If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride...

If I were given three wishes, the first would be for extra time. There needs to be 28 hours in a day. That would give me 4 additional hours to get stuff done. What would I do with that extra time? Sew of course!

Life is keeping me very busy lately. Kids, work, school, husband, housework....all the typical things. Unfortunately, it hasn't left much time for sewing and creating.

But I still keep adding to my creative to-do list. I have a little notebook that I write things in and I have a bookmarks folder that I dump links into every time I stumbled onto something interesting.

Recently I've decided that I'm going to start scheduling time in

to my week to tackle some of the things on my wish list. If this means that the floor doesn't get mopped as often as I would like or the pile of papers on the counter sits for an extra day or two, then so be it. Sewing is like therapy, and my soul (and my sanity!) is in need of a little creative TLC.

So what's on my creative wish list? Well, I thought I'd share a few of the things I'm dying to tackle.

First off, there is the Amy Butler Blossom Handbag that I found posted over at SewMamaSew:

Isn't it divine? I've already purchased everything I need for this one and I'm hoping (crossing my fingers!) to get started on it today. I wanted fabrics that are funky and fun, and this is what I came up with:

The top fabric will be the outside, the bottom will be the inside.

Next on my list....skirts. I love to wear skirts. Last year I got Sew What! Skirts for Christmas and I have yet to make anything out of it.

The other day I was at JoAnn and stumbled across this fabric:

It has "me" written all over it. I picked up enough to make a skirt for me and a matching one for my daughter.

And speaking of my daughter....she's going to be 7 this summer (I can't believe it!), but she still loves to wear pretty dresses. In fact, she prefers dresses and skirts to shorts. Once again, I found a great tutorial on SewMamaSew (LOVE that site!).

The Leisurely Summer Dress

Isn't it cute? I wish my 36-year old self could wear something that cute and comfortable and not look ridiculous.

These are just three of the many, many projects I've got floating around in my brain. I'm hoping by putting my grand plans out in the universe will force me to actually make the time to do them!

What projects are you dying to take on?

Better Late Than Never!

January is almost over....and I'm just now posting about my Christmas crafts. It was a slim year in Handmade Gift Land at my house. Unfortunately, my crafting/sewing time was very limited this year.

But there was one holiday item that I just had to make....the annual Christmas jammies. A lot of people have a tradition of new pajamas at Christmas and our family is no exception. My mom always made us new jammies at the holidays.

My sister and I in some of our Christmas nightgowns. Like the sleeping caps? My mom must have watched too many episodes of "Little House on the Prairie."

We always had the same Christmas Eve routine: church, drive around and look at lights, go home and open one gift. And the gift was always the same: the new jammies. But it didn't matter that we knew what it would be...we were always excited to open them and see what my mom had made that year.

I had to look really hard this year to find a fabric that both a 6-yr old "girly girl" and an almost 9-yr old boy would like. What I came up with was this holiday flannel:

This year I decided to go the easy route and make a simple elastic waist pull-on lounge pant.

For the tops, I purchase two t-shirts, one red and one green, and decided to applique their first initial on it. I drew a big "A" and a big "B," then traced them onto the back of some Heat-N-Bond and ironed the letters onto the t-shirts. Next, I went around the letters with a zig-zag stitch.

I think they turned out really cute!

And my kids LOVED them!

Happy Belated Holidays!