Pajama Pants

I hope you had a fabulous Thankgiving! I know we did here! Just showing you a fast little project i whipped up! I made two pairs of pajama pants back here for the boys and there were about a million things i needed to modify for the pants... especially i to lengthen the top because they hardly stay around my son's cloth diapers! :)

So these are what i came up with. They literally took about 20 minutes each to sew! SO easy! I followed the same steps as the other pajama pants. Then we had a little impromptu photoshoot in the backyard. I love these little sillies! 

Making Animated .gif Header part 2

Whew! Did you catch the first part of making an Animated .gif Header? Make sure to check it out!

Today we will be putting the animated gif into our header. This takes some manipulating the HTML. I learned this through a zillion sources online so i am sorry but i don't have any references. But there is a post to solve almost any problem you have online! Just Google it :)

First off open your blogger to the TEMPLATE setting in your Dashboard. See the "Edit HTML" button. Click this. {then click proceed and ignore the warning... they just don't want you to do cool things :) j/k they just don't want the support headache!}

Click "Ctrl + F" to find something on the page then type in header. You want to find something that says <div=id"header-wrapper>. Below that you will see it says maxwidgets'1'. Change this one to any number above 1... i made mine 10. Next see the "show addelements='no'? Change the 'no' to 'yes'. DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING BUT THE WORDS. Make sure not to erase the '' and the = or anything. This will mess you HTML totally. It's very finicky :)

See? All changed!

Now go to the "Layout" tab in your dashboard. See where your header is? See how you can now add a gadget? Click "Add Gadget" and select HTML/javascript.

Now head over to your hosting site. I use photobucket. You will have to host your animated gif because that i know of blogger won't let you put it on. Upload your picture to your account.

Then go to the picture in your album and select the HTML code by clicking on it {in photobucket}

Now bring that code past and PASTE it into your HTML box. Click SAVE. You will probably also have to delete the information in your original header box. I haven't quite figured out how to delete it entirely yet, and i actually kind of like the extra space. So maybe another day.

Then go to your blog and admire your handiwork! :) {this one was actually put on my family blog...}

**Two small HTML housekeeping things you will want to check for.

First, you will see below the highlighted 900x. Yours probably says something smaller if it's different than mine. You will need to make it 900px for your header to fit {if you made it 900 wide}

Second, if you haven't already, to enable the XL picture format change the px in the two paragraphs below to 910px and 660px

Again, if you have any questions, shoot me an email! ENJOY! Link back if you make one! I'd love to see!

Making an animated .gif header part 1

So one of my blogger friends asked for a tutorial on how to make an animated gif header like the one i have on this blog. I figured since i did it once i should be able to whip up a tutorial of sorts for it. 

As a disclaimer, i am not a computer whiz. I just got photoshop {version C55.1} and I don't know how to do much so far. But i do know how to make animated gifs :) Another disclaimer, animated gifs only publish in 256 colors so it WILL be a little grainy. But i think it's still fun!

Whew! Is that enough disclaimers? Now on to the tutorial. First things first, open photoshop. Select New project. Set you project to 900 pixels width and 400 pixels height (or whatever you choose). Click OK.

Next {i forgot a picture for this step... but it's easy} Go to the window tab at the top and make sure Animation is checked. It opens the small grey box along the bottom of the screen.

Next, in C55.1 open mini bridge from the sidebar. Open the files and the pictures you want. INSTEAD of double clicking, drag the picture over you open project and place. To place up the check mark in the upper corner. {you can still move it, by selecting the layer your picture is in the "layers" bar... so don't fret too much}

When you have finished your first frame, go to the far right of the animation window and scroll up til you see New Frame. Select.

In the New Frame deselect the previous layers by clicking on the eye next to them in the layer toolbar.

Repeat placing pictures like you did on the last frame until you have the frame you like.

Make Another New Frame and place pictures again {do you get the picture? ;)} always remember to deselect the eyes to make the pictures from the previous frames disappear!

Below the frames in your Animation box you will see a "0 sec" this is the amount of time the selected frame will show. I set mine to "5.0" {you can choose any amount you want} Also, make sure it says "Forever" for the looping or else it will go through your animation once, and stop.

Now go to the FILE tab on the top of the screen. Scroll down until you see "Save for Web & Devices". Click.

You will see all the settings. I don't know what they all mean, but i have played around and found that i like the Dither at "75%". It loses a little bit of graininess at that resolution {or whatever Dither is}. Select SAVE.

Type in your title and hit Save! Voile! That was pretty easy, huh?!

I will show you how to upload it to your blog tomorrow! If you have any questions let me know! It was pretty fun to make! I am in love with Photoshop and can see Photos becoming a lot bigger part of my life! :) Thank you again Anonymous friend!

Refashioned Felted Sweater

In our household my husband is in charge of doing laundry... mostly. OKAY. Story. I seem to be unable to do laundry. So as a compromise my husband agreed to do laundry if i do the dishes and most everything else. He helps a ton around the house, but it just made me less stressed to think that i didn't HAVE to do the laundry.

So he has these WOOL sweaters he loves. Last year he washed and dried one, which made him sad so we went out and bought 2 more of these $30 sweaters from TJMAXX. Well, yesterday i found one in the laundry. All. Shrunk. Up. But it was still cute and I thought I could try to make it into a little sweater for Hayden, my oldest.

So, you wanna make a sweater for your little boy too?
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Take your husband's sweater and cut off the arms and band to the right size for your child {i actually measured mine on Hayden himself so i don;t have a pattern. But you can totally easily draw a pattern}

Take you bottom band pieces and RIGHT sides together pin the bands to your sweater. {You should have cut the bands so they only have 1/2 inch or whatever you inseam is left} AND {Fun tip here, if you do use a serger or even if you use a sewing machine, pin your pins parallel to the edge so that you don't catch them. This is imperative for pinning with a serger. It works great and eliminates an extra step}

Trace and exisiting piece of clothing and make the sleeves. I used my son's 4T sweater i love! {also try to go with something a little big. It helps}

Your sleeves all cut out!

Serge/sew your band on.

Pin and sew your sleeves on to your main body. Make you you do RIGHT sides together!

All serged/sewn up!

This step isn't completely necessary but i hate how serges have a tendency to fray so i fray check the ends and then....

I feed the tail back through the serging for a few stitches or so. If you were sewing you would BACKSTITCH but you can't with a serger so this works well and since you don't have hems like you normally would it keep them from loosening up.

Then you are done! Admire you handiwork and wait for you ever adorable son to wake up so you can take pictures! ;)

We Are Thankful Turkey

Every Monday night we have a "Family Night". It's really fun and a good excuse to get together and just sing songs and learn about Jesus and such. For this Family Night we decided to learn about being Thankful and the first Thanksgiving.

After seeing a post on a friend's Facebook i realized immediately that i had to make something more fun. So i ran around the house and scrounged up what i could and whipped up our "Thankful Turkey" and i wanted to show you a basic way of how-to, too!

Grab your supplies: Cardboard box, scissors, Mod Podge, SHARPIE (don't use markers... they bleed... i learned the wrong way!), scrapbook paper.

Cut out a piece of the cardboard and Mod Podge the Paper over the cardboard.

Take a cute picture of your son :)

Mod Podge over the paper once dry to seal it.

I have a silhouette so i used my Silhouette to cut out letters but you can use pre-cuts or hand cut letters or hand write them.

Mod Podge letters to cardboard and scrapbook paper.

Cut out feathers. {Just as easy by hand... but my Silhouette did it for me while i Mod Podged}

Write all the things you are thankful for. Or some of them. To write all of them would take AT LEAST a full wall. These were the first we came up with!

Mod Podge the Feather to the board. Cover with a Turkey you cut out and made. Mine i just winged by hand. No need for the Silhouette! :) Cover with Mod Podge and let sit over night.

Hang on the wall or display in a prominent place. This is in the playroom right now. I think it's a good place to remind the kids to be THANKFUL.

And don't forget to be Thankful this Thanksgiving. We really are pretty darn blessed! Now go make a Turkey of your own!!