A Wonderful Christmas

We had such a wonderful little Christmas here in San Antonio! Jonathan and I were commenting that Christmas is even more fun as a parent than as a child! It is so fun to make it special for our kids and to see their excitement :) We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve pajamas...

Adventures in Sewing

During the past year or so I have loved learning how to sew! My mom always sewed for us growing up, and recently I realized that I really wanted to be able to do that for my kids. I always seem to take on crazy projects, and this Christmas was no exception. I decided to make my kids a fabric play house that slips over a card table.

I found all sorts of pictures and ideas online, and from that I made plans for my play house. I was actually surprised how much fun it was to make this! I was only slightly stressed about it the last couple of days (well, late nights, really) leading up until Christmas trying to get it all done. I'm sort of a "wing it" and "eyeball it" kind of a gal. I just sat down and started cutting out felt - flowers, vegetables, a tree, leaves, etc. Then I just figured out how to put it all together. I ran into only a couple of problems along the way (like sewing windows and doors together before I should have turned the whole thing inside out to hem the bottom...oops!) but it all worked out great in the end. And the kids love it!

Here's pictures of all the sides:

The front. The mailbox opens up and there is a slot for letters. I ironed on the address above the door (our wedding anniversary, plus the road my in-laws live on, not to mention our last name :)). The door just flaps open and rests on top of the house to stay open.

I love how the little felt letters turned out. I love that my sewing machine can sew words!

An outside window. The flowers velcro to the flower pot, and the watering can velcros so they can take it off and "water" the flowers. The finished window is also lined with a checkered turquoise felt (the same as the front door). 

Apple tree! The apples stick on with velcro so they can "pick" them and put them in the basket. The dolly velcros to the swing (Ella LOVES the little dolly - so glad I made it!) The little knot in the tree opens up...

...and there is a little bird inside. The bird comes off and can be put up in the tree in place of one of the apples.

In the back of the house is a little garden! The corn comes off of the stalk, and the other vegetables stick in the ground in little pockets in the dirt. Now to the inside of the house...

Next to the front door (not cut out yet in this picture) is a little book shelf, with pockets for a couple of real books. The mail slot comes through the book shelf. I thought the curtain above the little window turned out cute!

Close-up of the book shelf. I sewed book titles on the spines of the books.

Inside of the big window. The finished window is edged with turquoise fabric. Ella loves to climb in and out of the house through this window!

The kitchen! This was really fun to make. I found a picture of a play house online that had a kitchen almost exactly like this (can't remember where I saw it). The hands of the clock move (with velcro); the oven opens up and there are cookies inside; the big pot is a pocket so you can put vegetables inside; the fridge and freezer open; inside the fridge is a bowl you can put food in.

Close-up of clock 

Cookies in the oven 

Inside fridge and oven

This is probably the wall I am most proud of! I wanted the house more personalized to our family and to the things important to us, so I decided to make a piano on one wall! The sheet music pages turn. Then I used an iron-on transfer to make a framed family picture on the wall, and then used felt to make a picture of the Salt Lake temple! I think it turned out pretty cute. Here's some close-ups:

Here are a couple more pictures of the finished product:

So it was a success! And surprisingly (even after also making Christmas pj's and some cute round cushions for the kids as well), I am already looking forward to my next sewing project! It's a lot of fun.