SLN loves

Sooo many great finds on Etsy, I am excited to bring to you some of my favorites.  And I will continue to do this from time to time.  Enjoy!

1.  Spot from Bunny with a Toolbelt, $45

2.  Old school nature tree blocks from Monkeys on the Roof

3.  Lavender Hand Dyed Shawl with fringes from Nits Creations, $30

4.  Knit Apple Jacket from Handamade, $16

5.  I love you blogs & tea Print from Made by Girl, $9.50

6.  Wallpaper Quilt Kit from Kelly McCaleb, $77

7.  Rainbow Factory Duo from Pearson Maron, $41

8.  Thin Curved 2 Finger Ring from Colleen Baran, $49

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Doll Tutu Tutorial

This tutorial is a quick, easy and inexpensive project that you’ll love.  This tutu is made for dolls between 10″ and 18″, but can be easily adjusted to make either larger or smaller.

Supplies:

1/4″ Elastic, scissors, needle and thread or sewing machine, 1 metre (or yard) of tulle

Cut a 9″ length of elastic for dolls 9-12″ tall or cut a length 11″ for dolls 18″ +.  Then either hand sew or machine sew the 2 ends together to create a circle.  Just make sure its well secured.

Next, cut your tulle into 3″ wide strips.  Then cut those strips into 4 – 10″ (approximately) pieces.  You don’t have to be exact, just eyeball it the best you can. 

Next, take your 10″ strip and fold in half.  Put the folded end through the elastic circle and then pull the 2 cut ends over the elastic and through the folded tulle loop.  

Pull the ends to tighten it gently.  At first you might have to play with it a bit to figure out the tension but after the first few you kind of get the feel of it.

Continue to work your way around the elastic, sliding the pieces snuggly together as you go so you don’t see any white of the elastic.  If you have a few pieces of tulle left over I suggest you try to squeeze them in as when you stretch the tutu out you will be able to see the elastic peaking through and we don’t want this.  So better to have too many than too little. 

Voila!  All done.  Now try making them in all different colors and embellish as you wish.  Have fun! 

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New Etsy Products

New products in store.  I absolutely love the look of the ever so popular right now organza flower and thought it would be sweet as a headband.  But since my daughter Lily has fine, soft and super slippery hair the elastic headband that you see around a lot nowadays doesn’t work for her as it just ends up riding up the back of her head.  So I decided to do a more traditional satin covered headband, just for her sake, and for all those other little girls who are in the same boat. 

And here’s my little Lily showing off her brand new headband… especially for her.   Find more of these headbands at my shop September Lily.

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working on the yard

We have been working on our not so lovely yard lately in hopes of it becoming a place that we spend most of our days with the kids this summer.  The last few years we didn’t do much with it since we ended up spending most of our time either at the beach or I was at work (sad truth).  But this year, I have vowed to my hubby that since it has such good bones, it’s so lush and green and has so much potential and with a little hard work and a small budget it could be glorious once again.  Now’s the time, especially since Ethan is now 2 years old we need a place for him to explore and keep his constant curiosity busy.  And by golly… maybe we will even entertain back there this year!

So here is the before pictures for you to see.  I have tons of great money-saving ideas which I hope to make happens over the next few weeks.  enjoy!

Note the completely overgrown garden on the right hand side, beach ball and all!

Here’s the view looking out from our patio/seating area.

This is Lily in her rubber boots with her friend the garden gnome.  His favorite thing to do is go down the slide! (or at least that’s what she thinks).

Ethan finding some new friends of his own.

Stay tuned for the after pictures!

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little secret

Second post!  So I am in the middle of re-shooting all my Etsy product photos with my SLR camera (what a difference from my little point and shoot) and have found myself very interested in photography.  Especially when I would see all those great photos on Etsy’s front page and I was so jealous!  They were all so good, how could I achieve that same level of clarity?  So off I went to the internet and conducted quite a thorough search on  camera settings, lighting, subjects etc etc and decided that the current photos in my Etsy shop could seriously need some revamping.   See for yourself:

I was up for the challenge since I only have about 70 products currently listed which is not too bad compared to a lot of other shops.  And since I found out the secret to most great photos was “best natural light” I discovered it was right in my own backyard so to say… in babycheeks store window!  The windows are huge and we get lots of afternoon indirect sun.  So here’s a before and after of the same flower hair clip with some behind the scenes look.

Note the paper clip I used to keep my pine cone from leaning over.

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First post

So, I love the blog world and thought I would give it a try.  I am not exceptionally articulate and don’t have a degree in journalism but I do like to share my artistic thoughts, ideas, inspirations, notes, projects, likes etc etc with anyone who will listen.

I’ve started this blog because I come across so many other fantastic and informative blogs that read so well, almost like a great novel, that it sparked my interest to give it a try.  I have always been a creative person, but had no outlet to share it with anyone outside of my immediate family, and believe me I probably drive my husband nuts with all my little projects spread out all over our little house!  So, this will now give me the opportunity to share all this with whomever stops by.  And I am so excited to get rolling.

So this is my first post, hopefully there will be many more to come, and hopefully more interesting than this one has been.

And as I post, I will offer little bits of information to you of my life and my work, I just don’t want to bore you with my life story all in one post.  But I have many fun things to share so hope you enjoy!

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