New Summer Outfit

I am finding that the hand-me-downs for my third son are pretty sparse at this age.  (He's two.)  I think my older boys were hard on their clothes at this age.  But that's okay- it gives me an excuse to get sewing!!  I was inspired by a lot of the posts from a few weeks ago when it was sew for your kids week or something like that.  I got out some of my scraps and knit fabric stash and started putting some outfits together.  I have a T-shirt here or pair of shorts there for him without a matching counterpart so I was able to put those together.  I had fun planning and cutting out the outfits and now it's time to get to work!  (Before he outgrows  what I cut out!)  

Here's my first product.  

The pattern came from this book by Rob Merrett 

that I purchased over a year ago and this is the first thing I've made from it but I think it turned out really cute!  I actually cut out size 3 because even though L* is 2, he's pretty tall for his age.  And it fits perfectly.  If I made it again I would just use elastic in the waist instead of a drawstring.  There were a lot of details and buttons on this so it took awhile to make, plus the instructions were a little hard for me to follow in some parts, but I might make another one because I like how it turned out!

Lifesaver- How to get crayon out from a load of laundry

I know I am very lucky that in the 9+ years of raising boys I have never had a crayon sneak through my wash.  But today broke my lucky streak and it wasn't pretty!  I am really bad about checking pockets for things and evidently a yellow crayon was hidden away somewhere in my piles of sheets and miscellaneous lights.  When I was folding them I thought it was paint splotches (my kids have been working on teacher's gifts) but when I saw the empty crayon wrapper it hit me these were melted crayon spots all over my laundry!!  (Which is probably a good thing that it wasn't paint!)  So I googled it (what did we do before internet?  Probably bugged Mom more often!) and found this great and simple solution at Diary of a Doctor's Wife.  A true lifesaver!  We probably would have just lived with yellow spotted sheets and T-shirts but now we don't have to!  This worked perfectly.  I did have to repeat all steps twice.

Fun ABC Magnets

Awhile ago I saw these adorable magnets over at servingpinklemonade.  I pinned the idea and have had it in my project to-do drawer for many months.  I thought it would be a great thing to whip out while I'm making dinner and my preschooler is begging for attention, not to mention a great learning tool!  So I finally finished them and all of my boys have liked playing with them.  Probably my preschooler least of all, but I'm hoping that will change once I sit down and play with him.  But we'll see...  Part of parenting is figuring out what works with each child since they are all so different!

Anyhow, I had fun coloring them with my colored pencils while watching my favorite TV shows, "Elementary" and "Castle".  But you can also print out a colored version or let your kids have fun coloring them!  Then I modge podged some cut up magnets- you know the kind you get tons of advertisements on in the mail, etc.  And then I laminated them. I think they turned out really cute!