Girls T-Shirt Quilt

Hello my lovelies!

Remember when I made a t-shirt quilt for my son?

It was this one right here:

Click Read More to find out how (and why, dear god, why) I did it again...

DIY Lunch Bag

Hello everybody! As you saw yesterday, I have returned from my extended absence - sorry about that. It wasn't so much that I wasn't inspired to create things, but rather that I wasn't feeling the blog. MY BAD. It won't happen again.

To make up for it, here is an easy, fun, and useful tutorial, complete with TONS of pictures! My daughter's lunch box broke so she's been clamoring for a new one. It took me a while to get around to it, but when I finally sat down and figured out how it was going to happen, I realized that it is actually a pretty simple project.

Click Read More to read more. :)

Wednesday WIP Report AND INSTRUCTABLES FEATURE!!!

First of all, I HAVE EXCITING NEWS!!!

Last night I uploaded my first ever Instructable onto Instructables.com (I KNOW you guys have been on that site before). I decided to go with my Sweatshirt to Romantic Cardigan tutorial, which I basically recreated for the Instructable. 

So I uploaded it and forgot about it, thinking that there are so many HUNDREDS of Instructables posted all the time, that mine would drop to the bottom of the list and get forgotten and go unseen by the millions of people who visit the site.

Until this afternoon, when I received the exciting news that my Instructable, a mere 15 hours after I posted it, has been selected by Instructable editors to be featured!!!!!

MY INSTRUCTABLE WAS FEATURED Y'ALL!!!

I literally did a little happy dance when I saw the email. I couldn't be more thrilled. :D :D :D 

In fact, I'm so thrilled, I have nothing finished to show you today. :(

However, I do have several works in progress - so without further ado, click the jump to see what I'm working on this week...

The Hell Family's Halloween Costumes!

Happy Halloween! (FINALLY!)

We have been a BUSY Handmade Hell family this week. I don't know how the month got away from me already, but I found that my kids were essentially COSTUME-LESS as of the beginning of this week.

GOD NO!

Any good crafty mom worth her salt would DIE before allowing such a travesty to befall her offspring! The vicious side of my maternal instincts kicked into high gear and I spent hours...and hours...and hours planning, cutting, re-cutting, gluing, sewing, and assembling these costumes.

I even managed to throw one together for myself. :)

Click Read More for full pictures and some fun mini-tutorials!

Adventures in Baking Week 5: Monster Peanut Butter Cookies!

Happy Halloween everybody!!!

Okay it's not Halloween yet. But in thinking about the logistics of postings today and tomorrow, I've realized that it'll be best for me to post my final Adventures in Fall Baking experiment one day early, since tomorrow will be COSTUME DAY!!!

That's right, I've been painstakingly working on costumes for myself and my two kids for the last week and I am exhausted! Those will be up tomorrow, complete with amazing face and body paint. We've never gone all out like this before. It's going to be a disaster great time!

Meanwhile, I totes ganked this idea from a pin I found recently:

Lilluna, I think I love you. :)

Read More to see how this experiment went...

Kids Go Handmade: Tank and Skirt

The other night my family sat down to watch the first episode of Project Runway's newest spinoff, Threads. If you're not familiar with it, a quick Google search will immediately identify and define it for you as the biggest piece of garbage that has ever been inflicted upon the world, and that everyone involved in it (except Christian Siriano, because we LOVE Christian Siriano) should be exposed as the phonies they are and banished from their homes and loved ones forever.

I thought it was pretty cute. I will continue to watch it until its (inevitable) cancellation.

My daughter loved it! It immediately came upon her that she would be a perfect contestant for that show, and I would be a perfect sewing assistant for her. After all, all she needs to do is learn how to sew clothes, and she'll be brilliant!

And I think she's right, but I could be biased.

We started our fashion sewing lessons immediately, and here is what happened.

I Made A Thing Monday: Completion of the T-Shirt Blanket

Happy Land-Stealing Murderous-Bastard Day!

I mean, Happy Columbus Day.

Did you know that Seattle officially turned Columbus Day into "Indigenous Peoples Day"? I think that's brilliant. Last year around this time, my daughter's social studies class was doing the whole Columbus spiel. You know the one: he told the King and Queen of Spain that he thought the earth was round even though everyone else thought it was flat. He said that if he sailed west, he could reach the East Indies and come up with a better trade route. The King didn't want to do it, but the Queen funded it herself. Lo and behold, Columbus came across a bountiful land full of fertile fields, mountains majesty, and all the natives he could befriend! What a hero!

We told her the truth: that Columbus was indeed trying to find a way to the East Indies, but it had long been common knowledge that the world was a sphere. And he wasn't exactly trying to "discover" anything except a faster and more efficient way to bring trade goods from India to Spain. At the time, all of Europe was engaged in a sort of maritime cold war. Portugal, Spain, and England had all been developing trade routes and trying to outdo each other left and right. Columbus was hoping that he could gain worldwide notoriety by finding the best way to get to India without having to go all the way around Africa.

But he didn't land on what we consider the North American mainland - he landed in the Bahamas (technically more South America than North America). He immediately claimed it for Spain (haha). Then he went to a bunch of other islands, including some from the Caribbean. He insisted upon calling the befuddled inhabitants "Indios" because he refused to believe he hadn't reached the East Indies. As soon as word got back to European powers that he had found some new place, so launched the beginning of one of the longest and deadliest periods of conquest and slavery the world has ever seen.

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY EVERYONE THANKS SO MUCH CHRIS FOR TAKING A CHANCE!

Okay, history lesson is over. On to the fun stuff!

Inspirations: Sweater Hat!

Remember when I posted this unfinished hat in a WIP Wednesday post recently? Well, after much nagging from my kiddo (despite our fair city's continued 80-degree weather), I finally finished it while watching Captain America Winter Soldier. Which, by the way, was SO good! I'm ashamed it took me so long to watch it because I am a ginormous fan of the MCU. It was awesome!!!

Anyway, this is an Inspirations post because absolutely no part of this hat came from my own brain. I relied entirely on the inspiration I received from other wonderful crafty bloggers on the wild wonderful worldwide web. Click "Read More" to find out where the ideas for this adorable (if I do say so myself) hat came from!

WIP Wednesday: T-Shirt Quilt with Bonus Tiered Jewelry Stand!

It's the middle of the week again and I can't wait until the weekend so I can have time to make stuff again!

I made so many things last weekend. I couldn't stop! I've got the bug, for sure. I made another thing I didn't tell you about. When I was at Goodwill on Saturday, buying shirts for yesterday's skirts, I picked up a few other items as well and made this thing!

Isn't it pretty??? It was so easy I was shocked...I keep waiting for it to break suddenly or fall apart or disintegrate into its component atoms...

Click "Read More" to find out how it was done!

Inspirations: The 10-Minute Skirt

Happy Tuesday, baby!!

Lookit what I made:

That's a buncha skirts for my daughter, to whom I've been promising skirts for weeks now. Previous efforts include this awesome Hulk skirt:

(Sheesh, pardon the mess in the background there.)

It was fun and adorable but kind of a weird challenge. I got a little burned out on from-scratch skirts, frankly. That is, until I found this:

Getting organized. Well, getting my kids organized.

As a mom I find it's important to teach your kids certain lessons, like how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how to vacuum, how to manage money, and how to listen to the little voice in your head that says "don't say what you're thinking out loud."

We can't teach our kids everything, of course. Some things they need to work out for themselves. Take my son for instance. No matter how many times I tell him, he probably isn't going to learn not to stand on his chair for laughs at school until he falls off of it one day. Just the facts. 

One of the things I really want to teach my kids is how to take care of daily responsibilities. Chores suck. They suck even worse when I'm the only one doing them. No amount of training or fun music or games will make chores less not-fun. So we just buck up and do them right? Plus, if we all work together for a shorter amount of time, we can all have more time for My Little Pony marathons and cake. 

(Image by lazcreations.deviantart.com)

I swear I never watch it by myself. Never. 

Another thing I want to teach my kids is how to handle their money. It's not that my kids spend all their money right away...it's that they never spend it at all. And that's great! Except I'm worried that when it comes time to start spending money they won't know how to do it. It's a huge fear. I didn't know how to spend money myself until I was at least 30. 

Finally these kids need to learn some time management. I swear it's like they think they have hours to complete every task, whether it be watering their gardens in Harvest Moon or eating breakfast before the bus arrives. Come on guys! Contrary to popular belief, you don't actually get clones later in life to help you be on two places at once!

(Image from roundstable.com)

I definitely don't have a particular love for Pinkie Pie either. Not like I identify with her in any way. Nope. Nuh-uh. 

So I think I've found a way to solve all three of these problems in one slightly complicated but nonetheless fell swoop. 

This is our weekly chore chart. TAH-DAAHHHH!!!!

On the left you'll see our daily chores; stuff that has to get done on the regular no matter what, without pay, because I am cheap. I mean poor. I mean frugal!

Middle column is the juicy stuff: paid chores! Each is assigned a dollar amount (typically $1) to be paid at the end of the week. Once a task is finished, whoever did it puts their initials in the last column to claim it. On Friday, everyone gets paid. 

But there's a twist!!

(Image courtesy of www.iambrony.com)

Okay I'll stop now. 

The twist is, anybody in the house can claim a chore. The kids can of course. But so can I. So can my parents. So can my friends. So can the kids' friends. Anybody who wants a buck can pick a chore. Hopefully this will motivate my kids to do it, since they don't put much importance on money to begin with. Which, in truth, I really like about them. It speaks to a sort of anarchistic innocence, a statement against the greedy and oppressive nature of a near-tyrannical capitalist economy. But that's beside the point. 

Another thing I think might motivate them is the fact that I'm also putting harsh limits on their time with video games and non-school-related computer time. Like, way harsh. They will now have the ability, however, to purchase more time. 30 minutes of extra time playing video games or computer games, or staying up later to read, will now cost them...$1!

Now every time they want more time, they can look at their dollar bill and think about the blood, sweat, and tears that went into earning it (no there hasn't been any blood yet), before they decide whether it's REALLY worth it to play just one more day of Animal Crossing. 

The kids are mighty suspicious of this new set of rules. They're not really used to mom having rules. I'm not a big fan of them myself. But dammit, I will raise RESPECTABLE, contributing anarchist members of society! Er. I mean. Well you know what I mean. 

(Image from www.bobthelurker.deviantart.com)

Go away Pinkie. Geez. Somepony doesn't like to listen. 

Kids Go Handmade! (Banana Edition)

Yes I said banana edition. Bananas!!

Friday was my son's seventh birthday. My son loves bananas. Nobody loves bananas more than my sweet boy.

So my daughter made him a banana out of felt for his birthday!

She's a creative little sprout, huh?

We also made a truly delicious trifle with angel food cake, banana pudding, fresh mixed berries, and walnuts. It was SO good!!! Best birthday cake ever. :)

Also, see below for my daughter's other great creation for the week: an evil paper mustache.

Kids Go Handmade Too! Kirby Edition

My daughter is 9 and started sewing about six months ago. She's already made some pretty adorable toys with just felt, thread, and stuffing. Today it was video game icon Kirby. Marvel in my child and her boundless creativity! She designed the toy, cut out a pattern, selected her materials, and sewed the entire thing herself...in just two hours! She's a genius, AND a workhorse. I couldn't be prouder. :)