Making Stuffed Letters

I mentioned a few posts back that I really wanted to try my hand at making Stuffed Letters. This was a total, typical Kris moment of "I think I can just do it so I will" - there's always bound to be a learning experience in there somewhere - this project was no exception to that! 
I started by first drawing out the letters to my daughter's name.  It took a while for me to figure out exactly how I wanted them to look (you can see the lines showing through the back of a rejected style).  I would make the letters thicker, were I to do this again.  You'll see why later on,
Once the letters were drawn, I cut them out and began.

I folded my washed and ironed (see I've already learned a little about working with fabric) fabric in half (good side out each way).  I pinned the letter to it and cut that out. 

I then removed the pins, separated the 2 letters, flipped them over, re-matched them so that the rough sides were now facing out and re-pinned.

Then I began sewing all the perimeter, leaving a gap in one part for the later steps of turning the material inside out and stuffing everything.
*side note #1 - don't sew the middle hole of a letter like A - it doesn't work to flip it inside out
*side note #2 - I experimented a bit with how to turn the material when sewing so I didn't have to start and stop and re-start with every angle.  I think I figured out how to do it, but if any of you sewers have tips for me as the the proper way to do that, that would be great.
*side note #3 - If I did this again with the letter A I would leave 2 gaps for stuffing - one on either 'foot' of the A - I ended up ripping out one the foots as I could get the stuffing to go around corners very well. 

Get ready to flip the material inside out, so that the good side is now showing.

Here's everything turned around.

Now stuff - I found a chopstick very hand for this part.

Now sew the stuffing holes shut and you have a stuffed letter.  On further reflection, I wish I had picked another letter of my daughter's name to show you all, because of all the problems the letter A gave me, it looks a little wonkier than I would have liked, but the final project of all the letters together looks great.

*Update: I posted on "How to Make O's, A's and other tricky letters" check it out here!

Went Fabric shopping - Here's what I bought

I had a lovely day off last Monday. My mom and Nana were in town and took my middle child out for the day. My oldest child was at school. My husband was at the University so it was just me and my baby girl. I really was overwhelmed with the possiblities that lay before me. I seldom get quiet time (not counting my hour before bed). I decided to go shopping. I went back to Sew Sisters. It was so nice to go with time. I'm still new at sewing, but extremely inspired. There were 2 fabrics that caught my eye the last time I was in, but with my boys and their energy abounding I really didn't get to have a good browse. I found the first fabric and ones complimentary to it wrapped up in a fat quarter package. How could I resist?

Okay, well, really only 5 of these fabrics were in the original packet. I found a few more that matched and got them too and then put them altogether once I was at home. But aren't they pretty? I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet.

The real reason I came back was to take another look at this bee fabric. I really, really like it. I like it so much that I found other fabrics that I think go with it. And once I get a better feel for sewing, I have these fabrics planned into my first, me-designed-not-following-a-quilt-kit-quilt. I'm so excited about this. And nervous. But I look forward to it. I like creating and being able to look at something and thinking, "I made that".

Giveaway Alert

I love the blog world community. You have friends who blog who have other friends who blog who have friends that you just know from their blog. This is one of those stories with a happy ending of a giveaway. Visit Me and My 2 guys to find a great giveaway going on now! Right now - here

Adventures in sewing - baby pants and a headband

I bought this great stash of this purple fleece from the clearance bin. I thought that it would make some comfy pants for my daughter for when the weather got cold. I found the pattern at Make Baby Stuff . Com. It was aa very easy pattern to sew (even for a beginner like me). I kinda wish I had first made a pair with a different material because I found the polar fleece really thick to sew with (especially where the layers doubled up). But I did it! My first pair of pants! You can find the online pattern and tutorial here.

Seeing as I had the sewing machine out anyway...
I stumbled on this really easy baby headband pattern on the same site. This was really fast to make. I think I'll be making a few of these once I get a stash of really cool scraps. This pattern and tutorial are found here

A couple more cakes

This is one of my earlier cakes and the first one I did with a rental pan. Rental pans are great for easy cake decorating. They come with step by step how to instructions. I get my pans at the Bulk Barn.

If you can see the cake in this picture. (this is what happens when you don't keep good photo files and go searching for pictures). This is my Elmo cake I made for my oldest son's 2nd birthday. It's also from a rental pan. The most difficult thing was getting the icing to be RED. Buy red icing if you can find it! It takes an insane amount of food dye to get a good red colour. I used the thick food dye from Wiltons to get the red colour.

More Cakes

If you are visiting from Pinterest, thanks for checking my cakes out! I've updated this post to link back to my recipe site where there are more cake details.

This was my son's 3rd birthday cake, the only thing difficult about it was getting the orange colour.


This is the cake I am most proud of making, it was a lot of work to get the Canucks symbol, but I did it!


This was the cake I fought at making, but it turned out alright. Click here to find my original post.


This is proof that renting one of those cake pans from the Bulk Barn is worth it.


This is my favorite cake. It was so easy and so much fun to do.  Click here to find my original post.

Cake!

One thing I look forward to each year is decorating cakes for family birthdays (or other random events that involve cake). These were my boys' cakes for their 2010 birthdays. My cakes are made from scratch and the designs are me being creative. I did take a cake decorating class with my mom about 10 years ago (I can't believe it was that long ago!). She's recently got back into decorating with a group of friends (one who runs her own catering/cake business and makes the most beautiful cakes). I just like to do it when the time calls for it.
If you are visiting from Pinterest, thanks for checking my cakes out!  I've updated this post to link back to my recipe site that has a few more cake details on it.  The Cars Cake can be found here and the Spider-Man Cake can be found here.