Birthday Week Giveaway #3!!

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED TO ENTRIES. THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER TODAY!!

How was your weekend? It was a long one over here, with a lot of wet, dreary rain. Hopefully, the week will warm up and become nice and sunny!

Have you had a chance to enter the first two Birthday Week at My Frugal Family giveaways? Julie from Singing Three Little Birds is hosting a cool jewelry prize, and Brooke from Makin' It Domestic is giving away a cute little handmade purse! If you did enter, please go double check that you left an email address- several entries did not!!

For today's giveaway, Joy from Mommas Kinda Crafty has made a cute little stuffed animal baby toy out of some lovely brown dotted minky fabric!

Now, for the details on the contest. Each of my contests this week will be done the same way, but the details will be re-posted each time.

The Rules For the Contests:


1. Each Contest is being sponsored by another blog, except 1 contest that I'll be hosting myself. To help thank these wonderful women, I am asking that you to Visit the Mommas Kinda Crafty blog, and find either a product you love, a project you love, or a post they've done that you love, and comment back to me with it. This way, they get some new viewers, hopefully, and can feel the love from my viewers!

2. An email address is required- if you do not feel comfortable with email harvesting, please use something such as (at) and (dot) to break it up a bit, so that it can be used to contact you!

3. Twitter, Tweet, Facebook, and Blog about the contests for an extra entry. Post a link to where you twittered, tweeted (I know, it's the same thing), facebooked, or blogged about it, and post this as a second comment for a second entry.  

4. The winner chosen will be posted on the blog, and also emailed by me. Please check your emails & this blog to see if you won anything- if I can't get a mailing address from the winner after 3 days, I will have to pick a new winner!

Enjoy the contests, and please, visit the sponsors- they are a talented group of ladies!

The winner of this giveaway will be drawn on Monday, May 3rd, using Random.org to randomly pick a number from the comments. 

Winner:

• If no email address was given on the winning comment, a new winner WILL be chosen, so please, remember to leave contact information! If you are worried about web crawlers snagging the email address, please feel free to substitute the @ for (at) and the . for (dot) so your email address reads like this: herberkids3(at)yahoo(dot)com, instead of the normal way. As long as I can understand what it should be, you will be entered!
• The winner will be emailed by myself, and the sponsor of the contest. The prize will be sent from the sponsor, so it's important to make sure that you answer one or both of the emails with your snail mail address for shipping!
• If a response is not received within 3 days time, a new winner will be drawn, so please- respond!

Good luck to all the entries, and don't forget to check back again tomorrow for another exciting giveaway!!

Making A Snake, Pt 2

Last week, I blogged about making a furry purple snake using a Dollar Tree fake fur "boa". Shortly after that, I started playing around with the fun scarves I picked up at Dollar Tree, and found a few other ways to make them.

Fun Stuffed Snake

You'll Need:
Knit Scarf from Dollar Tree
Fleece or Felt
Felt Scraps
Batting or Stuffing- Heck, if you went really frugal, Dollar Store cotton balls would work!
Sewing Machine
Hand Sewing Needle & Thread
Jingle Bells (if you want a Rattle Snake)
Assorted Items to Decorate With- rhinestones, beads, tulle, felt shapes, ribbon, buttons, etc.

1. Cut your scarf in half. Measure it on a length of fleece or felt, and cut a second section out of your secondary fabric. You can use the scarf for both pieces, but the fabric is very stretchy, and in my tries, the snakes came out easier with fleece as the bottom side.
2. Using red or pink felt, cut a forked tongue. Pin your snake together, with the tongue along the inside, so that when it is turned right side out, it will stick out from the mouth.
3. Sew the material together in a tube. Of my tries, I found it easier to sew the mouth shut first, not the tail.
4. Turn the snake right side out, and smooth it out. Note in the photo below, I did not start with the mouth. In the photo below it, you'll see that this was a problem when it came to sewing it back up, and it did not turn out great.
5. Stuff the snake gently. The fabric will stretch, so you can very easily get your hand all the way down to the mouth. Do not over stuff, or the snake comes out very stiff.
6. Smooth the batting down, then tie the tail section off, so there is a few inches of "tail" tied off like a pony tail, nice and tight.
7. Trim down the excess top fabric to about half the length of the excess bottom fabric. Add 2-3 bells, if you are using them. Now, tug the bottom fabric around, and wind it around itself to cover the top fabric completely. This will form your tail section. You'll want it nice and pointy.
8. Using your regular needle & thread, start stitching the edges closed, until you have a nice pointy tail.
9. Optional! I then used my needle & thread to create ridges. First, pull the needle through the section, then wrap the thread around the tail in that section 2-3 times, pulling it nice and tight, before sewing through the fabric again. Knot it off, and repeat further up the tail, until it has enough ridges for you.
10. Hand sew buttons or fabric scraps into place for the eyes of the snake, tying off tightly.

These are just adorable little snuggly snakes (this coming from a woman who can not stand snakes!). I've made 4 of them now, each different than the last, and I love each of them.

For one of them, I used both black/purple & black/hot pink scarves, and made it "Punk" by adding a skull necklace, and a hot pink tutu. I thought it was cute! I'm giving this one to one of our nieces, along with matching arm warmers for Christmas.


There are so many ways to embellish these little guys! Two of my own kids have asked for them for Christmas now, so I have two set aside for them!

How To: Making A Stuffed Furry Snake

Yesterday, I didn't do a lot of crafting, but I did manage to get a few projects done. As Christmas draws near, I am looking to shore up the Christmas stash, and find gifts to make for people that are both frugal, and nice. One of the things I did yesterday, was make a stuffed furry snake out of left over fake fur boa. I used this in re-fashioning a sweater for Gillian. Sadly, I have no before photos of this project.

The fur was already sewn into a tube shape, and since I had cut a section off, it was a long skinny open tube, perfect for a pet snake. I made eyes out of black & white felt I picked up over the weekend, and a long red tongue out of red felt. I sewed the eyes on first, then stuffed it, added the tongue to the opening and sewed it shut.



When it was "done", it just felt too bare, so I glitzed it up a bit. Using some sparkly green costume fabric, I fashioned a bow. Now, while this may seem like the easy part, let me explain just why it wasn't.

I love glittery, sparkly, slippery, shiny fabric for costumes. However, my sewing machine has never, ever agreed with it. It doesn't matter the settings or needle, the machine balks at sewing it. I only buy it when it's a remnant, but it's still an impossible dream for me.

In order to fashion the bow, I used hot glue. I folded the ends to the middle, width wise (narrow), then put a strip of glue on one side, and folded it together again, making a long skinny strip. Once that was done, I folded it into a simple bow shape, and was actually able to sew down the middle to secure it, before cutting the loose ends off.

I attempted to sew the middle together, to gather it, but that was a failure. Instead, I used a regular needle & thread to go through the fabric once, then I just wound the thread around it, over and over, and tied it off. Lastly, I hot glued a purple flower shaped rhinestone to the middle and called it good.

I also added rhinestones to the eyes, so it's a pretty, sparkly furry snake. It obviously is not good for small children prone to eating things, as the rhinestones can pop off, but it'll make a good gift for the 7-8 year old range my family is swamped with. Counting all 3 sides of my family, there were 5 little girls born from August 2001 to August 2002. Actually, I think there were 6, come to think of it.

Anyway, these will make a cute little add in. I am toying with the idea of a cute, removeable skirt. I have some various laces that make for a quick, easy, & dressy skirt.