My despicable niece is ONE!

Whew.  Last week went by like a blur!  Spring break is rough on blogging mamas!  Mims was home all week, which was so much fun, but I had completely forgotten how much free time I DON'T get when she's not at school.  It's taken me a day to recover from her vacation!

My niece, the famous Katy-bug, turned one AND got baptized on Easter. It was so much fun.  We spent the morning at church, and then for the after party, her mama (my sister), threw her a Despicable Me birthday party.  I got to make her a minion costume.

While I was at it, I made hats for the rest of us as well. My dad wanted a blue eyed minion hat...

I used the minion hat pattern over at Repeat Crafter Me, and adjusted it for the variety of head sizes in my family.  I like her hat patterns a lot, but they always need a little tweaking to get the right fit for us, but isn't that the case with any pattern? LOL!

Sandy and Katy went as minions.  Katy's dad, Doob, went as Gru.  He even did the voice.  It was very impressive.

And then, as part of her present, I found this adorbs pattern for making a personalized pair of baby TOMS (or in my case baby KATYs!) over at Homemade Toast, and I just HAD to make some for Bug.  I don't know if my sewing skills are to blame, but I found the tutorial pretty challenging to follow.  I'm not complaining, because I know how hard it is to think of everything, but a supplies list would have been very helpful (and would have saved me an emergency trip to the fabric store to get 1/4" elastic).  I swear, I read through the instructions TWICE before I even started, and I still missed it.  

Still, they turned out so cute that I'm going to make her a couple more pairs.  Mims LIVED in little shoes like this until she was about three because they were they only type of shoe that stayed on her feet.  I think I used to pay about $40 a pair for them, so this was a HUGE savings... Even if they were a little challenging for my brain! Now that I've got it figured out, the next pair should be much easier.

xoxo!

Quirky Winner 2!

Oh my goodness, my day has gotten away from me.  Jake and I spent the morning fixing the handle of the downstairs toilet, and hanging curtains.  We got (almost) done in time for an amazing visit from my bestie, E, and her little guy, S!  We were showing off our chickens (they started laying eggs this week!  How amazing is that?!) and Jake found a "rubber" egg in the coop.  I don't know if it was from one of the girls that is already laying eggs, or if it was a surprise to our last little chicken that hadn't started laying yet, but it was like a water balloon!  Squishy shelled eggs are a fun novelty, but I'm hoping that there won't be a repeat tomorrow.

Back to the curtains for a second...  Um, so you know how I ADORE Pinterest and I think it's the greatest site ever?  Well, Pinterest and I had our first big fight this week.  Over muslin curtains, no less!  If you do a search for DIY Muslin Curtains, Pinterest will bring you all sorts of amazing curtain projects, and will build up your sewing hubris to the point that you will think it's a good idea to MAKE new curtains for all TEN of our living room/dining room windows.

smh, what was I thinking?!  Off the bolt, muslin is perfect, but in order to make washable curtains that won't pucker or shrink, you need to wash and dry your fabric to remove the sizing.  The thing is, muslin wrinkles.  It wrinkles A LOT.  I ended up having to iron all 23 yards of fabric TWICE, because simply ironing it left it too wrinkled, it needed spray starch.  If I had known, I never would have washed it, because honestly, who am I kidding, I never washed the old lace "Haunted Mansion" curtains that had been hanging for 8 years...

I realize now that while, yes, they worked out to about $2.50 a curtain (40% off coupon at Joanns!) whatever I saved in cash, I more than spent in hard physical ironing labor.  If I ever decide to tackle a project like this again I think I'm going to invest in a steamer.  I hate ironing...

Okay, on to the winner of my 2nd Quirky Giveaway!

I had 28 comments on the post, and used Random.org to "draw" a winner of the awesome craft goodies from FaveCrafts.com!

Congratulations to Tammy Crocheter! I will email you to get your info. Thank you to everyone who entered!!!  I loved reading all of your awesome comments!!!

xoxo

Quirky Giveaway 2!

Okay, so the people over at FaveCrafts are just awesome!  They're doing a giveaway involving MY Quirky Crochet Handbag promoting their new FREE ebook: The Best Blogger Craft Ideas 2014!  Today's prize is a variety of Lion Brand Yarns!!!!  Cool, right?  Click HERE to enter!!!  (You can also enter their Super Spectacular Grand Prize Giveaway from that page too!!!)

And since I won 2nd place in the Best Blogger Craft contest, I get to host a giveaway of my own as a giant THANK YOU to all of you!!!  Look at all the cool stuff they're letting me give away!!!

Look at all of the crafty goodies!!!  And they're letting me give them to you because you guys are so amazing!!!  And all you have to do to win them is to leave a comment with your email address (so I can contact you when you win! - See, aren't you glad you followed me by email so you saw this post in time?!).  This giveaway is open to all US and Canada residents only, please, and runs from now until midnight pst on Saturday, April 12, 2014.  I will use Random.org to draw a name from all of the entries on Sunday the 13th!

As always, I'm so grateful for all of you!  Good luck, Dynamos!!!

xoxo