Summer Reading Program - handmade prizes

Each summer our library has such a fun Summer Reading Program for our kids.  They plan tons of free events for families and kids like field trips, concerts, and craft activities.  The kids set a reading goal and try to reach it by the end of the program.  At the end there is a huge picnic where each family brings a dish to share and the kids all get a prize.  I try to donate some prizes each year because I know it must be costly for our little town library to have a prize for every child who participates. 

I realized a few days ago the deadline is the first week of August!

Here are a few of my handmade prizes this year:

pattern is Little Lizard King Crayon Roll

Monster softie - my own design

Pattern Gingercake's On The Go Organizer

and my favorite this year:

Owly McPillowpants!

made from a pattern from the book Small Stash Sewing.  This guy is totally worth buying the book.  He is HUGE which you can't tell by looking at the picture.  He's about the size of a standard size bed pillow.

He's going to make a great reading buddy!

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Trying to finish your summer sewing to-do list?

Link up here with me!

Sew Serendipity Skirt

It's another skirt from the book Sew Serendipity.    

I started to panic about the backlog of projects I had, so I made a list of all the projects I have in mind, and then chose to focus on those that I wanted for summer.  This was the first on my list.

This is the second skirt I've made from the book.  The other one is here.

I love red (it gives me an excuse to wear red lipstick).  This fabric is from Tina Givens which I found on Ebay.  

1 down, 6-7 summer projects to go!

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1. summer PJ's for Maura

2. summer PJ's for Me (almost done)

3.little military shirt for Travis

4.Sunny Day Dress for me

5. LBB Pieced Tunic for my friend, Sharon (in progress)

6. 1 or 2 kid's raffle items for the Summer Reading Program, due in August

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Join the mad dash to finish up your summer sewing.  Link up here:

perfect beach outfit for Travis

I made a few things for Travis last week with my free patterns, and I'm totally in love with this outfit.

It is the Charlie Tunic from Made By Rae and Boys Cargo Shorts pattern from Little Lizard King. 

The shirt is made in a super light "linen-look" from JoAnn fabrics with seersucker at the placket.  This is great for keeping Travis covered at the beach, his skin is so fair!  The fabric is really thin and cool.

The cargo shorts are made from striped seersucker, a classic for stylish little fellas.

Both patterns were a breeze to whip up, the perfect relaxing summer night project.   

Blows my mind!

I know this post is very late, but I wanted to have a chance to thank Adrianna and Susan of Crafterhours for hosting Skirt Week again this year.  There's not much I love more than sewing along with people from all around the world.  It was a fun challenge.  My goal was to submit 6 skirts, but I only got to 2!

Each day I checked out the sweet tutorials on skirt making on crafterhours.  I also checked the Flickr pools for A Line Skirts , full skirts, and straight skirts.  There is so much inspiration there I could spend all day looking at them!  There was also a category for little girl skirts.

So I was in total shock when I actually won the Judge's choice for the A Line skirt category.  It made my summer!  Ever since then, all these great prizes have been rolling in.  I still can't get over it!!

I'm already getting to work on some of the patterns I received!

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So a HUGE thank you to all the sponsors as well of Skirt Week 2011!

Jamie Christina Patterns - The Twill Tape Guy - Birdsongs and Bows -Whimsy Couture - Sew Liberated - Hawthorne Threads Fabric - Fishsticks Design - Little Lizard King Patterns - Made By Rae - Patterns By Figgy's - and Above All Fabric !

Thanks for making sewing even more fun!

The Sunny Day dress from Jamie Christina and Voile from Hawthorne Threads, just one of the many awesome prizes!

Where was I in June? Sprucing up the house!

I've been busy, busy the last few weeks, but not sewing!! 

I have however gotten to some of my projects around the house and yard. 

We decided to put our property on the market.  A few years ago my husband, Jim, went from working from home to having an hour and a half (one-way) commute.  We are however totally aware that this is a bad time to sell, so if we need to stay here that's really fine with us.  We really do love it here.

 

This is from the front.  If you didn't guess, our house is very old!  We think maybe even pre-Revolutionary war.  The floors look like the floors on the USS Constitution!

So I thought I'd show you what I've been doing this month, even if it isn't sewing related!! 

In the kitchen, I repainted the cabinets.

 

Repainted the upstairs and downstairs hallway and sitting room.

Painted the upstairs office, shown here with my resident video gamer.

The upstairs bathroom finally got painted!

my sewing area nice and organized (and neglected!)

repainted the red on the stairs, very careful not to splash the rug!

I even got Maura to clean up her room!  Wow!

And cleaned out the barn.

Also did a TON of landscaping/gardening/weeding!

Pool clean and blue, check!

I'm glad I got so much done

All while this guy was plotting against me...

He's trying like crazy to give up his nap!  Little bugger!!

So I didn't blog at all for the whole month of June, but I'm still here.  I also neglected to post about my completely unbelievable SKIRT WEEK WIN!  So that's up next.  I want to show what I'm doing and planning to do with some of my free patterns and fabric.