DIY: How to Sew a Quiet Book

What is a quiet book? A quiet book is a soft book typically made of fabric or felt full of interactive activities to help babies/toddlers learn and keep them preoccupied. I’m not sure whether it’s called a quiet book because the book is made of soft/quiet materials or if it makes your child stay quiet because they’re engaged… but either way, they are fun to make and to play with!

I had never heard of a quiet book until my sister tagged me in a Facebook video about one as a “subtle” hint to make for her then 1 year old daughter, my niece! So I had it in the back of my mind to make one for her and then ended up CRAM crafting the week before xmas to make it! I actually made this quiet book a whole YEAR ago, but it’s never too late to post about it! I’m really happy with how it all turned out!

This blog post will:

·        Go through my process of how I went about figuring out how to make a quiet book

·        Walk through how I created the individual pages and bound the book together, step-by-step. I’ll also include any helpful links as additional reference material!

DIY: Turkey Sweatband

During last year’s Thanksgiving, I came up with the idea to make turkey sweatbands to wear during the annual 5K Turkey Trot and amazingly, my friends agreed to wear them! Scouring the web for inspiration and possible tutorials, I only saw a variety of turkey hats, but no turkey sweatbands…. So I made my own tutorial!

This year, we are running it again and recruited some new friends into the group and they wanted to wear them too! A tradition has been born! Based on a few people’s comments about our sweatbands looking like Princess Leia hair (LOL), I made a few modifications to last year’s design, specifically around the placement of the drumsticks on the sweatband. Hopefully, this year people will be able to tell we are turkeys! ... although being mistaken for Princess Leia would be rather applicable this time of year…

DIY: How to Hem Your Dress Pants

What a relief it is to be able to hem my own pants! No more taking them to the tailor to be hemmed for $20! The last time I got them professionally hemmed, they were still a little too long and then I tripped on them in the parking lot mid-sentence while talking to my manager! I'm actually surprised he didn't burst out laughing because I would have! I ripped my pants at the knee, scraped my palm, and bruised my ego... but I was more upset at the wasted cost of getting them professionally tailored! Well, no more of that wasted nonsense because I can do it myself! Now... if I can just start a side business of hemming my coworkers' pants I could made a side fortune...... hmmmm haha 

This was the 4th pair of dress pants I hemmed myself, and it really boils down to a couple steps.

- Cut off the excess fabric while accounting for the seam allowance

- Zigzag stitch the raw edge of the fabric to prevent fraying

- Hand sew the hem

I'll break down the steps now in more detail.

Here's what you'll need.

Materials: 

- pants you'll be hemming 

- needle and matching thread

- seam ripper

- fabric scissors

- pins

- chalk

- ruler

- seam gauge

- iron (not pictured)

- shoes you'll be wearing your pants with (not pictured) 

All Things Pumpkin!

Two years ago, I created a step-by-step pumpkin carving video, but this time I decided to take it in a different direction and create a stop motion video carving Tim Burton's Sparky from the recent movie, Frankenweenie. I downloaded the pattern from my go-to pumpkin pattern site, zombiepumpkins.com (It does cost money for the pattern) and got to work! Hope you like it!

I always feel so wasteful when I throw away all that pumpkin pulp so I saved a Tupperware container of the pulp to decide on something to make with it later. I found a cream of pumpkin soup recipe using tofu instead of cream, which works for me because I most likely always have tofu in my house and rarely have cream (and it's healthier). I modified the recipe a little because I didn't want mine to be too onion-y and I didn't have any bacon. I did have some sliced pork in the freezer so I just rubbed some salt on it... Not sure if that made it taste more like bacon..., but it was still super yummy! The bacon/pork adds a nice warmth to the soup while the tofu adds creaminess.