Jeans Quilt

While I still lived in Salt Lake I was at my parents house and went to throw something in their outside garbage can and found about 20 pairs of my dads old jeans. Are you kidding? JACK POT. I then added my husbands and my kids holy jeans and came up with quite the stash.

ANd now that I have a sewing machine I LOVE I finally got to work.

Lay out your jeans like this.

Cut just above the crotch seam. Please keep the top part for a tutorial in the making. (A darling skirt for your daughter)

Then cut the legs apart on the inside seam and lay them out flat.

You can then cut them up. You need to cut 5 inch squares or 6 inch circles. and then you need to cut 5 inch pieces of varying width. I used 123 squares and roughly 123 circles. I traced my flour cannister lid.

Keep them in three distinct piles. And make sure you iron each piece flat.

This is how many pieces I could get out of one children's size 5 pair of jeans.

Take your squares and piece them together. I pieced mine at an angle. So start with the middle row which is the longest and using one square cut it into 4th's. These four triangles will become the corners. You will then need to cut squares in half for the ends of the other rows.

Then use the 5 inch pieces of varying width and sew along the outside edge to give it a fun border.

Now for the circles. Cut a 4 inch piece of cardboard. Lay it in the middle of your circle and trace it onto the right side of the fabric.

Pin the circles together along this line.

And sew together in a row on this line.

Iron the seam open.

And then add to quilt.

It will look like this.

Then Lay down the back of the quilt onto the ground. (I used a king size sheet). Turn under the edge and lay the quilt top on top of it.

Pin along the line you drew.

Sew along the line to give your quilt a binding around the edge. Or you can finish it this way. (This is the way I did it) Lay your quilt top on the back piece so there is about 3 inches of fabric around all the edges.

Turn under the red fabric. And then under again. And then pin it to the top of the quilt. Fold the top of the quilt down on the line that you drew. This way the red is on top of the quilt, instead of the quilt top on top of the red, like the way above.

And then sew the sides. And walaa!!!

Now go through it in your washer. The edges of the circle will curl in and will start to fray. The more you wash it the better it will look! This is what it looks before washing!

And after only one wash cycle. You can really tell the difference.

There you have it. Perfect for those winter Arizona picnics and a perfect keepsake of your father's jeans. Which contain many many many great memories.

How cute is this???

At my son's preschool fall festival we made this super cute and super simple craft with our kids.

Put a piece of orange tissue paper on the table. Place a roll of toilet paper in the middle of it. Stuff the ends of the tissue paper into the middle of the toilet paper roll. Get a brown lunch bag and roll it and then staple it to a green cut out leaf. Shove them down the tube as well.

Simple and it's a beauty! This was so fun to do with the kids, and so so easy!

Used Q-Tips

Need a quick halloween treat???

Grab a bag of sucker sticks from Walmart for $2.50 by the cake decorating stuff in the wedding isle and marshmallows and peanut butter. Push one marshmallow on each end of the sucker stick.

Dip the marshmallow into the peanut butter and slightly twist it.

Walaa. I disgusting treat. I honestly gagged about three times making these. It looks to real it's gross. It's a total boy treat. My boys downed them in minutes.

Wow Wow Wubzy Costume

What do you do when your son tells you he wants to be wow wow wubzy for halloween? First you try to convince him he doesn't...then you start creating. Because you know he does.

Get a pop of laundry basket.

Cut off the handles as close to the basket as possible.

Put your son in the basket, with the basket upside down. Take the handles you just cut off and place them over his shoulders and pin them to the basket makind shoulder straps. Then sew them once you have them positioned right.

Cut two arm holes. I put my son in the basket and then traced a cup where the holes should be.

Get your yellow fabric and hot glue it on the top and the bottom of the basket. You will need a big rectangle piece for this. Leave the top circle of the basket (normally the bottom) black for now. Cut slits in the arm hole like this:

Fold them over and hot glue them to the inside of the basket.

Then cut out wow wow wubzy face from the yellow fabric. Do not cut through the black netting. Hot glue around the outside of the yellow and push down to connect to the netting.

Trace two plates from the yellow fabric. (I used two yards total) Cut them out and fill them with polyfill stuffing.

Fold over the edges and hot glue.

Cover the bottom of the basket with a great big circle of yellow. Glue to the two ears on the top.

Sew a long tube and turn it inside out and stuff to make the tail. I also inserted a wire from the tip to the end so I could bend it like his tail. Then sew to the basket.

Make a shorter and wider tube and sew down the side of it. Glue it to the arm hole on the basket to make sleeves.

Now for the pants. Have your child lay down on the fabric and loosly trace their body. About 3 inches away from their body. Cut it out and sew it together on the shoulders, down the sides, and up the inside of the legs. Then make a slit down the back.

Fold outside and sew to create an opening for the child to get into it. This will be hidden by the basket so it doesn't need to be perfect.

Here you have it. Remember the top part is completely covered with the basket. I left two extra flaps on the bottom to cover his shoes.

And here is the back. It's like a retro jumpsuit really.

And here it is altogether!

And for the back view:

And there you have it wow wow wubzy!

Boo to you!!!

Halloween wouldn't be complete with out fabric ghosts. Sure they are fun to make out of tissues, but those don't last long and you can't make them as big.

What you need:

2 googly eyes

extra thick thread

needle

2 square pieces of fabric (mine were 15 inches by 15 inches)

Place a square piece of fabric on the ground.

Grab the second piece of fabric and bunch it all up into a ball.

Place the rolled up fabric in the center of the square piece.

Grab the bunched up fabric from underneath the square piece and let the loose fabric hang down straight.

Grab the fabric tight in your fingers.

Tie a string aroung the entire neck. Pull as tight as you can, without breaking your thread.

Take your threaded needle and slide in through the top of the ghosts head

Tie it into a knot and cut the thread about 16 inches or so depending on how low you want them to hang from what you are hanging them from.

Use hot glue and glue on some beady eyes.

There you have it, a friendly cloth ghost!

Now grab your helper and head outside:

Add one to your wreath for a fresh Halloween Look:

Hang a bunch and there you have it a ghost tree:

(yep that's my front yard...October and NO SNOW and 80 degree weather...oh Utah and Idaho friends have I convinced you to come and visit yet? We have plenty of room!)