A baby shower gift idea

Sorry I've been MIA for a while from blogging, I've been super busy in my craft room sewing up a ton of gifts for other people, mainly for Steph and my nephew on the way, Liam. Seriously I've been a sewing maniac! This month has been crazy busy and it looks like things wont slow down until August, but then again Liam will be here so I'll be living over at Steph and Aldos visiting a lot, so it looks like things will still be busy around here. Sigh.

So on to the baby shower gift idea. I know most, if not all my readers, are moms or moms-to-be (lets face it, the dudes could care less about my ramblings on baby/toddler stuff and crafts. Its ok, I understand. No hard feelings) so I thought I'd share my shower gift to my sister if any of you want to spoil someone YOU know. This was a pretty big hit at the shower Jac and I threw Steph this past Sunday, and I was pretty giddy to give it to her because we are a lot alike (ha!) and I knew I would totally want this! (Come on now, who doesn't LOVE unexpected thoughtful gifts?!) So I had been thinking about the weeks before, during, and after my labor with Eli so that I could help Steph get as prepared as possible for her birthing experience because I want it to be as amazing as it should be, and voila! In popped the idea, and I couldn't put it together fast enough!

I'm sure this isn't a new gift idea but I was encouraged that when I searched "baby shower gift" on Pinterest, a million of these didn't pop up! :P Thats how I gauge how unique my current sewing idea is. Dang you Pinterest! You are a curse and a blessing in equal proportions!**shaking fists in air** Here it is, a gift for mom:

So much space for all the necessities!

hospital bag with matching toiletry bag

I just realized I'm obsessed with making bags and want a new one every week. Ever since becoming a mom, I'm preoccupied with customizing a bag to meet every single one of my lug-around-a-bunch-of-junk needs. I can't help it. It's a compulsion and I probably need help.....ANYWAYS back to Steph's bag. I made this one with the idea that I wanted it to be big enough to fit all she would need for a 3 day stay, as well as stock it full of stuff she would need or not even think of. Jac and I joined brains and experiences and decided this is what was needed for Steph's personalized bag:

lightweight knit night gown (nursing accessible)

Lightweight knit robe (fits in the bag and good for the hot/cold flashes)

Slippers

Fuzzy socks

Greatest bras ever x3 

Water bottle

Toiletry bag (fits all this stuff, plus extra room for her makeup bag)

Contact solution

Contact case

Chapstick

Crossword puzzle book

Tooth paste

Tooth brush and cover

Dental floss

Mouth wash

Facial cleansing wipes

Body wash

Loofa

Shampoo

Conditioner

Hairspray

Brush

Pads & mesh panties

Breast pads

Kind snack bars x3

Gum

  Mocha Frappuccino x2       

**I forgot deoderant but I would recommend that :)      

      

Did we forget anything that YOU would recommend? I chose to make the bag because, again I can customize it to my specifications but there are a TON of large, super cute totes out there that you can buy fairly cheap and stuff full of goodies as well. It obviously doesn't have to be handmade, (heck if I didn't sew I would totally sell Thirty-one bags and use one of those!) or another option is to search ETSY for a bag you like and you will also support a small business owner :) I've made a bunch of lined bags before so I just used my prior experience to come up with this bag but if you are ambitious and want to make it yourself I can send you my dimensions or you can check out Pinterest for awesome tutorials and tweak it as you wish. Here's a pretty detailed one I found that would be perfect. Then I figure she can use this bag for travel in the future or convert it to a back up diaper bag (which is what I would do)

Do it! Make a new mom's day :)


Ok, happy packing ya'll!

-Linds

P.S I will be visiting my crafty cousin Beckie with www.infarrantlycreative.net next week and we plan to sew a bunch of stuff and do a few tutorials so if there is something I've done in the past that you want a tutorial on, please let me know and I'll be sure we do that one. (I've been toying with the idea of offering tutorials on this blog but it's a LOT of work so I haven't gone that route yet. So a BIG shout out to those bloggers who do! Muuuuah! I love you, I love you, I love you!) I plan to do one on the toddler backpack and the "busy bag" for car rides/travel so far:

Toddler backpack with "learning caddy"

**Update: Tutorial done! It can be found here

Travel toddler "busy" bag

**Update: Tutorial done! It can be found here
Other options could be the toddler training skivvies or diaper wipes clutch:

Toddler training skivies 

Diaper wipes clutch.

Let me know. Toodles!

My latest brain child (counts as "offspring" then right??)

So here's how this little diddy came to be. I recently went to my cousin's basketball game at my old high school and reeeeally didn't want to lug in my purse, so I just ended up grabbing some cash and my phone and holding it all night. Lame sauce. I then went to Officemax during a little family outing over the weekend and spotted a cute little leather iPhone wristlet. It was awesome but too small for all the "essentials" I'd want to tote around without my big purse. It got me thinkin' "hey I could make that!" This obsession trying to find the perfect wristlet tutorial took over my mind and body for 2 straight days! I couldn't find anything out there in regards to a tutorial that involved a wristlet where the whole thing was zippered shut. (I'm disappointed in you Pinterest. That's the first time you've let me down) So I set out to doing it on my own. There are a lot of things about this that I'm proud of, but it's definitely not "perfect". I am happy to say that it is exactly my "vision" which is good and bad. The good is obvious, but the bad is when I get a "vision" of how I want something to be, it consumes me until I have it just so. Ugh. So without further ado, my new clutch/wristlet/iphone carrier/organizer. (Most of you have already seen it on Facebook, but not my Jac):

Ta Da!

Right now inside is my iPhone, lip gloss, keys, checkbook, cash, coins, pen and credit cards/I.D. Can you believe it? Here, I'll show you:

I didn't remove a thing for the picture.

I added padding to the lining pieces so it protects my phone. Oh, and guess what?! The cool thing that I learned by accident is that I can still use my iPhone while its in it's vinyl sleeve! Technically I don't even have to take it out to use the touch screen features now :)

It currently has replaced my checkbook wallet in my purse and serves as sort of a clutch at the moment but my plan is when a moment arises where I want to run into some place without my purse, I'll grab this out and attach my key fob to the "D" ring I attached to the back. You can see it better in this photo:

I just love when a plan comes together! Ok, I gotta run. I have my cousin's baby shower to help throw tomorrow so I need some sleep. Night all!

-Linds

A little sewing for me….

I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of sewing lately but it’s been for other people, namely those with protruding bellies with my favorite things inside . I just had an urge to do some sewing for me and I wanted to do something different. I’m always looking for that next inspiration/challenge. Well my latest project was anything BUT a challenge but sooooo fun to sew because each took like 30 minutes to make and were super easy. Super easy+super quick= super gratifying and one happy Lindsay!

It all started when a bunch of us from work got together for lunch and a girl I used to work with, Shauna (Hi Shauna!) showed up in the the ca-uutest navy blue and chevron maxi skirt! I’m obsessed with all things striped in the fashion world right now and chevron is pretty darn cute too. She said she got it at Target so I even dragged my hubby to 2 different Targets (on date night, nonetheless!) in an effort to snag one of these puppies for myself. But no such luck. All that were left on the wrack were gray skirts in size XXL . I was so disappointed. But then I ran into this maxi skirt tutorial over on Leanne Barlow’s blog “Elle Apparel” and decided to just make my own. I sewed the whole thing using just a rolled hem on my serger and didn’t even bother to hem the bottoms because being knit, they won’t fray. Sa-weet! In LoOovVvvEeE! These things are so comfy!

Forgive my cuh-rappy photography skills (or Steph’s rather , ha ha. Sorry for throwing you under the bus Steph. I DO appreciate your cooperation) and I am most definitely NOT a model, nor ever want to be one so don’t focus on my standard arms-akimbo-stance in all 3 photos. Just go with it and focus on the puuuurty skirts, pleaseandthankyou . My plan is to wear them until they are thread bare and ideally not be sick of them by the time baby number 2 comes along, because they have a yoga style top to them and I remember those to be a dream to wear with a big ol’ belly. So without further ado, here they are:

Just a plain,solid purple (and this just so happened to be the tank top I was already wearing today)

And my fun zebra print one! Here I just tucked my tank in and put on a belt

Same skirt obviously with my tank un-tucked. I think I like it un-tucked better. I’ll bet my photographer readers are cringing right now at my chosen place for a photo-op. Ha ha. sorry Beck, I know lighting and background are supposed to be important. Meh. Don’t care.

I have one more printed fabric I bought today to make a third skirt but I’m going to make it some other time. Wouldn’t want to go overboard or anything .

And I can’t end a post without a picture of my babycakes:

In true ham bone fashion.

The baby’s in bed and our hubbies aren’t home so Steph and I are going to watch The Hangover II now .

Na Night,

-Linds

My first EVER t-shirt quilt.

Woooweee, I’ve been a busy girl this past week! One of my mom’s poker buddy’s granddaughter just graduated high school and was having a hard time parting with all her childhood sports jersey’s and t-shirts that she no longer wore but still had a lot of memories that held sentimental value to her, so her mom thought to make it into a quilt for her to take off to college. Awww. Enter: me . I was propositioned to make this for her. My first one. EVER. I’ve done small baby quilts before and I feel I’ve learned new things with each one but I am by no means a seasoned “quilter”, and as my fellow sewers/crafters know, working with knit (aka, what t-shirts are made of) can pose many challenges because it stretches. But I like challenges so bring it. Queen sized??? Sure, why not.

Do you have any idea how BIG a queen size is? Bigger than my sewing table, that’s for darn sure. Then throw in batting that goes in between the quilt top and backing and we’re talking muscle building workout toting this thing around my work space, aka entire house. I seriously had to find bigger and bigger work areas to lay this puppy out. At one point I ended up in my kitchen (no worries, I did wash my floor first, I swear!) I had agreed to doing this for her and had the bag of t-shirts before I found out how big she intended it to be. In hind sight, I don’t think I would have had the cojones to say yes if I had known the size beforehand. All in all though, it went without a hitch (Thank you JEsus!) and I’m positively in LOVE with it.

Look at the size of this thing! I’m pretty sure it weighed a metric ton too (bonus points to anyone who knows which movie character is described as weighing “one metric ton”. I know grandpa Terry will get this right ).

Eli liked it

The girl’s mom said she liked the quilts with the borders around each shirt so that’s why I did the blue in between. She also said her daughter’s favorite colors were blue and red and that she liked tye dye so I bound the quilt using tye dyed looking fabric and backed it with red.

I originally thought I’d do the “tie” method to quilt this blanket since it was to be so big and I don’t have a professional quilting machine at my disposal (dang it! Any sewing shops wanna donate to a good cause?? ), which is a very typical method but honestly I’m not a huge fan of that look. I’m not sure why. But I feel it detracts from the overall beautiful quilt top you worked so hard to piece together, Here is a pic I took from the internet to give you an idea of what I mean:

See the blue tie? You place those regularly throughout the whole quilt which keeps the back layer, batting, and quilt top all sandwiched together. You would think those ties would get cut down to near invisible but they don’t. That’s how they’re “designed” to look. Bleh. I have my scissors in hand and reeally want to snip them through the computer screen .

So instead I decided to try and muscle this ginormous thing through my very clearly not designed for quilting sewing machine and hoped for the best. Gulp. I just sewed lines through the blue borders creating squares on the back—nothing fancy but in my opinion, an option I could be proud of putting my name on instead of doing the tie method above.

Here’s a pic of the back to show you what I mean:

I used a queen sized flat sheet so that I didn’t have to worry about piecing together the fabric for the backing and risk having an unsightly seam running down the center. It actually looked like a duvet cover when I finished which I found to be a pleasant surprise .

That stuff on the bottom was from sleeves of her left over t-shirts so I made a little label by embroidering on the “9”a little note from mom and dad:

Overall, I’m very excited with the way it turned out. It was really fun and challenging to have to figure it out ahead of time, come up with the correct math/measurements, and to not have to make multiple trips to the craft store. I literally had scraps of fabric left! Yay me .

Am I ready to start my next one? Not on your life! ha ha. I need a break . And my hubby would like to see me again seeing as how I was totally preoccupied making this thing any time Eli was napping or down for the night. Honey, I’m back!

Night all,

-Linds

Eli’s spiffed up Doc band…

Not gonna lie. I feel sooooo much better about Eli’s helmet now that it’s painted. The stark whiteness of it, made it seem like there was something wrong with my baby. Each time I looked at  him in it, my heart broke a little. I couldn’t explain it but it made me sad. Kind of like seeing your kid in a cast, I would imagine. I guess it just made me go down that pity road of “what if…” What if Eli did bang his head against stuff? What if he did crack his skull open from a fall? Gah! I just can’t bare the thought! As a parent, we naturally just want the best for our children, plain and simple. I once questioned if I was even cut out for having children of my own because I’m very sensitive when it comes to hurt feelings or seeing a child fall/get hurt. I don’t want to hear about Eli getting bullied or shoved down or have him break an arm—all of which are just about guaranteed to happen at least once in our lifetime, right? I mean who out there has never had someone tease them, or hasn’t broken a bone? Ok enough depressing thoughts. Lets move on to the good stuff.
Now the big reveal. I love it. I did end up stealing the “just fixin’ my flat” idea because it makes me laugh every time. I also had to do an airplane for obvious reasons. I envisioned the plane in the little bump out area over his forehead and the plane spelling out his name in loop-d-loops. Can you picture it yet? Also from the instant that white helmet went on, I thought how much more I’d “like” it if it were baby blue. So baby blue it is . I’ll admit I was shakin’ in my pink slippers worrying I may ruin this thing. I guess my strong dislike for the white was stronger than my fear of jacking it up :/
So the front, I just free handed because I couldn’t find cute baby-like airplane stickers (what the heck people! I ran into the same problem when decorating his nursery. Somebody wanna get on that? You have a large untapped market to take advantage of and I’ll keep you in business ) And the back is using stickers.
So without further ado, the before:

Hello handsome

The, to me, much improved after:

Front view

Back view.

Now I’m not a gambler by nature (that would be my mom, Hi mom!) so I made sure to follow the tips and recommendations from Cranial Technologies on how to go about decorating it. Isn’t that funny that they encourage it? I was so surprised about that. Anyways they recommend using non toxic acrylic paint and mod podge to seal it. After I painted his helmet it started to chip just by applying the stickers! I was seriously worried about it’s ability to endure Eli playing and sleeping in it. But I did one coat of mod podge over everything, crossed my fingers, said a little prayer, and put him to bed and hoped for the best. I was so giddy to see it held up over night when I went to get him up this morning! Not a single chip! Woo hoo!

So, now I look at my widdle guy and see a cool new hat, not a medical device . So what do YOU think?

-Linds

A sign and a present…

So on Saturday Eli bonded with grandma and I went over to my friend Leslie’s house for a craft day. I’ve been meaning to make a door sign for our front door warning people not to ring the freakin’ bell since I have a baby most likely sleeping. I had no idea what kind of door sign I was going to make but Leslie suggested wood and painting it and we used her handy dandy silhouette cutting tool to make the lettering. I love it. It’s exactly what I was looking for. Here she is, hanging and ready to warn:

I like to think that this now gives me the right to give a nice tongue lashing to anyone who disregards this sign and rings the bell anyways but who am I kidding? I don’t have the balls to do that :/ I’m not Uncle Pibe.
As I was about to head home, Leslie tells me she made ME something. For real??! She is a big scrap booker and made me an Eli book! I was so touched by how much time and effort she clearly put into this thing. It chronicle's my week by week belly pics all the way through the delivery. Here are some pics to highlight the detail and thought that went into it:

Hi punkin…muuuah.

I wanted to do something with these pics but had no idea what I should do. This is waaay better then anything I would have decided on!

How touching is this???

Seriously Leslie, I LOVE it! I can’t thank you enough!!

-Linds

Baby shower for Sara…

Today I took Eli with me to my friend Sara’s baby shower since kids and babies where welcome (Which worked out great because the hubby had a huge paper to write for school and my mom/sitter wasn’t feeling well). We had a good time and Eli behaved for the first 2hrs, (he’s a people person and loves attention), but then hit his wall at his usual nap time and was too over stimulated by all the excitement to fall asleep and ended up  freaking out :/ My poor kiddo. Thank God there was a baby whisperer there (Sara’s mother-in-law’s sister) that finally got him to fall asleep. This time change thing certainly isn’t helping matters either because he thought it was time to start getting ready for bed at 5:30 tonight. We definitely need to get back on schedule tomorrow.
Steph and I had a blast making all of Sara’s baby gifts. We made her a car seat tent, a wet bag, some pee pee tee pees, a hooded towel, hooter hider, paci holder and paci clip, a diaper motorcycle (also with homemade recieving blankets for the handle bars), sugar scrub for momma, and a travel bib! Phew. We were very busy :)
Here are a few pics of the ones I remembered to take pictures of:

Diaper motorcycle (2 receiving blankets, about 40 diapers, 3 pairs baby socks, bottle, washcloth, and 2 bibs) Tutorial found here.

 

Hooded bath towel.

Travel bib. You stick in a spoon and fork on the side pockets and some wet wipes in the center, fold it and snap shut. Tutorial found here.

Carseat tent, no explanation needed I’m sure.

I’m bummed I forgot to take a pic of the wet bag. Oh well. It was just a bag to stick wet/soiled baby stuff in that had a waterproof lining and zipped shut.

Here we are with the momma to be. Poor Eli looks put out. I think he needs more time hanging with the men:

People often think the 3 of us are sisters when we are out and about.

We played a game involving guessing the different chocolate candies melted in diapers. They smelled scrumdiddlioumpscious but looked DI-Scust-ing. I snapped a pic of Steph smelling one as she tried to guess what it was, ha ha:

I think she feared that at any given time she’d open up a “real” diaper, hence the nervous face. ha ha ha.

All in all it was a good time. Sara was spoiled as she should be :) Congrats girlie! Soooooo excited for you to start this awesome journey as well.
-Linds