PR&P signature style week

It is the final week of project run and play and the theme was 'signature style.' Over the past year of increasing my sewing skills (I use that word lightly ;) I have learned a little bit more about my style, especially for my kids. I love simple and comfortable with a little flair. I love play clothes as much as any mom, but what I REALLY love are cute little dresses that can be played in and still allow my girls to look like the little divas princesses they are. When I saw the go to shift dress in the huge pattern sale last week I was immediately sold. Luckily the size three only called for a yard so I got to use my VERY FAVORITE FABRIC IN THE WHOLE WORLD right now :) Salt Water by Tula Pink.

(Love this keyhole detail!)

We are a family that loves the ocean. My husband was a beach lifeguard for 5 years while we were dating and he still surfs and fishes constantly as often as he can. Z-baby has already started to ask if she can learn to surf and we just purchased a family kayak (which honestly kinda scares the bejeebes out of me because as much as I love the beach a near drowning incident when I was a teen left me with a healthy fear of the ocean's power.)

 We go to the beach at least once a week year round and my girls are already little beach bums. I love it and I love this fabric. A little ocean, a little whimsy, my heart flutters...

 To finish off the look I made her a simple shell headband. She loves her "treasures" from the beach and I wish you could have seen how pleased she was when I showed it to her! Actually, she loved the whole outfit so much that she CRIED when I took it off of her- Score!

I really love it with or without the belt. It just looks so comfortable without being frumpy and it really lets the fabric shine! I think she inherited our love for free and easy style. The girl is rocking this outfit!

xo

Rachel

Grandparent {or any adult} valentine gift

V-Day is in T minus two days and I already finished my Valentines! We like to get the grandma's a little  something and surprise them at work with it. This year our lemon tree went crazy! We had SO MANY huge lemons (ponderosa lemons) and no idea what to do with them, so we got out the faithful old juicer. When I was brainstorming ideas for grandma-treats I had an epiphany, why not share a little lemony goodness! Maybe the grandma's will want to return the good deed with some lemon-flavored treats (hint, hint!)

I found this free printable at see vanessa craft. I just glued them to the top and tied a little bakers twine bow around the jar to finish it off. 

Easy Valentine- check. 

Useful Valentine-check. 

Cheap Valentine- check

Paired with a sweet painting done by z-baby, I think the grandma's will LOVE their gift. And more importantly I think they will FEEL the love we have for them!

Happy day of love!

xo

Rachel

Project run and play :: men's shirt challenge

So, in spite of the five million things I NEED to sew I decided to participate in the PR&P challenge this week. I just couldn't resist. It has been on my sewing bucket list to refashion a men's shirt for a while. Well actually ever since I saw Dana's shirt dress tutorial on MADE.

Can you tell that Zadie baby LOVES when her fingernails are painted :) I made the shirt dress a shirt tunic, kinda on accident, and I also decided to leave off the waist band because I loved the simplicity of the look. Since this is the second outfit I made for Zadie I figured Mattie needed some love too.

I drew my inspiration from luvinthemommyhood's shirtsleeves to pants tutorial. I paired that with See Kate Sew's baby bloomers pattern and a little of my own ingenuity. I think the end result is pretty stinking cute. Mat liked them so much she pooed in them, thanks baby ;) Well even though I didn't get to check anything off my immediate to-do list the bucket list is just as important, right?!
This was a fun challenge!

xo

Rachel

Bicycle themed birthday party

Even though I went on a little blog writing hiatus I did not go on a blog reading break. I have to give full credit of this bike birthday theme to the sisters at kojo designs. They totally were my inspiration.

Now, if you have looked at their party just replace the extremely talented graphic designer with a girl with some mean stamping skills. :) Seriously, the theme of this party should have probably been bikes and stamps... Anyhoo, I digress, on to the pictures.

For the backdrop of the food table I stamped bikes onto a pink plastic table cloth that I cut in half and hung from the ceiling. I just did sandwiches, corndogs, and sides for the food.

The cute bike sign came from Micheal's dollar section and the flowers are from our yard.

 Have I ever told you how much I love bunting? I LOVE bunting. It is just the right amount of whimsy.

Sorry for the poor picture quality on this one . but the sun decided to come out in full force and I am not camera savvy enough (yet) to know how to deal with it. This is the food table (minus most of the food) in it's entirety. The tissue paper pom-poms were left over from Zadie's birthday party.

I made this for Mattie to wear to her party; sadly I made it WAY to big! So it became decoration too.

 More flowers from our yard (my favorite decorations EVER by the way!)

I reused the cupcake stand from Zadie's birthday

and I tried to mimic the cake from the inspiration party which I am pretty happy with. I think I would have LOVED it if I would have focused while spreading the sprinkles instead of jibber jabbering with my mom. To get this look I just laid down a number one shaped stencil onto fresh icing and shook out the sprinkles into the one design only (fail). Seriously, it would have been easy to make it look really good if I would have taken a little more time. Learn from me!

I found this sweet little print on pintrest FOREVER ago and saved it to my computer, but did not pin it, and I cannot find it again to give the creator credit. :( I love it though. I just had Walgreen's print it like a poster and then I washi taped it to the side of the fridge. (Lucky for me it totally fits in with my house color pallet and will be framed and on the wall very very soon!)

I told you I got a little stamp happy! Brent and Zade have plain shirts stamped with bikes ( I painted the stamps with fabric paint) and I stamped a pair of leggings for myself (I used a fabric paint stamp pad for my pants and the color has not held up NEAR as well as the shirts.)

 The birthday girl got a cute little dress from Target (That fits!) stamped with a cute little bike. I got both of my bike stamps from Micheal's.

The kids all brought a set of wheels to the party, per invitation instructions, and we paraded to the park right next to our house. I was a little nervous about asking people to bring some wheels (bikes, scooters, stroller) for their kids so I talked myself out of the one activity I had planned besides playing at the park. It would have worked perfectly though! My idea was to have a decorating station filled with balloons and streamers for everyone to jazz up their ride before the parade.

Can you see all the bikes in the background? SO. MUCH. FUN.

(I had a friend take pictures of the actual parade on her camera and haven't gotten them from her yet! sorry)

The birthday girl had a wonderful time playing.

But I am pretty sure her favorite part was the cake. I mean the girl HUGGED it and would just lean down her head and take big bites of it. She is such a fun baby!

Hope you loved this party as much as I did. It was pretty low-key, being so close to the holidays I couldn't do much more, but I think it turned out just right!

Rachel

Stripes and Polka Dots

I know, I know... I go MIA for a month and them I am back twice in one day... I'm just keeping you on your toes :)

Like I told you earlier, I decided to sew along with Project Run and Play this week. The theme was stripes and polka dots and here is what I came up with.

And here is a close-up of the fabric.

The shirt was inspired by Mad mim's pedulum top and the bottoms were the go to leggings pattern.

I did the ruched side variations. It is a great pattern I know I am going to use it to death! Hopefully I'll keep up with each week's theme... But we shall see ;)

xoxo

Rachel

Look who turned one!

Has it really been two months since my last post?! Sorry guys! Life just got the best of me. Good news though, all that time I wasn't here I was snuggling my sweet babies. Speaking of sweet babies, Mattie turned one this past weekend. ONE! And what a precious little one year old she is.

The past year has been so hard and so fun at the same time. I never knew how strong I was that is for sure! Mattie is a strong willed adventurous little girl. She is the polar opposite of her sister (except for the strong willed part!) and I just adore her. She is so stinking silly.

And she totally rocks the toothless grin!

She gives the most amazing snuggles and is such a little/ big girl. She is not even on the growth chart she is so petite, but her pediatrician and I agree that she can't gain weight because she is moving all. the. time.

She eats like a horse and she adores her big sister. She took her first step the week before her birthday, but hasn't tried again since, crawling is just so much quicker! She finally started to sleep through the night about two weeks ago and about that same time she stopped nursing. Sad day for this mamma! Pointing and clapping are her two favorite tricks (besides throwing her drink on the floor. repeatedly.)

I spend most of my day trying to snuggle her close and smooch those soft cheeks, but in reality I spend most of it watching that cute bum as it crawls away and soothing her after yet another head bonk. 

Life has been intense, to say the least, this past year, but really it has been wonderful. I can not imagine my life without this little girl and I am so excited to see the girl she becomes. Life will never be boring with Mattie around, that is for sure!

xoxo

Rachel

PS: We threw a bike themed party for Mattie and it turned out so cute! Pictures coming soon!

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I am sewing along with Project Run and Play so come back later today to see my stripes and polka dot outfit.

Friday lovelies

It's Friday ladies and I am in LOVE.

Last weekend was so simple and full of family time.

It was lovely.

This weekend I am longing for...

Just a little taste of cooler weather

source

Pumpkin carving time

source

a nice long family bike ride

(And yes we do kind of resemble this when we have the whole posse)

source

and lots of warm cozy drinks

source

It's almost the weekend, Wahoo! We have been fighting off some nasty colds this week and I am ready to finally shoo them away. We have big plans to spend time with family and friends we have not seen in a long time.

We have a soccer game to watch, costumes to perfect, and a festival to attend.... throw in a little pumpkin carving time and it sounds like a really dreamy weekend to me.

Now to just get my voice back and all the snot out of my nose.

So what do you have going on this weekend? Anything fun? Or do you have my favorite kind of weekend of all in front of you- no plans at all! Whatever you do make it good!

a broken computer and the final installment of kcwc

So I had a little accident last week.

I was writing this post, the last installment of kcwc,

when I spilled an ENTIRE cup of water on my computer.

sad day.

Good news though- they saved her!

Well since this post is already so late I will get straight to the point.

Zadie baby needed new pajamas in a BAD way.

She did rock the high waters though ;)

I found the cutest solid flannel an sale at Jo-Ann and it was pre-ruffled- heck yes!

So I bought a couple of colors.

I really wanted to make a top to go with them but I did not have enough fabric

and I didn't want to spend any money.

Good thing I was INCREDIBLY lazy and instead of filling a new bobbin I just used contrasting thread.

Into the refashion stash I went.

And luckily I had two  little shirts who were dying to become Zadie's.

A few new seems later we had some cute new PJs for miss Zadie pie!

cheers!