Stuffed Animal

I made my first stuffed animal tonight! I used this pattern and loved how it turned out! I used a soft flannel fabric and didn't stuff it too tight. I wanted it to be soft and cuddly. Nathan approves! The only thing I don't like about it is that the elephant only has two legs. If I make it again, I'll play around with the pattern and try to give it the four legs it deserves. I also might not add the heart shaped saddle again. It's the brown, polkadot thing sewn on the sides. It's a cute idea, but with the pink flowery fabric, I think it's a little too much. And elephants don't need saddles, unless they live in India or Thailand or something.

Another diaper cake

Baby Shower #2 for this spring at Mill Park was for my friend and colleague, Katie.  She is having a little boy and his name will be Nash. Carla and I once again got together to make her an adorable diaper cake. Instead of trying to find fabric that would match her crib bedding that she registered for at Target, I just bought the flannel receiving blankets from the set. From that fabric, I made a burp cloth (looks like this), bib, two different toys (a crinkly square toy and a wooden ring with fabric and ribbon toy), and a onesie with a cute owl sewn on it (that I designed myself - go me!)

Here is a pic of all the goodies inside the cake:

Here is the cake the night Carla and I made it. Carla is so wonderful at making the cakes. She used this tutorial to learn how. She also uses two different sized quilt rings to keep the diapers together as she wraps the string around them. She covers up the string with ribbon and makes sure to hot glue to the ribbon to itself and not to the diapers, as to not ruin them. She likes using Seventh Generation diapers because they are bleach and chlorine free and also because the light brown color looks like whipped mocha frosting! :) After the cake was built we put these things on it: the Jittery Pals owl on top, blue Avent binkies, and washcloths folded up to look like roses stuck inside the bottom layer of diapers. We even put a Gerber thermal receiving blanket inside the bottom layer. The rubber duck ended up getting cut from the cake after this. He was just a little too awkward hanging out on the bottom by himself.

I then started adding some stuff to fill it up, since it was a little bare. I added silk flowers and leaves, little clip on bumble bees to the ribbons, and 6 Ring-a-Links, 3 on each side. My son Nathan has two sets of alphabet blocks, so I snatched the letters to spell Nash from the set he never plays with. The cake was cute, but now it was a little too busy.

On the day of the baby shower, I covered the lower piece of cardboard with tissue paper and then Carla picked it up to decorate. She paired it down a bit, so the finished product was perfect. It still had all the goodies and was pleasing to the eye. What do you think of our masterpiece? I think it's pretty cute! And the most important thing is that Katie loved it!

Another diaper cake

Baby Shower #2 for this spring at Mill Park was for my friend and colleague, Katie Mauck. Katie is having a little boy and his name will be Nash. Carla and I once again got together to make her an adorable diaper cake. Instead of trying to find fabric that would match her crib bedding that she registered for at Target, I just bought the flannel receiving blankets from the set. From that fabric, I made a burp cloth, bib, two different toys (a crinkly square toy and a wooden ring with fabric and ribbon toy), and a onesie with a cute owl sewn on it (that I designed myself - go me!)

Here is a pic of all the goodies inside the cake:

Here is the cake the night Carla and I made it. We still needed to decorate it, but it has most of the stuff on it: the Jittery Pals owl on top, blue Avent binkies, and washcloths folded up to look like roses stuck inside the bottom layer of diapers. We even put a thermal receiving blanket inside the bottom layer. The rubber duck ended up getting cut from the cake after this. He was just a little too awkward hanging out on the bottom by himself. 

I then started adding some stuff to fill it up, since it was a little bare. I added silk flowers and leaves, little clip on bumble bees to the ribbons, and 6 Ring-a-Links, 3 on each side. My son Nathan has two sets of alphabet blocks, so I snatched the letters to spell Nash from the set he never plays with. The cake was cute, but now it was a little too busy.

On the day of the baby shower, I covered the lower piece of cardboard with tissue paper and then Carla picked it up to decorate. She paired it down a bit, so the finished product was perfect. It still had all the goodies and was pleasing to the eye. What do you think of our masterpiece? I think it's pretty cute! And the most important thing is that Katie loved it! 

Baby stuff

Since starting my sewing projects, I've mainly made baby stuff: bibs, burp cloths, and a little crinkly toy. For my co-worker Abby's baby shower, I decided to make her a set of these items, and also threw in a onesie. She doesn't know the gender and went to U of O, so a Duck theme seemed appropriate. I used U of O fabric for all the items that I found at JoAnn Fabrics. The bib is smaller than other's I've made and doesn't have a pocket. I lined the back with terry cloth, to make it useful for when the baby starts drooling and teething around 3-4 months. The toy has a piece of a wipes case sewed inside to make the crinkle noise. I sewed lots of ribbon loops on the outside for the baby to grab and chew on and also a small wooden ring that I stained with organic beeswax from the PSU Farmer's Market.  The onesie is a silhouette of a rubber duck ironed on with webbed interfacing and then sewn around the border for extra security. If you want any of my patterns for specific directions on any of my projects, let me know!

As the baby shower got closer, my wonderful friend Carla, who made the diaper cake for my baby shower, suggested we make a diaper cake together for Abby. She agreed to make the actual cake and I would use my homemade items to decorate it. We also added a cute stuffed ducky for the top, gender neutral newborn sized pacifiers, and some green and yellow bathtime rubber duckies. The crinkle toy is under the duck, the burp cloth is between the layers of diapers, and the bib and onesie are stuffed inside the bottom layer along with a couple newborn sized diapers and a Hooter Hiders nursing cover. This is what it looked like when we were done:

We thought it looked a little bare, so for the actual event, we added some green and yellow silk flowers and wrapped the bottom cardboard circle with green wrapping paper. We think it was perfect and Abby loved it!