thesellers.net

Really, I do! And I enjoy it. A lot. :) To save on extra expenses, I've made an effort lately to make handmade gifts with the fabric I have on hand.

This reversible pinafore was a baby gift for Tom and Amy. They are expecting a girl in October. I didn't see the invitation until the day before the shower. It was a Project Runway kind of sewing night on this one. Start: 8:00 PM. 4 hours to complete. Make it work, Jen. I was on a roll until the darn elastic, which meant I didn't actually finish until the next morning.

The top is completely reversible and criss-crosses in the back. Once the weather turns cooler, the top can also be worn paired with a long sleeve shirt and jeans to get more wear out of it.

I made my friend, Jen, a laptop sleeve for her birthday. When I made one for myself she really liked it, but that was back in January. So, I was making a huge assumption that she still had the same laptop. But she loved it saying it was "another birthday gift o' handmade awesomeness!" If you notice, I tried to be extra crafty on hers and match the fabric pattern. It was my first time trying that. Jen made me laugh when she said, "I can't even do that with wrapping paper!"

All three girls had a blast playing together. Who needs swords when you've got shakers.

G'Mom and Grampa found this little swing and set it up on their sun porch. Of course, they all constantly wanted to swing.

Everyone loves a good book.

We visited the children's hospital in Memphis, where Grampa works.

And then headed to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. It was the fastest march of ducks ever! One minute the elevator door opened and 15 seconds later the duck were in the pool! The other girls eventually tired of the ducks, but Molly couldn't get enough.

The girls had lots of fun with balloons, and Leah was determined that she could blow up this one.

Cookie baking with G'mom. A little on the sheet, a little in the mouth...

And just to prove that we were all indeed there.

Both Molly and (especially) Leah like to watch Bubble Guppies on Nick Jr. When we started talking about flying to see G'mom and Grampa in Memphis the "Gup, Gup and Away" episode became an instant hit. We sang, "Yeah, we're gonna fly. Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly. fly" many, many times during our traveling. Molly was super excited when she was given her own set of Delta wings!

Michelle, Jeremy and Emmie drove up from Birmingham to visit too. We took the girls to the Children's Museum of Memphis, which was packed with fun activities. Here's Leah doing some indoor fishing on the Mississippi River.

The fishing pole was a bit hard to handle, so switching to a net which was much easier for Emmie.

Molly is ready to fight some fires.

Molly's absolute favorite part was launching paper airplanes. She got very good at shooting them and even managed to get it in the target a good bit of the time.

Leah gave us a puppet show.

The museum also had a couple green screens for the kids to have fun with. Who knows where they saw themselves on the monitor, but Chad had some editing fun.

More to come tomorrow...

These chocolate peanut butter cupcakes were for our Bible study. There is a debate in our house as to whether the peanut butter cream cheese icing plus the surprise peanut butter inside was ENOUGH peanut butter! And as a side note, chilled peanut butter cream cheese icing tastes extra yummy!

Leah's friend, Rachel, turned 2. So, I made her a Lucy jumper for her birthday. She can wear it now, and layer it with a shirt when the weather becomes cooler.

I just can't resist making these whale jon jons for baby boys. This one is for Camp, our friends Gabe and Helen's little boy.

Molly's been going to swimming lessons this week at the pool by our house. While she loves playing in the shallow kiddie pool, she is not a fan of the deep pool or of getting her head wet. So, we enrolled her in swim lessons to help with this.

The pool offers individual lessons that are 10 minutes long, 4 days a week for 2 weeks. Molly was excited about the lessons, but still scared of getting her head wet. 3 days in, the head of the lessons said our goal was to get Molly to put her head under the water by the end of the 2 weeks. To our surprise, she did it the very next day, still within the first week.

When not dunking her entire head, she spends some time putting part of her face under the water so she can blow bubbles. Here she is doing so while being pulled around the pool on a kickboard. Considering she wouldn't put her face in the water to blow bubbles while sitting on the steps the first day, this is definitely progress.

She's not to the point of doing anything with her arms (other than holding her instructor or a kickboard), but she is learning proper kicking form.

I'm not sure why she likes licking her chin while swimming, but I'm happy she's enjoying herself. She never seemed to have fun in the big pool before as she always seemed so scared. I think her instructor, Miss Keira, helped a lot with this by making Molly feel very comfortable.

We may not be ready for swim team yet, but she's made great strides in a short time. I'm just happy she's having fun swimming now.

When I asked Riley's mom what the birthday girl would like, the answer was, "Anything homemade by the very talented Jen Sellers would be very welcome and appreciated." Looks like Molly's friends are loving the dresses made by her Mommy!

I love the square neck, the ruffle sleeves, and the pleats in the front and back. I bought the pattern after seeing it on Mandy's blog. She's the cousin of my friend, Emily.

I also made a dress for one of Molly's preschool friends, Maisie. All these dresses means that I am getting to try out a lot of different patterns.

With this dress, I put my first zipper in a garment, and if you look hard you can see side pockets!

A couple months ago, my Aunt Jan asked if she could make the girls something because she had an itch to do some sewing for some little girls. When a package arrived in the mail, I opened it and responded, "Oh, I forgot she was making the girls something!" It was a fun surprise!

The dresses definitely passed the playability test.

Leah is now the fifth little girl to wear this dress. G'mom made it for Aunt 'Chelle over 30 years ago. Here is Molly wearing it.