April Brag Book

Here's my April Brag book.  As I created them, I mostly put in pictures of the girls from that same month from 2008.  I used a variety of kits for each page, trying to use a lot of different supplies...sometimes I can get more caught up in accumulating digital supplies and then not taking the time to use them.  Even though they are so re-usable!  Unlike the paper supplies that I tend to hoard...

I recently mentioned my new desire to sew...I WISH I had a machine!  Another thing to save my money for.  Anyway, my mom has a machine, which she got from her parents for her high school graduation!  Boy, has that thing lasted a long time (no, i'm not saying anything about my mom's age).  So, I have seen many ideas surfing the web about re-using adult clothes and converting them to children's clothes.  This is done with a variety of shirts, sweaters, etc, to created shirts, skirts, pants, and so for children.  It's really amazing.  I bought two 2Xlg women's Chrstmas turtlenecks from a thrift store, called The Vintage Rose.  I used a pattern for children' pajamas, and cut them into a girl's nightgown.  On the first one, I kept the shoulder and neck seams, and cut out the arms and side seams.  I sewed the sides narrower and then re-attached the arms after making them smaller.  It turned out HUGE on my almost 4-year-old daughter.  Instead of ripping the seams and doing it all over again, I just adjusted my shoulder seam and it's better now.  Not perfect, still big, a little funny looking, but cute.  The second one, I ripped all seams out and followed the pattern more closely.  This one fits my daughter a lot better and looks better, but was a little more work, because I had to actually sew the neckband and make it fit.  What do you think?

Would you like to win a $100 gift card from DELL?  If I won, I'd choose either an extenal hard drive (all this digital scrapbooking stuff and photoshop stuff really takes up a lot of hard drive) or an MP3 player.  I love my music, and it'd be great to listen while jogging.

Another $500 gift card entry:  the money saving idea that I posted here was one I saw an TV last night.  I get a lot of coupons for things like biscotti, tea, chocolates, candles and such.  I am going to buy some of this stuff, put it into gift baskets and give them as gifts.  I could even put this stuff into a Meijer grocery bag--reusable--for a gift that keeps on giving!