3 different parties, 3 different projects!

This weekend was a busy one!  I went to three different parties for three different occasions!  And of course I had to make something for each of them!  

Party number one was for my wonderful friend Kara's bridal shower.  I went in on a group gift with the girls, but I also added something extra: an oven mitt and hot pad that match her wedding colors.  They took awhile, since they are quilted and I don't have much experience quilting (i.e. no experience quilting!).  I used the patterns from the book, The New Handmade.  The book has lots of cute, simple projects that would make great gifts.  Although I can see every single flaw in the oven mitt, I think they turned out cute.  Here are pictures of both the sides.

For party number two, I took the kids and went to my friend Kelsey's baby's first birthday.  I got the birthday girl, Genevieve, a really cute baby's first birthday book by Karen Katz and I made her an adorable owl out of girly flannel fabric.  I used this tutorial to make it.  I think next time I make an owl, I'll put a bell or some crinkle fabric inside so it can make noise.  Babies love toys that make noise!

For party number three I made a diaper cake for my friend Bob's baby shower.  He and his fiance, Elle, are having a little girl, and since Bob went to U of O, I made a duck themed girly cake.  It had a little Oregon cheerleader teddy bear on top and lots of cute pink, yellow, and green decorations.  Inside the bottom layer was a little outfit I put together: a burp cloth, a onesie with a duck sewn on it, little yellow shorts, and a headband made by my friend at work, Michelle.  Bob and Elle loved it!

Wooden Ring Toy

A couple of weeks ago I made a new toy for Audrey, from this tutorial. I love it! I used scrap fabric and scrap ribbon to make a fun, interesting, and colorful toy. Babies love contrasting colors and also bright colors, so Audrey really loves this! I made sure to vary the sizes and textures of the ribbon to make it even more interesting. I bought the wooden rings from this website, sanded them smooth, and coated them in beeswax from the PSU Farmer's Market that I melted it in a double boiler (one from Goodwill, a nice one would be ruined after this project!) and poured into a large mason jar to keep and use again. The wood smells really good and is soft and smooth for her teething gums. I have some extra rings, so let me know if you'd like me to make you one!

On the subject of toys, I LOVE Vulli's Sophie and also Pie.  What other baby toys do you love?

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!

Wine Tasting

Since my beautiful daughter was born three month ago (I can't believe it's been that long!), I've rekindled my love affair with wine. In February I went to Newport's Seafood and Wine festival with my husband and friends Pat and Tim. They are platonic friends and the plan was to tell anyone who asked that they were cousins! To mark this drunken-filled afternoon, I made wine charms for Pat and I. Our running joke is that whenever we do something fun together, we always have to be the cutest we've ever looked. So to play up that joke, I wanted our wine glasses to be the cutest they've ever looked, too. I've made two different types of wine charms in the past, ones that wind around the stem of the glass and ones that are a ring at the bottom of the stem. Each one incorporates beads and a charm. However, for our glasses to truly be the cutest they've ever been, I needed something new. I decided to buy a thin feather boa, cut off about 3 inches, wire it to a wine charm ring, add a dangling wire of beads and a fun girly charm. The boa proved to be the cutest and was also reminiscent of when Pat and I wore black feather boas to our Junior year homecoming dance. By the end of the dance, our arms, faces, and necks were black from the dye. As soon as the lights came on and we realized what happened, we screamed in unison and high tailed it to the ladies room! Oh, high school memories! Here is a picture of the three different types of charms that are now in my repertoire:

For my friend Katie's birthday, a group of 10 of us girls went to Oregon wine country for an afternoon of wine tasting. We went to three different wineries: Solena, Natalie's Estate, and Canas Feast. To help with the party planning, I offered to make wine charms and made each girl a feather boa with a wine related charm. There were two of each charm, all with different colored beads to tell them apart. I found at Michaels on clearance already made ring-style wine charms that I ended up taking apart to make the feather boa type. The charms included cheese, bottles, glasses, and a little dangly sign that read "vino". The boa charms were a hit and the birthday girl loved them.

After all this wine tasting, I've been thinking about what to do with the corks. I've been saving them for awhile, contemplating making cork boards or a trivet. I finally decided to make picture frames for the pictures from the wine events I've been attending. I cut each cork in half and hot glued them onto wooden picture frames purchased at the dollar store. I then changed the pictures to black and white. I think they turned out pretty cute! Here is a picture of Pat and me at the Seafood and Wine festival. This project lends itself to many variations. You could make a frame with corks from a specific area, like Napa, or in my case, Oregon wine country. Each frame could then hold a picture of you sampling wine from that particular region. You could also get sentimental and save corks of wine you've drank with a friend and then put a picture of you two together in the frame. Or if you have a favorite wine, use corks only from that winery. If you got a thicker wood frame, you could glue on multiple rows of corks. Whichever you choose, have fun with it!

If you'd like more detailed instructions of any of my projects, please leave a comment and I'll directly email you!