Friday Flashback: Craft Edition

**This is a re-post from last year. I have been looking for some great Thanksgiving shirt inspiration for this year, so I figured I would share one of my Thanksgiving shirts for last year in case anyone wants to attempt it for their kiddo!**

I have seen a ton of cute turkey shirts for Thanksgiving floating around the internet lately. I had intentions of making my boys a cute turkey shirt, but was really wishing I could make something a little different and a little more fun instead.

The Shirt of Plenty is what I ended up with after a TON of inspiration {and a template} from Family Fun magazine.

This is the original craft shared in the November issue of Family Fun...SUPER cute Thanksgiving themed felt food. I simply decided to turn my felt food into a shirt instead of making a toy:)

The first step in making this SUPER cute shirt is to print the templates and cut them out. Sometimes the template calls for two of each shape, but you usually only need one.

Use spray adhesive and stick the cut out shapes to different colors of felt. You can mix and match however you want, or follow the suggestions on the templates.

Then add iron-on adhesive to the backside of the felt following the directions on the package.

Cut out the shapes following the template, then remove the paper and the iron-on adhesive backing.

Lay out your design on the shirt and decide where you want each piece to be. Iron the pieces onto the shirt following the directions on your package of iron on adhesive.

The finally step to making The Shirt of Plenty is the most tedious and time consuming....but it also makes a big difference in the appearance of the shirt. Using coordinating colors of embroidery thread, go around the edges of each piece of felt with a running stitch. Make sure to tie off each end of the embroidery thread well, so that the felt pieces stay securely attached.

And that is how you make a SUPER cute Thanksgiving shirt!

Now if I can only find the time {and energy} to make two more:)

Organizing the Laundry

I know I'm not the only mom who despises laundry. I think between the monotony of folding and the fact that it's a never ending cycle of clean & dirty, most moms would love to have someone else take care of the laundry for their family! But like me, just because you hate to do it doesn't mean you can get way with not doing it! Sure if you're J. Lo or someotheroverpaidfamouspersonwhoneverhastodotheirownlaundry the laundry probably seems like a joy...drop it off and it comes back clean and folded and you didn't have to do any of the work! But in my house laundry is work, and the best way to make work easier is to be organized.

We've had the dirty clothes part organized for a while thanks to this lovely creation that I bought at Walmart a few years ago.

 My organizational issues with laundry start after the clean clothes come out of the dryer. We have spent the last few years with just two laundry baskets. You can do the math and probably figure out that two laundry baskets for five people just doesn't work very well. And most of the time the clean clothes end up piled on the couch {and the chair} kind of like this...except this is a much smaller pile than normal:)

 So I decided it was time to get my clean clothes organized by simply buying a few new laundry baskets. My original intentions were to find some fun colored baskets {ideally in blue, green, and orange to continue our tradition of color coding}, but Walmart and Target didn't seem to get the memo and only had either black or white baskets. I decided on black mostly because they seemed a little more sturdy, but also because they seemed a little more formal too...you know just in case I wanted to leave them sitting around full of laundry when we have guests over!

 Now I had three identical black baskets, and I knew that would be an issue. It is is a lot harder for my kiddos to find their clean {wrinkled} clothes if they don't know which basket is theirs. My simple solution was to cut a few pieces of ribbon {blue, green, and orange} and tie them to the handles of the laundry baskets. Now everyone knows which basket is theirs without digging through a basket for 10 minutes while looking for clean underwear!

Do you have any simple solutions for making the dreaded task of laundry easier? Please share them with me....I need all the help I can get when it comes to the laundry!

Wordless Wednesday: Having a Ball