Toddler Bracelet Tutorial

Aww yes, it has begun. My little girl is into jewelery and chap stick. Thanks to one of her cousins that is always sporting a HUGE purse full of jewels and make-up. The only problem is that all of the little kids jewelry is so unsafe for her and her little sis. So I came up with a little fabric bracelet that is safe and cute.
And phew, she loves it!

Materials needed:

*Scraps of fabric
*Anti-roll elastic
*Felt flower or whatever embellishment you want to use


Cut materials to the following sizes.

*Large piece of fabric 10 1/2" x 3 1/2"
*Small piece of fabric 5 1/2" x 1 1/2"
*Anti-roll elastic 5 1/2" x 1/2"



Take the longest piece of fabric and fold like you are going to make bias tape. Iron and then top stitch on edges. Make sure when top stitching that you sew it a little wider then the width of the elastic. This is your bracelet piece.


See, I sewed it really close to the edges. Put a pin on one side of the elastic and feed it through the bracelet. Sew elastic in place at both ends of bracelet.


Pin raw edges together, overlapping a tiny bit.


Zig-zag stitch all raw edges of smaller piece of fabric. Now sew down the middle of fabric on a stitch length of 4. Pull on one single string to make it ruffle.

Wrap the ruffled piece of fabric around the pinned edges of bracelet and sew shut. I sewed mine in three places, but you can sew as many times as you want. I sewed mine with a messy look, but you can fold it neatly if you want too.

Lastly, hand stitched a little felt flower on, or use your other embellishment of choice. I bought these adorable felt flowers from littlecards on etsy. I have bought a ton of these little flowers to make hair clips with. They are great quality and have held up great to the wear and tare of a almost 2 year old.

And there you have it. A safe toddler bracelet.

Make it bigger, skinnier or wider. Make your own flower or a bow. Get creative with them.

She loves taking it off and on. She moves it from the right hand to the left. She even likes to wear it as an ankle bracelet.

It just looks so sweet on those little hands of hers.

embrace the camera {chopping the corn}

If you haven't been to Em's blog yet, you NEED TO! She makes me laugh, cry, and keeps life so real.

Last Friday was one of those days the world around us just stopped and we enjoyed the simple pleasures in life that only the country can bring us.

It was the annual chopping of the corn across the street day.

This is a big day for us. Seriously! It's almost like a holiday to the kids (and me too!) The kids sat on the porch and watched the tractor drive around the corn field chopping down the stalks, ALL DAY! Even this momma sat on that couch for a few hours enjoying the beautiful fall day and all the excitement with the kiddo's. It's a lot of fun, really it is.

We had a special picnic in bread pans. Just our favorite grilled cheese sandwiches, grapes, carrots and milk.

No circle sandwiches today. Today they get hearts. Oh, how I wish I had a tractor cookie cutter.

She didn't understand the whole chopping of the corn thing, but oh how she squealed at her brother and sister. They are so cool in her eyes!

Oh, that poor truck driver. Every time he drove to or from the corn field, my little guy would yell "pull the handle, pull the handle" while jumping up and down making the honk your horn motion. I would say we heard that horn honk close to 30 times that day.

Thank you Mr. Truck driver for amusing us so much that day. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. This is another one of those moments that I want to cherish forever. I love how excited they were just sitting on that old couch watching them drive around in circles all day. Or how the last honk of that horn was just as exciting as the first. Again, THANK YOU Mr. Truck driver, See again next year!

For those of you wondering about my carrot cake in a canning jar from last week. I got the recipe here and just follow my tutorial. The cake is amazing! One of the best carrot cake recipes I have tried and it was super easy. Don't forget to make up some extra jars and throw them in the freezer. This cake freezes amazingly! Plus it is a great way for the kids to bring a homemade snack to school or in our case for the hubby's lunch. Enjoy!

CSN stores giveaway

Wanna win $35 to any of the 200 CSN stores? I do! There is so much there I have a hard time choosing what I want. Just the other day I was searching their stores for storage items and somehow stumbled upon these. Surprisingly they have some pretty cheap bedroom furniture. While these were a little more moderately priced how fun are they?!?

I can picture my little guy dressed in his dino J's wearing his fireman boots sliding down this.

Or my little girls dressed in tutu's having a tea party in there with their dolls.

AWW yes, and then I was brought back to reality, because first of all, my two girls are still in cribs. And since all three kids share one bedroom (yup, that's right) there is no way these would fit in one room. Oh but a girl can dream right? Head on over to CSN stores to see what other fun things you can find and share with us!

To enter, just head on over to any of the CSN stores and tell me what you would buy with $35. Giveaway ends October 9, 2010.

Fabric covered photo book

I noticed this weekend that Grammy is in need of a cute little photo book to transport all of her grandchildren's photos in, instead of the tacky one I made for her from Snapfish. So it got me thinking, why not just make a fabric cover for it like the one I made for the 3 ring binders.

AND VOILA!

Meet the new fabric covered photo album.

I just went and bought one of those cheap little photo album books from Walmart for $1 and made the fabric cover for it.

Won't these make a great gift?!?

embrace the camera {my birthday party}

Monday was my 32nd birthday and I decided to throw myself a birthday party right in our own backyard. When I started bringing the blankets and pillows outside for the picnic I saw the tractor and trailer by the garden and decided to have our picnic in the trailer. When the kids woke up from their naps and saw where we were going to have the party they were SOOO excited! We ate some yummy grinders from NBVS, and enjoyed some of my homemade carrot cake in a canning jar, how appropriate right? The rest of the night was spent with the kids taking turns driving the tractor and playing in the pumpkin patch.

This was the best birthday party ever!! I am such a lucky momma and wife!

pencil wrap and bag

A few gifts I made for my nieces birthday.

A cute little pencil bag for holding all of her school supplies.

And a pencil/ crayon wrap.

A new twist on all of those crayon wraps.
My wrap holds 9 writing instruments and wraps around 3 ring binders, coloring books or school books. Wrap Velcro's shut and is adjustable.

My new woven labels.

A little over a year ago I ordered 600 woven labels and much to my surprise they are all gone. I cannot believe that I had made that many items in just a little over a year, WOWSERS! When ordering my labels this time, I made a few changes to my previous labels and had a new larger label designed with my logo on it.

They are a bit larger then my other labels and I can think of so many ways to use them. I just couldn't wait to use them.


I'm so happy with how they came out. If your in need of some woven labels go check out world wide label on etsy. They are wonderful to work with!