The Family Travels map

About a month or two before my husband and my's wedding anniversary I came across this post from Cut, Craft, Create where she shared her Personalized Photo Map. 

I thought it was such a good idea and couldn't wait to put my own spin on it.  My family loves to travel.  I often put our trips into little printed books and we always get magnets from where we've been.  My husband loves to look back at all the places we've been and discuss it. I knew this gift would be right up his alley.

So here's what hubby got from me this year to celebrate 9 years of bliss!

 

Want to make your own?

Here's how:

STEP ONE:  Gather up these supplies.

I got my map from Amazon here. 

I picked up a simple 24 x 36 frame from Michaels.

I printed out all 4 x 6 photos from Sams club.

STEP TWO:  Lightly trace each state out on your tracing paper.  

STEP THREE: Roughly cut each traced state out.  Place each traced state onto your photo and cut out together.  

For the larger states, I just used multiple pictures until that state was covered.  Another idea would be to print out the larger sizes for your photos to cover an entire state.  Texas would take an 8 x 10.

STEP FOUR:  After your state is cut out, place as many pieces of foam tapes as you need to hold your picture in place.  Place your photo in place.  

Repeat with all other states.

All done!

This made a really fun gift!  

My husband really loved it and all the kids love to look at it and talk about where we've been and more importantly, where we need to go next!

I had a friend ask me if when I went to Hawaii, if I was going to cut out little pictures of each of the kid's heads for the different islands-- sounds like a plan to me, ha, ha.

How to make YW Luminaries

 Remember how I'm in charge of the crafts this year for Girl's Camp?  

Well, after making those cute No-Sew headbands, the girls are also going to make their own YW Luminaries to bring to the testimony meeting at the end of the week.

 

There's a few idea for how to make these on the web but many are lacking in details for exactly what to do or buy.  

Plus I don't have a cricut or silhouette machine at my disposal...so I had to think a bit outside the box. 

Here's a list of the Materials We Used:

1.      Pint sized mason jar (donated from the stake)

2.      Clear contact paper (purchased)

3.      Krylon frosted glass finish (I bought 8 cans from Amazon here)

4.      LED tea light (100 pack from Amazon here)

5.      Printed off silhouette paper (I printed off 5 sheets total).

6.      30” of wire (for each girl, I bought two pack of this wire.  This wire is really thick-- thicker than I meant to buy, but it turned out great, as long as you can muscle it around.)

7.      Newspaper

For the silhouette paper I made a simple sheet which you can use located HERE. 
We have a few girls that are coming that are not LDS, so I wanted them to have options for their luminaries. 

For the FULL Tutorials go HERE.  

This explains each step.  

I printed off three copies of the tutorial and put each page in a sleeve protectors and tied them together with baker's twine. 

I'll only be there on the first day, so the girls need to know how to do each step without me.

I can't wait to see how their luminaries turn out!

The Sweet Sweater Dress-- a Revisit

I really love having two girls in a row and being able to have the younger wear all the same clothes as her older sister (with a few exceptions, of course).

Remember this dress?

Last seen HERE on big sister when she was a little younger.

After washing this dress the whole thing needed a real solid ironing, which I did.  It was then that I decided the bow needed a better sew job.  Big sister would always take the bow and try to rip it off, since I had only sewed it in place at the middle.

This time I hand sewed around the entire bow, making sure everything stays in place and she wasn't even tempted once to rip it off. 

Here's the lovely sisters today...

distracted by my neighbor walking out with her dog.

All ready to head out the door for church, cute as can be!

4 No-Sew Headband Printable Tutorials

I have been asked to be in charge of the coming up Girl's Camp Craft activities.

They asked that I prepare 2 - 3 different crafts.

I tried to think of crafts that weren't sewing.  I tried.  Well, I think you can still count it, since there are no needles involved in this first craft.

 

Well, I took away the needles and replaced them with hot glue guns.  And since I'm only going to be up there one of the days I decided I better make some clear tutorials for the girls to follow. 

So I had fun last week capturing each step so the girls would know what to do when I wasn't there. 

They only get a half an hour to make their crafts so for the headbands I wanted them to have options. 

 I put them in order from easiest to a little tricker.

The Easiest: The Twisted Headband

This headband idea comes from this tutorial from Sugar Bee Crafts.

Easy: The Big Bow

I made this one up.

Not Too Hard: The Knotted Headband

This headband idea come from this tutorial.

A Little Tricky: The Knitted Headband

This is a really cool tutorial from V and Co for a bracelet. 

 I thought it makes a really fun headband + it's fun to make, too.

Click HERE for the 4 No-Sew Headband Printable Tutorials.

See our other girl's camp craft HERE. 

The Sweet Simple Dress-- as completed by my Pattern Testers.

When I designed The Sweet Simple Dress, I tried to make it with lots of options for customization and I encouraged my sweet pattern testers to get creative and to really make the dress their own.

Of course, they did not disappoint.  Every dress was done so excellently. 

In no particular order, here they are.

Up first, this darling dress by The Nest Creations , I love how her daughter picked out her own fabrics and styling.  What a cutie!

I love this darling blue and white stripped one from Stripes and Polka Dots. 

Ahh, matching sisters-- my favorite.  These two cuties are my nieces.  

I love the way their matching, darling dresses turned out!

Kerrie made two dresses for some cute little twins.  

I love the pocket designs she made.

 

I love this darling tunic from Made-by-Sara.  

She used knit for the bodice and cotton for the sleeves. 

Court from Court is Crafty made this darling green dress with cute little buttons on the sleeves.

Check out this cutie from Australia from the blog Sewn by Elizabeth.

Look at this darling little baby from Huckleberry Love.  She tested our size 6 - 12 m.  I love the bright colors.  Too cute.

  

I love this cute one with a darling ribbon in the front.

These dresses are too cute from Nap-Time Creations.  If you're asking yourself, "Hmm, why did she pick some of those interesting details."  You might be surprised.  You can read all about her inspiration here.

The sweet simple dress turned out very darling from Sewing for Sanity.  Look at that smile!

I love this darling heart dress with bird applicay from a LOT of ATTITUDE. 

And lastly, I just love this darling dress from Crissybell's Musings. 

Her daughter is too cute in it!

Hope you enjoyed my pattern tester round-up.  

You can pick up your own Sweet Simple Dress HERE or your FREE 0-3 m dress here.

The Sweet Simple Dress -- a FREE Pattern size 0-3 m

Hi, Friends!

Got a baby shower coming up, need something to sew up quick?!

  New to sewing, need a simple place to start?  

Afraid of buttons and zippers?

Well...without sounding too crazy and infomercially (-- that's a word, right?) 

 I've got just the thing for you.

I'm really excited to be presenting The Sweet Simple Dress-- a FREE pattern for newborns. Hooray!!

This sweet newborn dress is an exact pattern excerpt from the original The Sweet Simple Dress. 

It is the same basic pattern (without all the fun extras you'll find in the complete pattern).

This FREE Pattern includes:

+ 0-3 month size sweet simple dress pattern

+8 pages of  step-by-step directions with pictures to help guide you

+ 5 pages for the pattern, which you'll need to cut out and tape.

Click HERE to download The FREE Sweet Simple Dress.

This free pattern was made to allow you to try out this pattern in its most basic form as a freebie.  

All the fun ideas and patterns for customization are not included.

You can check out the complete pattern The Sweet Simple Dress for sizes 0 - 4t, pattern for ruffles, a gathered ruffled hem, simple pockets, and more at my Etsy Shop.

And don't forget to come back tomorrow where I'll be sharing the dresses my pattern testers made.

Please let me know if you've made these dresses, I love seeing them!