Ladybug Hair Clips

This past Sunday our Homebuilders group at church participated in a service project -- filling wrapped shoe boxes with gifts for children to donate to Operation Christmas Child. We did it potluck style: everyone brought mulitples of the items they purchased (toys, games, books, crafts, candy, hygiene items, etc) and then we filled the boxes with various combinations.
I still had several crayon rolls left from when I mass produced them four years ago that we took. We also made these!

The Ladybug Felt Stitchies design is from GG Designs. Her little hair clip designs are so cute! I picked the ladybugs because they weren't seasonal and could be worn by the girls year round. I used tiny black ricrac for the antenna.

Mass producing these is quicker than doing a pair at a time. In Embird I put 20 leaf clips in my 6x10 hoop, color sorted, and deleted all the tackdown stitches. All I had to do was lay down one big piece of felt, do the detail stitching for all 20, then put a big piece of felt on the back and stitch the barrette outline for all 20. I was able to get 20 small ladybugs in my 5x7 hoop. What I didn't factor in to my production plan was:
20 ladybugs x 8 dots each = 160 jump stitches = 320 scissor snips. :)
Annaliese was very helpful on this project -- she pulled off all the tearaway stabilizer while I trimmed the pieces out. We enjoyed our time together, and I liked being able to donate homemade items.

Happy Birthday, Annaliese!

Today my girl turned seven!!

I've already shared with you her birthday shirt -- she was involved with the whole process of picking the design and fabrics, so it was no surprise. What she didn't know is that I made a couple coordinating items. First, I made a matching hairbow. I used Button Cupcake Felt Stitchies design from GG Designs, but instead of stitching on a button, I ironed on a "7" cut out of the same material I used on her shirt.

I also made a cupcake shirt for her American Girl doll, using the same felt stitchies design. I debated for a while, but opted not to put a "7" on Anna's shirt -- I don't know how old Annaliese thinks she is since she just got her at Christmas. :) This is actually a newborn onesie (purchased for Dashiell but never worn) that I chopped off. Notice I didn't even take the time to hem it?!

 

Annaliese was thrilled with the little extras that she unwrapped today and enjoyed the whole outfit. Now I need to run put her clothes in dryer so they are clean for school tomorrow! :)

Turkey Hair Clips

Our family celebrated Thanksgiving with dear friends today. Poor Dashiell was the only boy among lots of cute girls. Since I was not responsible for baking the turkey, Annaliese and I spent some time together this morning making turkeys of our own!

 The turkey felt stitchies are from GG Designs. I made eight hair clips. Even though Annaliese wanted some variety, I opted to make them all identical:

I made that decision because it would be much faster to produce them en masse.  I was able to stitch all 8 bodies in one hooping using my smaller hoop, as well as all 8 barrette covers, and all 8 feather pieces in my larger hoop (forgot to take a pic of that one). Annaliese was very helpful -- she helped trim threads and rip out the tearaway stabilizer. Plus she was good company!

Here are the little girls, just before they were ready to go outside and play all afternoon:

Hair Clippies!

Ok, I finally jumped on the hair clippies bandwagon. I've seen so many adorable examples (mostly on Nicole's blog), but never pursued it... until Gail released these adorable owl felt stitchies on GG Designs. It's based on the same clip art as an applique owl at Embroidery Boutique, which Kathy has used to make Annaliese a couple of owl shirts. (It also coordinates with this free owl from DigitStitches.)

This is my first set of owl hair clips.  I used fabric for the top layer instead of felt because I was trying to match Annaliese's shirt as best I could.  It wasn't until I clipped it in her hair that I realized the "branch" barrette was the same color as her hair, duh! Oh well!

Since then I have found turquoise flannel, so I'll be able to make Springwood Owl clippies pretty quickly -- these might be fun to donate to an auction later in the year.

The clip covers are sold separately from all the variety of stitchies that Gail sells.  But the ladybug actually comes with clip covers that look like leaves, so I bought that set in order to get my clip covers. They turned out quite cute:

Believe it or not, Annaliese does not have a ladybug shirt. She has asked me to fix this problem. We'll see... :)