new sewing machine!

Well I finally got my new sewing machine today!  So happy and excited :)  I've already
done one of my projects I had in my projects queue :D  It sews very smoothly and the stitches
are very nicely done :) This machine has 80 different stitches!  I'm very excited.

Here it is!

Isn't it just beautiful!  It's a lovely Singer.  It comes with an extension table and the scissors

and thread were free gifts :) 

This is the baby dress I made today with bloomers :)  I used an old McCall's pattern I had.

 See the fancy stitching I did there :D

It came with different feet to use but I'm not sure what they are for. I know one was for zippers

and I used the buttonhole one.  The others I don't know so I'm going to use trusty google to

figure it out. 

Tomorrow, the next project on my list using my awesome new machine yay :)

Busy Books :)

Some of my favorite projects I've worked on have been the busy books aka quiet books.
They are so fun to make.  It's fun to plan out what pages you want to use, plan how to put
them together, gather up all your supplies and then just create it all :) I'm sure some
people out there can whip one of these babies out really quick but not me :D  Busy books
take a little while for me but they are worth it :) and the kids love them.  I've made four of them.
I made 2 in 2014 and 2 last year.  The first 2 I made were different from each other.  Last years
were exactly alike because I was trying to finish them before we went on holiday.
I found so many quiet book page ideas on pinterest :)  These are some of my favorite ones:
Imagine Our Life
Maybe Matilda
ANDNEXTCOMESL
PA Country Crafts
bubbles & bobbins
forty-two roads
The Montoya Family
KRĒ-ĀT
Shill O'POP
how does she?
Empty Bobbin

Their ideas are awesome :) My busy books are mostly all made of felt.  One of the first ones
I made was for one of our little nephews.  It was made of 8 pages and it had 14 activities.

This is our nephew Ryan's book :)

The mailbox one was an awesome activity :) I loved making that one.  Was fun

making the envelopes and letters :)  That page came from here.  Some of the 

other pages came from links that I gave you in this post and others I saw pictures

on google images.  I made changes to some of them and a couple of them I 

made my own.

The second book I made was for one of our nieces in Texas.  Her older sister, Kylie, loves 

the book but she doesn't get to play with it much because sharing isn't Stella's strong point :D

I'm thinking of making Kylie her own for her birthday in May.  She'll be 7, so these books 

work for big kids too! :D  

Stella's book had 8 pages and 11 activities.

This is Stella's book :)

The pages from this book came from the links I shared in this post too. The purse activity

was fun and I looked at this page to help me with the play make up.  I came up with 

a couple of these on my own.  I came up with the animal sounds activity.  I'm sure there

is someone out there who's made a page like this but I didn't look for it and didn't see any.

I was thinking on what else I could put in the book and since kids like animals I thought

a matching game would be fun.  The shopping activity was another one.  I saw some of

those but my wife and I came up with our own version :)   

Last year I made 2 books and they were exactly alike.  Those books had 8 pages and 

14 activities.  Some of the activities came from the links I shared in this post. Some of

them have changes I made.  The frozen page I made up :D I got inspiration from a couple

on google images but I made it my own.  The Elsa doll pattern came from here. 

Here is one of the books :)

 

 

 

 

So far these are my only busy books but got another one getting planned in my brain and a

couple others I want to make for Christmas time :D  They are so much fun to make I

do recommend it.

Take Along Fabric Doll House

Today I worked on one of  my bag houses :)  Well they are actually called take along fabric doll houses or travel doll houses.  I made the living room, kitchen, bathroom and dining room.  It was a combination of machine sewing, hand sewing and glue gunning.  I think my favorite room so far is the kitchen.  I was able to embellish the kitchen a lot.  The fridge, cabinets and oven door open. you can put dishes in the sink and there is a bowl on the counter that you can put a spoon in.  There is food in the fridge that you can take out and the dishes in the cabinets can be taken out as well :)  Tomorrow I'm going to start on the bedroom and then work on the outside of the house :)
I love the idea of a take along house :)  It's kind of like the fabric house I made and showed in this post, Little Fabric Doll House.  I found a lot of inspiration for travel doll houses on google. Here are some of my favorite ones :)
Country Kitty - really lovely little travel doll house :)  
pinterest picture - this is a picture of a bedroom for a take along house
craftjuice - cute take along house :)

We will see how I get on tomorrow with what's left to do on the house :)

Here are some pictures of what i did today :)

These are the dining room and the bathroom.

These are the kitchen and the living room.

 A more detailed view of the kitchen :)

The Car Caddy :)

Another project I worked on last year for my nephews were car caddies.  I made 3 of these and they were very very fun to make :) I googled car play mats to get ideas of what I could add to my car caddies and found a lot of very creative ideas :)  I liked the look of the car caddy on this page, The Imagination Station.  She's got a very good tutorial on there with pictures.  I made my own pattern for mine.  I made them into pouches with handles and personalised them with my nephews' names.  I made each with a different fabric and the play mat itself was done in felt.  I lost my pictures so only have pictures of one of them to show you.

This is how my car caddy looked when it was closed :)  It had a velcro fastener and the letters for my nephew's name were made out of felt with my handy dandy BIGkick machine. 

This is how it looked when it was half way opened. There are 3 velcro fasteners to keep it neatly closed.

This is the caddy when I was making it.  I hadn't yet added the street lines and hadn't finished adding the different buildings or the flap where the cars would be stored.

This is how the car caddy looked when I was finished.  The mat on the playing side was all done in felt.  It's a big piece of green felt for the background, black for the streets and other different colors for the buildings.  The street lines were made with yellow embroidery thread.  I also embellished the mat with little felt trees and street lights.

I made a police station which was sewn on the mat with the bottom left unsewn so the car could be put in.  The McDonald's  building is a drive thru :D  I sewed it on the mat on the top and bottom left the sides open so the cars could drive thru :)

There was a garage also with a gas and air pump and a car wash that was also a drive thru :)  

The school, hospital, fire station and HEB grocery shop all had the bottoms open so the cars could be driven in.

This is the flap where the cars are stored.  I decided to make it look like little houses where the cars live :D  The top of the houses was left open so the cars could drive out.

They were very fun to make and the boys liked them a lot.  A very good Christmas present idea :)

I'll share more of last years presents in another post and will also share my new project for the next set of Christmas presents for this year :)

© Copyright 2014-2015 by Sew Adorable Dolls. All rights reserved.

Doll Dress #3

Today was a coughing day for me :(  I thought I'd finish off my diaper bags but no.  I felt sickish so I had a little lay down and we also had some visitors.  I did finish the last little dress and bloomers set.  Tomorrow we go grocery shopping and if I don't feel too sick I'll finish off the diaper bags by making the bibs and putting some flower appliques, that I'll make with my lovely BIGkick machine, on the bags.  Then I'll start the next set of presents :D

Here is the little dress and bloomers set I made today.

Christmas Gifts Progress

Well as I said on my Christmas in July post, I was going to continue with my diaper bags today.  I made 3 wipes cases with 2 wipes in them, 3 changing mats and 3 baby bottles :)  I still need to embellish each thing with embroidered words and some appliques I'll make with my trusty BIGkick machine.  The baby bottles were fun to make and easier than I thought as well.  They are made of felt and stuffed with polyester stuffing.  I sewed a tube out of white felt and stuffed it.  I then cut out 2 circles out of white felt for the top and bottom of the tube and hand sewed them on.  I made a template for the nipple and cut it out of light brown felt.  I hand sewed that together and stuffed it.  After that I used my glue gun to glue the nipple to one end of the white tube.  I then cut a strip of pink felt and glued it around the top part of the white tube covering a bit of the tube and a bit of the nipple.  That's how I made my 3 bottles.

Tomorrow I will embellish the accessories I've made so far :)  I still need to make 3 bibs, sew the dresses and bloomers I cut out, make a baby toy of some sort and decide what else to put in my diaper bags :)

Little Fabric Doll House

After I had made the dolls I've showed you I decided to try something different.  I wanted to make something like what I'd found here Pretty Prudent.  I absolutely am in love with the idea of a dollhouse in a vintage suitcase :)  I don't have a vintage suitcase though :D So as it often happens when my mind is full to the brim with crafty ideas I couldn't sleep one night and an idea was born :D
I decided to go ahead and make my own flat doll house and put it together like a book :) It was massive fun to make :D  I used my sewing machine, my handy glue gun, my trusty BIGkick machine, a lot of felt squares and fabric, plus that sturdy interfacing stuff I don't know the name of sorry.  I'll put a picture of it here see if you can get an idea of what it is.

Each panel of my flat house was made with a felt square for one side, fabric for the other side and the sturdy interfacing in the middle to make it stiff.  I made a living room, kitchen, dance room, bedroom and a backyard.  The outside of the flat house I made to look like the front and back of a house and I made it some handles to make it easy to carry around.  I also made a Waldorf inspired mini doll named Molly :) and a little boy doll.  The house is decorated mostly with felt pieces either glued or sewn on.  Molly was 5 1/2 in. tall and made with my own pattern.  She had 4 outfits and the house accessories were 3 floor mats, a teddy bear, a picnic blanket, 2 plates, 2 pb&j sandwiches and 2 glasses of milk.  I'll share some pictures with you. :)

Molly's House

 This is Molly.

Front of Molly's house.

 Back of Molly's house.

Pouch I made for all the little accessories and the doll.

The first scene was the living room :)

2nd scene was the kitchen.

3rd was a ballet dance room.  I used shiny card to make the mirror :)

4th scene was the bedroom.  The wardrobe opens and it had a pouch for Molly's clothes and the little bear can be removed from its basket :)

Molly and bear tucked in bed :)

The last scene was the backyard.  This is Molly and her friend having a picnic :)

 I made plates, pb&j sandwiches and glasses of milk for their picnic :)

I loved making this house and plan to make another one :) There is no tutorial to link you to because this was my idea and I did not write one.  I don't know that I would know how really :) It was fun sharing it here.

© Copyright 2013-2015 by Sew Adorable Dolls. All rights reserved.