Hair Bow Extravaganza

I've been going a little crazy making hair bows lately. I know my baby girl isn't here yet, but I'm just preparing. Plus, they are so much fun to make! I need to add more color variety to the bows, but for now these will match all her little newborn outfits.

Here is a sampling of the different hair bows I've been working on (all of the bows are relatively small from 1" to 2.25")...








TUTORIALS:

**Crushed fabric flower tutorial from make-it-and-love-it here.

**Felt flower tutorial from make-it-and-love-it here.

**Satin flower tutorial from my sisters-in-law here.

**Fold over elastic headband tutorial here. (I purchased the fold over elastic from that same store here.)

**Sweet Little Bow tutorial found here.

I attached clips (snap clips and/or alligator clips) to the backs of most of the hair bows (with the exception of the small felt flowers and sweet little bows, I'll just attach with some elmer's glue to my baby's head). This way I can either clip the bows straight into her hair or onto a headband.

baby legs (again)

I'm in LOVE with making baby legs! I made some and posted them (with a link to a tutorial) another time on the blog over a year ago. With baby (no name yet) coming soon, I thought I would make some for her - I found some CUTE knee high socks for little kids at gymboree (very left in the picture) that will fit the baby's legs sooner than the adult knee highs I used for the rest. Abby - my 4 (almost 5) year old wanted to try these on and LOVES them. She calls them her leg warmers and wants to wear them all over the place. She has been asking to wear skirts just so she can wear the "leg warmers". She said she would share once the babies legs get bigger
My friend Brandy sent the striped socks and the pink polka dot socks so I could make these last two pairs. It's hard to find CUTE knee highs on island.

Baby bjorn cover

I was in love with this tutorial that I saw a LONG time ago and finally gave it a go. These aren't the best pictures, but I can't fit the baby bjorn carrier over my stomach right now, so will have to get pictures AFTER I have the baby!

I bought the material for the covers when I was in Oregon. Figured if I have a puker, these are easy to take on/off and wash! This will hook to the piece that goes around my shoulders - I just don't have it out yet.
It was VERY easy to sew up. Not nearly as easy to put the carrier into the cover, but it fits!

Nursing Cover

Nursing covers are all over the blogging world, so I decided to try making one. I used this tutorial here from Sew Much Ado. I used home decor fabric, which is heavy enough to require just one layer.

It was really fast and easy - took me about 2 hours to complete. It has 16" of boning on the top, which should make the cover breathable for baby and easy for Mom. I am excited to try it out!

Binky Clips

Items you'll need:
~Clips (either mattress clips, or suspender clips work well too, really wherever you can find them really cheap)
~Ribbon (as wide as the clip)
~Velcro
~Sewing Machine and Thread
First cut the ribbon the size you want the clip to be, then burn the edges to make sure they don't fray.

Then pull the ribbon through, fold it under and sew.

On the other end fold over a little bit and place a small piece of the prickly part of Velcro on top...then sew around all the edges. Make sure to sew the Velcro on the back side that the clip is on.

Then on the same side sew the fuzzy Velcro just a little ways down. I didn't measure or anything...I just figured that I would be able to make a loop around a Binky.

These were super easy, and I think they turned out great!

Baby Shower Gift

My friend is having a baby boy the beginning of November and I'm super excited for her! Here is the gifts that I made for her.

I love these self-binding blankets! They are so easy and so cute!Then I did some appliques. I found a few online tutorials, but I ended up just using light weight stitch witchery. Then I put a piece of computer behind it to help feed it through. It worked like a charm and didn't bunch up the onsie at all! I'm so happy!

Then I made her a few burp cloths using THIS tutorial. I love it by the way!

I've very excited with how it all turned out!

Not your ordinary bow holder-actual post!!!

I saw this idea in California when I was pregnant with Lilly. It has always been on my crafting-to-do list. I FINALLY made it and I love it! Here is the picture without bows:

Here is the picture with bows! I overloaded it with all of the bows and flowers I have made for Lilly. There are even more that wouldn't fit on here!
I went to California this past month and the same store still sells these bow holders! I am going to tweak mine a little to look a little better. I'll post the pics with a tutorial when I do that.

Flowers for Headbands

I had so much fun making the rings, that I made a bunch of flower clips for my daughter's headbands! I think they turned out really cute! I've made even more clips after I took this picture!

Diaper Cake

I threw one of my friends a baby shower, and decided as part of my gift to her and for decorations for the shindig I decided to make a diaper cake. I have made these in the past for my sister's showers and love doing it. So any chance I have to make one I take it!

1. The first thing you do is get all stuff you want to put on your cake. I have done it with toys, bottles, onesies, binkies, and other baby accessories. This time I decided to make it more like a decoration with ribbons and flowers. Items you need:
Diapers (obviously!)
cardboard
rubberbands
wooden dowels
ribbon
pins
stuff to decorate the cake with

2. Then you need to wrap the diapers.
To do that you open up the diaper like so.

Then you simply roll it up and put a rubber band around it. I rolled up enough diapers for the bottom that would fit the piece of cardboard I cut out.

3. Once you have the base you want you get a really stretchy rubber band and put it around the whole layer of diapers. I did a 3-layer cake so once finished all the layers the way that I wanted and put a rubber band around the whole thing, I cut the ribbon I liked the size of the cake and pinned it in place.
4. After that I put the layers on top of each other and took my wooden dowels and shoved it in between the diapers all the way down. I found a pack of wooden dowels that was the perfect size of the cake so I didn't have to cut any of it down. I've also bought a long wooden dowel and cut it to the size I need.

5. Once I finished that I put flowers in where I wanted them. I just cut the stem off and stuck it in the cake.

On the top of the cake I put a teething ring to help the flowers stay up. I just used a cardboard box that I cut off one of the sides and then covered it with wrapping paper. Then I added a few toys as well.

The cake was a hit at the party and my friend loved having some diapers for her baby!!

Little Book of Peeps

** My sister-in-law, Melissa, (who is also an author on this blog) inspired me to create this **

Because we live far away from family, I thought a picture book of all my son's relatives (up through great-grandparents) would be fun to look at and remember all the peeps who love him! It's real simple and easy - exactly what I like! Here's a few things I did:

1 - After gathering the pictures I wanted, I mounted them on cardstock.
2 - I then printed out the names of each relative and adhered to the picture.
3 - I used mounting squares to attach the pages to each other (front and back).
4 - After laminating, I punched holes in the side and added 2 rings.

You could be as simple or fancy as you want. The best part is, I can keep adding as the family gets bigger.

Tutu

These tutus are everywhere! I thought it would be cute to make a Halloween one for Lilly to go with her Halloween onesies. (Joni will be getting one, too!!!) There are so many different tutorials out there, but here is what I did:

I bought 3 colors of tulle, 1 yard each.

I bought some elastic, measured Lilly's waist, cut, and sewed the ends together. Note: You can also use ribbon instead of elastic.

I put the elastic around a chair to make it easier to tie on the tulle. This idea came from Make it and Love it (can you tell we like that blog?!)

I then cut the tulle into 3 inch wide strips with my rotary cutter.

Then I cut each piece in half on the fold.

I then tied each piece of tulle onto the elastic by folding the pieces in half, putting the loop up to the elastic, and pulling the ends through.


I tied each piece in a pattern.

Here is the finished product! (I may add some Halloween ribbons or spiders to it!)

Binkie Chain

I made this binkie chain for Tiona's son, Carter. I know it's a little late, but I'm sure they can still use it! I have one for Lilly and it has been the best thing ever! You just clip it onto their clothes, so when it falls out of their mouths, it just hangs there! It doesn't get lost or dirty! I hope it's not too girly for his dad!