It's raining cat and dog :D

Time for a puppet show!  Here are a couple of hand puppets I finished this week - Portland Puppy and Zoomer Kitty :)  The tutorial and patterns are from Larissa @ just another day in paradise - available here :)   She didn't provide JUST a cat and a dog - NO!  She provided an entire Old MacDonald series, including a horse, a cow, a cat, a duck, a chick, a dog, a lamb, a pig, and Old MacDonald himself - lots of fun!  I'm planning on making the entire series, but for now, I just wanted a couple of critters to send out for a little gifty :)  Thank you Larissa, for sharing this awesome project!

Cat and dog hand puppets - tutorial here :)

A couple of last finishes to post for March --- a tic tac toe zipper bag, which turned out very pretty, so is now residing in my gift box :)  Note the (faux) Mother of Pearl zipper pull I added for fun - I got several of these at Joanns in Florida a couple of years ago - it isn't a flimsy little bobble - it's a nice substantial (for it's size) piece - I'm quite glad I grabbed it :) 

Last up (oddly, Blogger won't let me left justify this paragraph - odd!) - a boxy bag to use up some fabric from a long-ago Joanns purchase - I had just enough to make 2 boxy bags once I added the black/white gingham (also from Joanns) zipper edge :D  The quilting runs in the same direction as the zipper - that was a brain fart on my part, because orienting the quilting in the other direction gives the bag better shape-keeping capabilities, lol.  Hopefully I'll remember to orient properly when I make the second bag :D

Happy birthday Allie -  I hope your day is filled with fun, family and cake ;)

I had a whale of a time ...

... and I should get kicked in the hiney for that pun, lol.   A while ago I pinned a whale stuffy, and recently decided that it looked more like a zipper bag than a stuffy, so I opened up the novelty pouch factory and made a new-to-me - this is what I ended up with :D


Eye close-up - layered buttons :)  This adorable girl - I call her Hermione - went right into my gift box for Christmas, and she shall eventually have some brothers and sisters :D  Not only is she new to me and a Christmas gift, she counts as another 52 in 16 zipper bag design - she's a THREEFER :D

Here's another Christmas present done and dusted - I had a little scrap of the car fabric so I pieced on some more scrap fabric, and added a really REALLY cool tab pull on it :)   This too went into my Christmas gift box because it's VERY adorable (IIDSSM) :)

Close-up of the tab pull :)

Another close-up of the car :D

I made a bunch of finger puppets for Easter for the kids in the family.  I posted some of them here, and here are the rest I finished up.  No dent was made in felt or feather or pompom stash ;)

And a last new-to-me finish - I've made humbug/triangle bags before but a friend recently sent me a link to a tutorial for making them with no raw edges.  I gave it a try, and it worked perfectly, so I whipped these up for the little girls next door :)

Here are the zipper pulls
I made for the pouches :)










This post will be linked to Ho Ho Ho and On We Sew (car and whale bags), and New to Me (whale pouch, and new-to-me no raw edges finish), for the March linky parties :)

DS1 found the "Easter eggs" I left him :)

DS1 just emailed me about what I left on his laptop, HAHAHA!  Here's what I did:

Part 1 -  some fun homepage links - http://suddenlysandra.blogspot.ca/2016/03/more-dolphins-plus-rude-mom-behaviour-d.html
Part 2 - the desktop picture - http://suddenlysandra.blogspot.ca/2016/03/rude-mom-part-deux-d.html

He must not have noticed the desktop photo - I just got this email from him.  LOL me?  Creepy?  Not creepy - 12 year old boy-iffic!!  I do love it when a plan comes together :D

"So I just opened the laptop. You have some rather disturbing tabs there. "Fetish sex goldfish bacon", "reverse mortgage - aka how to screw your children", "swinging for old people and "singers conventions?  I sure do hope that was meant to be seen because if not, holy *censored* creepy."

It's these kind of things that make motherhood worthwhile :)

The good, the bad, and the bent :)

The bent:  when your sewing day starts like this, you know things are going to  get grim, lol.  Just kidding - this happened a few days ago and I kept the pin as a reminder to remove them before stitching over them - I don't always do that, and this is the result :D

The bad:  here's a new to me bag (#7 in my 52 in 16 evil plot) - it looks fine in the pictures, but it's not how the bag was meant to turn out.  I decided I didn't need to read the directions in full, and cut the boxes double the size they were supposed to be. The bag should be larger and flat - mine still looks OK (although - the handles don't look good with the size I ended up with) and is completely useable - it's just not what I wanted.

Here's what the straps look like - they actually look cute in this picture but they're just not right. Pay attention next time, Sandra, lol!  I link to the tutorial in the paragraph above this one - it's a free pattern from Craftsy.com, but you do need to have a (free) membership :)  NAYY!

The good:  on to a new-to-me project that DID work out - quite well, in fact!  I've had this pinned for a long time and got to it yesterday.  It's going in my gift box :D  YAY #8 of 52 in 16 :D

The good, part deux:  here are some finger puppets I finished this month- they were free patterns.  The bumblebee and elephant were from goodcritters.com (but they came as part of a newsletter so I don't know if they're still available) and the bunny is here :)  The bunnies are going to houses with very young kids so they didn't get pompom tails, but I have more cut out and they'll be tailed ;)

The good, part three:  one last photo before I run upstairs to get supper started - I made the rocket zippy in this photo, last month.  This month I made the drawstring bag to use as the gift wrap for the gift, which will be the rocket zippy with $$ inside, and some rocket finger puppets :D  The applique is from fourwisemonkeys.blogspot.com but it looks like the site is now private.  I must have printed the pattern before they privatized :)

Will post the mis-sized boxy and the monster zippy to New to Me for March, when it goes live :D

Rude mom - part deux :D

Further to my chicanery from earlier today, I thought of something new and devious :D I grabbed this picture ... and tiled it as the desktop picture on his computer :)  Hope he likes it, LOL!!!  Only scroll down if you have the mind of a 12 year old boy - like mine!  ;)  (I wonder who will look - and who will not?!  :)

Love ya, DS1! :)

More dolphins ... plus rude mom behaviour :D

Rude mom - THEN dolphins ;)  DS1 recently asked if he could borrow his old dinosaur laptop (he left it here when he moved out, so I was using it as a back-up in the craft room) - I cleared my crafty stuff out of it so his friends don't accidentally stumble upon my Pinterest or zipper bag addictions, and added a few Easter Eggs for them to find ;)   I changed the homepage of the browser to show the following websites whenever the browser is accessed (don't read this list if you're easily offended!!):

Reverse mortgages - how to screw your kids over :)
Swinging - how to do IT
Swingers conventions
Fetish sex goldfish bacon

I left some of my regular links - the local newspaper, Buzzfeed etc., but made sure that the freaky searches were front and center so they'd be the first thing to show up, LOL!  It's my job as a MOM to keep him on his toes!  ;)

And now - back to our regular dolphin programming :)  Here are the other zipper bags I made to use up those dolphin zipper pulls :D

Dolphin zippy #6 - front

Dolphin zippy #6 - back - a tic tac toe game :D

Dolphin zippy #7 - front :)

Dolphin zippy #7 - back :)

Dolphin zippy #8 :)

Dolphin zippy #8 - back :)

Dolphin zippy #9 - this was the first one I did - when I made it, I didn't think to embellish the back - I started doing that with later bags, lol.  Poor #9!

Dolphin zippy #10 - front :)

Dolphin zippy #10 - back :)

WHEW!  Enough with the dolphins - those ones are going to Blue Hills, along with the following batch.  I found 4 faux wood goldfish zipper pulls in stash, and had just enough fabric to eke out four bags, using blue linen for the back, and this print for the front:

Goldfish zippies :)

Close-up of the cute goldfish zipper pull :D

Next up will be some very.simple finger puppets I made in the last few days - I have to hunt down all the links so I'll have a record of where they came from - you never know when you'll need to revisit a finger puppet link!  Think ... bumblebees and elephants and bunnies OH MY!  :)

Dolphins and construction vehicles - finishes to report :D

 Here's a set of drawstring bags (about 9.5" x 12") I whipped up using a valance (or table topper?) I picked up at the thrift store a month or two ago.   They're all lined with a light blue fabric that I got on clearance ages ago - the construction fabric is all used up now - it was a good investment for two bucks!

Last month I decided to start using up some of the ebay craft supplies I've bought over the years.   My first pick was a set of 10 rather ugly dolphin pulls (they looked nicer in the auction, than they did when they arrived, lol).    I decided to make zipper bags (surprise!) using denim jean scraps, zippers from my extremely large zipper supply, and assorted batiks and scraps for the linings.  I think operation Use Up Ugly Dolphins was a success ;)

Dolphin zippy #1 - front

Dolphin zippy #1 - back 

Dolphin zippy #2 - front

Dolphin zippy #2 - back

Dolphin zippy #3 - front

Dolphin zippy #3 - back

Dolphin zippy #4 - front

Dolphin zippy #4 - back

Dolphin zippy #5 - front

Dolphin zippy #5 - back

That's it for now - I need to go put a ham in the oven to get it ready for supper, LOL.