Trunk or Treat

The week before Halloween, we went to the church for the annual trunk or treat party. Here are the kids in their costumes. Isaac was a zombie football player. Sareny originally said she wanted to be a zombie cheerleader, so I picked out black and hot pink for the cheer costume I made her. When I made comments about how we could rat her hair up, or make her makeup crazy, she would respond, "I kind of want pretty hair," or "can we do my makeup like it was for the cheer camp?" At which point, I realized she really just wanted to be a pretty cheerleader. Which was fine. Mostly.

I think I may be the slowest seamstress in town, because it took me most of a day to make Sareny's cheerleader outfit. Oh well, it turned out cute. I made the little girls My Little Pony costumes. While I was sewing them, I was concerned about how hot they would be wearing them, but it worked out perfectly since it was actually cold that night. Finley was Fluttershy.

Keeley was Rainbow Dash. The hardest part of these costumes was the "cutie marks" on their bottoms. You can see Keeley's rainbow in this picture. Since I didn't have a pattern for these costumes, I just had to try and make it up, so it took me a while to get it right.

Sareny with her best friend Emily.

Sareny and another good friend Sammi.

The two that were supposed to be zombies...wouldn't that have been cute?

Isaac and his best friend Andrew, who was also a zombie.

We had lots of fun at the party. The sad news was, Emily and Andrew had their moving van all packed up and ready to go, and they left town the next morning and headed off to Tennessee. We're all still sad about that.

Remaking a Shirt

In Setember, the girls did a cheer camp at the local high school, and they were given shirts to wear to their performance. Unfortunately, the shirts were sized more for amazons than preschoolers, so I pulled out my scissors and went to work on them. I am by no means an expert, or even very good at this type of thing at all, but the finished result was so much better than what we started with. I took a shirt of Sareny's and cut the performance shirt down.

I also cut the sleeves off and cut them way down as well.

And then I tried to put them back together...and that's where it got dicey. I soon realized that I had cut the shirt down too much and hoped it would fit Finley instead of Sareny. And the sleeves--oh those darn sleeves. I had to unpick and reattach them, and I realized that I should have cut them so that I could use the bottom hem instead of sewing a new one. The sleeve hem was a bit fluttery, but still worked. Since I had learned a bit from the first go round, I cut the sleeve out better for Sareny's, but she ended up disappointed that her sleeve wasn't fluttery. Go figure. Here is Fin in the first shirt I made.














Both girls, where you can see the difference in the sleeves.














Despite my difficulties, when we got to the performance, I realized that my girls' shirts looked super awesome. Most people wondered how come they actually had shirts that fit them.

Isaac's Quilt

I have made Sareny, Keith, and me our own rag quilts, and decided it was time for Isaac to have his own. I picked out this super cute pirate fabric a loooooong time ago, then had a hard time finding anything to match it. Finally, after over a year of searching, I found the striped fabric that I think went perfectly, so construction of the quilt could begin.
Enter problems from a very stubborn sewing machine. I had worked so hard on the quilt and was quite close to finishing, when my sewing machine just refused to sew another stitch. I was frustrated, and once again abandoned the project for a while. A couple of weeks later, I was telling some women in my ward about my sewing machine woes and one of them, whom I had just met that very evening, offered to give me her sewing machine. This was seriously such a blessing for me, because we just didn't have the money to replace it, and here was a virtual stranger willing to give hers to me for free. I am still in awe about this kindness.
So here is the finished quilt in all its glory.
front of quilt.

back of quilt.

I think he loves it!

Shirt Makeover

At the beginning of the school year I bought Sareny a school spirit shirt. Let's face it, it is huge and looks horrible. She never wore it, and who could blame her?

I finally got around to fixing it up a little. I think it looks a lot better.

Here's what I did--I cut off the sleeves but left them intact. Using a shirt she wears, I cut the shirt down to size. (Okay, I accidentally cut it a little bit smaller than her size. So I added in the decorative black contrast panels, which I think actually look pretty good.)I added some elastic into the ends of the sleeves, stretching the elastic taut as I attached it. And that's how you can take a large, shapeless T-shirt:

and turn into a cute, girlie shirt:

Made by me

I have really enjoyed sewing lately. I sometimes think back on that sewing class I took on a whim in college and am sew glad I did! Okay, that was a nerdy pun, but I couldn't resist. Anyway, it is strangely fulfilling to take a yard or two of fabric and create something new and totally unique out of it. A couple of months ago I made this:

And in case you weren't sure, I was talking about the skirt. I made the girl a few years ago. I'm crafty like that.
I'm not as fun to sew for, but I made this skirt for myself out of some cool fabric.

I absolutely love this skirt I made for Sareny a week ago. I think it turned out darling, especially with the matching headband.

These are Sareny's snow boots that her grandma got her for our December visit to Washington. She wears them every single day here in Phoenix...come sun, or more sun.

I love this picture.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year! Grammy Jo and Bampa came to visit, and we had a lot of fun with them. We carved pumpkins.

Finley loved wearing the tiara Grammy Jo had brought for them to wear. She would squank if you tried to take it off of her.

I made the headless horseman pumpkin. Apparently we didn't get any finished pictures of the pumpkins.

We took our little princesses and knight to the trunk or treat at the church. They looked so cute! Grammy brought real tiaras that the prom queen at their high school will wear for Sareny and Finley to wear with their costumes.

Sareny plays with a little girl named Lisa every day at school, and we invited her family to come to the trunk or treat. I was glad they decided to come!

Sareny was a beautiful princess.

Isaac was a dashing knight.

I named Finley "Princess Grumpy-pants," because we took them to get their pictures taken, and she would not smile for anything. She was adorable anyway though.

Every year, I work so hard on elaborate costumes that only get worn once for a few hours, so this year I got smart and took them to get their pictures taken earlier on Saturday at JC Penney. Those pictures turned out really cute, and I'm glad we did that. Unfortunately, I can't post the pictures from that photo shoot here, but if you want to look at them, go to https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0040108400JCP and enter customer name Hillari Fallstrom.

Another skirt

I got to test out another pattern for my friend Beth. This cute skirt is reversible!

I am really liking the excuse to pull out my sewing machine and finish a project. I already had this fabric in my stash and wasn't sure what to make with it, so this was perfect!

Finley all ready for church on Sunday. It's kind of nice--just throw some clothes on her and she's ready. Don't even have to comb her hair.

I've been busy

My friend Beth has a really cute etsy shop here: http://loveseptember.etsy.com/. Recently she asked for testers to sew a pattern she was selling called The Favorite Skirt. I signed up and made this skirt for myself.

I thought it turned out really cute. It uses elastic thread, something I had never even heard of before, but that I instantly really liked. I made matching dresses for Finley and Sareny using the same concept as the skirt.

Sareny is at school, so she isn't here to model hers. Maybe I'll add a picture of her later. Finley seemed to really enjoy modeling her new little dress.

Diaper Pouches

A few weeks ago, my friend Misty came over and we sewed some cute diaper pouches. It was a lot of fun to work on projects together, and I think they turned out really cute! I really love how Hobby Lobby's fabric coordinates so well together--it makes projects like these come together really well.

Hillari Homemaker

I've been busy lately...just in time for summer, I finished my ragquilt.

I started this back in September, but had to abandon it in my frantic Raggedy Ann and Andy sewing frenzy, and finally pulled it back out. I actually made this quilt for myself! During the winter, our house is on the cool side and we like to snuggle under blankets in the evening watching movies. Keith and Sareny both have rag quilts I made for them and I was left out in the cold, so to speak. It felt a little weird spending so much time making something that was for myself, but I'm sure it will get lots of use in a few months.
I have also made a few matching skirts for Sareny and Finley. These skirts were for a friend and I thought they turned out pretty cute.

I stayed up late one night and made some red pepper jelly after everyone else was sleeping. Our favorite ways to eat this is either on wheat thins with cream cheese, or use it as a sauce on stir-fried chicken, onions, red peppers, garlic and mushrooms. Then we serve it over rice. Thanks to my wonderful mother in law for both recipes, and the ideas for the skirts!

Opinions needed!

I've been inspired lately by some of my friends to start working on my massive backload of projects. I am running out of room in my craft room, so I have instituted the rule that I have to complete 5 projects before I can buy fabric for a new project.

I used some pretty eyelet fabric I bought more than four years ago to make some little Easter dresses for the girls. I had to modify the pattern I used since it was sized 2-4, and neither girl is in that size. I cut Finley's a little smaller, and Sareny's a little bigger than the pattern. So my question is, which ribbon should go on which dress?

Should the ribbon match the dresses, as in the first picture, or should it be yellow ribbon on green dress and green ribbon on yellow dress, as in the second picture?

Should both dresses be trimmed in yellow? I just don't know which looks best. Which way do you like better?

Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween this year! Grammy Jo and Bampa came down on Thursday after the Moapa Valley High School football game where Bampa is a coach, getting here after 5 am on Friday! Keith and Bampa of course went golfing immediately upon their waking. Grammy Jo and I did, what else, but hit the mall for some shopping.

Our ward always has such a fun trunk or treat party, and this year they held it on Halloween. I love going to the church and seeing all of our friends dressed up with their trunks all decked out, enjoying carnival games and hotdogs.

This year, despite the fact that I would only have two weeks in which to actually complete the costumes, I decided to have our whole family dress up as Raggedy Ann and Andy. It wasn't long into the project before I started to feel completely overwhelmed and to wonder what in the world I had been thinking to take this project on with 3 small kids and so little time. Not smart. So, after quite a few late nights, great expense, two "leisure suites," three dresses, three pinfores, three bloomers, two hats, and five wigs later, our costumes were complete. (With nary a minute to spare, finishing touches being added right before heading out the door.) If only our ward held a family costume contest, I'm pretty sure we would have won.

I am relieved to be finished of this horrendous project, and sad to report the neglect of my kids and complete demolition of my house by projects end. I have even gotten behind in my blog--I have several posts I'll have to do out of order. I have determined that next year we can buy our costumes like everyone else. :)

That being said, I still think they turned out pretty adorable.

My little dolls dressed up as dolls.