Umbrella Chair

I needed a chair that was easy to take around with shade already provided for breast feeding while out and about and camping. Here's what I came up with:

 All you need is a camp chair, large 6 ft umbrella and 2 cable cuffs, all of which you can find at home depot.

 I like the cable cuffs because it makes it easy to assemble and disassemble

Tshirt Tote

http://www.mommypotamus.com/no-sew-t-shirt-tote-bag-tutorial/

The one thing to be careful about is to not make the arm holes too big. Mine stretched considerably after I started using it and now it's hard to keep stuff inside of it.

Tshirt throw pillows

After making the tshirt quilt I realized I never wanted to do something like that again. I had originally planned on making quilts for college and high school, but decided to look for other options. Here are one of the projects I came across that was pretty easy and fun.

http://3peppers-recipes.com/old-t-shirt-throw-pillows-no-sew/

I wanted to make them double sided to use more shirts at one time. The hardest part  is making sure your t-shirt patterns are a similar size. 

Tshirt Quilt

This took me 7 years but I finally finished it. The best thing to use was interfacing so the tshirts don't stretch while you're trying to sew them together. I highly recommend same size blocks, otherwise it's really difficult to sew together. But I did it, after many hours of laying out, and random sewing pieces together. These are a bunch of shirts, ties, and pockets from my mission.

 The finished product

Hanging Kids Artwork

I got really sick of putting holes in the wall all the time from push pins. My kids always want to hang up their pictures and I like to oblige when I can. So I made this to display their art work. I did one for each kid in their room and then one in the hall.  All it took was some nylon rope from the dollar store, clothes pins, and a few nails to hang it up.

Double Cape

I made this double cape for my son after my sister made one for his brother. Choose the character you want to do and pick out the fabric. Then cut out the front and back pieces the same size. I used black bias tape for the neck, and black fabric for the strap with velcro. Just make sure when sewing it togther that you don't sew the circle until you've turned it right side out. then sew on the neck and strap. I then cut out the symbols from felt, using pictures I found online to make an outline.  

This is Super Why

and Robin (from Batman).

Chore Charts

I've been wanting a chore chart for my kids and this is the best I could find from the many pinterest posts. I used cookie sheets from the dollar store, printed out pictures of the chores they do, round wood circles from a craft store, and square magnets from Walmart. I think it cost $10, but only because I wanted the best wood pieces. Everything else was pretty cheap.

I just glued the pictures to the wood pieces, and used tape and stickers to write the names and lines. My boys love them. I recommend punching holes in the top of the pans and stringing ribbons through them to hang them on the all.

Thomas the Train Tree Skirt

 I got this pattern from Porters. It turned out cute but I decided I really hate sewing circles. At least the instructions were easy and it came with some fun fabric ornaments as well.

Puppets

I wanted to make puppets for my kids that actually looked like members of our family. Here's what I came up with.

 I printed pictures of each of us, cut them out, covered them in contact paper (packing tape would work too) and glued them to popsicle sticks. I've tried hot glue gun and elmer's glue but neither of them seem to last through my kids playing with them. I'm thinking of gluing and taping it on the stick to see if that works.

I used our wii profiles (just took a picture of the TV screen) to get a cartoon version of our family. It's way easier to convert that too a puppet than a real picture. First you sew the body, then you cut out the head shapes and hair out of felt. I sewed a few of the facial expressions but it was a bit challenging to do small enough stitches. So I used fabric markers to draw the more complicated stuff. I hot glue gunned the felt heads and hair on the bodies and that was it. For the baby girl I glued on a ribbon and bow. 

All in all I think they turned out pretty good. My kids love them and puppet shows got a lot more interesting.