Barbie clothes Gift for my Nieces

Growing up I loved all things Barbie. I remember wanting a Barbie house, I had a couple of Barbies and a plastic Barbie suitcase that fit the Barbie and her clothes, with these tiny hangers. I never did get a Barbie dollhouse it was to expensive. My father did buy me a cardboard Strawberry Shortcake doll house for Christmas one year, it didn't last very long. The Barbies could only sit in the rooms of the cardboard house.

I passed along the love of all things Barbie to my daughter, and I have a feeling I might be doing the same thing to my nieces.

My handmade gift to my nieces this year was Barbie clothes. Awhile ago The Crafty Mummy posted a link of a pattern she tested for The Craft Barn. And I'm not one to reinvent the wheel, I do change it most of the time, but if I can avoid it I hardly ever start from scratch to learn something.

I had never sewn Barbie clothes before, and knew because of the small scale there had to be a different construction process to the sewing of Barbie clothes. Tonya gave it a great review so I bought the pattern.

It worked out great, wonderfully written with step by step photographs, no guess work as to what comes next, or how did they get there. Well worth the 4 bucks.

I only did the peasant blouse, the skirt and the pants. I wanted to keep them modest. But the pattern also comes with a Shirred dress and Tube Top pattern.

Thank you all for visiting here. I hope you all have a Happy New Year.

~Sonia Barton

Hand sewn gifts for my nephews...

I have 5 nephews. My brother beto has two boys, my brother roy has two boys and my sister monica has one boy. As many of you know there have been hard financial times around here, just like every where else. So a couple Christmas's ago I decide to start making Handmade gifts for everyone. Works out just fine, I have a fabric and yarn stash that can last me for several decades of Christmas gifts. It doesn't help that I don't stop buying fabric and yarn.

I have come to the conclusion that sewing for boys is hard. Not hard as in the sewing is hard, but hard as in What the heck do I sew for boys. Plus the oldest of the 5 boys is now 10 years old, we actually had a conversation about BO when I went to drop off his gift. So needless to say they are older boys.

I was grateful when I came across this blogpost from noodlehead:

A tutorial on how to make a basic boys wallet, She went all out and added pieces of leather and grommets. Feel free to visit her site and check out the tutorial, it was very well written.

Here are the one's I came up with:

I'll show you what I made for my nieces tomorrow.

New Christmas Wreath

We have had the same Christmas wreath for over 10 years. On the day after Thanksgiving when we pull out all the Christmas ornaments and go buy a tree, I noticed it was missing. I asked my husband what had happened to it. The decorations are stored in the garage, which is his area, so only he would know where it would have gone.

His response: "you mean the ball of wires with green twigs hanging from it?" Yes honey that one. "I thought it was trash I through it away the last time I organized the garage."

Interesting, now I have to make one. So what does one do in this day and age to find inspiration? Well you go to Pinterest of course!

Here's what I found for inspiration, plus I found a tip that you could use foam tubing from a home improvement store instead of having to pay $5 and up for a circle form at the craft store.

This is what I came up with, I'm ok with it, except, I have a feeling I'm going to give this one away, and make another one with a thicker foam circle. The tube I bought was just way to thin.

Or maybe the circle just needs to be smaller. Not sure, but what I am sure of is that this one isn't getting put away with the Christmas stuff until I figure out how to make it pop.

~Sonia Barton

Christmas Morning with 4 animals

The Christmas tree in our house is set up in what in normal houses would be the formal living room, in our house it's my sewing room, I didn't like the idea of brides having to walk through the house, plus it's bigger than any of the other rooms in the house ;)

We always sit in front of it and start passing out gifts. It was very difficult to do that this year, with two new animals in the house. It also didn't help that it was the little one's first Christmas, both less than a year old. Way to much energy. We got through the opening of gifts and then the little one's went to town with the boxes and gift wrap. This kitten and puppy like to eat stuff, I'll be glad when they are done teething.

Then they got to hyper, and the older ones try to tell them to calm down, and they all end up in trouble, there are four bedrooms in this house, they each get sent to one. The Large German Shepherd usually calms down by the simple fact of putting the muzzle on him, it didn't work this time, the little one's were just to crazy.

On our Christmas tree we have an ornament to identify each person/animal in the house, Santana opened his this year, but wanted to keep eating after he took the paper off.

I did a lot of Christmas sewing I've been wanting to show, except some of the gifts haven't been picked up yet. They will be on Friday, so I'll start showing you then.

~ Sonia Barton

I'm Ready...

I've never been ready for Christmas until the 24th. As of 6 PM last night, I'm done. The stockings are stuffed, the gifts are wrapped, Stephanie has all the ingredients to make her cookies. I've sewn all my Christmas gifts for the nieces and nephews, and we are decorated.

We also had an appointment with the Bankruptcy lawyer and she has finished all the papers and we signed them, they should get filed in less than a week.

Stephanie has started her Missionary application, so it looks like she might actually go on a Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

So for this Christmas season I feel a great sense of Peace. It's a strange calming emotional feeling. It looks like we are ending the year on a good note. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Inexpensive Christmas Cards

Christmas Cards were a big deal to me when the children were younger. The family gets all dressed up and you strive for the perfect family picture. I realized long ago there is no such thing with us. So I learned to embrace it. This year the budget has been a bit tight around here, just like the rest of the world. I had to come up with an inexpensive Christmas card this year.

It took me a while but it finally came to me. Every year in Feb we go to the Date Festival here in Indio, and we take pictures in the Photobooth. So I decided that was going to be our family picture, lucky for me there is only one child left at home, or believe me I would have crammed them all in there! I remembered there was a Photobooth at the Palm Desert Mail, so off we went for our $3.00 photo shoot, this is what we came up with:

I then scanned it, and I had to get it scanned at Staples for .54 cents because my scanner wasn't cooperating. I didn't like the yellowish going on, the picture doesn't look like that, and since I couldn't be the one to scan it and redo the settings this is what I had to work with.

So I turned it Black and White, and pulled it together in Photoshop:

I then turned it into a .jpeg and went back to Staples and had them print 20 of them. Because they are black and white images it was only $4.00, to have them printed on Card Stock.

So for $7.54 I got 40 cards, that are now in the mail, and it's not even the 25 yet! I'm on a roll this year getting stuff done before the day of. 

Stephanie Black & White Photo shoot

The second to the last assignment in my Black and White Photography class what Portraits. I have come to the conclusion that I don't like them. I took four rolls of film and finally got some pictures I liked. It was difficult to capture this child's personality. Here are a few of my favorites:

That's my hippie child, I have no clue where she got it from!

Wood Chests and Trains

My husband has been hard at work. He likes to give himself challenges. Here is a wood chest that he was working on:

And this is what I found in his Den two weeks later:

I guess the little one wasn't big enough. I've been listing on Whoopdwhoop some of the trains he feels aren't quite perfect, I don't think there is anything wrong with them. Some one that had purchased a large train asked for a small one, and this is what he came up with:

And this is what I found in his Den a week later:

Needless to say my husband is an Extremist. The little trains are gone, but the set of 3 is currently listed in his Etsy shop: RandysWoodShop

My Daughter's Tea Party

For being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we are a little obsessed with tea and the whole idea of Tea Party's. I like going out to my mother's patch of dirt were she grows stuff (you might confuse it for a garden but it isn't, it's more of a natural growing spot) and plucking some lemon grass to make a natural lemon tea. I also seem to have acquired a large amount of tea pots and tea settings. My husband brought some back from Thailand and Hong Kong during his Navy travels.

My Daughter has followed in our slight obsession of tea. She finds natural tea's that don't have caffeine and are not overly processed. Yes, there is all kinds of rationalization going on.

But a Tea Party is so fun with all the people:

And all the Food:

Wordless Wednesday...Snowman Cookies

My daughters Snowman cookies came out perfect this year:

You can see last years very melted snowman here.

4 yr old Photographer

My little sister has got her work cut out for her. She has two very strong willed and intelligent kids. I love the fact that they are able to come over and visit when she is next door taking care of mom.

This kid is a character (sorry don't remember who I stole the pic from, let me know and I'll link it):

He has been picking up my camera since he was able to walk. Some of his pics turn out really good:

In other pictures it's just interesting to see the view point of a 4 year old:

Little sis Lexi

My daughters behind.

My husband and his always interesting facial expressions.

A very good composition, I think.

And like I said these kids are intelligent. The memory card ran out of space, so he walks up to me and says "Tia, it's down to 0, I can't take anymore pictures, how do I fix that." I'm sure I could have shown the kid how to make some room, but I can just see me screaming my head off in a future date saying "Who deleted my pictures I hadn't downloaded them yet." So needless to say we have shown him the sequence of buttons that deletes pictures - and I'm really glad it is a sequence because he clearly recognized the trash can icon!

Wordless Wednesday...Whitewater sand storm

Our Photography class went on a field trip to White Water Preserve in Southern CA. It was a very cold windy day. I was photographing with the Black and White Film camera and my daughter was photographing with the Digital. This is me, in a Sand Storm:

Trying to get these pictures:

I'm not sure I have it in me to be a Landscape Photographer.

Free Digital Scrapbook kit

I love Free stuff. I seem to be acquiring plenty of Digital Scrapbook kits. The one below is courtesy of  MyMemories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software, but you don't have to own the software to use the Free templates below. They are in .png and .jpg format you can use them in any software that you might own.

They have started a program were they will be sending me new kits every 14 days, so that I may share them with you. The kit below will be available for 14 days and will then be replaced with a different kit, so go grab it now if you like this one.

If you would like to see what the MyMemories Suite software can do feel free to click on the link on the side bar, and if you order don't forget to use the Code for $10 off.

I can wait to get pictures to put in these new templates! I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Feel free to post a link in the comments showing us what you have done with the Scrapbooking kit.

Scanning Film Negatives

I have shot rolls up on rolls of Black and White film for class. I love pictures, and for some reason feel that every picture deserves a chance to be printed and shown, but at $1.00 or so for each sheet of paper and the fact that I ruin 2 or 3 sheets to get a good printed picture plus the fact that it takes me at least 30 to 40 minutes of working with the image to get it right, I didn't see how each of my pictures were going to make it out to the light.

Until I saw one of the 2nd semester students scanning his negatives, at least that is what it looked like he was doing, and sure enough when I asked him what he was doing, he said "duh, scanning my negatives" gotta love those 19 and 20 year olds. And then I asked him a question that I knew was going to get me a stare down, but I was ready for it. 'How do you scan negatives?'

Sure enough he looked at me funny the whole time he was attempting to show me how to scan negatives. I'm very competent with computers so his words didn't need to make sense, and believe me they didn't. I was able to see what he was doing and come to my own conclusions.

First you need a special scanner or a scanner that has the ability to change, the one in the classroom is a scanner that adapts for scanning negatives.

The scanner comes with a special tray to place your negative strips on.

Then you use the scanning software (or Photoshop) the same way that you would scan any other item. EXCEPT because the image is so small you need to scan at a really really high DPI if you want to end up with a picture large than 1 inch wide. My 19 year old tutor neglected to mention that. To be honest I don't think he knew why he was doing things he just knew the steps someone else showed him.

I have come to the conclusion that a dpi of 4800 will get you a good 8 x 10 printed resolution. This was learned by trial and error so if someone has a text book answer for this please let me know. I couldn't find the information any where. Needless to say it takes for ever to scan at that dpi but I'm not wasting paper and money! It will be worth the invested time, all of my pictures might just end up seeing the light.

I love these that I snapped when I was trying to get my Action assignment done:

A Teacher's Quote to live by...

I came a cross a quote on a blog a while back that can apply to our every day lives not just those of Teachers.

"I have come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crises will be escalated or deescalated and a child humanized or dehumanized."

~Haim Ginott

I'm not entirely sure who the author of that quote is, but it make for the best of life motto's.

Modest Eve Pattern Giveaway Winner

I'm so glad to announce that my two biggest supporters are the winners of my Pattern Giveaway:

Becca became my Facebook Fan number 100:

And CK was the only other person to comment on the post, so I didn't do a Random.org, Let me know if this isn't Ok with you Becca ;)


Ladies let me know which pattern you would like from my Etsy shop send me an email to soniabartondesigns at yahoo dot com.

Thank you ladies for all your support!!

Wordless Wednesday...Alberto Giacometti

I have a 3 page report and a 5 minute presentation due Tonight on Alberto Giacometti, Am I ready? Nope!