Happy October!

 This is definitely the best time of year, especially here in the midwest, the weather is still in the 70's and 80's and the nights are cool. Every fall I get excited, I want to buy school supplies and dig out all my cardigans and scarves! Unfortunately its still too hot for that, but not for long! This past week I've been getting out my decorations and eating and drinking anything 'pumpkin spice' flavored. Here's what we've been doing lately:

Trying to limit my intake of pumpkin spice kisses. Delish!

Moccasin time!

Spray painting pumpkins, so fun!

Baking so many yummy things! I had to give away half of this cake so that we wouldn't eat too much.

Happy fall friends!

~Merry

DIY Baby quiet book

 
  Soft books are great for little bittys, especially if you are a book lover and want your kids to be, starting them out small is always good. I made one up out of scraps I had lying around and it turned out to be super fun! I chose animals for mine, but you could easily change it to colors, shapes, food, cars, whatever. Here's how I made mine:

  First choose a variety of fabrics for your cover and pages, I made six pages of coordinating colors. Cut six pieces of fabric into a 13 by 7 inch rectangle, each one will be two pages. Fold in half to find the middle and mark with chalk or a straight pin. Draw and cut out the designs in felt, I chose to do a few layers but not too much detail or you'll be at it forever sewing all those little pieces together.

Pin the pieces on to each side of the rectangle. Be sure to leave at least an inch of room around each edge.

Some of the smaller pieces I stitched on by hand, it just makes it easier, and also the face details. Once you are happy with the placement, use the machine to stitch down. I used contrasting thread to give it some pizzazz.

Once you have stitched down all the designs lay the rectangles on a single layer of quilt batting and cut out three pieces. Now you are going to stack together two pages and one of the batting, this part is a little tricky, stack the two pages right sides together then lay down the batting on top and stitch all around about half an inch, be sure to leave a few inches open to turn.

Turn right side out and hand stitch the opening closed. Next, decide what order you want your pages in and stack on top of each other making sure the cover is on the bottom. Find the middle and sew and straight line through all layers all the way down. And you're done! Ta-da! Now your little one is ready to play with their new quiet book!

Happy sewing!

~Merry

DIY's to try

  So this week I have fallen off the ball, actually I'm not sure I even got on it to begin with. You know those days when you have really high expectations and you plan to do so much and start all kinds of projects, and then, its three o'clock in the afternoon and you're still in your pajamas looking at Pinterest? This has been one of those weeks. The weather here went from 85 and sunny to the next day being 58 and rainy, its just hard to get motivated on those days. So, that being said I did not plan ahead on what to write about this week, I thought I would do a DIY, but I'm not prepared. Instead here are a few that I PLAN on doing sometime in the future.

This bunny lunch bag just may be the cutest thing I've ever seen!

I'm thinking these cozies from Mollie Makes would be great Christmas presents.

I've been wanting to make some curtains for my living room and I'm really liking these ombre ones from Lovely Home Idea on etsy.

I've been planning on making these for months and I finally bought the fabric.

Hopefully in the next week I can accomplish a few of these. Happy Saturday!

~Merry

Weekly rehash

This week I have been trying my best to keep up with Ma Ingalls, its the end of summer and I have been given so many veggies I'm up to my elbows in salsa! You're going to get sick of seeing tomatoes but I promise they won't last forever. Here's a little peek at my week.

 Look at these beauts!

 Lunch!

 And of course robots, robots and more robots!

                         I think this one is just the sweetest!

Thanks for looking!

~Merry

The Fashionable Lionheart

  The town I live in here in mid-Missouri has a population of just a little over 200. The next town over is about 3000, as you can imagine we don't have a lot of options when it comes to shopping. Pretty much the only place to buy baby and kids clothes is Carters or Children's Place, now don't get me wrong, I love those as much as any other mom, but they just don't have the variety, and if you don't want your kid to look like everybody else's what do you? There are pretty much two options, shop online, and holy smokes are there some super cute handmade kids clothes out there! Or, option number two: D.I.Y. The latter is the route I usually take, baby clothes are pretty small and don't take much fabric and the possibilities are literally endless! In the future I hope to post a few patterns, but for now here's a few I've done.

1.                                                                               2.

                                           3.

The first one was super easy, just use fusible webbing to iron on any design to a onsie, draw in the rest with a sharpie and you're golden! The other two I made up myself.

Thanks for letting me share!

~Merry

Happy Halloween?

  Summer is winding down and what that means for me is holiday robots are under way! I hate to think about Halloween and Christmas this early but the truth is I have to get started WAY early in order to stock up. Here's what I'm working on now, some repeats from last year and hopefully some brand new ones for this year.

Wee Dracu-bot

 Franken-Bot

Teeny weeny Halloweeny

 What new things would you like to see?

~Merry

Etsy Treasures

I don't know about anyone else, but I LOVE browsing Etsy! Its one of my favorites! I don't buy very often, mostly just drool and wish I was talented enough to make every single thing on there! Here's a few things I've been looking at lately.

These hanging baskets from CharestStudios are the best!

Someday these planters from Wapa will be on my window sill.

Genius book shelves from Cush Design Studio.

This little bowl from Marinski Handmade is just too cute to pass up!

Just a little something fun for me. Geometric necklace from Bluedrib.

And last but not least some awesome leggings for the baby by Lola and Stella.

Hope you enjoy!

 ~Merry