Blogger Love

So a few Mamas have jumped on board with the free advertising for eachother and I wanted to take a sec to point them out. All their buttons are in my sidebar. If you get a second feel free to head on over and check out these lovely ladies and some of my favorite reads.




















 

So Cruz has acquired a new skill. Well two new skills technically. Thievery and concealment. He has taken to finding things a hiding them. Behind dressers, between the mattress and the boxspring, in drawers and under clothes. Its really more of an art actually. He is yet to hide something in the same place twice. And as impressive as it may sound, it is quite menacing. His latest victim? My camera battery. It was innocently charging in its holder on the wall and the next thing I knew it was missing. Its definitely somewhere in my room because there was about a 2 minute span between the time I plugged it in and I realized it was missing. So I am on the hunt. Until then, forgive the grainy iPhone photos.

Todays Mama Made It: 

Braided necklace/bracelet

This fabric was given to me by a friend. So cute right?

                                        

You will need:

scissors

measuring tape/ruler

pen

fabric

I started by making three 1 inch strips. I just went the whole length of the fabric so essentially the strips would end up being 1in wide by 36in long.

Fold each strip in half lengthwise at the top and pinch all three together at one end.

Tie that end in a knot (nothing has to be perfect, braids are SUPER forgiving on mistakes)

I like to hold one end in between my knees while I am braiding because, well, I've only got two hands and I need both of them for braiding.

Braid the fabric all the way to the end. Dont worry about keeping the fabric folded perfectly in half. It will pretty much just stay that way by itself as you braid. When you are done it should look something like this:

Tie off the other end. Instead of messing with a fancy closure, I just poked one end through the braid to keep it closed. Works really good, super quick and simple and you cant see it because it will be at the back of your neck.

And voila! A super simple, quick bracelet. It took me about a total of 7 minutes to make. What do you think?

Do you have something great that you would like to share with other mamas (you dont have to be a mom, obviously)? Shoot me an email, I love to hear from you and meet other crafty ladies!

Beauty?

I found some interesting photos the other day when I was looking for Photoshop actions. These are, obviously, pictures of celebrities before and after Photoshop.

I always knew that celebrity photographs where highly edited, but I was a little stunned to see the extent of it.

I was a actually angry when I saw the before and after of Kourtney Kardashian right after having her son. As if you aren't vulnerable enough about your body image after having a baby, but then to be slapped with a picture like that...so completely unrealistic. She went from a plus size/obviously still had a baby belly to a svelte, thin little figure. They cut like an entire half off of her front. Its disappointing that "stars" cant be comfortable enough in their own skin to just rock their own, real bodies. Its sort of a disgrace to us as a culture.

I dont even really know what to say about this one. Madonna is getting so old. Its sad, actually to see how "average" she looks without all that crazy, over the top editing.

What do you think, is it time for Madonna to hang up the leotards? Is it ok that we are constantly fed these unattainable and unrealistic images of beauty? What is beauty if the things that we aim for aren't even real?

Thanks to Blogger deleting my posts, you get a grainy, half edition of the original Fridays Finds for today. Poor Cruz has come down with a cold and napping is surely not happening, so this is a just a quick upload.

This is my dream Easter Basket for Cruz. Obviously not gonna happen seeing as I haven't magically come into any money, but its good to dream!

Leggings

 Shoes

Hat

Toy sewing machine

Stuffed bunny

Nesting Dolls- unknown source

Alphabet

I have a lot of pet peeves. But one of my biggest pet peeves is when blogger deletes my scheduled posts. SOO frustrating. And I didnt even realize it until this morning. So sorry for the lack of post yesterday.

Guess what? Cruz was featured on The Baby Blackbird blog yesterday for their mini streetstyle. It was cute to see pictures of him on a blog that wasnt mine. Go check him out!



Also, I decided I want to put up the alphabet around Cruz's play area so I did some searching for letters that I liked.

These ones I LOVED:

Super cute, but their French, meaning some of the letters dont match with the pictures in English, so I feel like that might be confusing.

I also found these ones, but they arent a full set:

Their in English, which is a plus, but I dont love them quite as much.

Hmmmm.... I'll let you know how the project turns out.

And thank you all so much for your support around Cruz and his development. Your reassurance and advice is more appreciated then you could know.

I am soooo excited to welcome Morgan as our first guest post for Mama Made It. Enjoy her refashion and please check out her awesome blog!

Hi everyone! I'm Morgan a wife and mom of four little ones. I also have a little blog called Mama Loves Papa. Thanks so much to Cassie for asking me to share a refashion tutorial on her cute blog for Mama Made It. I'm a huge fan of vintage clothing and I love to go to thrift stores and yard sales in search of amazing vintage. Unfortunately, mint condition floral fifties dresses are hard to come by. Unflattering, awkward vintage is a dime a dozen (or one for two dollars, but you know what I mean) and with a little bit of refashioning you can turn something you would never wear into a staple in your wardrobe.

(Please excuse the dark and grainy photos of the process. I do all my sewing at night after my kids are in bed which doesn't make for the best photos.) 

See my weird face? I started with this several sizes too big and poofy sleeved blouse. I loved the tie at the neck and the fabric, though, so I bought it.


The first thing I did was try it on to see about how long I wanted the sleeves. I then added two inches for the hem and cut there. For this blouse I measured them 17 inches from the cuff. Make sure you measure it from the bottom, not the top because the top of the sleeve should be longer to go over your shoulder.

It looks like this after cutting. (All of the sewing and measuring was done with the blouse turned inside out.)
    

Then I hemmed the sides. I tried it on and pinned it to mark how I wanted it to fit. Then, I took it off and measured the pins to make sure they were even. I then sewed up the sides and tried it on to make sure it fit before cutting the fabric.
Now it's time to hem the sleeves. I did a rolled hem where I measured it an inch, pinned and sewed it, then measured an inch and pinned and sewed again. I then turned it right side out, tried it on, and there you have it. I hope you give it a try!

Loving It.

Loving Instagram: