Cheap (but labor intensive) maternity clothes.

Well, not that labor intensive for DIY clothing. Just compared to buying off the rack. It was cheap though- I got 3 t-shirts for $10!

Another crafty mama to be directed me to two DIY tutorials, here and here.

For the pin tuck top, I narrowed down the sleeves and took in around the sides under the sleeves a bit. Looking at the original tutorial, it looks like the author did as well. I also did my back darts nearly down to my waist.

The second top, I messed up the sash somehow.... luckily, I had ordered a sash in eggplant from AsianApparel on Etsy. Due to a shipping error, she sent me another for free! I just used that with the top instead.

Two things I might have done differently if I was to do the red top again- I probably wouldn't cut the arm holes in so far, and I think I would try to make the back of the shirt shorter, so that my big belly doesn't make the top look hiked up quite as far.

So here are my pics of my modeling my creations! (Forgive the poor lighting... I planned it so that I'd still get some natural light when I took the pics, but then a storm moved in!)

Baby stuff

When researching nursery bedding, despite the huge amounts of stuff out there, I had trouble finding anything I liked. Part of the reason was that I really wanted bright, primary and secondary colors rather than neutrals and pastels.

I started thinking about making my own bedding, but didn't think it would be a project I could "wing". I found this pattern from Simplicity, which seemed perfect. I decided to make the comforter and pillow, though I know they are more for decoration as you don't use either with a newborn, and the crib organizer. I may also make the crib skirt, once we decide on a crib.

I searched high and low for fabrics I liked, and I finally found this polka dot fabric on vogue fabrics and this striped fabric on fabric.com. I made a stop at my local Joann's for the solid green and other materials.

Instead of flowers on the organizer, I really wanted buttons. But I needed extra jumbo buttons to get the look I wanted, and couldn't find anything big enough. So I made my own using Fimo dough.

 

After baking the buttons, I liked everything about them, except they were a really matte finish. I would have been okay with that, but you could see some of the flaws and scratches on the surface. So I finished them with a layer of PVA glue to give it a bit of a shine.

I'm pretty pleased with how my set turned out. It definitely doesn't look store bought, but I guess that's part of the 'charm' of hand made stuff, right?

At work, we have lots of boxed sets of thank you notes, including sets that are designed for baby gifts. I love making stationary, and always wish I had a particular project to make it for. What time than this?

I designed my cards based on my bedding. I used Paper Source's new clover A2 cards as the base and the small round labels to make the polka dots. I really love the "Thanks" stamp, and embossed it so it stands out. It's hard to tell in this particular photo, but the "Thanks" part is adhered using foam squares, which gives the card more dimension. I finished it off with night envelopes lined with the polka dot wrapping paper. I love them! I think they turned out really cute.

Bob's birthday

This year, Bob's birthday fell the day before his hometown Green Bay Packers were to play in the super bowl!

I'm not a big baker, but I decided to try my hand at a layered birthday cake from scratch. I used The Smitten Kitchen's best birthday cake recipe. My original plan had also been to make my own frosting, but considering this was my first try at a home made cake, I thought I'd take it easy and just use store frosting.

I don't think my decorating is going to win any awards, but Bob loved it!

I also took advantage of the new wrapping techniques I learned this year!

 

Happy birthday to my handsome husband!

Happy Birthday Maya!

Maya turned FOUR this week! She loves to play dress up. At work, I created some sample from our paper doll kit and thought how much fun Maya would have with them. I felt, however, that the tracing and cutting would be too much for a four year old, so I started brainstorming.

I decided to create some dolls and make them a wardrobe out of felt. I ordered some wool felt from The Material Evidence shop on etsy- I was able to choose the colors I wanted and the felt was a great quality.

I backed the dolls with chip board to give them a little more weight. I then created boy outfits, girl outfits, hair and accessories.

I was thrilled with how they turned out!

 

 

 

I put them in a little suitcase I got at work:

 and tied it with a bow!

Happy fourth birthday to Maya!!!!

and still more....

Some more holiday crafts and gifts.

I made these ornaments for our tree using some craft ornaments from Paper Source...

 And then made one for Bob's parents with their dog, Cindy:

 

Bob also suggested I make a stationary set for his mom as one of her Christmas gifts:

 

Kate, the friend I made while in WI over the summer, had her beautiful baby girl, Claire, the week before Christmas. I was excited about getting to see Kate and meeting her little girl. I used my time on the plane in to WI to knit up a hat and mitts set for little Claire.  The "squash" hat was a pattern I got out of the book, 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders, and I was pretty proud of the mitts since I did them without a pattern.

More holiday gifts!

One of the Paper Source workshops is french message boards, They turn out super cute! I took it a step further, using batting under the fabric and backing with a second bookboard, to create gifts for both Maya and my nephew Ben.

Maya's bedroom theme is ladybugs. I was lucky to find some ladybug push pins to complete this project:


I then printed out pictures of Maya with her favorite people to decorate the board:
I went with a more "boyish" theme for Ben. Finding appropriate push pins were a challenge, so I had to improvise a bit with buttons.
I purchased some Favorite Findings buttons and adhered them to pushpins.

For Nolan, who is not yet one year, I decided to use my knitting to make him a cuddly bear. I looked around for a cute pattern and settled on Blue Sky Alpaca's Bobbi Bear.
Instead of the suggested yarn, I went with Lion's Brand Quick and Cozy yarn, which was both quick and cozy! It is very soft and knit up very quickly.

Bobbi is a pretty impressive looking bear! He is a big, cute, cuddly guy, but was a pretty easy pattern that took less than a week of evening knitting.
A coworker at PS came up with this idea of stationary sets for some of her gift recipients, and I decided to "steal" it as a gift for Korey.
I used PS 4bar folded cards and envelopes in violet, heat embossed each card with this flower stamp, and lined each envelope with yuzen floral paper.
I created a sash for each pile with the yuzen paper...
...and housed it all in an A7 , mailer box, on which I also embossed a flower.

Holiday gifts

One of my favorite things about my "craftiness" is making gifts for others. This year, with more time to work on them and the inspiration (not to mention access and employee discount) I'm getting at Paper Source, I've been going to town!

At work we have a tantalizing assortment of specialty papers. Every time we get a shipment and I put them away, my mind is overrun with ideas of how to use some of these beautiful papers.

As a chanukah gift, I used one of the lokta papers to make my mom a wall hanging. She loves Asian themed art and decor. I looked up the character for "home" and cut it out of a chocolate lokta paper. I mounted that on orange lokta, and then backed it with this gorgeous lotus lokta. I found the perfect frame at Custom Frame Solutions and... voila!
My dad took a trip this year to seven different baseball stadiums in the midwest. He took over two hundred pictures. I printed out a handful from each game and used this accordian book kit to create a memory book for his chanukah gift.




Finally, I couldn't pass up all the fun things I've learned when sending out this year's holiday cards! I wanted our card to give a glimpse into our interfaith December at the Rice house. I searched high and low to find the perfect pieces for our card. I incorporated ribbon, paper, photo, paper punches, rubber stamping, and heat embossing. It was a lot of work, but the final product was exactly as I had envisioned! (Click on the photo to see a larger version with all the details.)

More to come!