Hand embroidered spring dress

When I scheduled photos with Courtney Vickers (see the right of my blog for examples of her work!) I started making Laci a dress right away. I've been so involved with adding my hand embroidered pieces to my handbags that I was anxious to see how it looked on a dress. I stitched it onto the bust portion of the dress......now I'm working on embroidering a much larger section for her next dress because I enjoy it so much. If you are interested in embroidery check out fabric designer goddess Anna Maria Horner's blog (http://annamariahorner.blogspot.com/) and search through her posts for her incredibly gorgeous work!!!

Scalloped Easter dress

Laci and I had several conversations on how her Easter dress would look this year ;). We compromised on this one- I picked the shape of the top and the scalloped edge (super fun to sew by the way!) and she got "twirly and very long". She also chose her fabrics which is something I just love to see her decide on. I have another Easter dress for her that I'm almost done with....don't know why she would ever need two but I got too engrossed in the idea so I made it anyways ;). Hope you all enjoy your Easter!! I have a bunny bag tutorial that I'll post this weekend that combines your sewing with your child's cute drawing.
xo,
holly

Mario Kart birthday party!

My oldest is 7!! Every time I look at him I melt....he is such a sweet young man. He loves racing, hot wheels, NASCAR, Mario Kart, ANYTHING that has to do with racing. So each year we basically repeat the same theme and I was grasping for new ideas this year ;). Thank heavens Mario Kart has super adorable "weapons" so I ran with the idea to incorporate them.



I found a great template of the Wii remote on a party blog to use as an invite. We folded them up and slipped his invitation inside. He really liked passing these out ;).


I was so excited to find a cookie cutter that makes a track! I had a cloud and star cutter already and used a tiny paintbrush in gel food coloring to paint on the details.
It took a few layers but I was finally able to paint this Mario on a plastic jar that we used for our M&M guessing game.
I have a lot of plaster cast (it's similar to paper mache) and used it to create these little squids "inking" the table. I cut card stock for the tentacles and painted over it all to cover the seams.
Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe is always the best!! I use gel food coloring only to get these wonderful colors.
King Boo lanterns- so easy! I drew King Boo with a sharpie on dollar store lanterns (I did his face on both sides because they never stopped turning) and then cut his crown out of gold scrapbook paper. The cake was time consuming but simple. I made drawings of the weapons and then cut them to use as templates. I then cut the fondant using the templates with an x-acto knife. Again, I painted on the smile and eyes with black gel food coloring and a very tiny paint brush.

Making this party was so much fun because of how excited Ryan was about it all. His ideas merged with mine and it turned out really cute! I adore his little friends and he seemed to have the time of his life...which is all I could hope for!
xo-
holly

Mermaid party for my 5 year old

I just wanted to share some photos from her party last month. I kept it super small- the big gift was that my parents were in town from Kentucky ;). Because I wasn't crazy making hand made things for tons of little girls like I have been at prior parties- I was able to spend some time making her a little doll, a painting (well, more an illustration) and her and her two little friends mermaid skirts. I found these amazing charms on Etsy...we had mermaids, shells and seahorses, as well as skulls and octopuses for the boys....they were adorable! The kids made necklaces as we had our picnic.

It was such a sweet day....I loved not being hectic.....I loved my family there and friends who may as well be family ;). It was perfect, except for the part that my little girl is 5! Yikes! Time flies........

Another diaper bag!

I realize that when I find the time to post I've been posting diaper bags....which isn't a bad thing because babies are awesome! This one is for my friend "S". She has always been a good muse for bag making. She seriously has a bag for everything. I remember when we had our first kids and her husband bought her the most gigantic Kate Spade diaper bag I had ever seen. It had so much room in it and "S" was a walking baby station....she is always prepared ;).

It's kinda hard to make a bag for the girl who has 200 bags but I told myself she could surely find use for just ONE more.

What I'm really dying to do is let "S" design her own super-duper-diaper bag and me just make it for her....but little boy #3 is coming soon so it will have to be after his arrival.

I sure love you "S"!! Your friendship means so much to me!

xoxo-
holly

Diaper bag preview for C

I usually don't use names in my posts but since I want to talk up the-best-photographer-ever, Courtney Vickers, I'll use her name liberally here ;). She is incredible!! I'm sure you can tell just by looking at my blog that I'm obsessed with her work. She's been taking pictures of my kids since they were teeny tiny and each image is so precious to me. Top her talent off with how sweet she is and you have quite a package!!

I was touched to be asked to make a diaper bag for her sister in law's new baby. I hope she finds it useful and cute to schlep all of her new baby gear around with her!

On our trip to San Antonio I found myself with time while I was traveling...TIME is what I usually don't have. I spent that time going between drawing in my sketchbook and playing with embroidery stuff that I got for the jewelry class I was teaching. I fell in love with embroidery and turned the little things that I was making into jewelry pieces (I'll post those another time). Lately I have been painting, very small, on canvas and embroidering around them before turning them into jewelry- serious fun! I used an embroidered piece on this bag's closure.

I'll send you off with Courtney's website (even though it's plastered all over my blog!) for your eye candy this evening....
http://courtneyvickersphotography.com
http://courtneyvickersphoto.blogspot.com

Thanks Courtney! You are wonderful!!!

Love,
holly

Handmade teacher gifts for Christmas ;)

Mmmmm- my first grade son's teacher is phenomenal. I couldn't be more grateful for her and how much she does for him!! When I thought about a teacher gift I knew I had to make her something special. She carries a pretty cute Vera Bradley bag so I was able to get a little insight on the colors she likes and what her needs would be in a bag by checking out what she already uses ;). I decided on this Bonnie Bag style that I designed for Blossom and Poppy last summer. I hope she gets lots of good use out of it but even if she doesn't, I sure hope she knows how much I adore her!!