Ruffle shirts for two Little Daisies

       We all have seen Sachiko's from Tea Rose Home tutorial on refashioning a plain t-shirt into a romantic ruffle shirt. I have been meaning to give it a try for some time now. Well, I finally got my courage to do it :).

      My daughters love girly clothes and dress-up so I decided to use the tutorial and make the ruffle shirts for them.

      I had to adjust the ruffle lengths. I also added shirred bottoms.

     A perfect pair of Spring/Summer shirts for my two Little Daisies:).

Barrette Holder Tutorial

                I made heart barrettes for my daughters for the upcoming Valentine's Day. Having two little girls means having a lot of hair accessories. Especially barrettes, because once you start making them - you can't stop! :).
               Than I thought that it would be great to have something to clip them onto for storage. Like a holder. Like a Barrette Holder :).

              Here is my tutorial on how to make a barrette holder. You can hang it in the bathroom  ( close to hair brushes ) or on the door of the kid's closet.


 
Materials needed:
felt ( red, pink, cream )
1/2" wide grossgrain ribbon ( pink ), about 21"
DMC embroidery floss in red and pink
white thread
needle

This tutorial show how to make a Heart Barrette Holder, but you can choose any theme you want.

1. Make 3 heart patterns: large, medium and small. My measurements: 3,5", 2", 1" ( in the widest part of the heart ). Cut out one large heart, two medium hearts and two small hearts.

2. Pin the large heart pattern onto the cream felt, the medium heart pattern onto the pink felt and the small heart pattern onto the red felt. Cut the hearts out. ( I had a little help in drawing the heart patterns:) ).

3. Place the medium heart on top of the large heart. Thread the red DMC floss onto the needle. You can separate the embroidery floss into two groups of 3 threads each and use one group. Embellish the edge of the pink heart with the red floss ( just like on the picture), sewing through both hearts. This way you sew them together.

Sew the small red heart onto the pink and cream hearts with a smallest stitch possible ( so it is quite invisible). You can make more stitches in the back.

Thread the pink floss and embellish the cream large heart's edge.

5. Thread the needle with your regular white sewing thread. Place one of the small red hearts on top of the medium pink heart. Match the grossgrain ribbon to the back of your big heart. Sew it all together.

6. Place the small heart on top of the middle size heart and embellish the edge sewing the two hearts together.  ( just like with the large and medium hearts).

7. Attach the end of your pink ribbon to the back of the medium cream heart and sew it on.

8. Make a hanging loop from a small piece of ribbon - see picture:

9. Hang the holder and clip the barrettes on! One more way to get organized this year :)

This tutorial is linked to:

Winter Storm in Kansas

                My New Year's resolution was to cut down on sugar this year. I love baking and have a very sweet tooth and I probably use too much sugar in my coffee and tea. So I decided to cut down on it. I put only one teaspoon of sugar ( and try not to make it heaping:) ) and use apple sauce over cereal. My husband doesn't like sweets so no problem for him. My daughters don't seem to mind less sugar either.


                I used to bake cookies as soon as the previous batch was gone. With the Valentine's Day, our Anniversary and our daughter's second birthday coming up - I wanted to wait with baking till then.

                But then....... this awful winter storm hit Kansas and we were stuck in the house for 3 days. SO... We decided to make cookies. ( Ok, I decided:) ). Just a little sweetness in this dreadful weather.


                 We went for a healthier version - oatmeal cookies. I stuck to my resolution and used less sugar. I skipped the brown sugar and used only 3/4 of a cup of white sugar.

                  I have to say we really enjoyed them and didn't mind less sugar in them at all :)