Picnic Easter Baskets

I was at Target the other day… childless!  It was awesome!  I actually had a minute to browse without yelling various threats at my son.  I think I even caught myself skipping now and again. 

So this is what I came home with…

Kitchen towels, melamine salad plates, a pack of 4 cloth napkins and placemats… that all match!

And this is what I made with all of it…

Last year for Easter instead of getting regular baskets for easter I bought my girls baskets to go on their bikes.  

At the time I had high hopes of making cute basket liners but ran out of time.  

So this year, after my Target treasure hunt, they became not only fabulous bike baskets, but picnic baskets as well!  They will be so thrilled to pack up a little picnic in their basket and ride down to the park.

    I can't wait until easter! 

I'm so excited to strap these onto their bikes!  

I turned the placemats I found into picnic caddy's.

They are a piece of cake to make!  Here's how…

Press your placemat,  then fold one end up… you can pick how high you'd like to go.  Press again.

Now I can't leave it as is… I had to add a little eyelet trim (I adore eyelet).  Simply cut a piece a bit longer than the width of your placemat.  You want to attach it along the top of your folded edge.  Wrap the trim around the corner, tuck it in a bit to keep the raw edge from showing.  Pin… and then pin it all along the top of the fold.  Then wrap it around the next corner the same way and pin again.  Sew it on.

Now to add a ribbon, this will tie your caddy together.  Cut a long piece of ribbon.  Fold it in half.  Decide where you'd like it to go (I recommend middleish) and pin.  

Now you'll sew around the entire lower fold of your placemat.  Start by lifting the trim up, so you start sewing underneath it.  But also make sure where it wraps around stays tucked under your fold, sandwiched between the top and bottom folds of your placemat.  

Sew all along the bottom fold.  Finished it will look like this…

Right now it's just one big pocket.  Now to make little compartments for each of your picnic necessities. 

Lay them out on your placemat in the order you'd like them in.  

I'm using a... 

*Napkin

*Straw

*Small Garbage Bag 

(I know, it sounds random, but I just had these visions of my girls coming home from a picnic and leaving a half eaten sandwich, orange peels, chocolate bars etc... in the bottom of their bike basket to mold and rot in the hot garage.  I'd at least like to have it in a garbage or plastic baggie). 

*Flatware

(I got these darling disposable forks and spoons from Amazon.  I didn't get the knives, but now I think I'm going to snag some).

After laying them out you'll want to make marks on our placemat to determine how big each compartment will be.  Using a tape measure, determine how big of a space you need for the napkin.  For me it was 5.5 inches.  (Then I placed a pin… don't do this.  I realized after doing this it was silly… because I'd have a tough time sewing through pins going lengthwise).  Instead make a mark.  I just used a pencil.  Make a few marks of your desired length (again 5.5 for me) over from the edge down the front.  Then I repeated the process with the straw and the trash bag.  

Then with the remaining space make three compartments for the flatware.  Measure what space is left, divided it by three to make these compartments even steven.  Then make marks accordingly.  So at the end it should look like this…

(The marks are light… but they are there). 

Then pin your trim up and out of the way.

Then simply sew along each line of marks.

Your end product will look like this.  

Then fill your caddy with your picnic essentials.

Roll it up, tie the ribbon around, make a bow.  Trim the ribbon down to the length you are happy with and add fray check to the edges.

And you are done!

You could add some cute picnic stuff to the basket for easter.  Sunglasses, sunhat, sandwich holder, fabric lunch bag, water bottle, sunscreen.  For younger kids felt food would be darling for pretend picnics!  If you go to etsy and search for felt food, you will find a bunch of yummy collections.  If you are feeling super ambitious and want to make your own, do your search for felt food patterns.  There are some seriously out of control oh-so-cute options!  Another ambitious project would be a picnic blanket.  

Simply Adorbs!

The fabulous Lindi from Love The Day has designed absolutely gorgeous easter printables.  And they would sooooo match these baskets.  Check her blog out here

LOVE THE DAY and find her printable here…  Easter Party Printables. 

Linking up to...
Tatertots & Jello
Flamingo Toes-Think Pink
I Heart Nap Time
The Creative Create

Where Women Create

I'm crazy THRILLED about something.  I don't know how to describe my delight about it, because when I think about being featured on Where Women Create my brain starts spinning.  I feel so honored.

If you'd like to check out my post here is the link…

There is a give-away too!  You can enter to win all the owl party downloads and a dozen of my fabric roses!  

Happy Happy Happy Monday All!!!

It's coming… 

I can feel it…tulip shoots are peeking up through the ground… 

it's warming up….birds are chirping…. and I'm ready! 

I'm ready for...

 picnics,

and gardening,

and sunshine,

and lawn mowers,

and freckles,

and open windows,

and my grill,

and longer days,

and snow cones,

and the lemonade stand…

Here's my littles selling lemonade and snow cones last summer.  (With the help of my handy neighbor we made this lemonade stand as their christmas present in 2009).  They wanted to help pay for their dance classes, so every penny they earned went towards their dance stuff (sweats, shoes, bags, and bobby pins… we go through so many bobby pins).  

  And now after looking at these photo's not only am I craving summer, but I could go for a snow cone right now! 

Mmmm....tigers blood.

(I started salivating as I wrote that).

Picking Your Parchment

So I finally finished the owl adoption cards, but before I jabber on about that I wanted to share a little something with you…

My thoughts about printing paper, (I know you are on pins and needles to hear what I have to say).  

Such an exceptionally exciting topic.  

If you're like me you do all of your printing at home.  I only head to a print shop when something is too large for my printer.  It keeps me from having to run another errand and let's be honest… sometimes when I'm "crafting" it's late at night, I'm in my creative mode and breaking it up with a trip somewhere is annoying, my son is napping, or I look super sexy in my crafting sweats.   So when I make lovely party printables, invitations etc… I'm picky about what paper I use.

Many of you may already be aware of this, but I thought I'd give my thoughts for anyone who might not.  And now that I actually have something worth printing nice in my etsy shop I feel better knowing I've spread the word.

When I'm printing out something I want to be particularly pretty or special I use

matte photo paper or matte brochure paper.  

I also make sure it is at least 45lb or 170 g/m.  (Be careful here… speaking from experience, I've bought the wrong weight before, and it's still great for printing, but it's weight is more like normal paper).  

It prints color bolder and richer, the details are finer and it looks awesomer in general.   
(Yes I know awesomer isn't a word).  

Here let me show you the difference.

I printed my adoption cards with the same printer, using both brochure and card stock paper.

On the left regular card stock, on the right I printed on brochure paper.

Ummm… there is a HUGE difference! 

Here is a link for the paper I used on the right. HP Brochure paper

Here is another link of the Cannon version. Canon Matte Photo Paper

Those are just a couple. 

So in a nutshell….

Con's

-It's more expensive.

-It isn't quite as thick as card stock.

-It bugs me if I run out;)

Pro's

-Looks far-eaking awesome.

-The colors are more accurate.

-The texture is smoother than card stock.

-Did I mention it looks amazing?

Alright so there is my opinion about printing paper. 

And if you're interested in taking a look here is the link for the 

Adoption Cards! 

It's a MIRACLE!

Can I get a hallelujah?!?

 Because between...

Valentines Day

Dance Competitions

PTA Stuff 

(Including a Birthday Carnival I host for the kiddo's every other month)

Being a mom/homemaker/nurse/wife

Learning how to make a pdf

Learning how to use illustrator (well sort of)

And the other normal insanity which is my life…

I've finally finished the owl pattern!

And you can find in my Etsy Shop 

(Crossing my fingers here friends… this is my first experience with etsy).  

Here is the link…

Hooo-Ray Owl Pattern

So now to tackle what I hope will be miracle #2 today…

The Laundry!  

(I have the Psycho music playing in my head as I type that).

 I'm working on the adoption certificates next!  

Hopefully now that I've worked some of the kinks out it will be A LOT quicker!

Happy weekend all!!!

Thank You... and other stuff!

First…

I must tell all you wonderful beautiful people

THANK YOU!

I seriously love the crafty bloggy community!

Everyone is so sweet and encouraging!  

Goodness I'm just overcome by your comments and emails and kindness!  

Sigh… you're all just fabulous!  

A giant cyber hug to you all!

Second… 

I've been working on several requests from my owl party.

I'm getting close to having a….

Felt owl pattern 

Adoption cards 

Printable do it yourself invitations

Drawings of my cardboard bed & window 

and even some 

Cupcake toppers! 

The pattern is getting really really close, and I'm so hoping to have it up on etsy within a few days.  And if my wonderful two year old son is cooperative then hopefully everything else will follow soon after.   

We ran into a problem as of late.  Momo wants to go to bed at night with Ride's "sunshine" owl.  Well naturally she does too!  To temporarily resolve the owl issue, I let Momo fall asleep with the owl, and then I would sneak into his room, retrieve the owl from his captor and return it to Ride in bed.  

I had to make another owl for the pattern instructions and now Momo has his own!  Peace has now been restored to the home!

  Here he is getting ready for his nap today.  We read what he calls the "martian" book. (It's actually "Mars Needs Moms."  And it's totally darling and I give it a thumbs up and highly recommend it). While he cuddled with his new owl pal.  Now they are both snoozing soundly.

Third…

I've started a Facebook page.  

I should warn you… I'm kinda, well… I am a big dorky nerd.  And for whatever reason Facebook makes it more comfortable for me to embrace my inner nerd… and boy does it shine!  So if you're ok "liking" a nerd come on over.  Here's the linky-lou (I'll be adding one to my side bar shortly).

Facebook Link

Fourth…

OK… so I made 4 little circle scalloped numbers.  I made four, because I had four things in my brain I wanted to share with you.  But now I'm at a loss.  I don't remember what #4 was supposed to be.  But I made it, so I'm putting it up anyway;)  Knowing me I'll sit up in bed around midnight, having suddenly recalled what "it" was.  I'll also awake J because I'll be proclaiming "that's what number four was."  Oh well.