Baby Sling

The wife of JJ's soccer coach had a home made baby sling that she used for her 1 year old.  She would hold him on her hip with the baby sling.  Watching her with it I decided that I'd make myself one.  I didn't have one with the boys, but I thought I'd try to make one for this baby.  So I looked up some instructions online and made one for myself and for my sister in-law.  If you use 2 different fabrics so it's reversible and your fabric is at least 44" wide you can make 2 slings at once.

I was pregnant when I made this and so when I first measured I measured wrong.  You're supposed to measure from your shoulder across your body to your hip bone, well I measured to my pelvic bone instead of my hip.  So the first one was too short.  However, thanks to a suggestion from Dave I was able to still use it.  Since I tapered it, I cut it in the middle and added a section that was just straight and I reversed the fabric and put a ribbon over the seams.  I think it turned out pretty cute.

And then the second one I cut correctly.  Well, I think I may want to take it in an inch or two, but it's easier to do that then to add to it.

Here I am using the baby sling...

Back on June 1st my sister in-law tried it out for me to make sure it wasn't too big.  She's in the picture below with her baby, Corban.

This sling has become very useful!!!!  Dave will even use it to hold and carry Mackenzie.  We have discovered it is one way that we can usually get Mackenzie to calm down and go to sleep.  She will normally fall asleep really well in it.  But then we have to keep her in it.  When we try to set her down she usually wakes up.

And it's pretty comfortable to carry her around in and get things done too.

The Headband

Here is Mackenzie wearing the headband my mom made.

I LOVE snuggling with my baby girl!!!!!!!!!!

Using the Changing Pad

Here is Mackenzie using the changing pad I made for her...

Car Seat Tent

One day last year while I was surfing some craft blogs I had found this car seat tent.  I copied and pasted the instructions (which really isn't much, mainly I did it for the idea so I wouldn't forget) and saved it in a word document on my computer.  Anyway, I did forget about it and then saw it on my hard drive, opened it to see what it was and decided to make it.

The ones I saw online are not pieced, just one big piece of fabric for the top and one for the bottom.  But I really wanted pieced butterflies, and so I pieced my mine.  I also quilted the layers together with NO batting in the middle.  You want it to be breathable, so it's just the fabric.

If I make another one, to give to someone, I think I would round the corners.  I thought about rounding the corners on this one, but it already took me longer then planned because I cut the fabric wrong, so I didn't want to mess with it anymore.

It's just a rectangle with the loops attached so it stays in place and off of baby's face.  I was thinking when she's out of this car seat I can un-stitch the loops with my seam ripper and she can use it as a blanket for her dolls or herself.

The fabric below is the fabric on the other side, the stuff she looks at if she's awake.  I really wanted it to be fun and colorful!

Tanner's Birthday Cake

Tanner wanted a blue monster truck for his birthday cake.  We had some family over for cake and ice cream.  Dave hurried home from work and made this cake for Tanner before everyone came.  Isn't it awesome?

 When we sang "Happy Birthday" to him he hid his face and then popped up to blow out the candles.

Tag Ball

I have seen these "Taggie Balls" (and there are books, rattles and blankets) and such around for awhile.  One day I realized I had all this extra soft fabric that I used on the back of baby quilts and how fun to make a "Taggie Ball" with them.  A girl I visit teach is due the day after me and doesn't find out what she is having.  So I figured it would be perfect, because it could be for either a boy or a girl.  I needed like 15 different ribbons so a friend of mine cut some of hers and gave me some.  And I made one for me and for the girl I visit teach.

I had a pattern for a ball and added the ribbon.  At first I did the ribbon 5" long and it's folded in half and in the seam, but I thought that was too long.  So I did the other ball with ribbon cut to 4" and I thought that was a great length.

I also bought some cat balls and put one inside of each ball, so it would jingle.  I put the ball inside of some scrap batting and sewed the batting shut.  I originally did this thinking that if the ball worked it's way to the outside of the ball, I didn't want it to be really hard at that spot and to quiet the jingle a little.  Then I realized later that eventually the filling could work it's way into the ball, making it not jingle, so good thing it's in a pocket of batting and that won't happen.

And the ball is totally washable.

So here it is...

 Won't my precious little angel just love it?  I think it turned out great!

Baby Quilt

I finally finished the baby quilt I started 6 years ago when I was pregnant with Jayden and hoped he was a girl.  I saw this in the Fons and Porter magazine and loved it at the time.  It also had matching bumper pads, crib skirt and bed sheets.  I bought enough to make it all.  I had all the strips cut for the bumper pads, all the little 9 patch blocks sewn together and the 6" squares and triangles and binding all cut and ready to sew together when I found out I was having a boy.  So I packed it all up and didn't get it back out until now.  But I'm not going to make the bumper pads or crib skirt anymore.  However I do want to make some crib sheets simply because I do need some more and have the stuff to make them, and they are super easy to do.

If I didn't already have this one started, I probably would have done something totally different.  But I am very excited to have finished this one!  And I'm super excited to put my baby girl on it and in it!

Tutu

I want to make a tutu for my precious little baby girl for some pictures.  So I looked it up online.  Then I decided since Kara and Carolynn's birthdays are coming up I would also make them one.  I had posted Kara's a little earlier when I posted about her birthday party.  Below is Carolynn in her tutu with her doll also in her tutu.  Both my sister and Polly love purple so that worked out nice (that I could do them all with the same tulle.)

They are super easy to make!  Just about every website I went to said to cut the tulle in strips, I did 3 inches wide.  You make it double the length you want it because you tie it around the elastic.  I had a hard time sewing the elastic with my sewing machine, it just wouldn't do it.  So I finally just hand sewn the elastic together.  That's all the sewing you do, just the elastic band.  For the girls I used a 3/4" wide elastic and for the dolls I think it was 1/4" or 1/2" inch, sorry I don't remember.  I had 3 yards of the dark purple and 3 yards of the light purple and I got 2 tutu's for little girls and 2 matching tutu's for their dolls.  If you want to make it puffier, just double your strips of tulle when you tie them on.  This was the first time I made them, so I wasn't sure how puffy it would be with just a single layer.  If I make a longer one, I think I'd double it.  But for now I think it's puffy enough.  To tie the tulle on, I put the elastic over my leg, it made it very easy to tie the tulle on.  I didn't do a double knot, I put the ends of the tulle together, made a loop around the elastic and pulled the tulle through.  I think it lays nicer that way then making a double knot.

 The day I made them, March 14, 2011, Jayden wanted to try Carolynn's on.  So below are 2 pictures of him twirling in Carolynn's tutu back on March 14th.

Tanner didn't want to put Kara's on, but Jayden enjoyed twirling around in the tutu for a little bit.  How fun to have these pictures to show his future girlfriends!  :)

Frog Cupcakes

Jayden had treats at school and I wanted to do something fun instead of just a bag of pretzels.  They are talking about spring this week, since it is the first week of spring.  So I looked on Familyfun.com for some ideas.  Jayden really wanted to bring in cupcakes.  I had seen these cute frog cupcakes but I just didn't understand why the icing was blue instead of green.  Finally after like my 5th time looking for something I realized... it's blue because it's the water and the frog is peaking above the water.  So we decided to make these.

When I was shopping for some of the stuff and just groceries in general I wanted to get some blue food coloring because I didn't think we had enough at home.  Where I was you can only buy blue in the pack of 4 colors.  Well, I knew we had a big bottle of red and yellow at home so I didn't want to buy the blue in the pack and have more red and yellow.  So I grabbed the big bottle of green thinking "I can just make blue because I have yellow at home."  It wasn't until on my drive home that I realized, green and yellow do NOT make blue!  I couldn't believe I even thought that!  I blame it on the pregnancy hormones.  Luckily my sister in-law had some I could borrow and we were going to her house that night to celebrate my nephew's birthday, Rhett.

When I put the green food coloring away in my cabinet, I realized that I also had a big bottle of green too.  So now I have plenty of green food coloring.

Instead of making cupcakes, especially because a girl just brought them in yesterday for her birthday, I made Hershey's Triple Chocolate Chunk Brownies in cupcake wrappers.  My original thinking was that the brownies don't make as many crumbs as cake does, and they are yummy!

Jayden helped put the icing on about 3-4 brownies and then he was done.  He couldn't get it as smooth as he wanted too, so he was done after only a few.  I also think he just wanted to lick his knife and I told him he had to wait until he was done.

 But he came back to help me do the eyes.  He placed almost all of them on the brownies and then I added the black dots.  (The website tells you to buy a small tube of black icing.  I just saved some of the white icing and died it black with black food coloring, put it in a small baggie, cut a hole and squeezed it on.  No need to spend like $2.50 on a tube of icing when you spent half that on a jar of icing.)

Sports Burp Cloths

I made my cousin an Eagles and Phillies burp cloth.  He loves those teams and I had the fabric.  I put the light blue terry cloth on the back because I already had it.

Now he can be a cool dad burping his new baby boy (just born on 3-10-2011).

Girl Changing Pad

I finally finished the girl changing pad I made for myself.  Here it is...

Here is a better view of the back fabric...

Here it is all rolled up...

As I mentioned with the boy one I made, you can easily stack some diapers and wipes inside and then roll it up.  And for quick trips that would be all you'd need to bring.  I had thought it would be nice to put some pockets inside for the diapers and wipes, but then decided against doing it.  We'll see how it goes using it, maybe it will be nice to have the pockets.

The pattern says to use fleece, but I used terry cloth.  Since I was buying the terry cloth for the burp cloths I just got the extra needed for the changing pad too.

The pattern doesn't mention doing any extra quilting through the center of the changing pad.  I was worried that after several washings and what not, the terry cloth will stretch and just kind of be separated from the back fabric and not look so nice.  So I measured 4 inches in from the side panels (the one quilting line the directions tell you to make) on either side, and sewed a straight quilting down.  I was tempted to do it to the side panels too, but I think I'll see how it does after using it.  I can always go back and add some quilting lines if I feel like it's separating too much.  I had also wanted to add some to the burp cloths too.  Well, I did add some along the sides of the ribbon but I felt it wasn't enough.  So again, I'll just see how it does after using them.

Click here for the pattern on sew4home.com

Gifts for Sarah

A friend of mine is having a baby boy and so I really wanted to make her some burp cloths, travel changing pad and "binky leashes."  I just love this fabric!  It kind of made me wish I was having a boy.  I made this stuff first and so I'm not done with my changing pad yet.  When I post the changing pad I'm making for myself I will post the link to the pattern and stuff.  But it's from the same website as the other patterns.

 Here is the inside of the changing pad, there is terry cloth in the middle.

 And it rolls up quite nicely.  You can even put some diapers and wipes inside and still roll it up nicely.  I had thought about adding pockets for the diapers and wipes.  So when you're in a public bathroom using the changing stations one end will hang over and the diapers and wipes have a place to be.  But I figured giving that you'd need some room around the pockets or whatever, it might need to be like an inch or 2 bigger to have a pocket and fold nice when the pockets are full.  But you can just stack the wipes and diapers on top of each other and fold it nice.

 I did a train stitch on one of the burp cloths.  And that too gave me problems and so I just did a straight stitch on the other 2.

 Here are the "binky leashes."

I followed the instructions to hammer the snaps on (the instructions come on the back of the pearl snaps you buy at Joanns).  Becky, my mother in-law had the tool, but the pearl snaps didn't fit in it.  Well I must have hammered too hard.  On one for Sarah and one for myself I cracked them.  I'm not sure what to do about it, so I'm just leaving it.  You can't feel the crack on the top, so it's totally underneath and I'm thinking other than the look, it's fine.  So if you use a hammer to attach the snaps, be careful.  On this one it was fine but I thought I'd give it one more hit to make sure it was on tight, and that cracked it.

"Binky Leashes"

Pacifiers, Binkies, Nuk's... there are so many different names for them...  I personally call it a Nuk, because that is what Gerber calls them.  But where I got the pattern they call them "Binky Leashes."

We used these with the boys and so I figured we would with the girl and so I made some of these too.

Go here for the pattern on sew4home.com
There is also a carrying bag pattern for the binkies with the pattern for the leashes.  I chose not to make one.  We have some hard plastic cases that came with the Nuks that I like better than a cloth case.  But I'm thinking of making one out of oil cloth, similar to one I've seen sold in stores.  Only time will tell if I actually make one or not.