Princess Leia (A New Hope) Costume

Written by Tiana November 2012

I created this costume for May the Fourth 2012. I was able to get really good pictures of the costume worn in the movie from the Padawan's Guide. I also followed this tutorial. I thought about making a costume for May the Fourth about a week before, and by the time I made the pattern and found fabric it was two or three days before May the Fourth. Needless to say I was able to finish it in about two days. The whole costume is not officially completed because I don't have white boots and I still need to make the belt. Hopefully I'll get to make the belt soon and be able to find some white boots.

 

 

 

On May the Fourth we celebrated by making Blue Milk, dressing up, and watching Star Wars. It was indeed a fun day, and I plan on doing it again next year!

Knotted Bow Headbands

Written by Sereina Feb. 7, 2013

Last week I got to visit with Sarah at her house. We made chicken dumpling soup and did some crafting while watching an episode of Downton Abbey. We made these super cute knotted bow headbands that I found on Pinterest. They turned out really cute and I'd like to make a few more, because they're easy to make, comfortable to wear, and I really like the style of them. We both made a second headband, just a bit wider, but don't have any photos of them.

Tiana's January Projects

 Tiana has an online business called Redberry Supply where she sells crafting supplies.  Between her profits there and a mamma's helper job she has she paid for a camera of her own to learn photography with.  Below are a couple of samples of her beginning work.

 Being that I have a few photographers in my home, I notice that they see life through the camera and therefore notice things and view things with the art of a picture in mind.  This is what Tiana saw when we woke up to go somewhere and the car was frosty.

 Lately Tiana has taken to drinking tea, listening to music from the 40's - 50's while she is crocheting, knitting, drawing or whatever.  What a peaceful and creative life she lives.

As a part of her blogging and photography she has been led to learn PhotoShop.  This is a fun project she made for the header of her blog. 

 Tiana has become quite the Tangled fan which has led to lots and lots of drawing.  She has been getting books from the library and practicing her drawing for hours.  Here is some of her latest drawings of Rapunzel.

It is quite normal to see Tiana working on some sort of yard project at any given time.  This is a new pattern she learned online.  She is currently working on crocheting a hat and I noticed she has another knitting project started too just yesterday.  The wheels are always turning in her head.

A few years ago Tiana took up an interest in tap dance and began to teach herself some steps with the help of YouTube.  This summer she began taking tap classes and was able to skip the first several levels because of the work she has done at home.  She has invested in her interest by teaching herself and continues to invest by paying for half of the monthly fee for her tap classes.  She has wanted these shoes for a long time and was finally able to buy them thanks to her job and business.

Sereina's Projects

Something I originally wanted to share when I started this blog was my children's projects.  Initially I thought I would talk all about them or have them talk all about them.  They enjoy blogging about the projects on their  own personal blogs which seemed like a lot of duplicity and life has been busy so, as you can see, I haven't posted much in a long time.  This morning the Lord inspired me to post monthly about each child's activities, just highlighting various projects.  That feels so much freedom to me  to do that since it's still on my heart to feature my children's projects.

Sereina made this gift to give a friend for her birthday.  

She made the salts and decorated the jars.

Sereina was inspired by another blogger to do her first painting.  She chose Paradise Falls from the movie, "Up."  She doesn't consider herself very artistic, but I really think she is.  She had to redo the background  since she felt it turned out too dark the first time, which was a blessing to see as I remember a time when not getting it right the first time would have been really hard for her to accept.  I am really glad for the teaching in Lifestyle of Learning about how to develop character along with their learning activities so they have a truly well rounded education.

The above and below pictures are some of her photography artwork which is her main passion and her new vocation, she started her photography business, Sereina Charise Photography,  in the beginning of January.  The above picture colloage is Koko, one of our Seal Point Siamese cats.  He's quite the character as you might note from the picture.

This picture collage is from our state capitol building.

Sereina and a friend got together to craft and they each made a couple of knotted bow headbands.  this is one of Sereinas.  They found the idea on Pinterest.  I think they look very cute.

These are some of Sereina's projects from the last month or so.

Twirly Circle Skirts

Written by Sereina:

This month I finally made a second circle skirt using some fabric I had bought months ago (you can read about my first skirt below). I had picked up this pretty green floral fabric at Jo-Ann's way back in September. Four months later, and I finally made it.

Since I already had a pattern made from last time, I didn't have to spend my time making it and got to start by cutting pieces out instead.

On my first one, I rushed through the process, since I wanted to get it done and wear it so bad. Because of that, my hem turned out pretty bad looking, so with this one I took my time folding and pinning the hem, making it look nice and neat even before I sewed it.

Here's a picture of the hem on the first skirt. It's pretty bad looking.

And then here is the hem on my second skirt. Much better!

My First Colorful, Super Pretty, Amazingly Twirly Circle Skirt

Written by Sereina on March 19, 2011

This week, I sewed a circle skirt. My very first circle skirt. I was super happy when I found a tutorial for a circle skirt with an elastic waist instead of a zipper, and knew I wanted to make one. Also, we had just gotten the latest Jo-Ann Fabrics add in the mail, which included a 50% off coupon. So my mom took me to Jo-Ann's and I picked up a couple yards of a wonderful and colorful fabric. I made the mistake of not creating the pattern before going fabric shopping, so when I was ready to cut out my pieces, I didn't have enough fabric. I was glad there was another 50% off coupon so I could buy enough fabric for the other half of the skirt, since the fabric was normally $9.99 a yard.

Other than not having enough fabric, the skirt was really simple to make. The hardest part was doing the hem. Some parts of it didn't turn out too well and there was an quite a lot of fabric to hem.

I love how it twirls!

Felt Ornaments

Written By Sereina

Last year I came across a book called Fa la la la Felt just after Christmas, so I've been waiting till this Christmas season to check it out from the library. It's an awesome book filled with simple felt crafts. There are three sections: ornaments, decor, and stockings. So far I've made two ornaments, a bird and a bell and today I started on a candy garland. 

I made both of the ornaments with materials I already had. The felt was left over from other projects and I got the buttons from Tiana (she has tons of them). 

You may recognize the wing fabric as the material I used for my circle skirt.

Tiana's Snood

Written by Tiana:


I crocheted a snood. For those of you who don't know what a 'snood' is, it's just another word for hair net. Snood's were very popular in the 1940's. I crocheted this one today with my own pattern that I made up while I was making it (just about everything I crochet it made that way!). One of my favorite things to do is crochet while listening to either music or an audio book. I was able to make this in just a few hours. I think it turned out pretty good!

Tiana's Projects

The pictures were taken by Tiana and the below was written by Tiana.


Okay, I finally am going to post! I haven't really been posting lately because I have no idea what to post. But the last few days I have been sewing. I'm not a very good sewer, yet. But that's why I'm practicing on stuffed animal clothing and pillows. I have some pictures to share with you all, my two dresses for my cat Build-A-Bear, and my round pillow. I made up my own patterns all three of these, for the pillow I took a pattern from the store and modified it so technically it's my pattern. Okay, now the first dress I made turned out pretty good, but I like the second one best. I put the pictures so the my first project will be at the top and my last one on the bottom.

This is my round pillow I made, it was really simple!

This is the end of the pillow, as you can see it's just tied with ribbon to keep the stuffing inside.

A better look at the end.

This was the first dress I made for my cat, Crissy. This was made from left over fabric from the skirt I made with my mom last summer.

I decided to add a pin just to give the dress a completed look.

Here's the back of the dress, as I said this was my first dress. Since I gathered the skirt it was to short to sew in the back, so I just did the best I could and it turned out pretty good.

This is my second dress I made, it turned out a little better and the style is different. I don't know why but I like strapless dresses.

Here's the back, I was able to sew up the back on this dress. This dress turned out better than my first one.

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Sereina's Embroidery

When Sereina was younger we did a little embroidery with some homeschool friends, but it didn't stick at that time.  Recently Seriena opted to order a book from the library and teach herself some stitches.  This is what she ended up doing to her pillow case.  I thought that was pretty neat.

 Not long after that she found this pattern online and made both the owl and raccoon from felt.  She hand stitched pieces together once she embroidered them.

I thought they turned out very cute.

Tiana's Skirt

Tiana has started showing an interest in sewing this summer.  I started her on some practice squares and then small projects.  She spent several days on the sewing machine making blankets for her stuffed horses, a pillow and a few other small projects. 

 In September she wanted to make a tiered skirt.  This was a project we did together.  Tiana sewed some and I sewed some, showing her things I learned when I was a young girl.

This is the final product.  We got our basic information from this site:

JCaroline Creative

Sereina's Ruffled Camera Strap Cover

I just finished sewing a camera strap cover for our dSLR. I found a tutorial from Kevin and Amanda blog (tutorial here). It was pretty easy to make, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

By
Sereina

Sereina's First Skirt

Today I sewed my first skirt and I love it! Yesterday I bought some really cute fabric from Wal-Mart, that I love! I didn't use a pattern, but I based it off another skirt I have. It's pretty simple: one tier at the top, and one large tire for the bottom. It also has some gathering, which I think looks very nice. The best part? It only cost about $5.00. That makes for one happy girl!

By Sereina