Please Knock...Baby Sleeping

My friend Jenn gave me this sweet alphabet embroidery sampler pattern for Christmas:

I haven't attempted the full sampler yet, but used some of the designs to create an embroidered sign for the front door.

I sized the pattern down to 45% of the original size, for the word "knock." Since it was so much smaller than the original, I couldn't use all the recommended stitches, so I ended up using satin stitch for many of the letters. The rest of the words were done with back stitch.

Zach dug the frame out of a dumpster about 5 years ago, one of his favorite hobbies when we were still living in an apartment.

Forest Friends Mobile

I recently made a baby mobile for a friend, to go with her woodland themed nursery.

Source

The animals are made mostly of wool-blend felt, with a few hand embroidered details.

I also made a second owl, to hang from the car seat.

A healthy baby gift

I found a cute bicycle print flannel at my local fabric store and bought a couple yards with baby gifts in mind. It's a fun print and could work for a boy or girl. Part of it got made into a baby blanket, gifted along with a plush granola bar.

Fort Building Kit

Growing up, my brother and I dished out quite a bit of abuse on the living room furniture, from building forts to playing Hot Lava. I came across a fort building kit on one of the craft blogs I read and thought it would make a great children's gift. Of course my three nieces are always the guinea pigs lucky recipients of my handmade children's gifts, so this year for Christmas I made them their very own fort kit.


I bought all of the supplies, except the sheets, at the dollar store. Then, during a trip to IKEA (to buy the bins for our laundry room), I was super excited to find three cute curtain panels in the clearance section. I hadn't thought to use curtain panels but they ended up being better than sheets, with the added bonus of tabs at the top, which meant more places to attach the ties and clips. 

I made bias tape out of some cotton fabric I had on hand, and used it to add looped ties to each curtain panel.

In my ever-expanding stash of fabric I had some vintage linens, including a small floral printed pouch and an embroidered pillowcase.  The pillowcase was turned into a tote bag to hold the "sheets" and supplies.

I opened up the top hem of the pouch and added a ribbon, turning it into a drawstring bag to hold all the supplies.

Using a black paint pen, I wrote inspirational words on the clothespins (idea found here).

I also included a tag to explain what the gift was. I pretty much copied the tag from the tutorial, but changed up the font and colors a bit.

Moss Letters

Image from Pottery Barn

Image from dear lillie

What you'll need:

Wooden craft letters (I used 6" letters)

Reindeer moss

Hot glue gun + glue

Total project cost for 6 letters: $11

Using a got glue gun, glue the moss to the front and sides of the letter. I suggest doing one small section at a time, so the hot glue doesn't harden before you have a chance to stick the moss on. For six 6" letters, I used one 4 oz bag of moss. The moss tears easily and is very pliable, so it's not difficult to fit it to the shape of the letter. However, to help define small curves, I found it helpful to wrap the moss around to the back of the letter and secure with a drop of hot glue.

Heart Throb

I just added this quirky little Valentine to my Etsy shop.

Go Fish

This year for Christmas I made my nieces a fishing game. I got the idea, as well as the patterns for the fish and worms, here.

I started with a large piece of green felt for the base, then cut out a pond from blue felt and sewed it onto the green felt. I then sewed three concentric shapes on the inside, following the shape of the pond, and added a lily pad. The brown tackle box in the corner holds the fish when not in use and is held shut by velcro.

To make each fish, I doubled a piece of felt, traced my fish pattern onto it, then sewed along the outline. I filled the middle of each fish with polyester stuffing to give it some volume, and used the alphabet setting on my sewing machine to embroider a letter "O" for the eyes. There are magnets in the head of each fish so that the fish can be "caught".
Keep in mind when sewing you fish that you will need to leave openings to insert the magnet and stuffing. Here's the method that worked best for me:

(Note: These pictures were taken after cutting out the fish; however I did all the sewing first, as shown here)



Start at the top of the tail fin and curve back around, leaving a small opening

Insert the magnet into the head



Sew the head closed and continue around the bottom fin



Add stuffing

Sew around the top and tail fins, closing the body of the fish

Add eye, mouth, and details to tail fin

The last step is to cut around the outline of the fish, removing the excess felt. You can follow similar steps to make the worms. I also added eyelets to the end of each worm using my crop-a-dile and attached string using small lanyard hooks.

I used dowel rods for the fishing poles and painted them to coordinate with the colors of the fish (purple, magenta, and goldenrod). Instead of using screw eyes, I just drilled holes through the dowel rods and tied the string through the hole.

Go fish!