Wow, two weeks since I posted last, huh? Things have been so crazy lately — first there was the excellent and busy Crafty Wonderland weekend, then Pearl turned two (yay!) and there was plenty going on for that… plus lots of work and regular stuff, and then in the middle of that whirlwind (thankfully, after the birthday festivities) I ended up super, super sick. It’s taken a week to feel even slightly like myself again, but boy, I am glad to even be this much better!

I have gotten to do a few fun craft projects lately, so I thought I’d finally share those. First, I signed up for a really great handmade kids’ clothes swap and we sent out our packages earlier this spring. I’ve been longing to post these photos, but my recipient in Scotland didn’t get my package for a few extra weeks (thanks to the volcano tangling everything up on that side of things) and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise!

In the swap draw, I got a sweet little almost-one-year old who loves bright colors and bold patterns. Of course I grabbed my trusty favorite kids’ pattern, Burda 9772, and used some extremely bright and bold fabric from my stash (I remember lining a bag with this about four years ago, but hadn’t touched it since) to make a simple pair of pants and a matching embellished t-shirt. Her initial is I, so I used that as part of the shirt decoration!

My swap sender turned out to be a super crafter in Brooklyn who made this lovely dress for my tall, lanky Pearl… she paired this awesome soft olive green corduroy with a cool large-scale paisley print. They look so nice together.

The back has an ingenious button closure that can be moved, so when she’s bigger and taller, it can evolve into a smock top to wear with jeans. Such a great idea.

I also made a Mother’s Day craft project that I highly recommend! I used this tutorial on Design*Sponge to turn an 8 x 10 side-view photo of Pearl into a template to cut my very first silhouettes.

It was a surprisingly easy gift that everyone loved — I made one for my mom (pink background), one for my mother-in-law (blue), and one for us (patterned) in about an hour, with one practice version to try things out in there too. I had a terrible time getting a decent photo behind glass (btw, they’re in Ribba frames from Ikea), but it really is a fun project to try. I’m excited to do one every year now — maybe a smaller version to put in a photo album with snapshots, or for a holiday card?

Oh, and the garden is super happy (except that all kinds of sneaky things seem to love eating my chard), I’ll post some Week 5 photos tomorrow! I was excited to see how much everything has grown.