Out Takes

Today I took my boy children out into the hot sun to model winter pajamas that are probably more for girls. Bad call? Perhaps. But look at the fun we had!

Ok that one's pretty great. 

Now onto the lounge pants. My faves. 

Hazel decided we were done. Bless her.

She cheered up pretty quick. 

Don't be fooled. Temperatures are cooling and fall will be here soon. Then winter will come and Christmas and you won't be sad your littles are flannel clad. I'm sure of it. 

Need some fall fare? Head over to Happily Home Sewn! But first! Become our fan on facebook and then use the coupon code NEWFBFRIEND to get 20% off your purchase!

Pinsperation.

No. Not Pintrest.

Pinspiration.

Short for Pinafore Inspiration.

See the other day a friend and repeat customer placed an order for her daughter's 2nd Happily Home Sewn Birthday Pinafore. I made her 1st birthday one and I hope to continue the tradition until she's 40. Adult pinafores are coming you know. They're the new black.

This order made my day because my friend gave me the following instructions:
"I'd love for you to pick something new and special and work your magic. I totally trust you."

Color me happy!

I stewed on it for a day or two and a clear front runner fabric came to mind: 

I got these little birdies at Fabric Bliss a while back not knowing exactly what they would become. They waited patiently for this perfect project.

Then the complimentary fabric all but leapt off the shelf. It's a thin soft butter yellow cotton that the fella bought for me in a stuffy fabric shop in London. Perfection.

Miss Lily's 1st birthday pinny had a one on it and this one was to have a two. It was almost like elves went up to the sewing room ahead of me to design, cut, and layout the appliques. Everything flowed so easily. I love it when inspiration works like that.

The butter yellow thread was even already loaded on the machine. The elves...they know. 

Oh my gourd. It make me so happy.

So I just kept right on a goin'. I made a sweet little fluffy flower pin to wear on the non-birthday side.
Orrrrrrr...Her Mama could wear it to match Lily! Not that I condone wearing matching clothes with your baby daughter. Nay. Never.

 And to top things off, literally, a wee hair bauble. Yes please. 

 I hope they love it! Happy Birthday Lily!

And a peek at what we did last night:
Back Yard Movie Night with Friends.

So, the take away from this post:
1. Happily Home Sewn LOVES custom orders!
2. Right now you can get them on the cheap because we're having the Welcome Fall Sale for Facebook Friends! So, go find us on facebook...become a fan...and go shopping at Happily Home Sewn with the coupon code NEWFBFRIEND for 20% off your whole order!
2. Then grab a blanket, sit in a comfy chair and watch a movie. You've earned it.

Welcome Fall

We're getting excited about welcoming fall around here.

It's by no means here yet. But it's coming.

Fall means layers and pumpkins (pumpkins!) and hot chocolate and leaves.

In the sewing room and in my shop it means cords. Some new ones...

(Like those? Limited quantities available. Here they are in the shop.)

And some oldies... 

That shot of Eli will just never get old. And those cords are now onto to Amos and in their 4th season and going strong. They're available in my shop in lots of color combinations so get creative!

Know what else fall means? That's right. The Welcome Fall Sale for Facebook Friends. In the 1st day of the push to double facebook fans of Happily Home Sewn we're a quarter of the way there! Woot!

The first Giveaway has been given away and the second one is close. It's a two-fer because Fan number 265 and the person who recommended us to them ((ahem, tell your friends!) will get a special coupon code for 50% off anything in the shop! Could be you! 

Like Happily Home Sewn on Facebook and even if you don't win one of the giveaways you will get 20% off your entire purchase in the shop with the coupon code NEWFBFRIEND. Win. Win.  

New Leaf. New Listings!

Hazel and I have been hard at work this morning waking up from our Happily Home Sewn hibernation. Click back to yesterday's post if this is news to you. 

She spent the morning baby modeling the newest items that need to get listed in my etsy shop asap.

I spent the morning singing and goofing and wrestling and dressing and undressing my baby model and talking softly to her and massaging her ego as you must do for all models. Babies especially. 

And then I listed about half of the new items. Woo and hoo! See the newest goodies here.

But first go find us, Happily Home Sewn, on facebook, become our fan and use the coupon code NEWFBFRIEND to get 20% off your whole purchase. That's right!

As payment for her job well done Hazel got to keep the above onesie because as I was photographing her in it for the listing she just looked so durn cute that I couldn't bear to part with it. 

She's napping in it now.

Just for fun, a few outtakes from our shoot:

I started wondering if I should put the clothes on backwards to actually see the fronts.

Baby models always have hidden snacks.

And here are a few of the new items from Happily Home Sewn's fall line up:

Check out all the goodies here! Many are one-of-a-kind so if you see something you must have, act fast! But not too fast that you forget to head over to facebook so you can use your coupon code NEWFBFRIEND for 20% off!

Hibernation Over.

(source of cute bear photo)

Yawn. Stretch. Eye Rub. 

Time for this Mama Bear to come out of post-new-cub hibernation. I realize the above picture is of a cub, not a Mama, but go with it. 

I'm giving Happily Home Sewn (my etsy shop and the partner to this humble blog) a kick in the britches. 

You may have noticed that recent posting has been sparse and of the familial variety (i.e. containing no content referent to sewing or crafting of any kind). Those trends are about to be reversed. Expect frequent posting of craftastic finery worthy of pinning and reposting throughout the land.

Also, we pushing to double, yes DOUBLE Happily Home Sewn's facebook friends! Seemed like the right thing to do since we're currently liked 200 times and I'm terrible at math. The 400th friend (and some others along the way) will get free HHS goodies! So, if you're not our friend, go like us by clicking here or searching facebook for Happily Home Sewn!

Then once you do that, we're having a Welcome Fall Sale for Facebook Friends! Woo Hoo! After you friend us you can use the coupon code NEWFBFRIEND for 20% off your entire order! Woo Hoo!

So, got friending and go shopping!

The shop is full of fun goodies and I'll be adding some groovy new stuff in the next few days! Some pieces are last items in a series and once they're gone, they're gone, so don't tarry!

I Forgot to Peek

But Hazel didn't...

Whew! What a week. So, for brevity's sake (we'll see)...bullets:

• The Flash Mob is just 4 days away and things are shaping up quite nicely. We have a training session on Sunday and then it'll be here. Yipes! If you wanna join, all the deets can be found under the Valentine's Day link at the top under the header photo. 

• My etsy shop blew up this week! I average 2-3 orders a week usually and this week I had 8! Lots of fun little projects for sweet little babies far and near. So lovely!

• Thankfully...I am brimming with energy lately. I started running at New Years (gasp) and have stuck at it and actually enjoyed it. I find that the pay off is lots of extra energy, which I need...in spades. I'm lousy with energy and I love it. I used to collapse into a nap everyday while the kids napped, but now I cook up fun little projects, tidy up, or fill orders. Who woulda thunk?

• I'm addicted to Pintrest. Have you noticed?

• Amos has been giving us...well, more accurately, his teacher...a run for the money lately. Surely not:

That sweet little nugget has been pushing the buttons of his exasperated preschool teacher so much that for the last three school days he's been the preschool version of suspended. You see, he's taken to rabble rousing at naptime. He's instigated a little mob of his own amongst the 4 other pupils in his 2-year-old class and that has gotten him the boot. The current "solution" is that when he disrupts the class at naptime, we get a call and have to come pick him up early. It's no kind of punishment. He lights up like a Christmas tree as soon as we turn into the Principal's Office.

That's right. The Principal's Office.

So, we scheduled a conference for Monday to see if we can come up with something better.

That boy is as sweet as they come, but he does enjoy malfeasance for malfeasance's sake. That's for sure. It makes him giddy. And it makes Yaya call him "Amos the Menace".

In a good way.

So, long story, well...long...life is a delight.

Embrace the Embracing

Here are a few last shots from our N.C. vacation. Dusk there is my favorite time of day and it's perfect for snuggling. A little patpat for Lil' Sis.

Embracing Dizzy.
And a little squench from the fella - the perfect trifecta to link up to Embrace the Camera. Check it out:



In other news...

The Pinafores Collection is complete! There are now 6 sweet Reversible Pinafores available in my shop. Here are the last two (my personal faves) (click on the photos to take you to the listing):

Woodland Whimsy

Lemon Love

Dear Baby Daughter,
Get here soon 'cause there are precious pinafores to be worn!
And 'cause you're poking me and making me fat.
All my love,
Your Mama.


In other other news:
Poor A-Boogie did not get in on the Embrace the Camera action today, but come back tomorrow for the Peek of the Week, featuring the wee Baby A. And fellow blogger, it'll be your chance to tell us about what's been cool about your week by linking up to the Peek of the Week linkup. Read here to get all the Peek of the Week deets.

Until then...

An Etsy Listravaganza!

I had an esty listing extravaganza yesterday.

Let me showcase for you all the newly available goodies!
Reversible Sun Hat - Piper's Purple Party (available here). This one was a special order for a friend, but it's so stinking cute I decided to make it available on etsy. Greens, purples, flowers, mushrooms, and snails. SNAILS!

And now for the pinafores. Pinafores are the new black you know - and I can't wait until I have a little gal to put one on.

And yes. My one-year-old son is modelling these. I was super conflicted because o.m.w. he's so darn cute in them! So, for a fleeting moment I decided I should make Manifores - you know, manly pinafores. But the internet assured me that there's no such thing. Alas.

So instead I had to go through and crop most of his face out of the photos like in the old-timey medical books where they blacked out the eyes on photos of kids with the mumps and stuff. Creepy.

All of these are available in sizes 6-12 months, 18 months, and 2T. And they're all reversible!
Click on any photo to take you to the etsy listing.


Delightful, no?

The Hats are In!

Thanks for your patience folks! There are now hats available in my etsy shop!

Don't see one you love? Have a specific color or theme in mind? I'll be happy to work up some custom designs! Just convo me and we'll get something going. Be quick though, if you don't get to me this week you'll have to wait til late June - have I mentioned we're going to the beach?

Some fun details:
~ all (except this first one) are reversible!
~ If the hat has a flower on it, that flower is a removable pin you can put on the flip side of the hat, your purse, sweater, or anything you want! Total bonus, right?

etsy listing

etsy listing

etsy listing

etsy listing

etsy listing

Totally fun, right?

Give it Up for Giving Back

Got some great give-backs to report!

Remember back on Fat Tuesday when I got inspired by Amy of Brownie Goose to give a portion of my sales during lent to our local no-kill animal shelter. It's 40 Days to Help the Strays!

I'm happy to report that I'll be sending $69.87 (ok, I'll probably round up to $70. It's for a good cause.) to our shelter, which is called the Dumb Friends League. That's a bit insulting, but they do a heap o' good, so I'll look past it.



And secondly, the Japan Benefit this past weekend was so much fun and a huge success! I don't have a number of what they raised altogether, but I bet it was a lot. There were a ton of people there and they were super generous! I sold about half the onesies I stitched up for the occasion, contributing over $100 to the cause.

And guess what! Now you can help too because the items leftover from the benefit are now for sale in my shop, with the same portion, $10 from each item, going to help our brothers and sisters in Japan.

Here's what's available and links to where you can purchase:
This little sweetie is available in size 9-12 months, 12-18 months, or 18-24 months. There's only one left in each size so act fast!

This one is available in sizes 0-3 months, 3-6 months, and 18-24 months.


This is the only t-shirt style I have left. It's size child's small, which fits about 3T/4T. It's available in a onesie too, but there's only one left - a size 6-9 months.


There's only one of these (with the flag outlined in white) left, so act fast! It's size 12 months.


This is the last of this style too, also size 12 months.

So hurry on over! When these are gone, they're gone!