's), and the costume/dress thing was actually an adult small, but it was so dang adorable that I had to have it.  So that needed some altering as well.  And I made her a tutu!  When I looked into buying one, they were 15 to 20 dollars, which was more than I wanted to spend.  So I found out that they're actually incredibly simple to make and I did that instead!  And it only cost me about 8 bucks.  I think it turned out pretty well!

The best part of her birthday present was the actual dress-up center.  I've been seeing a bunch of do-it-yourself dress-up centers online made from old, broken dressers, and I REALLY wanted to make her one, but I didn't have any old dressers, and we don't have any tools, and even if we had tools, I wouldn't know what to do with them.  But on Sunday, I got an idea!  We had a little white bookcase that I thought we could do without, and after calling my dad, we figured out a way to do what I wanted by using gorilla glue.  So I got a dowel rod and wooden holders from Lowes, painted them, and gorilla glued the holders into the bookcase.  I bought little wooden knob-things from Hobby Lobby, painted them, and glued them to one of the sides to hang jewelry on.  I found some really cute wrapping paper in the Target dollar bins and used mod podge to stick it inside the bookcase.  I was really excited about the wrapping paper--when I pictured the center in my head, I planned on using a bright print... something cute and fun and girly, in pink or something like that.  But when I saw the black wrapping paper in the dollar bins, I got really excited and changed my vision.  I love it, especially with the pink paint I chose for the rod!

Before...

After!

I also found the little bins for the top in the dollar section at Target.  I had wanted larger bins, but when I saw these in the dollar bins at Target, I loved them, especially with the black wrapping paper.  And I can always get some larger bins later if we need them!  But for now, the little ones work perfectly!

I am so excited about how it turned out!!  There is more that I want to do to it someday, like add a mirror, and add some hooks to hang the purses, and find a better way to hang the hats, and I really want to get her some dress-up shoes and some boas... but I went a little overboard already, so I will have to be done for now!  I'm super proud of myself... I am not crafty or creative, so this was a big undertaking for me and I was really nervous about how it would turn out.  But I love it!!!

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