Beautiful Baby Bibs!

I LOVE sewing, but I'm not one for details or projects that take very long - which is why baby bibs are a perfect project.  They don't have to be perfect because they're just going to be spit up on anyhow!  You can easily finish one in an hour and you can use all kinds of scraps to make them.  The blue one above is backed with my hubby's old gym shorts!  Super absorbant!

I LOVED this pattern, though it was a little more time intensive.  I just used a set of coordinating fat quarters to match up fabrics and backed it with an old towel - again, lots of absorbancy!  Both of these patterns were free and found on pinterest!  ruffled bib link  and the chevron bib  with my own improvised ribbon flower.

What's your favorite fast and easy sewing project?

Christmas Braid

WOW!  Found this adorable hairstyle on Facebook, but no tutorial.  After hunting around through all the comments, I was able to find the original "creator" of this beauty - LORI!  Hair by Lori is where YOU can find her on Facebook.  She's planning on doing a you-tube tutorial for this style and I'm personally looking forward to it as my tree is a little skinny and doesn't look exactly like a tree, but was fun to try!

Are you doing anything fun with your girl's hair for Christmas?  What about your own?  I think the beautiful Compass Rose makes the perfect star at the top of this braided tree with the Crimson Joy as a present wrapping up the style at the bottom.  What do you think?

Adding our LATEST trial on Mimi with the Sparkling Snowflake - available January and the Festive Fallen Leaf - available NOW!!!  :)

Sadly - both the Crimson Joy and the Compass Rose (from the first pics) are sold out on my website www.lillarose.biz/ToDoGoodThings but I have BOTH of them in stock!  Contact me through my facebook page

Fun with Writing!

So this morning, my daughter confessed that while she was supposed to be brushing her teeth and getting started with her school work, she was instead... pretending to do a lotion commercial!  Of course I HAD to hear this commercial and it was adorable - I couldn't believe how professional it sounded considering we don't have cable tv and watch VERY little television in general.  She compared products and stated the problem and how to solve the problem all in about 30 seconds - yes, we have an advertising exec in training.

I suggested doing a video recording for fun.  I had her practice her "schpeel" a few times and realized that this could be a perfect lesson in quality adjectives and strong verbs.  In the first clip you'll see her "plain" commercial.  The second clip is her dressed up version. 

So fun!  I hope this inspires you to try some creative writing assignments - be sure to leave a comment with a link to your commercials for us to enjoy!

Peachalicious Orange Smoothie

I have been craving something other than brownies lately.  That's hard to believe, I know.  The other day I threw this little recipe together and I've had one every day since.  It's not green, I know green smoothies are all the rage, but it is a beautiful orange for fall and healthy even if it's not green.

So hopefully, if you're really into smoothies, you've got a Blendtec by now.  If you don't have one and you love smoothies, this baby is essential - or a Vitamix.

10 baby carrots
3 whole oranges (peeled)
1 1/2 frozen bananas
2 frozen peaches - sliced
1 cup water

Blend until smooth and enjoy!

Isn't it pretty?  I love the speckles from the peach skins.

Modified Pillowcase Dress DIY

I love simple sewing projects.  Ones that look SO cute, but don't require a lot of know-how or time, because I'm short on both!  The pillowcase dress is a natural for someone with those requirements, but there's just something about that ribbon through the neck collar that I'm just not super crazy about.  That's why I was thrilled to find a simple modification using simple tank top style straps and a straight gathered neck-line.

We made this little cutie for a friend's birthday party.  Below my middle cutie models it and the t-shirt headband and flower we made to match.

Simply Charlotte Mason Organizer - Weekly Printout Tutorial

Ok - this is blurry.  I hope to re-film in the future, but I've been seeing more and more posts at Simply Charlotte Mason about people printing a daily task sheet.  While it's fine and dandy to print a daily task sheet, you certainly don't have to when you expand your resources.  Please enjoy this tutorial and I'm happy to try to answer any questions you may have.

Birthday BOWquet! DIY

So what do you get for a sweet soon-to-be five year old that tells you, "Mommy, just get me whatever YOU think I would like" for her birthday?  Pinterest to the rescue!  I'm a little obsessed.  Can you tell?  I knew there just had to be something fun and special for my "Sweet T".  And I found the cutest bow bouquets and the price was AH-mazing.  The only problem was, there weren't any available - poor girl probably figured out she couldn't make money with the great price she was charging.  So, with a little MORE help from Pinterest - I found tutorials and wah-lah.  Here's the birthday BOWquet.

OK, so my presentation needs work - there was no tutorial for presentation, but I've got to say - the individual bows were overall, pretty easy.  You can find tutorials for them on my pinterest fabric crafts board.  Here's a few close-ups so you can admire my handiwork one by one.

 This peach one is SO easy and looks amazing - NO sewing, just a little hot glue and felt.

 These boutique-style bows were definitely the hardest.  I'm not sure why, but they just aren't as crisp or stiff as the real thing.  It took a couple of tries to get the twisting and turning right and I'm pretty good with bows having grown up in a flower shop.

I just HAVE to share the tutorial for the one above.  This lady has a bunch of girls and she's not afraid to go BIG with her clips and her tutorial is just so great and her pictures are so beautiful that you really should check out her blog.

 The felt ones were all made by my kiddos.

Now, while Pinterest IS an awesome tool for inspiration, just a little reminder to be careful what you search for.  Let's just say that trying to find a homemade, washable face paint for my toddler, turned into a rather x-rated adventure, when I was a little too vague with my search terms.