In-N-Out Hats

I was sitting at my friend's house in New Jersey celebrating New Year's Eve when I received a text from my friend in California. "Hey. I have a sewing question and possibly a request for you. Would you know how to make an In-N-Out hat from fabric?" My first initial reaction is always, "No." And, this is what I said to my Jersey friend too. "I don't know how to do that!!" After a few minutes, the wheels had started to turn, and I was on my phone googling and pinteresting "fountain hats." I came across this blog post: Root Beer Float Party. With the awesome tutorial, I was starting to think that maybe I COULD actually get these hats done out of fabric. I would just substitute the paper with fabric. Easy peasy.

This happened over a year ago. We were welcoming year 2015. It is now 2016.

To make these hats happen, I needed a "pattern," so I went to In-N-Out and asked a few of their paper hats with my hamburger (animal style), fries and a vanilla shake. I took the hat apart carefully at home and measured all the parts.

I used white thin (and cheapest) cotton for the top of the hat. I copied the sides of the hat onto Avery Printable Fabric Sheets and cut them out.

What I did not realize the first time around was that the fabric would not give in as much as the paper. The first hat was way too small for anyone to wear. However, I was extremely (jumping up and down) excited when I had finished the first hat. It looked like a real In-N-Out hat. OMG!!! I actually made it happen. Yay me!

I realized that I had to make the hats somehow a bit bigger around, so I added an extra strip of the fabric sheets to one side. It doesn't make the pattern of the hat flow nicely, but it makes the hat big enough to fit a child's head.

So. It might have taken me almost a year to complete the hats, and over a year to blog about them, but I made them. The new owners seem to be happy with them. I do not think you can wash them, but they will definitely last longer than the paper hats you get at In-N-Out. 

This year's resolution - Try not to say "no" as much. Happy 2016 everyone!

Monkeys. Monkeys. Monkeys.

Matilda loves her monkeys. Her love for the monkeys started when we got her new wubbanubs (a stuffed animal with a pacifier attached to it....yes, it sounds odd, but they are super cute. Google them.) when she was a wee baby She had a wubby with a giraffe, kitty, duck and monkey. The monkey was her favorite...or, was it our favorite? In any case, the monkey stuck with her. She wasn't big on her pacifiers, so I ended up taking all of them off the wubbanubs and sewing the mouths of the monkeys back together. Now, she only has the stuffed monkeys as her lovies. And, boy does she love them!!!

Another thing that Matilda loves is music. It is one of her favorite things to do - listen to music from our iPhones and carry them while walking around the house. Once in awhile she breaks into dancing. (She has already shown great interest toward So You Think You Can Dance performances.) Her favorite song is "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson. LOVES it!!!

A few weekends ago, I was making a baby blanket for a friend's baby. The blanket was made of flannel and super soft minky fabric. After I was done with the blanket, I showed it to the girls. Matilda came over with great enthusiasm, grabbed the blanket and took off. I had to fight her to get the blanket back. She had decided it was hers.
Since she is not a big fan of her sleepsacks anymore, I decided to make Matilda her own softy blanket. And, I just happened to have this awesome dancing monkey flannel in my stash of fabrics. How perfect!!! I bought the brown soft fabric from Joann Fabric.

I used the tutorial from Make It-Love it blog. It is super easy to follow and the blanket has turned out perfect each time. I have made four of these now. Here is tutorial: Self-binding-minky-baby-blanket.

I had so much extra fabric left that I made a matching sheet for Matilda's bed. Let me just tell you that the girl was SUPER excited about her very own soft monkey blanket, and the sheet in her bed that night made her even happier.

That's a lot of monkeys...

It's all about the lace dresses.

My friend Sanni is really good at sewing. Super good. Amazing. She is like a wizard of sewing. She can sew anything, and she knows (I believe) everything about sewing. She is amazingly talented but super modest about her skills.

One day last spring, I asked her if she would be willing to make a christening gown for Matilda for this summer's christening that we were going to have in Finland. She agreed to it without hesitation. The dress needed to be a "big" girl dress and not a traditional christening gown that 2-month-old would be wearing. Olivia was 8 months old when we had her christening in Finland, and she wore a beautiful dress with tulle and lace. Matilda was going to be 14 months old, and I saw her in a similar dress in her christening.

One Saturday, Sanni and I drove to a local Joann Super store to look for fabrics for the dress. We found pretty white fabrics and were happy with the combinations when we walked around the corner to another aisle, and I saw this beautiful "old" pink lace fabric. I fell in love. I wanted the dress to be from that fabric, but we had just spent a lot of time looking for the perfect combination for a white christening gown. While I was going back and forth, Sanni said, "That's no problem. I will make two dresses." "Well. That is just silly for a one-year-old to have two fancy dresses like these," I said. Sanni disagreed and was firm that she would make two dresses. And, that is what happened. The pink lace dress was first one to be done, and it is beautiful. I love this dress, and it is so pretty on Matilda who has blondish red hair. She wore the dress at her 1st birthday party.

The white dress was for Matilda's christening. It also is a beautiful dress, and it is made flawlessly. It's unique and especially made for Matilda. I am so happy Sanni was willing and happy to make the dresses for us.

While we were shopping for the fabric for Matilda's dress(es), we came across a fun retro flower fabric. I liked it instantly and kept talking about it during our visit to Joanns. Sanni said right away that I should make a dress for myself with it for the christening. I laughed. Me? In a dress? In a white lace dress? Noooooo. That's just totally absurd. We left the fabric behind, but I kept thinking about it. Maybe I could make a dress for myself using the fabric. It was super cute. Would I know how to make one that would be nice enough for me to wear for the christening? With bunch of questions on my mind, I decided to approach the one person whom I knew would know the answers - my super talented friend Sanni. And, she basically said, "Of course you can do it. I'll help you." And, that she did.

We chose and got the pattern from a Finnish sewing book for women called Mekkotehdas Aikuisille. (Kiitos Mari lainasta!) We bought the fabric together. I also got knit fabric for the inside dress (Yes. I was making not just one dress but TWO!!), and an invisible zipper (OK. Zippers are scary as it is, but an invisible zipper!! Yikes!!). I was SURE this project was going to be a disaster. I have sewn a lot during the last two years, but I have never tried a project this big. I had never  before sewn a dress with lining or a zipper let alone invisible zipper. I was going to fail for sure. I knew it. I am not sure what Sanni thought I was able to do, but if she doubted me, she did not show it once. (What a brave woman!). Me; however, I gave up multiple times during the process. The next couple of weeks, we met at night after our kids had gone to bed. Sanni told me every single step that I needed to do, and I followed her instructions and sewed and sewed and sewed. Finally, the dress was done. I had made a lace dress all on my own. And, it fit me!!! I was amazed and so proud of myself. (I still am.)

Here is the dress.

Check that out. I actually made it. The dress has french seams as well. Yep. I sewed a dress with an invisible zipper, french seams and a jersey knit lining. 

Matilda's christening was on a Friday afternoon on a sunny warm July day in Finland. It was a family event, and we were excited to be sharing this special day with family and friends. Matilda was beautiful wearing her lace dress, and I got many wonderful complements about my lace dress. (Which I followed with super enthusiastic, "I made it!!")

Olivia chose her lace dress from H&M.

I have many talented women in my life, but one of the most important ones is my best friend Mari. We have known each other about 25 years (which is weird because we are only 24), and she is absolutely the bestest, smartest, kindest, funniest, most beautiful (inside and out) friend I have in my life. And, since that is not enough, she is also SUPER talented. Not only did she make the cakes for Matilda's christening, but she also (with the help from her super awesome dad and super awesome kids) drove three hours to attend the party and took care of the kitchen while we were busy with our guests. She is awesome! Thank you SO much, Mari, for everything!! Our theme was blueberries, so the colors came from that. Mari made the yummy cake for the christening and, of course, decorated it also with little Matilda sitting next to (real) blueberries.

Please check out her blog at Marin Kakkuloita and be amazed by everything she creates. Absolutely wonderful!

Old T-shirt bibs

I went through my closet the other day, and I found lots of old T-shirts that are (unfortunately) too small for me...I had been saving them for the time when I will lose that extra 20 lbs and will fit into them again. That was two moves ago and four years in between. I figured it was time to get rid of them.

Some of the shirts have special memories attached to them. I may have not told you, but I was an au pair in Boston for a year back in 1995-1996. (uhm...20 years ago. Yikes!) It has been one of the best experiences of my life. I should write a whole blog post about it. My second host family is family. They took me in like I was one of their own and treated me like family. I love them very much. And, I love the city of Boston. So, my two Boston T-shirts are very special to me.

This is my Boston T-shirt was bought from one of my many visits to the wonderful city of Boston. I had gone exploring my favorite spots in town and ended up in Quincy Market. There was a small souvenir shop that I happened to pop in, and I saw this T-shirt in there. I loved it right away because it was funny and not your regular boring BOSTON T-shirt.

My Boston Red Sox T-shirt I bought one summer when I was taking care of my host family's kids in between au pairs. The family's grandmother was a HUGE sports fan. She loved "her" Red Sox and Bruins. I would watch hockey games with her at night eating peppermint patties or drinking tea and eating the most delicious chocolate chip cookies. I tried to watch baseball games with her, and I appreciated her excitement for the game, but I never truly understood what was going on the field. And, it was soooooooooo slow. However, since I loved the city of Boston and my family very much, I wanted to show my support for the local team, so I ended up getting my very own Boston Red Sox T-shirt.

My San Francisco Giants T-shirt is special because I married into a family that are huge Giants fans. This also fixed the issue that I did not understand the game. I have since then spent hours and hours at the AT&T park or watching the game on TV. I even find myself turning the TV on to watch a game when hubby is not home. I must be a true fan now since I was taken to one of the World Series Games last year. I mean...not just anyone gets to go. So, T-shirt...since we are huge Giants fans in this family, there is no way that I could have just tossed the shirt into the trash can. OMG, no. Absolutely no. It would be like stomping on a flag. You just don't do it. (Or, at least I could have not told anyone about it. Like never.)

So, I couldn't get rid of these three shirts. Not yet.

Instead, I decided to make bibs out of them for my 13 month old. I had saved on Pinterest a blog post how to make bibs out of an old T-shirt. They are awesome.

The bibs are fun, soft, and perfect size. I made some of mine a bit bigger than the pattern so that I could get most of the text fit into the bibs. They cover Matilda very well. She is also pretty cute wearing them.

Rebecca Smith is the woman who came up with the pattern and idea. I printed her pattern for the bib and followed the wonderfully easy tutorial she had posted on the blog. Here is the link to the tutorial again: http://www.alittletipsy.com/2010/11/baby-week-shirt-bib.html

The bibs make me happy. I'm happy that she is now using my old T-shirts. I am happy that I don't need to clean up a huge mess after each meal. I am happy that I get to see these shirts. I am happy that I am upcycling. I am happy that I did not have to lose that 20lbs quite yet to fit into these old T-shirts.

First Birthday

My baby is one. It feels like she should be already three, but at the same time, it feels like we were just in the hospital and brought her home. She was only 2-months-old when we moved to California, and I have to say that I do not remember very much about her first two months of life. Life was so busy, and everything was very emotional. A lot of changes and adjustments have happened during the last 12 months. However, I am happy to report that she is healthy and happy and such a fun addition to our family.

Matilda is not walking yet, but she is an expert on climbing. She climbs on anything. The other day, I found her sitting inside a basket, and I have no idea how she got inside. My guess is that she climbed on her stroller and then rolled into the basket. There were no cries and no complaints. She was just happily sitting in the basket proud of herself for getting in there. It will remain a mystery.

She already has many opinions, and she is not afraid to share them. I have tried to teach her some baby signs, but she refuses to use them. One day, my sister-in-law and I witnessed her sitting on her hands when we tried to get her to sign "all done."  Little stinker.

She has likes and dislikes. She prefers shredded cheese over sliced cheese. She likes her water from sippy cup and only drinks milk from a regular cup when I hold it to her mouth.

The most fun part of her being one is that she understands stuff. For example, if I say, "Matilda. Go find the Tails book (her favorite book at the moment)." She crawls over where the books are and finds it in the pile of books. Then she crawls back to sit on my lap and waits for me to read it for her. She giggles with delight. And, then we read it over and over and over again.

Two weeks ago we had a birthday party to celebrate one-year-old Matilda. The theme was hot air balloons. As always, Pinterest was my source of inspiration. I had also seen my friend's son's preschool use hot air balloon theme for their book fair in the fall. It was so pretty that I was sold.

I like paper invitations. It is fun to stuff the envelopes, write addresses, stick stamps on the envelopes, and put them in the mailbox. I was going to order invitations from Etsy or Zazzle, but then decided that I could easily make them myself. So, I did. I used a hot air balloon cookie cutter as my template for the balloons on the cards, and drew and cut the clouds myself.

I had fun making all the decorations for the party. I sewed fabric letters in rainbow colors to spell "Happy Birthday" and "Matilda is one." I also sewed table runners and fabric garlands to hang. 

But, the most excited and proud I am of all the hot air balloons that I made. I spent hours on gluing paper circles to rice paper lanterns with a hot glue gun. I had never really used a hot glue gun before, and I have to admit, I am a huge fan now. It was so much fun!! I made five hot air balloons that were covered with paper circles - yellow, pink, blue, green and rainbow colored one. The other hot air balloons were colored lanterns. The baskets are brown colored berry baskets that I had bought from Michaels during Valentine's Day thinking that maybe some day I would use them. I used an eraser at the end of a pencil and sparkly gold paint to make dots on the baskets.

The clouds are made from the paper lanterns as well. We (I designated some of the clouds for my father-in-law to finish) glued fiberfill onto the lanterns. It was messy, but the end result was stunning. I got this idea from Pinterest. Someone had used bunch of these clouds as a backdrop for a wedding photo shoot. Such a great idea!

I tried to think of foods that were birthday girl safe and related somehow to our theme of hot air balloons, clouds and rainbows. We had a bucket of "birthday girl recommendations" -- apple sauce, string cheese and graham crackers. We also had little cheese and cucumber sandwich bites, Pirates Booty as clouds, three different salads, and rainbow fruit skewers.

For dessert, we got a chocolate cake from Costco, and I made some Finnish donut holes. Yum! The cake and the cake topper idea came from Craftaholics Anonymous blog. She actually made me realize that not everything needed to be done by me. I could take some shortcuts with food. She had lots of beautiful ideas, and my favorite one was the cake with the little hot air balloons.

I also made some little table decorations. The hot air balloons are made from paper with toothpicks and the clouds are made with styrofoam. I painted them twice with white paint and then added some sparkles.

I had decided that this party was going to be very low key. We had a time frame that we were going to be at the location, and people could stop by any time they wanted and stay as long as they wanted. I also did not want to make lots of plans to entertain the kids. No games. No big deal activities. It was 1-year-old's party. I wanted to keep it simple.

We had a hot air balloon "ride." We had all of our trains set up on the floor. I also chose some of Matilda's favorite books and books related to our theme and put them on the table for the kids to read. Outside, we had set up a bubble table for the kids. They seemed to enjoy that a lot.

 

I wanted to have a craft, so I came up with an idea for the kids to paint their own hot air balloons. I bought small styrofoam balls to be the balloons and white paper cups for baskets. I used bamboo skewers to hold the balls up. My awesome friend (Thank you, Katy!!) hot glued all the hot air balloons together before the party, so when the kids showed up, they could just focus on painting and decorating. We had some sparkly diamond like stickers (Kiitos, Johanna!!) that were used to decorate the baskets. I wish I had pictures of the finished hot air balloons. They came out really nice.

I struggle with the goody bags for parties. When I was a kid, we did not get goody bags for going to someone else's birthday party. I find it odd that you would go to celebrate someone else's day, and you leave with a bag of goodies. You get to eat cake, cookies, ice cream, play games with your friends, and have a wonderful time, and then you also need a bag with goodies. Sigh! I just don't get it. However, I could not have anything for the party goers, so I decided to get a book for each family with kids who came. The book was "Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon." How perfect is that!! Inside the book, I placed a sticker that reminds the readers where they got the book from. Each party goer also got a candy tube of M&Ms.

I had a lot of fun preparing for this party. I cannot wait to start thinking about Olivia's party which luckily is in 6 months. I timed my children's birthdays perfectly...every 6 months there is a party. Yippeee!!

Teacher Appreciation Week

I am a teacher. And, I mean like a real teacher. Not a teacher like I stay home with my children, so I teach them stuff at home. I have a master’s degree in Linguistics with emphasis on TESOL. (TESOL means Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.) I teach grownups who want to learn to speak and use English. I used be a teacher at a community college with a tenure job now I am at home with my beautiful children. Nevertheless, I am still a teacher. I don’t know anything about how it is to be an elementary school teacher. What a day of a Transitional Kindergarten teacher is like with 24 wild 5-year-olds running around in the classroom for four hours five days a week. I don’t know what kind of a workload a 7^th grade teacher has or how much planning a high school teacher must to do to teach a lesson in history. My guess is that all the teachers work very hard and prepare a good amount and spend a lot of energy during the day with the kids that they have in their classroom. I know I did. I was not dealing with kids, but I dealt with adults who sometimes acted like kids. I think that is worse. I have spent countless hours on lesson planning, test making, listening during office hours, grading stacks and stacks of essays, and making sure that everything I need to cover is being accomplished. I know that being a teacher is a lot of hard work.

The idea of teacher appreciation is wonderful. I grew up in Finland. We didn’t have assigned day for a teacher appreciation, but we would bring flowers to our teacher at the end of the school year. Or, we may have remembered our teacher at Christmas. That was a proper way to show your teacher that she or he was appreciated by us and our parents. Last year, we were in New Jersey. In Olivia’s preschool, the parents organized a lunch for the teachers to show them we appreciated them. The parents made the meal and served it and helped in the classrooms while the teachers lunched. I thought that was a nice tradition. Each class also organized a little gift for the teacher. I thought that was appropriate as well.

What I have been hearing this year in anticipation and during the teacher appreciation WEEK bothers me a great deal. A friend of mine told me that in her child’s preschool they were given a list of items for each day of the week to bring for the teacher and the assistant teacher. Monday – teacher’s favorite flower. Tuesday – teacher’s favorite dessert. Wednesday – teacher’s favorite location for a gift card. Thursday – teacher’s favorite color. Friday – teacher’s favorite candy. Another friend mentioned that they also got a similar list. I spoke with another mom who was overwhelmed by the teacher appreciation week because she was the one who had volunteered to take care of it all for her daughter’s first grade class not realizing that the PTA was going to send out a list of things that each class must do for the teacher during the week. This list also was demanding and presumptuous. 

These lists bother me. What happened to a genuine desire to remember your teacher with what you thought was a nice way to remember her or him. The idea that someone (teacher, PTA, room parent) is telling me that I have to buy a bouquet of yellow and white tulips for Monday and $50 gift card to Nordstrom to bring in on Thursday doesn’t sit well with my stubborn Finnish personality. I think that a homemade card from the child and a bouquet of flowers is a nice way to say “I appreciate you.” Or, how about actually saying it on a November Friday during pick up – “Ms. McCarthy. I think you are doing a great job. We are so happy you are Olivia’s teacher.” 

I understand where the lists are coming from. I have gotten my own share of Santa’s head coffee mugs or key chain from Chicago or odd tin of cookies, but I have also received beautiful Korean dolls or Chinese jewelry from my students which I still keep as my favorite memories of my days of being a community college instructor. I cherish the few special items I have received, and I have gotten rid of the Santa mug and key chain. Mostly, it was the thought that counted for me. I have a lot of friends who are elementary level teachers. My guess is that everyone in that group of friends would not send a list of favorite things home with the kids and assume they would be getting a $50 gift card to Nordstrom. (I am sure they would love to get 20 of these cards, but they would never say it.) So, I understand why these lists have been created, but I don’t understand the expectation that everyone will follow the list. It should be a guide not a demand. I haven’t heard about these teacher appreciation week lists anywhere else. There is a lot of money around where we live, but it is not in everyone’s pocket. To assume that every family can pitch in as much as the next person is not feasible.

I don’t like these lists. In my opinion, they make the teachers look greedy and take away from the idea of wanting to remember and appreciate your teacher authentically.

 I love the idea of appreciating your teacher, but it should be done so that it is genuine. And, my guess is that most teachers would agree with me.

Let's make pillow cases!

My favorite blog is Make It and Love It. The owner of the blog is Ashley, and she is a mother of four beautiful children and a wife and a master blogger and a super creative woman. She is amazing. If you haven't checked out her blog, please go and visit. You will find all kinds of beautiful things to look at and make for yourself.

In November, Ashley wrote about how she was asked to help out with a service project to make pillow cases for sick children in hospitals. What a beautiful idea! She posted a beautiful story behind the idea, and a super easy tutorial to make the pillow cases. One of the methods is called "the burrito method." Once I saw that, I had to try it. Since then, I have made quite a few pillow cases mainly as presents but some for Olivia as well. My plan is to make a few for the project Ashley wrote about and send them to Team Bubba. I realize that it has been four months since she posted about the pillow cases, but I was happy to notice that it looks like they are still accepting pillow cases. I am going to make some. I hope you will too. Come on ... burrito method ... how can you resist that? You will be able to find all the information and the awesome, super easy tutorial for the pillow cases clicking right here.

Ashley have listed three sizes for pillow cases and three different methods of making them. I used the burrito method for my pillow cases. I found that making the queen size pillow case worked the best for my standard size pillows. I am not sure if my seam allowance is larger than it should be or what, but the standard size was too small. These are really fun to make and once all the fabric is cut, they are super quick to sew together. And, they are beautiful.

For Olivia, I made one pillow case with My Little Ponies and another with Doc McStuffins. Doc McStuffins may not be Olivia's favorite anymore, but I loved the colors in the fabric so much that I couldn't leave it in the fabric store.

 Super cute, right? The colors in the fabric make me so happy.

My Little Ponies are cool in this house just like the Littlest Pet Shop and Legos. I made a pony pillow case that matched a fleece blanket that I had made months earlier for Olivia's bed.

Now, let's make some pillow cases!