July 2017

First- a little business!  The winner for the Southpaw Crafts giveaway was announced.  Congratulations to Rachel M!  Check your email if you haven’t already…. Now- on to the post! Recently my daughter turned eight years old.  In our church, and in our family, this is a huge birthday because the child can make the decision to be baptized a member of our church!  (You can read about why we baptize at eight years old here.)

Anyway, it was a very special day for her and for us.  We were so proud of her for making the decision to be baptized.  It really was her decision- we talked about it, and prayed about it, and she met with our bishop (who happens to be my husband!) for a special interview to make sure she was ready.

One of the special gifts that we gave her was her own set of scriptures.  I know she is old enough to not only read them, but to study them and learn about them more in depth.  She was thrilled to have her very own Bible, along with the scriptures we read in our church.

Being the “crafty mom” that I am, I had to make her a cover and a tote for her scriptures. 

 First up was the cover.  I knew it had to be pink, as that is by far her favorite color.

I loved the lime green polka dots in the fabric that gave it just a little more fun.  I sewed the cover using this tutorial from Delia Creates, though I had to cut off about an inch of fabric to make it a snug fit.

When  I showed it to my daughter, she said- “I really wish it could have a big flower on it”.  Wish granted, sweetie.  I cut two flowers out of felt, layered them, then stitched them onto the cover with embroidery floss. A big button in the center completes the look.

For the scripture tote, I used a place mat that I bought expressly for this purpose a year and a half ago.  I knew the ruffle would be a hit with my girly daughter.

I didn’t use a tutorial, but making a tote out of a place mat is simple!

1.  Fold the place mat in half, with the sides you want to be the outer fabric touching

2.  Sew up the long sides- I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

3.  Square the bottom if desired (I used part of the tutorial here to get it right).

4.  Turn right side out.

For handles, I used 1 inch cotton webbing and 7/8 inch wide pink grosgrain ribbon.  

1.  Measure the webbing to the length you want your handles.  Cut two.

2.  Cut two pieces of ribbon the same length as your handles.

3.  Sew the ribbon to your handles on each long side.

4.  Center your handles on each side of the tote bag, making sure they are placed evenly between the side seams.  Pin in place.

5.  Sew a square to attach handles firmly (refer to picture to see the squares)

 She loves having her own scriptures, as well as her own bag to carry them in.  (And I love that it’s one less thing for me to carry around on Sundays!)

I may or may not be linking up at some of these parties 😉  Come check them out too!


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Don’t forget to enter the giveaway from Piece of Cupcake!

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I’m so close I can see the end of the scrapbook tunnel!  Thanks to your indulgence, I’ve almost finished my pages for 2009!  I think if I work hard this week, I can MAYBE be done by next week!  I may not be getting much closer to being current, but at least I’m not falling further behind!

This week, I am posting the first of my holiday pictures.  Every year we make sugar cookies with the kids.  This is something my mom did with us, and I am continuing the tradition.  However, she let us cut the dough and everything.  Maybe I will do that when my children get older, but for now, I cut out the dough and bake the cookies ahead of time, then keep them in the freezer until we are ready to decorate.  

My kids love to choose the frosting colors, heap on the sprinkles, and of course, lick the frosting off the knife!  Gross!  This page captures all those fun moments.

What’s your favorite holiday tradition?  (Any holiday…..)

My Three Favorite Occasionally Crafty Posts


Occasionally Crafty has been around for awhile, and has been through a lot of changes over the years. My sister originally started the blog by herself and then later asked me to co-author with her. It has been GREAT having something to work on together since we don’t live near each other. We really are both crafty girls who just love sharing our stuff with you, if only to have a collection of all the things we’ve created, though we hope we’ve inspired you along the way. 


I thought it would be fun to share my three favorite posts we’ve done so far, but picking just three is hard! To make it easier, here are three of Valerie’s posts that I love, and then three of mine. 🙂 Enjoy!


1. Interchangeable Pillow!  I love anything that can be used again and again. This pillow is so cute and perfect for all seasons!
2. Poppy Play Dress! Valerie is such a good seamstress. It’s one area of crafting I have never dared to enter. Maybe if I had a little girl I’d be more motivated, but it still intimidates me. I love this dress she made for her daughter! 

And now for mine, not to toot my own horn, but if you don’t like what you make, no one will, right? 🙂

2. Valentine’s Day Card! I love making cards, and this card for my husband was one our favorites. Click over to see the rest of it! 3. Making My Own! I have loved doing this series of posts of things we usually buy, but can easily make on our own, making them healthier and cheaper! 

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking back at some of my favorite posts from us here at Occasionally Crafty. What are some of your favorite things you’ve seen here? Please comment and share your favorites too!

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Last weekend I threw a baby shower for my best friend of 10 years.  

That’s a high quality picture right there….

She is expecting her FIRST baby, and we are thrilled SHE is finally making her arrival in our world soon.  This little one has been long-awaited, hoped and prayed for, and soon (end of October) she will be here!
So, I wanted to go all out for this shower.  I told my friend “You tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen”!  
There was no theme per se, but we did everything around the colors purple and green- or more accurately, lavender and sage.
I set up as brunch for our guests.  I made purple and white tissue poms, then covered the table with a sage green tablecloth.  

I also made a fun little banner and attached the letters with mini-clothespins.  

It was so fun to have a crepe and yogurt bar for the brunch.  I made crepes at home the day before, then whipped up a few fillings.  The first was a chocolate whipped cream, and the other was a cream cheese mousse.  Guests got to choose their filling and then we had fruit available as well.

We used a similar idea for yogurt parfaits.  I had both strawberry and vanilla yogurt, their choice of fruit, and granola to mix in.  It was perfectly delicious.

We also had a delicious salad and cinnamon roll pops to round out the menu.

Drinks were served in paper-wrapped mini mason jars with stripey straws.  I served water and orange juice.

Of course, no gathering is complete without cupcakes, so I made French Vanilla cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, embellished with fondant flowers and sugar pearls.

My mantel was the perfect place to display a banner for gifts.  I included some flowers and a printable that matched the decor.  I’ll have that for you in the next post.

For games, we did a candy matching game, where you match a phrase to a candy (Triplets are 3 Musketeers for example).  We also did a “Price is Right” game where they had to guess the cost of baby items.  

Finally, I sent the guests home with a little gift: Sweet Pea hand sanitizer PocketBacs from Bath and Body Works.  We saw the idea on Pinterest, but it was only a media upload with no link back, so I have no idea who came up with it!  I thought it was the perfect, sweet but useful favor.

UPDATE:  You can download the tags here.  It is a PDF file and uneditable.  If you’d like one you can edit, leave me a note in the comments or email me (link below)!  

The shower was a wonderful success- I am just happy to do what I can to celebrate this new little baby.  I can’t wait to meet her!

I’m linking up to some fun parties- come check them out with me!

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Labels: baby, just for fun, party

My oldest son turned 4 on Saturday.  To celebrate, we threw a pirate party.  But it couldn’t be just a pirate party- it had to be a “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” pirate party.  If you don’t know, this is a brand-new show from Disney Jr.  It’s so new there is no merchandise out for it yet.  So, I did my best to combine “basic” pirate stuff with some homemade “Jake” stuff.  My son even insisted on dressing like Smee- so he wore his blue and white striped shirt and I made him a red stocking cap out of a dollar store t-shirt. All “Jake” images are copyrights of Walt Disney.  I’m sure they’ll have their own stuff out soon, but until then, I’d like to think that old Walt would understand a parent trying to please their child. To begin with, I downloaded the “Jake” image from Disney Jr. and made my own invitations.  I used a free skull background, then put the Jake image in the header.

For decorations, we had “basic” pirate stuff- a treasure map tablecloth, black, blue, and red balloons, some skull and crossbones signs, etc.

When the kids got there, we gave them bandannas, eyepatches, and earrings, and they decorated a “Jake” spyglass, found here:

Then we played a few games, jumped on our new trampoline, ate lunch, opened presents, ate cake, went on a treasure hunt, and jumped on the trampoline some more.  Who knew pirates had trampolines 🙂

For food I served pirate themed food.

Fish n Chips- (goldfish crackers and potato chips)

Swords (pretzel sticks)

Cannonballs (grapes)

Golden Nuggets (chicken nuggets)

X Marks the Spot breadsticks (pizza dough shaped into x’s)

Crocodile Blood (Red Kool-Aid)

For activities I tried to incorporate some “Jake”-style games-

Pin the Hook on the Captain (I sketched this from a clipart image I found online)

Search for gold Doubloons (Jake and his friends earn these through their adventures)

A treasure hunt for their goody bags (not pictured)

The cake was from FamilyFun magazine and can be found here:  

For the goody bags, I made my own labels, filled brown paper lunch sacks and tied them with jute rope to make them look like loot sacks.

Inside I put a pirate compass and pirate paddleball from the dollar store, bubbles that I wrapped with a “Jake” logo I printed out, pirate stickers, a “Jake” coloring page (found here) and a bag of Hershey’s nuggets and individual Rolos.  They also got to keep all their pirate gear and gold doubloons.

P.S.  If you have a “Jake” fan and are headed to Disneyland anytime soon, make sure you check out the Disney Jr. show in California Adventure!  It truly was a magical experience for my kids!

(If you’re planning a trip, book through Get Away Today- I’ve used them several times and it has been awesome every time- no bumps or goof-ups, and we always save a little money with their hard-to-find ticket discounts!  Use code OCRAFTY to save an  extra $10 off any 2-night or longer Southern California package (hotel and 2 ticket minimum).

The kids had a great time, and I had fun being a pirate!  Maybe these ideas will help someone else until Disney gets its Jake party gear out, so I’m linking up to some of these parties:  36 comments:

Remember when I was trying to decide what lamp to choose for my bedroom? I chose one. I decided I should probably save money and makeover one I already had. So I stole the lamp from my toddler’s room, since we haven’t used it once since he was born.  It was a wooden base with a plain white shade that I had attempted to make look like a baseball by drawing in the stitching of a baseball. It wasn’t very cute.  I didn’t take a picture.

I chose the rolled rosette lamp from The Idea Room as my inspiration, and got to work.  I think her lampshade was bigger, or maybe my rosettes are.  Anyway, mine looks a little different.

 I cut up one of my husband’s old t-shirts from the “donate” pile.  It was a size XL and I used every bit of it except the colored logo. One thing about having RA, my hands and other joints are weak and get tired easily, so repetitive crafts like this are really hard on my hands and fingers.  I have to do a little at a time.  So, while it only took a few hours, I had to spread it out over a few days. Finally, I spray painted the base.  I am not a good spray-painter.  I had to sand down the first layer after it dried and try again.  I need a spray paint tutor.  But in the end, it turned out okay. I love the finished product, even with the bigger rosettes. I’ve got to accessorize the nightstand now…. On another note, can you guess what kind of party I’m throwing tomorrow? Details on Monday 🙂

I had almost finished my scrapbook page for this week, when suddenly, the program I was working on crashed! Had I saved my scrapbook page?  Of course not!  Moral of the story- don’t forget to stop and save your work! Sometimes I just get on a creative kick and forget to stop.  Oh well…… so I redid the page, though I had to make it a little simpler since I was now pressed for time. I’m still happy with how it turned out, though.

This is a page remembering my daughter’s fifth birthday party.  We did a cooking theme.  When the kids arrived, they decorated chef hats and aprons I had made for them.  Then, they made their own pizzas by rolling out biscuit dough, topping it with sauce, and adding cheese and toppings.  While the pizzas baked, we read Pete’s a Pizza by William Steig, which is a really cute story.  They enjoyed their yummy pizzas, played, and then they decorated their own cupcakes.  I made cupcake boxes for them so they could enjoy one at the party and take one home as a favor.  After presents were opened, I also sent them home with child-size cooking utensils, like a whisk and wooden spoon.  I found these at Michael’s.  They also got to keep their aprons and chef hats.  The kids had a great time.

My pictures didn’t turn out all that great, but I found a few to put together in this layout.  Here it is: Thanks for looking- have a great day!

Remember when I was trying to decide what lamp to choose for my bedroom? I chose one. I decided I should probably save money and makeover one I already had. So I stole the lamp from my toddler’s room, since we haven’t used it once since he was born.  It was a wooden base with a plain white shade that I had attempted to make look like a baseball by drawing in the stitching of a baseball. It wasn’t very cute.  I didn’t take a picture.

I chose the rolled rosette lamp from The Idea Room as my inspiration, and got to work.  I think her lampshade was bigger, or maybe my rosettes are.  Anyway, mine looks a little different.

 I cut up one of my husband’s old t-shirts from the “donate” pile.  It was a size XL and I used every bit of it except the colored logo. One thing about having RA, my hands and other joints are weak and get tired easily, so repetitive crafts like this are really hard on my hands and fingers.  I have to do a little at a time.  So, while it only took a few hours, I had to spread it out over a few days. Finally, I spray painted the base.  I am not a good spray-painter.  I had to sand down the first layer after it dried and try again.  I need a spray paint tutor.  But in the end, it turned out okay. I love the finished product, even with the bigger rosettes. I’ve got to accessorize the nightstand now…. On another note, can you guess what kind of party I’m throwing tomorrow? Details on Monday 🙂

Here in AZ, we don’t necessarily long for spring.  March is our perfect weather month, our respite before the 100 degree days begin, sometimes in April.  Still, there is something about this time of year.  Two of my three children were born in the spring, so I definitely feel the “renewal of life” vibe that spring brings. I’m getting my spring decor up, and this year I decided to add this plate:  (I apologize for the bad light- the only time I could take this was at night!) I found a quote I liked (credited as “Proverb”), created it in my Silhouette software, and slapped it on a dollar store plate.  I planned to do some more vinyl shapes at the bottom, but I thought some rolled fabric rosettes would give it that spring feeling too.  I had everything on hand, so it was free to me! I hope Spring comes quickly where you live!
I’m linking up to some of these fun crafty link-ups:  Go check them out!

Edited:  Thanks for featuring me!

Here in AZ, we don’t necessarily long for spring.  March is our perfect weather month, our respite before the 100 degree days begin, sometimes in April.  Still, there is something about this time of year.  Two of my three children were born in the spring, so I definitely feel the “renewal of life” vibe that spring brings. I’m getting my spring decor up, and this year I decided to add this plate:  (I apologize for the bad light- the only time I could take this was at night!) I found a quote I liked (credited as “Proverb”), created it in my Silhouette software, and slapped it on a dollar store plate.  I planned to do some more vinyl shapes at the bottom, but I thought some rolled fabric rosettes would give it that spring feeling too.  I had everything on hand, so it was free to me! I hope Spring comes quickly where you live!
I’m linking up to some of these fun crafty link-ups:  Go check them out!

Edited:  Thanks for featuring me!