Jean Quilts - New and Improved!

I have been saving old jeans for over 10 years now in hopes to make a jean quilt, well I finally did it! But not for myself, I made 3 full size quilts for Christmas gifts last year and 1 small lap quilt for my 3 year old son.

Something about old, used jeans made into quilts makes me think... Cabin. Antique. Old Fashioned. Most of all, Outdated. So I wanted to give it a fresh spin. I know I'm not the first person to make jean quilts into rag quilts, but I haven't yet found anyone who has done them using a quilt block pattern like I did. Have a look...

This one is a Log Cabin block with contrasting top and bottom borders. Two of them have a soft fleece backing.  I really like the look of the frayed jeans on the outside edges! What do you think?

The other two are camoflauge sweatshirt fleece which is super soft on the inside,(which happens to be in the middle of the quilt so you can't feel it), and kinda canvas like texture on the shown side. Oh well. It looks good right?

This one is just a diagonal pattern, not a quilt block experiment... :-) With Fleece also.

I did try something different, though I'm not sure it worked out very well. I put squares with handles on them from men's jeans. You know the loop on the side of Men's carpenter jeans, I was hoping they would make carrying handles for folding the blanket and carrying it places.

The handles work great for folding it, but these suckers are HEAVY, so not great for carrying this bad boy! Oh well, gave it a shot...


And here is my first completed Jean Quilt I made for Ethan. It is very small. I was getting the hang of sewing the jeans and experimented with using seams and lining them up to make lines and visual interest.  You could say this mini quilt was my "test block" for the other quilts.  Oh, and my first time using bias seam binding...so ignore those imperfections!! :-)

Using the Seams on blocks was a big mistake! Way too difficult to sew through, especially in a rag quilt!

But Ethan's handles work perfectly on his tiny quilt and he loves carrying it around! Ahhh, what a nice compliment it is when my children enjoy using something I made for them.


Here's a few close ups of my homemade binding... Jeans. I actually didn't bind it the traditional way since it is a rag quilt.  I just cut strips of jeans, sewed them together, and sewed them along the back edge of the blanket. No folding over or anything! Easy! And looks great too!

Lastly, I didn't know ANYTHING about quilting when I started these projects, so I used my VERY SOPHISTICATED quilt drawing program "Paint"...lol. Here's how I planned out my patterns for the Log Cabin and I think the other one is a variation of the Log Cabin called Courthouse Steps.

I'm trying some more linky parties!

Transformation Thursdays @ The Shabby Chic Cottage

For the Kids

Okay, you know the Backyardigans right? No? Well they are great! So cute and creative, it's by far the most imaginative show my kids watch. It's on Nick Jr. You should check it out if you haven't seen it before.

Here's a block puzzle even my kids can figure out.

The whole gang.

Tyrone the Moose

Tausha the Hippo

Pablo the Penguin

Uniqua the... Ant (i think)

Austin the Kangaroo

I found the images online somewhere of just the characters, but I didn't want them on plain white backgrounds so I used PhotoShop to create cute patterned backgrounds. It also helps to figure out the puzzle because they can look for the color on the blocks as well as the characters.
I didn't do the background on the group shot, it was like that already.

These are really fun to make, Someday when I have a house... and a coffee table in my living room, I'm going to make one out of our family photos to sit on the table for guests to play with.
(We live at my mother's house, for those of you who don't know me.)

I love PhotoShop. And I really love the fact that I can use it to make crafts too!

Here is a cute website where they PhotoShop several pictures into a collage for each side of the puzzle. Someday, mine will probably be similar. Next I need to make a tray to hold the puzzle pieces.

If you are arriving here from the linky parties, check out my first block puzzle by clicking on the picture.

Hooray for Naked Day!

Today was Naked Day at our house...

Although I did joke that I was getting kinda cold, it was actually only Ethan who ran around Naked all day. When my husband called during the day and commented that I sounded unusually happy, I told him it was Naked Day- which means we all run around naked... and of course he told me to take lots of pictures... Dirty Man! :-)

Well, we have been trying to POTTY TRAIN Ethan For...um....EVER! On Monday my friend Carolyn suggested that we try a Naked Day, and it TOTALLY WORKED!! Sweet Success! All day we only had 1 accident. Which is amazing for Ethan considering all the days we have tried "Potty Training In A Day" which basically means he wears only underwear all day and I sit him on the seat like every 30 minutes. On those days we have Nothing BUT accidents. In fact on those days he usually doesn't even use the potty ONCE, just the couch, floor, kitchen chairs... you got it.

Well today there was ONE accident, the first one, and then... NO MORE!!!! Can you tell how excited I am about this?? I did hit a point during all this that was too funny not to giggle out loud about when he started running into the bathroom to go, Seriously, every 45 seconds after finishing the hand-washing, putting a sticker on the chart routine. Think maybe he just really wanted those stickers?? Which, mind you, he only got if there was some actual byproducts in the potty. Wow, now I'm getting a little too detailed I think.

Well, I did as my husband instructed and took a few pictures... don't worry I tried to clean them up as much as I could...

Although I will say this, even though he's only 3 there were several occasions that my daughter and I felt kinda awkward... I mean it's a BOY... running around NAKED. Eeeeewwwww!! :-)

My latest Project...

Block Puzzles.

So Easy! Especially if you know how to use a miter saw, or have a very handy guy around like I do. :-)

I really wanted to do a Dr. Seuss puzzle, and our favorite book is The Cat in the Hat, but I did not realize until halfway through that ALL of the pictures in the book are Red, White, and Blue. Ooops. It's kinda tricky, and when I say kinda... I mean embarrassingly so. Guess this won't be for my kids after all...



6 sides on a cube, so 6 different pictures. Don't worry, I had old copies of several Dr. Seuss books that were falling apart, and I had two of, so I used those for the puzzles.
Some friends and I had a Craft Day, and they made puzzles with some pictures from the other Dr. Seuss books (and theirs weren't only red, white and blue). Really Cute!

This is my first time participating in a crafty linky party! Woo Hoo!

Cake Favor Boxes

These are the cake box party favors I made for a baby shower over a year ago, I'm just now getting around to posting pictures of it.
Oh well.


It's funny how you look back and remember how proud you were when you made it, but now you look at it and aren't so impressed. I definitely think I could do something a lot cuter now.


I made the bottom layer with the windows on the top of the box to see inside. Then we filled them with curly shredded paper and candy.

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee...

Won't my Mommy...be so proud of me. :-) My kids are really into this song right now, so I thought it might be fun to make some accessories for while we sing it. And yeah I know we could just do the hand motions, which are pretty much the same as what I made, but then I wouldn't have had an excuse to use my CRICUT!!

OKAY- Get ready to sing with me!!

I'm Bringing home a baby Bumblebee.
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me,
I'm Bringing home a baby Bumblebee...

OUCH! It Stung Me!!
I'm Smashing up my baby Bumblebee!
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me,
I'm Smashing up my baby Bumblebee!

EEEWWW! It's Messy!
I'm Wiping off my baby Bumblebee.
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me,
I'm Wiping off my baby Bumblebee.
Yay! I'm all Clean!

I was originally gonna use magnets to stick everything together, and it would have worked, except the lamination was a lot thicker than my magnets could hold. So...Velcro. It works great anyway.

Um,... yeah those are actually tire tread marks from the Camp Out Cartridge, it was the best I could do for smeared bumblebee. :-)

I LOVE Cardboard Crafts

Ethan got this road set for Easter. It was kind of a test run making it out of cardboard because my original idea was to make it on plastic canvas and have all kinds of accessories. I figured I should make sure my kid was gonna even play with something like that before spending HOURS stitching it up!



I originally made 16 tiles out of lightweight cardboard, but one got severely warped during the sealing (mod-podge) stage so we ended up with a set of 15.

They are all reversible so there are a TON of ways to combine them into new road maps!



I made this little parking lot for a future store to go next to. On the reverse of the parking lot pieces are straight and corner pieces so you don't have to use them if you don't want.



Yes, I realize that there are not all 15 in these pictures...did you notice? Well we have lost a few, since it was Easter he got these, and one didn't look too nice in pictures...all bent up cuz the kids step on them *cringe*. Oh well, they are just kids. And what's the point of making toys if you can't stand to watch them get loved -(ruined)! Lol!

And the credits: A huge Thanks to my dad for making the road patterns on AutoCad, because I am definitely not smart enough to figure out how to make each road line up on every side with perfectly rounded corners and even space in between!! :-)

P.S. A few that we designed wouldn't work for this small scale, so there were more kinds of tiles in the original plans.