Oh what a weekend

Baby girl was sick this weekend with a 100 degree temperature and who-knows-what. This is what we did all day:

Snuggled on the couch and watched lots of Dora the Explorer and Spongebob (I had to stay glued to the couch with her or else she'd cry, needless to say the "Backpack" song was stuck in my head all day)...

Read "Baby Animals" about 20 times. She should be a pro at what sounds baby animals make after that marathon...

Typed on the keyboard her Yaya and Papa Bear gave her...

And blew lots of "bub-o's." Look, I got a smile!

It's a snap!

Lately, I've discovered how great old clothes can be. You know what I'm talking about. That bag of clothes sitting on the floor in your closet that you've been meaning to give to Good Will for the last 3 months. Or maybe it's that one shirt hanging in your closet that you haven't worn for almost a year but you just KNOW you're going to wear it soon. Maybe next week. Or the week after.

Yeah, those old clothes.

I have a bag of those too. They're mostly odd t-shirts or sweaters that haven't seen the light of day in a looooong time. I dug into that bag a week ago and realized something. Even if I don't like a shirt, why not make it into something I DO like? Novel idea, huh?

Prudent Baby has a ton of great tutorials for kids and babies from clothes to toys and books. It's one of my new favorite blogs! I found a great tutorial for the "Snappy Toddler Top" and modified it some (they have a downloadable pattern on their site too, which really helped.)

I liked the idea of the collar and snaps, but the t-shirt I had to work with had this funky line sewn down the front and the back of the shirt (part of the reason why I didn't ever wear it.) I knew I wanted to cover it up somehow, while still making it cute, so I decided to add some ruffles! When you have little girls, ruffles are pretty much a must, right?

Here's a few pictures of how my shirt turned out. (Sorry if some of the pictures are kind of blurry, I caught my little model in the middle of play time :)

So dig out those old clothes and see what you can make!

Crayon roll

As I was browsing around the blogging world looking for fun crafts to make, I found another great tutorial on UK Lass in US for a crayon roll.

I've wanted to make one of these for awhile (even though my daughter would rather eat the crayons than color with them), so when I found this tutorial and had the exact amount of flannel that I needed left over from my recent blanket-making escapade, I decided to try making one myself. Here's how it turned out:


This is such a cute project, and so easy! It took me about 1 1/2 hours to do, and I think it'd be faster if I tried making another one now that I have it down. The roll holds about 29 crayons (odd number?) which is plenty for a kid who needs some variety when coloring. The best part about the crayon roll is that it's portable (and personalized!), and there's no more loose crayons in the car/diaper bag/purse. All of them are displayed for you or your little one to choose whatever color you need, then easily stored for another day.

I love this project, too bad Haley doesn't get the whole coloring thing yet....the crayon roll will be waiting for her when she finally gets it down!

Silky blankies

When my daughter was born, my cousin sent her these adorable handmade flannel and satin blankies that she absolutely adores. She cuddles up to them at night, and won't leave her crib in the morning without reaching down and grabbing both blankets before she allows herself to be lifted out of bed.

My little 5 month-old niece, Lena, is now at the age where she is grabbing onto everything in sight, so my sister-in-law wanted to know if my cousin was still selling the blankets on her Etsy shop. After going online, I realized that she had closed her shop, but I thought it would be an easy enough project to tackle myself.

I went to Michael's and found 2 adorable patterns (1/2 each) and some pink satin material (1 yard.) I also picked up a few assorted ribbons to attach to sides of the blanket to give Lena something to play with as she cuddled with her blankies. After some measuring and pinning, I came out with 2 adorable blankies, and fabric to spare! I'm hoping a few pregnant friends of mine have girls so I can make some more :)

T-shirt refashion

I am really excited to tell you about this one! I have been really nervous about attempting to make clothes in the past because I can be such a perfectionist that I get frustrated and stop working on something if it doesn't go the way I planned. Somehow, this turned out just how I planned!

I have a bag of clothes I've been meaning to give away to Goodwill. They've been sitting in my closet for about 4 months now (procrastination much?) After finding this "Easy Breezy Tank" tutorial on Craftiness is Not Optional, it looked like something I could try. Having never made clothes before, I was feeling adventurous and up to the challenge. After digging around, I found one t-shirt in my clothes bag that I thought would work.

And that's how I turned this:

into this:

Since I didn't have a template to go off of, I simply took one of my daughter's 18-month old tank tops and laid it on top of the green t-shirt. Then, I traced around it with disappearing ink (adding an extra 1/4 inch on all sides for seam allowance) and pinned the shirt so that I could easily cut around it, giving me my front and back pieces. I followed the tutorial above for the most part, but I didn't make the elastic neckline. Instead, I made my own bias tape (just as the tutorial explains how to do for the straps) and lined the front and back of the neck with it.

After finishing sewing and lining the shirt, it didn't seem quite finished. I knew I wanted to add an embellishment to it, so I decided to make a cute flower decal, but I didn't want it to be typical. I started by tracing a pattern for a petal. I cut out 8 flower petals and lined them up in pairs, overlapping the edges some. I then took a needle and thread and sewed all of them together by sewing several small stitches on the bottom (flat part) of each petal. After they were all joined together, I pulled the thread and all of them bunched up nicely. Then, join the ends of the end 2 petals by making a circle, and make a couple of stitches to join the 2, like this:

From there, I pinned the flower to the tank top, sewed around the entire perimeter, then added a large button in the middle to finish it, and voila! Instant cute baby tank! The entire project probably took me about 4 hours, but it took a little longer with constant interruptions thanks to bedtime and an active toddler. I am so happy with how this turned out though. I will never throw another t-shirt out again!

More stackable rings

I have an adorable little niece, Lena, who unfortunately lives 13 hours away. She's about 5 months now, so she's been getting more interactive and beginning to chew and pull on everything, as babies do. When Haley was little, I made her cute cloth rings with ribbon on them in different patterns and styles. She loved to chew on them and accessorize by wearing them as bracelets (usually accidentally :) I also made a wooden stand for the rings to go on, which I painted with acrylic paint, so that when she was older, she could learn how to stack them.

If Haley had stackable rings, Lena needed some too. Many people don't realize that, when babies are young, they don't see the full color spectrum for a few months. They like to look at the colors red and black the most because they have the best contrast, making them the most interesting. Luckily, I love fabrics in black and red, so I had a bunch to work with.

It was fun finding different ribbon to work with. Babies love the texture of ribbon, and many times the toys and blankets that have ribbon on them are super expensive. This project was made using lots of fabrics in fat quarter sizes and an assortment of ribbon. The most expensive part was probably the wooden parts and dowel screws (I got the wood pieces at Michael's and the dowel screws at Home Depot.) My hubby helped cut down the wooden rod since power tools and I don't mix.

I hear that Lena loves the rings and gnaws the living daylights out of them. If anything, they make great teething rings!

Happy 12 weeks!

My little kidney bean is 12 weeks old! I can't believe how much he/she has grown, even in the last 6 weeks since I got to first see him/her. The doc says everything looks good and development is right on track (aside from the fact that the little kidney bean is measuring 2 days larger than the estimated due date.) I'm so afraid that this baby is going to be the size that my husband was when he was born - 10 pounds, 12 ounces - yikes!!! I still hurt just thinking about it....my poor mother in law, God bless that woman.

My stomach is beginning to show even more and more lately too. It's so true that you show more with the 2nd pregnancy. I feel like I look as big as I did when I was 5 months pregnant, even though I've only gained 2 pounds so far. I know I'm not that big yet, but my body is definitely responding early this time, probably because it's done this already once before. I can't wait to find out the gender! I'm hoping they'll take a sneak peek in 2 weeks when I go back to talk about the "c" word....shudder....I'll have to tell you more about that later....