Crafty Goodness – Page 3

It’s all about the Chocolate, Baby!

Living with food allergies can be difficult at times but it’s not the end of the world. Yes, there are definite challenges, but we manage work within the limitations and still live and eat amazingly.

Any effort that we have to go through is SO worth the vibrant health that we get to experience….ya know, minus that whole cancer thing….ummmmm, yah moving on….

Siah has an egg and dairy allergy and to look at him, you would never know that he has allergies. He doesn’t have dark circles and bags under his eyes or eczema on his skin. He is almost never sick and never seems to have “bowel issues”…trying to be subtle here. He is one healthy little boy.

In this picture, if you look, you can see all the little scratch marks on his face. He would claw himself all day and all night because his skin was bothering him so bad….I had already eliminated dairy from my diet at this point

In this picture, you can see some of the eczema on his face. I remember when I saw this picture I was so excited, because he looked SO AMAZING. He was starting to heal at this point. At it’s worst, he was an oozing mess all over the top of his head, down his forehead, into his eyes and all over his cheeks and chin. It was horrible.

The rest of us, don’t eat dairy because it does not agree with us. It’s not an allergy like Siah, but more of an intolerance. When he eats dairy, he gets sick with vomiting and diarrhea and has eczema and it’s nasty. The rest of us might get bloated, or have tummy aches, headaches, or might just feel “off” or “icky” and most of the time, it’s just not worth it, especially when there are so many amazing tasting substitutes.

One thing that I’ve tried to do ever since we found out about Siah’s allergies is to make life as normal as possible. We eat ice cream, and pizza and have chocolate and pretty much anything that we want to eat…..we eat. I’ve just found dairy and egg free substitutes.

Special days like Valentines and Easter and Christmas can be difficult, but I’ve tried very hard to not have my kids feel like they’ve been denied “normal” while keeping things safe for everyone.

With the Christmas season comes Chocolate Advent Calendar’s and in past years, I’ve done many different things, from creating envelopes with different “things” to do or eat. I’ve put Jelly Beans into an Advent Calendar and that’s worked, but the best thing that I’ve done is to just “alter” the advent calendar’s so that they are dairy free.

First thing to do…..Get your Calendar and slice open the flap at the back, trying not to destroy the flap because you’ll want to seal it up again when you’re all done.

You’ll need to open it carefully and pull out that tray that’s inside. It might be glued to the cardboard and so you’ll have to carefully pull it apart and away from the box in order to get it out.

Then you’ll need to dump out all the original chocolates, and dispose of the original’s….I had 2 big girls that were willing to deal with a bit of an upset tummy to be able to eat the chocolates.

Then you need to get yourself a dairy-free chocolate bar. This particular one is from Super store. You can find dark chocolate that has no dairy in it if you search and read a million labels. This one is great because it doesn’t taste too dark and bitter and *the bonus in my eyes* it has almonds in it. YUM!

Break it into hunks and melt it down. I used about half the bar and melted it in the microwave for about a minute and a half.

I used a spoon to drop the melted chocolate into the plastic try.

You take your completed tray and pop it in the freezer to set the chocolate. It only takes a few minutes to set it enough to continue on with this whole ordeal.

While you are waiting, you could clean up the dishes that you’ve used, or just use the time to finish up any of the leftover chocolate…..MMMMMMM Chocolate!

After a few minutes, the chocolate is set enough to carry on. I pulled out my glue gun and heated it up and glued a few strips on the tray…..this will help the tray to stick to the box and then all the chocolates won’t fall out or slide all over the place.

You have to work quite quickly here because you want to get the tray back into the box before the glue cools and hardens….so slide it back into the box and you’ve got to make sure that it’s facing the right direction….one way it lines up with all the little doors and the other way it doesn’t….I’ve learned the hard way. Not fun!

You can just press on it gently to make sure that the glue is stuck to the box…

This picture has nothing to do with anything….I just think he’s very cute and he was sitting watching me with this “What the heck are you doing?” look……

Flip the box over and run a strip of glue along the back flap

and then seal that sucker up…..My 2 big girl helpers managed to shred the top of this flap and so it required a little extra lovin’ to get it sealed up properly.

Here are the calendar’s waiting for the kids to open them.

Opening the special Dairy-Free Christmas Calendar that is totally safe for him……

Everybody is excited about chocolate….

These two have almost the same hair-do…

I think he approves….

These pictures would be so much cuter if he didn’t have that giant booger in his nostril…Oh Well…just keeping it real. I wonder if I coulda photo-shopped that sucker outta there….yah probably, oh well…..

Definately a happy boy with his “daiwy-fwee chawclut”…….

Even the older ones still get excited about their chocolate calendar’s….

I love having my kids be able to participate safely in some of the treats and special things in life, and any extra effort that it might take to make this happen is SO worth it, to me.

Shifting Gears

Today was a down day and yet it was a great day, in it’s own way.

I got up this morning and get myself put together. In other words, I got dressed, did my hair and make up and had something to eat.

I find that when I do this (even if it feels stupid because I’m home by myself) “getting ready” helps me mentally set myself up for a better day. This is not to say that I don’t have days when I don’t “get ready” but more often than not I do “get ready” for the day.

I debated on driving Jon into work, but decided against it.

I’ve actually had quite a bit of Braxton Hicks over the past few days and while I hope they are getting my body ready to “do its thing” I’m actually quite tired. It’s a massive head trip, noticing that you’re having contractions, and not knowing if it’s the beginning of something or just a big tease.

In this case, serious tease and I’m tired of it.

So, I thought that I’d take a day to relax and spend some time on the couch; attempt to just chill out and get some rest.

Because I had no plans and because I’ve been working like a crazy woman to get my house tidy……I took some time this morning to just snuggle on the couch with Siah. It was nice to just enjoy some time with him as my baby, knowing that I don’t have this time for very much longer.

Then, he tired of the snuggles and we were off. He watched a movie on the computer in the kitchen while I made some playdoh.

He’s been given some little tubs of Playdoh when we’ve gone to Ricky’s Restaurant but hasn’t had a chance to sit down and play with a decent sized clump of it and to just muck around. It ate up a bunch of time and he seemed to really enjoy himself. One thing that I noticed is that he wants or needs to be “shown” what to do. I’m hoping that with time and given the opportunity that he’ll start to want to “play” and “create” on his own.

We had lunch after that and then we sat back down on the couch. I figured that I could sit and cut some paper people and that it might entertain him.

It was interesting for about the first 2 minutes and then…..well, then he ripped a head off one of the people and stressed out about it until I tapped it back on……

So, it took up some time, but not nearly as much as I’d have liked.

I’ve been trying to find some of the paint with water books that we used as kids and that I used with my older kids, but I haven’t seen any recently. I’m still looking though.

We did a bunch of painting….It’s funny how so many little kids paint in brown….all the colors mixed together. I hadn’t remembered that from when my other kids were little, but it’s funny how much of that comes back and so quickly.

We painted until Siah had had enough and then moved on to making some cards. I got Siah to cut the straight lines with my paper cutter and to glue everything onto the cards.

It’s been a busy day and yet a fairly quiet one.

I’m starting to shift gears. I remember when my days were filled with one craft or activity after another. It will be interesting to see how things “normalize” after the new baby comes.

I find that “this” being an at home mom is a little bit like riding a bike. I used to do this all the time and then life changed and I had to define a new normal. Now I have the chance or opportunity to do this again, but with more confidence and knowledge about where I’m headed and how long I’ll be there for. It’s makes it a little bit easier. I’ll have to keep this post handy to remind me of this when I’m back in the thick of it all and stressing.

But for now, things are okay. I’m okay. We’re slowly finding our groove….

And then it’s all going to change again, eh?

Wrapping Things Up

I’m frantically organizing and planning all the last minute admin stuff that I can think through to help things flow smoothly through to the end of the year and yet…………I’m certain that I’m missing stuff and that is seriously stressing me out!

Trying to come up with the planning/organization lists this far in advance is WAY different than actually working through the different projects in the months leading up to the actual events.

And so I went into the office today to try to wrap some things up BECAUSE……….as of close of the day on Friday, I am officially on Maternity Leave.

YAH!

I’m SO excited!

And yet, I do love my job and am a little sad about not having the challenge of fitting all the pieces and people together to come up with the most effective way to streamline everything without problems or issues. I love organizing and planning and scheduling…….

But…as of Friday – things, they are a’changing in my world. This is just one step closer to my newest baby arriving and I’m getting more and more excited.

In other news, I did manage to finish Siah’s pants and here is the best photo that I could get. He was ALL OVER THE PLACE! But, he loves them and they are so cute on him.

Somebody put a shirt on that kid!

We haven’t tried their wool “diaper cover” super powers for overnights as I’m still too chicken….which is so stupid…I should just give it a go, shouldn’t I?

I’m just so tired these days and the thought of a soaking wet boy attempting to crawl into my bed in the middle of the night sucks and having to get up to strip and change a wet bed is even worse….mind you the past few days we’ve had a 4am wake up call and it wasn’t because of our kids…..

There is some stupid, loud, noisy crazy bird that is singing as if his life depended on it RIGHT! OUTSIDE! OUR BEDROOM! WINDOW!

AND……even once we close the window…..we can still hear him. Stupid Bird! So that just adds to the tiredness! GAH!

Oh well, hopefully the bird moves on and we’re not stuck waking up at 4am for the entire rest of the summer. Can you imagine how brutal that would be?

I have my 36 week appt with my midwife tomorrow AND I’ve booked a Chiro appt for tomorrow so it should be a busy day. But I should be feeling fabulous by the end of the day, though and that’s a definite bonus.

Well, that’s enough blathering for one day. I have to figure out what’s for dinner and get ready for my exercise class and I have one hour to d it all in.

All I want to do, is to crawl into bed!

Creativity Feeds Me

So, even in the middle of all my angst and insecurity I have been “making things”.

I find that creating things makes me feel better. I went through a phase a few months ago where it felt like I’d done NOTHING creatively and starting up again….felt like drinking a tall glass of cold water on a hot summer day. I felt like I could breath again.

For whatever reason, crafting or creating seems to really feed me.

And this past week I’ve been working on two different projects….

I’ve been knitting like crazy. Working on Some wool diaper covers and they are so cute!

I made one a bit ago, but never managed to actually sit down and sew it together to finish it.

It’s just a plain chocolate brown underwear style diaper cover that will fit a newborn maybe up to 3 (ish) months.

Once I figured out what I was doing…..I attempted a pair of wool pants or “longies” for my 2 year old.

This is them not quite finished.

This past week, I did manage to finish knitting them, but I put them aside because the sheer number of ends that need to be woven in is brutal and that’s my least favorite part of knitting, (weaving in the ends). I know that these are probably not the best thing to have knit just heading into the summer, but they are big enough that they’ll fit him in the fall/winter and at that point, I might even try putting him in a thick pair of underpants overnight and trying to see if they’ll help with any accidents.

He is toilet trained (mostly) during the day and if we remember to toilet him before we go to bed, then he is typically dry in the morning so…it would be an accident “helper” at best.

Regardless, they will work for our upcoming baby when he’s a bit older….so I’ll get lots of wear outta them.

I then started knitting a “better” pair of the little underwear style diaper cover in the rainbow stripes for the new baby…..and I’m finished….(No picture yet)….but the ends……OH! MY! GOODNESS! the ENDS! So, it’s a car project. One that I’m working on in the car and so I should be finished in week or two.

And then earlier this past week, Jon and I stopped in at one of those cute little boutique stores for babies. I saw these burp cloths and they were gorgeous and unbelievably expensive.

I figured that I could make a bunch of them myself with fabric that I had on hand…….

And so I did…..

They are about 8″ x 13″ and the majority of them have terry cloth on one side and 4 of them have flannel. They fold in thirds to a wallet size and I’d like to get some labels to put on them and I’m thinking about selling them and a few other items, either on-line or for sure at a craft fair this fall/winter.

To see the whole set, you can click here.

Natural Beauty Products

I made the MOST AMAZING Body Cream.

It’s all whipped and light and goes on so smoothly and smells delicious enough to eat. Although I wouldn’t recommend it, the ingredients list is safe enough that you could eat it….

It has Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Beeswax, Coconut Oil, Cornstarch and Pink Grapefruit Essential Oils in it.

It’s the consistency of very foamy, thick, shaving cream or heavy whipping cream. It melts as soon as it glides onto your skin and leaves your skin soft and not greasy feeling.

I made a double batch and got the container pictured above as well as another big tub and those two 4 oz containers stacked on top of each other. I’ve given one away already and plan to give the other away tonight at a shower that I’m attending. I’m also planning on whipping up some baby diaper cream to include in my gift tonight. I have the most amazing natural alternative to petroleum jelly (Vaseline) that has NO petroleum by-products in it…..again, it’s safe enough to eat and works amazing at protecting and nourishing baby’s sweet skin.

I also attempted two different deodorants.

I find that I’m sensitive to certain natural deodorants and I’m still searching for “the perfect” deodorant for me.

The Rock Crystal works for a time, but then gives me a rash….The same for the coconut/baking soda deodorant. I was really bummed when I got a rash after using that deodorant as it works so amazingly and honestly – you don’t smell AT ALL and you can even skip a day, but….when your skin rashes up so badly that you can’t put your arms down….not cool.

So I’ve been on the hunt for a more sensitive natural deodorant.

I did make one that worked pretty well and it had zinc oxide in it, BUT…..I would get blocked pores and so I’m back to experimenting with different recipes.

Here are my latest two attempts.

As you can see on the incredibly sexy labels I created, one is a zinc oxide base and the other (just for your info) is a coconut oil/beeswax/baking soda combo…..Both are working well and I’m currently using the coconut/beeswax/baking soda one consistently to see if I end up with a reaction….so far so good.

I’ve also got some recipes for natural sunscreen in the works and as soon as I go all crazy potion lady on them and then try them out on myself and my kids…I’ll let you know how they work.

I love to be able to find natural, cheap, alternatives to the beauty products that we regularly use and to be fully confident that what we’re putting in and on our bodies is safe, effective and saves us money.

What are your favorite natural beauty products? Do you have any good product lines that you’d suggest? I’m always interested in who has come across what and why they choose those particular products? Lemme know!

More Creative Nesting

I’ve been going through a massive “PURGE” recently.

I think that most would call it nesting, although – I think that it’s a little early for the whole “nesting” thing to happen.

It would be awesome if I had massive amounts of energy to go along with my desire to clean and tidy and it would also be amazing if I could either continue this on until the baby comes or bottle it up until 2-3 weeks before the baby is supposed to arrive.

BUT……regardless, that’s what I’ve been doing with any “free” (ha ha ha ha ha – what a joke, as if I really have any free time) time.

I have managed to knock a WHOLE TON of things off my to do list, and that scares me as I don’t want to be sitting around at the end with a month to go and nothing to do, but deep down inside of me, I know that’s really not a reality. I’ll ALWAYS have or at the very least FIND something to do.

We have pretty much set up our room/the nursery and aside from a few little things like determining exactly where to store all the babies stuff so it makes the most sense….like clothes and blankets and diapers and supplies, etc – we’re pretty much ready to go in there.

One of the things that I co-ordinated with the rest of the baby’s “stuff” was a white board……

But wait a minute, you might be saying….that looks an awful lot like a tray….and well, it is….but it’s hanging on the wall close to the change table which is also close to the doorway….which makes it very convenient for writing notes or reminders on.

I got the idea from Make it and Love it….

Basically, you can write on top of glass, the same as on a white board and so you can take whatever frame you like and add whatever fabric you like and VOILA!!!!! Easy, cheap and beautiful white board.

I like the idea that you can create something very practical, have it be beautiful and yet, customize it perfectly for you. You can take any frame and if you don’t like the color but you do like the shape and design…..spray paint is very cheap and a great way to be able to co-ordinate with your decor. Depending on whether or not you have fabric pieces on hand, you can either use those, or go through your clothes or sheets or blankets and see if there is something suitable that you’d like to re-purpose. You could even use scrapbook paper or any combo of papers set up together. I had thought about creating a dry erase board for my kitchen with different sections for “To Do:” and another long section for a “Shopping List” and another section for “Dates to Remember:”. You could totally use co-ordinating papers to create different size sections and it would look very cool. In something like this, you’re pretty much only limited by your imagination…..

I re-purposed a tray that we had been given a while ago. It was one of those picture frame trays, but the kids had spilled my coffee on it and it had soaked through and mucked up all the frame and pictures. I chose a light patterned fabric from the stuff that I’d used for my quilt. I figured that would make it easier to see what I was jotting down. Then I used my glue gun to secure the fabric to the back piece of the tray. We secured a piece of wire to the back of the tray for hanging purposes.

The handle of the tray provides a nice ledge for the dry erase marker to sit on and right now my biggest issue is keeping my family from drawing silly faces on it.

I plan to use it for marking down notes or baby items that we run out of or even just the time that I least fed or changed the baby.

We just have a few pieces of art to get up on our bedroom walls and then I’ll take some pictures and show you the whole thing. It’s come together so nicely and I’m loving the fact that we’ve created a space that feels comfortable to just “be” in. In fact, I enjoy hanging out in there more than I do in my living room and I LOVE my living room.

Do you have a favorite room in your place? Which room and why?

Sewing Up a Storm

I’ve managed to plow through all the stuff that I had on my sewing “to do” list and even some things that weren’t on my list.

I LOVE sewing, but I do hate the mess and chaos of having my sewing room consist of my dining room.

Sewing CONSUMES me and while I enjoy the creative outlet……my house….she is not happy nor clean right now.

BUT……..I AM FINISHED.

Well, I’m almost finished. I have a few ends to tie off and sew in and then I’m really, REALLY done.

I’ve packed away all of my sewing stuff and am planning on bringing it out to work on a few gifts for family and friends after June 1st…..ya know, in the last few weeks when I’m trying to keep myself busy.

I did manage to make a second crib sheet for the little crib and while I debated making a third one – I was really ready to just put every things away and be done for a month.

I made these bibs from some hand towels and some spare fabric that I had left over.

I’ll use these at some point, even if not right away and since I took this picture, I have managed to sew the velcro on, so they are completely finished.

I’ve made about 30 diaper wipes. I cloth diaper and so it only makes sense to me to also use cloth wipes. I have the perfect container to store these little square wipes in and it will fit about 20 of these so I’ll have a few on hand in case I run out or also to keep in the diaper bag.

They have cotton on one side and terry cloth on the other. I used 3 hand towels that I had up in my linen closet and then some extra terry cloth that I had left over after I made the very next item on the list……

A Baby Towel…..

It’s a HUGE towel 36″ x 36″ square and although I didn’t have enough of the patterned material to make the hood, I improvised and made the hood out of the terry and edged it with a strip of the fabric. It’s the perfect size to wrap a baby up in and it’s big enough to still use on your toddler. My sister bought me one very similar for Josiah and I’ve LOVED it.

This was a SUPER fun project and my only “issue” is that I’ve never worked with this large of a piece of terry cloth and somewhere between measuring it and sewing it to the backing material – it stretched out some and is not “perfect”. If you know me, you know that I LOVE perfect, BUT….I plan on making more of these and giving them away as gifts (so I’m sure to perfect my towel sewing technique.) And……when the towel is folded in thirds and then in thirds again, it tucks up nicely into a perfect square inside the hood and that…..that is almost perfection in and of itself and regardless, it looks absolutely darling all folded up and would make an amazing gift for a baby or a toddler.

I also made some washable breast pads. This was something that I’d not planned on making, and I really don’t remember how I thought of making these, but VOILA!!!!! Here they are.

Some of these are just a layer of terry cloth and a layer of cotton and some of them have a layer of wool in between the cotton and the terry cloth. They are certainly bulkier than a pair of reusable ones that I bought with Siah, and definitely, DEFINITELY bulkier than regular disposables BUT….I will give them a shot and if they work at all, I’ll use them around the house when and where boob circles or ridges really don’t matter.

Again, these are from the re-purposed hand towels and the left over cotton from the Quilt and so are these next items…

Burp cloths! I’ve made 4 of these, but I think that I’ll probably mostly just use these in the diaper bag for when we go out.

I did also make what we would call a “sucky blanket” for the baby to hold and cuddle.

I just used the left over scraps and pieces from the big quilt and randomly pieced together this small quilt. It’s very cute and I’d like to quilt the same stars into it that we sewed into the large quilt.

Now, I just have to figure out where I want to store everything> Right now, it’s all piled on top of the baby’s change table.

I have a couple more projects that I’m planning on doing – easy ones that will just add a little “something extra” to the baby’s area of the room and I’ll post about them as I finish them.

The Finished Crib Set

Well, after a lot of cutting and piecing and sewing and stitch ripping and a few quick “on the fly” adjustments because I miscalculated………the crib set is COMPLETED.

I sewed the very last piece of thread on the drive home from church on Sunday and I have to admit….it felt pretty good.

I actually made a crib sheet (still need to make one more), bumper pads and a quilt all without an official pattern and I think that it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I guess that biggest thing is that I actually like it. I do see things that I could have done differently or if I were doing again, that I’d do better, but for my first ever attempt at anything like this….I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I wrote a few different patterns for the quilt and finally settled on one that I figured that I liked. it wasn’t too busy and I didn’t figure that it’d be too difficult to cut and piece and actually “do”.

I cut out all the pieces of fabric based on the sizes that I had calculated in my pattern and tried to figure out at the same time where they were all going, based on how much of the fabric I had and what looked the best sitting next to each other.

Here is my attempt to puzzle all the pieces together before attempting to sew them….

Once I actually started to sew the pieces together I realized that I had miscalculated by 4 inches…..that’s a pretty big miscalculation AND…..I didn’t have enough fabric left over to re-cut the pieces that I had messed up on and so…then I had to figure out how I was going to “fix” it and continue on.

Here is the finished top piece and you can see where I had to add additional 2 inch pieces in on the 3rd and 4th lengths and in order to make the quilt look “intentional” I also then had to reduce 2 of the outside panels that I had NOT miscalculated on…oh the joy…..oh the fun!

I then stopped working on the quilt and started working on the bumper pads. I was initially going to just make them completely out of the dark paw print material, (I bought 2 meters of the yellow dot, and 2 meters of the dark brown and a fat quarter of each of the other prints. I could have just gone and bought some more, BUT…it was almost like a challenge to try to use up the remaining fabric that I had left over and still come up with something that I liked while not HAVING to buy any more fabric……..and aside from wanting to buy one more meter of the yellow dot to make another crib sheet – I have been able to do exactly that.) I didn’t have enough fabric to go ahead and do that, but I could piece some pieces together and hopefully make it work.

I’ll admit, that I created WAY MORE work for myself than was necessary but I was able to puzzle enough pieces together without them looking completely ridiculous and I didn’t have to buy any more fabric (for this project) AND…….even better…..The bumper pads fit PERFECTLY!

Here is a side view and we are still going to paint the crib and to figure out a way to tie the end ties onto the head and foot boards to keep them from falling down….

Here is Jon holding up the completed quilt…

and here is a partial view of the back side of the quilt……

My mom came and helped me to “quilt” the blanket and we used our little man’s name and also put 3 stars in the 2 opposing corners……It looks AMAZING, but you’ll have to wait until the big day to find out what our little man’s name is going to be….

There are a few extra pictures in the set that you can check out if you so desire.

I’m just happy that it all worked out and that it’s ONE MORE THING that I can cross off my list.

Sunshine for the Soul & the Baby Booties Giveaway

First I just want to say, a HUGE Thank you to you all who have commented and twittered recently. I appreciate the nice comments that you’ve made and it really made my day(s). You all rock!

I managed to get outside and sit in the sun this morning and it felt so amazing. I had to go inside eventually because my vampire like pale skin felt like it might burn and while I welcome a little color….red is not the color I have in mind. I gotta find me some sunscreen quickly. I felt like the sun was warming right into soul. What an amazing feeling!

I sat out there with my notebook, my personal calendar, my work calendar and scheduled out a bunch of stuff and managed to also fill in the rest of the months meal plans. That’s one thing that’s off my list of “things to do”. I tried to sit down with the kids this weekend, but…it didn’t work out. I did, however, get a bunch of other things planned, listed and on or off the “to-do” list and so on top of the soul warming experience – I also feel like I accomplished something. What a great feeling!

In a highly scientific manner, I chose 4 pieces of paper and wrote the names of the 4 baby bootie entries. I folded them identically and in such a way that we couldn’t tell, which was which and then I had Jon pick one. Normally I’d do a short video documenting the whole process so that you’d see just how I tried to make it all perfectly fair, but this time…you’re just gonna have to take my word for it. I’m too tired these days to fiddle with making a video and uploading it – You’re just all lucky that I remembered to actually do the giveaway today.

Anyway…….without further ado……..

The winner of her choice of booties is…………Lise!

Send me your address or gimme a call and I’ll either mail the booties to you or we can make a plan to get together. (My vote is for the latter – if it works out for you.)

A Big Thanks to Debbie, Courtney and Cara for playing along. You guys rock!

Crossing Things Off My List

I have a list written down somewhere. Actually I have a few lists written down in a few different places, and well….can I find any of them right now…..NOPE!

I’m usually super organized and yet I’ve been feeling SO SCATTERED recently.

I think I’ve got too many things on my plate right now and yet…..that’s a post for another day and another time.

We’ve bought a crib set for each of our other kids. I figured that at the very least, I could save and one day pass on the comforter to each kid and that each child was unique and deserved something of their own….With each child I’ve had a harder and harder time choosing something that I really liked that wasn’t too over the top, gaudy or just down right ugly.

I did find a cute set for Siah and yet I wanted something different for this little one.

I decided to buy some fabric and to make some co-ordinating bedding and covers for this baby.

I’m not the worlds most amazing seamstress. My mother can make anything, even without a pattern, (She sewed my sister’s wedding dress and it was UNREAL! A massive hand beaded fairy tale princess dress!) and my sister has made and can make some of the most amazing things – clothing and toys. They can both sew like nobodies business. I can use my machine (barely) and I’ve made a few simple dresses for my girls when they were younger but I had to follow a pattern religiously.

I figured that most of what I wanted to do involved straight lines (I even have trouble with that sometimes) and that at the very least, I could give it a try. First hurdle….finding some fabric, that #1 went with my bedroom colors (as that is where the baby furniture is and where he’ll be rooming for most of the first year.) and #2 that I actually liked and #3 was appropriately boy-ish without being all balls and animals and primary colors. The second hurdle involved the fact that I had NO PATTERN to follow. I figured that at the very least I could try and if it turned out that bad, I’d rope my mother in to helping me.

Fortunately for me, and the family who has to live with me…….I’ve managed to start to pull it all together.

As of this past weekend, I’ve purchased some fabric…..

I’ve finished one crib sheet…..

and I finished one change pad cover……(I’m quite proud of this considering the rounded or scooped edges that I figured out how to do all on my own – YAH ME!)

Here is a closer view…..

I’m almost finished the second change table cover and I still need to make another crib sheet. After that I have to make the bumper pads and the biggest project will be the quilt…. ACK! I’m a little nervous about that one.

My mom did come over to help me figure out how to “fit or secure” the cover and sheet underneath the pads and instead of using elastic, I’ve…..well…..I’ve no idea how to explain what I did. I basically sewed the bottom edge into a corner so there is a pocket for the corners to fit into. I have no idea if you understand and short of going and taking more pics…..which I don’t feel like doing right now….It’s all okay. It works and looks good and more importantly…..they fit perfectly and required no yelling, screaming or swearing.

I’m gonna finish the change table cover today and hopefully the second sheet too.

I think I might even take few minutes to sit down and actually write out a good list of everything that I really want to do before the baby comes and post it somewhere where It won’t get lost.

Oh, and you can see the color that we’ve painted our room in those pics of the change table. When we finish decorating, I’ll take some more pictures and show the whole thing, but for now…that’s a sneek peak!

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