Happy Holidays!

Googily

I had someone contact me about making a Googily doll, from the book Jumpy Jack and Googily, by Meg Rosoff. It's her grandson's favorite book and she wanted to give him a Googily doll for Christmas.

I made him out of wool felt, like my other monster softies, but chose to make him a rag doll, with floppy arms and legs.

Ballerinas

After sharing Vera's nursery on Project Nursery I had a request from another mom for two needle felted animals, like the ones used for Vera's mobile. I made a ballerina rabbit and cat for her; my favorite parts to make were the little ballet slippers, "tied" on with embroidery floss. The tiny tutus were pretty fun too.

My Little Mermaid

Vera was a little mermaid for Halloween! Here's a rough how-to for making your own mermaid costume.

Materials:

1 yard costume satin

elastic

felt

sequins

white cotton onesie

3 tea bags

little boy's snake/dragon/lizard? swimsuit (optional)

Total cost: $8

For my patterns, I printed out seashell and star shapes I found online and free-handed the shape of the fin. For size 3-6 months, the fin pattern should measure about 15.5" at the waist and 26" long. You want to make sure there is plenty of width in the the fin so baby can move around, especially if your little one is as squirmy as mine.

When looking for a onesie at Goodwill, I came across this pair of boy's swim trunks and thought the scale pattern would be perfect for the fin.

There wasn't a lot of fabric so I had to be creative. I cut up the back side of the swimsuit and pieced it together to create the front of the fin. I pinned and sewed the scale fabric onto one of my satin fins; I cut around the scales at the bottom and sewed them onto the satin with a narrow zig zag stitch. If you are just using the satin, you can follow the steps below:

Cut two fins out of the costume satin, one for the front and one for the back.

Pin both fin pieces right sides together, and sew around the edges. Cut off any excess fabric with pinking shears. This will help prevent fraying, since costume satin frays easily. (you could also use a serger). Turn right side out and press.

Cut a rectangular piece of satin, long enough to go around the top of the fin. Fold in half, right sides together, with short ends touching. Sew along the short ends so you have a loop. Turn right side out, fold lengthwise and press. Pin the folded loop around the top of the fin, with the raw edge toward the top. Next you will need to hem the top to hide the raw edges and make a channel for the elastic. Fold over the top of the fin 1/2" and press. Fold over another 1" and press again. Sew along the bottom of the hem, leaving a 2" opening to thread your elastic through. I used a pair of Vera's pants to determine how much elastic I needed. Run your elastic through the hemmed waist and sew both ends together. Tuck inside and close up the opening in your hem.

For the headband, I sewed a narrow tube of fabric out of costume satin and ran a piece of elastic through it. Next, I traced a star on to a piece of magenta felt and embellished it with sequins. Then I sandwiched the headband between my star (still not cut out) and another piece of felt, sewing along the outline of my star. To finish I cut off the excess felt around the star, being careful not to cut the headband.

Front

Back

For the top, I tea dyed a white onesie to make it flesh-toned. It's a pretty simple process: bring a pot of water and three family sized tea bags to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and soak the onesie for about 15 minutes, depending on how dark you want it. Stir occasionally. Rinse the onesie in the sink then run it once through the washer and dryer.

The last step was to cut the seashells out of felt, embellish them with sequins, and sew them onto the onesie.

Happy Halloween!

Shhh!

Between nap time and nursing, I snuck in a little embroidery and sewing...

A little drawstring bag to hold ear plugs. I have this in our guest room. Even if I'm not getting any sleep, maybe our guests still can.

DIY Vanilla Extract

A while back my friend Jenn shared how to make your own vanilla extract. So back in March we bought some vanilla beans and vodka and started a bottle.

Four months later and the extract was ready to use. We poured some into smaller 4 oz bottles and topped off the large bottle of vanilla with more vodka.

DIY Padded Camera Bag

We recently upgraded our camera from a Canon Powershot to a Canon Rebel T3i.

Make It and Love It shared a tutorial for turning a purse into a padded camera bag, so I gave it a try.

Materials:
Purse or tote bag
1/2" thick foam
Velcro
About 1 yard of fabric

I found a purse with a shoulder strap at a thrift store for $7, and the velcro and foam cost another few dollars. Total cost for this project was around $15.

I went with a solid gray fabric since Zach and I will be sharing this bag, and I didn't want to make it too girly.

Seed Paper Flowers

I wanted to make something special for friends and family who visited us after the baby was born. I decided to make plantable seed paper cards, and came across a tutorial for seed paper flowers when looking for ideas.

I already had a couple packets of wildflower seeds and picked up another on a trip to Wildseed Farms. (We took a baby-moon to Fredericksburg for a weekend in May). To make 14 flowers I used two packets of seeds.

Along with each flower I included a card with a special message and planting instructions.

The front of each card reads "Our little girl has finally sprouted!" and on the back are the planting instructions. The flowers and seeds are glued together with a flour paste, but I used hot glue to attach the flower to the card. The hot glue peels off pretty easily so you can remove the flower and plant it.

She's Here!

Meet Vera Elise.

Being a mom - you wonder how you'll ever do it, then you wonder why you didn't do it sooner. So in love with our little girl.

Tote Bag Sewing Kit

My eldest niece got her first sewing machine for Christmas this past year, so when thinking up ideas for her next birthday gift, I thought it would be fun to make her a sewing kit. 

Along with fabric, I included a spool of thread, pins, chalk, a button, and needle and thread for sewing on the button. All the fabric pieces were precut, and the straps and button hole presewn.

Cute thread card found here

I also made a mason jar pincushion to hold all the supplies, following this tutorial.

Happy sewing birthday girl!

Pleated Zipper Pouch

I like to travel light, but know with baby on the way I'll be toting a lot more around, including a diaper bag.  To keep my personal items (the things I would usually carry in my purse) organized and easy to find, I made a zippered pouch to go inside the diaper bag. It keeps everything in one place and can be easily removed if I need to hand over the diaper bag to Zach.

I followed Skip to my Lou's Pleated Pouch Tutorial, enlarging the pattern to 150% since I needed my bag to be a bit larger (Finished size is approx 11" x 8.5"). I used leftover upholstery fabric from the nursery for the bag exterior and a cotton print for the lining.