Sunday School Craft - Baby Moses in the Bulrushes

Today, we are going to make a cute little tiny craft: Baby Moses in the Bulrushes!

You need: paper, cupcake cups, green tissue paper, scissors, and glue (crayons optional)

First, print out my template at the end. Then, cut out as many Baby Moseses as you need.

Color the baby.

Get some green tissue paper.

Hopefully, you will be able to find your scissors. I looked all over the craft cabinet at church and couldn't find any. So. . .if you can't find scissors, carefully tear your paper into strips.

Here's a trick for a fast and clean tear: put down a hard plastic straight-edge on top of your paper and rip along the edge.

Take one strip of paper and put glue in the center.

Then, add another paper strip on top of it and perpendicular.

Add more glue to the top of this.

Stick a cupcake cup on top.

Add some glue on top of this.

Stick your baby on top. Done!

Template:

The End!

Star Wars - Embroidered Family T-Shirts

So...As I mentioned in my last post, there are some ladies on Facebook who have been ordering embroidered T-Shirts from me when they or I get an idea for one. 

Anyways, I came across a couple of "Star Wars" embroidery on my DVDs. One of those ladies in particular is a Star Wars nerd...just like me! Anyways, I gave her some ideas, and this is the one that she liked the best:

That gave me an idea as my sister, Rebekah, has just become pregnant!

So, I decided to make shirts for the whole crew as a surprise.

The baby shirt, I actually made from scratch. The other shirts were from the store. We don't know the gender yet, so. . .I figured this shirt could go both ways.

And, because I'm such a nerd, I have to explain that this covers not just the family members, but also elements from all three movie phases.

The End!

Sunday School Craft - Christmas Sheep Mask

It's no secret. Little kids love two things: Christmas...and Animal Masks!

So, combine them in this cute sheep mask. I took the template from Pinterest, but added Luke 2:8 on it's ear (the verse about the shepherd watching their flocks). Now that I'm putting this into my blog...I realized that it still has the little mask string dots on either side of its cheek. Oops. Sorry. Anyways, it is available for you to use at the end of this post.

You will need: cardstock, tongue depressors, Exact-o knife, glue, cotton balls, and crayons (optional).

Cut out each mask

Now, take an Exact-o knife and cut a cross over each eye. (Probably do this before the little kids come in.)

Then, cut out the eyes.

Glue on the tongue depressor.

Take two cotton balls and pull them out a little bit.

Put glue on the top of the lamb's head.

Stick on your two cotton balls. (I first put a bunch of balls on the top and when I picked it up, the top started sagging, so that's why I only put two balls on. The cardstock can only handle two.)

You can color it as well, but...I didn't because...I'm lazy! Ha!

The End!

Make A Pillow/ Blanket/ Bag Playset for a Baby Boy....and a Headband for Mom

So. . .I bet you thought I was lazy and didn't do anything blog-worthy over the holiday! Well, here's one of the things I did.

About a week before Christmas I came across this piece of really cool Michael Keaton Era Batman fabric at a thrift store:

As some of you may know, I am the proud owner of a new nephew, so I knew I needed to make something for him out of this. The piece of material was about 60"x45". (I'm not even kidding when I say that the man behind me in line at the thrift store, who looked like Santa before his hair turned white, gave me the money to buy it! It was destiny!)

The problem is that there are very few cool sewing projects to make for young boys. I Googled and Pinterested for about an hour and then just gave up and did what I had in my head to begin with. This project took about an hour from start to finish. I cut the top 12 or so inches off the top and turned the cut portion into two pillows (filling courtesy of an extra bed pillow we had lying around). Then I folded the remaining 30ish by 60ish piece of fabric in half and made a blanket. I left two holes in the sides and inserted parachord around the perimeter of the blanket and that way it could be both a blanket with pillows:

Or gathered up it could be a bag with pillows in it for easy transportation:

I like this project because it's really gender neutral and can be used by any child for years and years, not just the cutesy newborn phase. (Is it wrong that I can forsee him tying this to a stick and pretending to be a hobo?)

I had a few inches left, so I made my sister-in-law, a super-heroine in her own right, a Catwoman headband. (Sorry, I wasn't wearing makeup, so...the top of my head is all you get!)

The End!

Baby Travel Quilt

My aforementioned sister-in-law Sherry, had a baby shower this past weekend. I finally finished the project I'd been working on for her, and was able to surprise her with it. She had told my husband and I that she wanted pictures from our travels, because she wants to encourage her new baby, Rhys (pronouned "Reese"), to come to love traveling as much as she and her husband do. I went through my pictures and found nine of the most photogenic, sent them to Walgreens.com to get printed onto an apron, cut them out and sewed them into a baby quilt. I had most of the material on-hand, but my other sister-in-law, Angie, was the provider of the batting. Thanks, Angie!

From far away, it kinda resembles the blue and green of a map. 

The back is of soft, white flannel, like clouds!

I knew she'd be getting a ton of stuff and probably millions of blankets, so I left sort of a hole in the top two corners to put a long stick through, so she could hang it if she wants.

I really simply quilted it by using white thread and tying little knots through the corner of each square to the back.

These are the individual pictures and who I was with when I took them:

The Colosseum from Billy's and my honeymoon.

Stonehenge from my trip with Stephanie, Kim, and Jennaca.

The Seattle Space Needle from my trip with Lisa.

The Sphinx and Great Pyramid from my trip with Holly and Lisa.

The Taj Mahal with Holly.

Angkor Wat from a missions trip with my church.

Eiffel Tower with Steph, Kim, and Jenn.

Great Wall of China with Linda.

And Big Ben with Steph, Kim, and Jenn.

Apparently, it takes a village to make a quilt!

Thanks for reading!

The Sherry Dress

My sister-in-law (and great friend!), Sherry, is having a miracle baby (whole other story). She asked if I would make her a dress. I am willingly ignorant about many things when it comes to having children, but I know a few things about maternity clothes: Pregnant women love the comfort but hate the style. Sherry is an awesome person, so it took me awhile to come up with her dress.

First, I asked her to give me a dress of hers that she liked. It was a purple tank top dress. She wanted a dress that she could wear to work, so the dress I would make would need sleeves. I laid the purple dress on the floor and traced the basic outline of it and then added sleeves to my pattern, but also made a sort of criss-cross front, because that is flattering to the female figure. Sherry has awesome shoulders, so I braided some strips of material and sewed them onto the shoulders. She also requested that I make it a maxi dress. Maxi dresses are automatically more comfortable than shorter dresses. If you are a woman, you understand why without my explaining...

I went to Walmart and found this really soft grey jersey fabric. The problem with it, though, was that it was kind of see-through, so I had to layer it. If you have ever worked with jersey, you can understand what a headache it is to try to sew several layers of it together. The advantage, though, is that now it's not see-through, so she can wear it confidently throughout the summer. Anyways, this is what I came up with:

Doesn't she look so cute? And she can wear it after she delivers, because I pleated the front of the skirt part instead of gathering it, so it will lay flat later on.

I love you, Sherry!