1st Gift of Christmas

Because one of my goals was to make a gift for everyone I gave a gift to one year for Christmas, I thought it only appropriate to blog about the specific gifts I made for Christmas this year!


The first gift that I made, and the first gift to mention on here, was a onesie for my nephew Stuart! It was super easy and pretty quick--the perfect gift to kick off this goal!


I got the idea from Pinterest. [You're going to wish you had a dollar every time I say that!] My sister-in-love has a board title "Stuart Richard" and captioned a onesie with sewn on suspenders with, "He needs this... Gpa Clum always wore suspenders...and since he was the long awaited Clum great grandson..its only fitting"

You see my dad is one of 5 boys in his family, 3 of which are boys. The three Clum men of that generation went on have From there, those three boys had 5 Clum sons. There are 16 grandkids. Well after my grandparents had 16 great-grandchildren they still didn't have any Clum boys to carry on the name from Grandpa Clum. And then came Mr. Stuart Richard Clum to carry on the name! He was a long await Great-grandson, garunteeing the name would be passed on at least one more generation. Grandpa, and Grandma, are certainly deserving of their name being carried on! So sine Joie made this comment on Pinterest, I knew I had to make it!


The process to make this was quicker/easier than I expected. I found some ribbon that I saved "just in case" in my sewing box that [I thought] was the perfect combination of cuteness and boyness--light blue with white polka dots. After cutting the ribbon the desired length of the suspenders, I simply stitched down both sides of the ribbon attaching it to the white onesie. Remember that you don't want the suspenders to go to the bottom of the onesie, but rather as if they would go to where the lil' one's pants would be. The top part of the ribbon was tucked under the folds on the onesie and the bottom part didn't need to look perfect either as it was then covered with a button. After the ribbons suspenders were attached, I sowed matching light blue buttons on by hand. [Note: I have seen some that aren't sewn all the way down each side of the ribbon, but I was pretty sure Stu's curiosity would ruin it in less than one wearing if it weren't sewn all the way!]

The suspenders aren't crooked on the right, just the angle it was laying! ;)

That's it! Gift was good to go.

By the way, I promise other Gift Making explanations will be more detailed, but [thankfully] this one was pretty easy-peasy! :)

Fall into Wreath Obsession

With extra yet unpredictable time on my hands, I spend way too much time browsing the internet. These leads to swooning over crafty blogs. [I know. I know. There's dishes to be done, laundry to fold and a house to pick up, but that can't be done 1-handed while holding a demanding beautiful babe like surfing the internet can!] Note: all but one of my posts in the past 32 days, including this one, has been typed one handed! :)

The One-Handed Cause
I don't mind too much! :)

Back on track: Something I stumbled upon is Pinterest. I really have no idea how it works or how to use it but I knew a couple friends have talked about it, so I headed over there and searched their names. Stalker-ish, eh? Anyways, I came across adorable Fall wreaths and then hundreds a lot of blogs/crafty sites with tutorials of gorgeous wreaths. Hence the trip to the craft stores upon Mister's arrival home from work!

I remembered that we had a couple yards of burlap from my grandparents' garage sale--gotta love those "I'll find something to do with this some day" pick-ups--so as Ains snuggled with Chris on the couch I sprawled out with my supplies on the floor.

Fall Decoring Supplies
Fabric Remnants, Ribbon, Leaves, Wreath

At first I thought I was going to make a Fall wreath like the one on this site and then some flowers like the ones on this site. [I like the overall consistency and look of the burlap flowers on the burlap wreath, but didn’t find any other color burlap in the remnant section at the fabric stores.] So that's what I set out to do. Well as with so many of my projects, I found something different I liked better, on accident! I read about how to best cut burlap straight and I followed that tutorial. I realized though that as I went to pull the burlap strand out to create my guide, I liked the effect that it had on the burlap and made a ruffled look. Nevertheless I pulled it all the way out and cut the strip. Then I got to thinking that it'd be prettier if I had the ruffle since my wreath was pretty small. So that's what I set out to do, and here's the jist of how I did it.

Supplies:
Wreath [Mine was a skinny little thing from the Dollar Store]
Burlap
Scrap Fabric for Flowers
Hot Glue Gun [I don't know how I've gone this long without owning one!]

Using the method for cutting a straight strip of burlap, I cut a strip of burlap 2.5" and then wrapped it around my wreath. [I read that if you purchase a straw wreath, to leave the plastic on it so it makes it easier to wrap. This is especially important if you wrap the wreath with yarn!] I needed two strips to wrap all the way around my 13" wreath, securing it with dots of hot glue.

Burlap wrapped Dollar Store Wreath

Then I cut two 5" strips of the burlap. These are the ones that I made the ruffle with. At the 2.5" mark I pulled the string of burlap, careful not to break the string so that I would be able to tie it and "hold" the ruffle. I then secured the ruffle onto the burlap covered wreath using my glue gun.

The next step was to make some flowers. Using a couple Fall-colored fabrics, I set out to make a couple different styles. The first one I made was what's called a button flower by some sites. Basically you cut 8 circles of the same size. [I used the top of an oversized coffee mug as a template.] Then with each circle, you fold it in half and then in half again. [You now have a quarter-circle. Use glue as needed to hold the fabric together.] I used a little scrap of felt to glue 4 of the quarters onto. Then with the remaining 4 quarters, stagger the top layer. The flower can be topped with a button for its center, hence the name. [You can check out The Ribbon Retreat for a full, better tutorial.]

Basic explanation of button & poufy flowers

I made this type of flower in 2 different sizes, but instead of using a button for the center, I ended up putting the one flower on the other and then "finishing" the top flower using the Poufy Flower method. I couldn't get the 9th circle to look as nicely as The Ribbon Retreat ladies could, so I gave it a little help by gluing it where necessary to give it the look I desired.

Poufy Flower Layered on Button Flower

Finally I made two other flowers [brown & yellow] using the rosette method describe by this site. Basically you made a knot at the end of a piece of 2-3" folded fabric and then wrap the fabric around the knot creating the rosette. One thing that I didn't notice when following the tutorials was the suggest to glue as you wrap as needed. I didn't do this, and so I just had to hold tight as I wrapped. next time I'll definitely use the glue every so often method!

Rosette Flowers

The last thing to do is to position the flowers how ever I liked!

Finished Product
inside our house!

I hung the wreath on the inside of our front door. I figured it'd get more appreciation because we have an ugly screen door with flowered gating aka completely blocking the wreath.

After this project, I'm pretty such that I'll be making a wreath for every season! :)

Last but not least, yesterday was Ainsley Jo's 1 month birthday, so we had to take a couple pics! I'm hoping to take a pic every month in a white onesie on the chair to document her growth. Hopefully I stick to it! :)

She wasn't the [most] cooperative!

Lack of Sleep + No School = Crib Skirt?

Last night was a doozy.

I recognize that in 11 weeks, I may be very, very thankful for a solid 3.5 hours of sleep but this morning my wake-up call came way too early—more accurately, my bedtime was ridiculously way too late!! Such can’t be attributed to a growing belly and uncomfortable sleeping positions. Rather the verdict—I assume—was none other than:

PEPSI!

Now I am not a regular pop drinker overall and haven’t been for a long time, but I do still drink it from time to time. However usually clear pop, or at least caffeine-free pop, is my cola drink of choice. Last night though since Pepsi was cold and Root Beer was not, I went for the caffeine-filled, sugar loaded dark pop way too late in the evening aka after my preferred bedtime.

As Mister and I had pillow talk at about 11:30, I asked him if he was ready to go to sleep as his eyes blinked slower and slower as my mouth moved faster and faster. He said he was when I was ready to be done talking. I decided to be selfless and shut up so at least one of us could sleep. J

Because I was wired wide awake, I logged onto my laptop and began surfing and searching. Catching up on Facebook and reading blogs. After over an hour I decided to head out to the living room as I was afraid the light from the computer would wake my sleeping beauty. I also took advantage of this time by texting my fav lil' bro who was still wide awake raking in the cash at a casino [despite telling him g'night hours prior]!. 

I ended up looking at nursery things and diy blogs and 2 hours and countless browser windows later, I found a few nursery ideas that I really liked. Now I have looked at other sites—and some of the same one’s I looked at last night—many times before, but I finally settled on what I liked for our lil’ Mystery Massie! We’ll see how long this “settledness” lasts and if it gets carried through in the plans!

I did however decide that I for sure wanted to make a crib skirt for the nursery. So after a partial day at school wrapping up loose ends, I headed to Hobby Lobby and JoAnn Fabrics to find the *perfect* fabric to use.  I gazed up and down the aisles at JoAnn’s finding 4 “elephant based” fabrics that I liked but couldn’t decide on—each had parts I liked more than another fabric—and then I decided to just leave. I then headed next door to Hobby Lobby to find it. Well their selection sucked was quite limited. So I bought Heat ‘N Bond and Velcro strips and headed back to JoAnn’s to force myself to decide. Finally I did. And I settled on this pattern:

Huge piece of large colorful animal fabric.

As I drove away from the stores, I was kicking myself for picking this pattern and not one of the others [I was having a self-heated debate as to which fabric would be best to “genderize” after the lil’ one makes its appearance], but now “in the end” I do think it was the best choice! When I got home I immediately laid out the fabric and was ready to cut. On one website last night I found an uber-easy no sew tutorial for a crib skirt and I was ready to go. However I ran into one dilemma: the fabric’s print and the way I was planning on cutting would’ve made the animals all sideways.

Crap.

No fear though. After a few mathematical calculations, and remembering another site I came across last night, I had a solution! Cut in the proper way and put in a panel using leftover fabric from my crib sheet adventure! Sa-weet. Still ahead!

Within an hour or so, after thinking I’d have to go back and buy more fabric, I had a completed a crib skirt, and liked it! J Not a single stitch was made but rather I used Heat ‘N Bond for all the hemming and seams—why did I not know about this before—and then used Velcro to attach it to the crib mattress frame.

Simple Materials.
Fabric, "Panel" Fabric, Heat 'N Bond & Velcro.

The Final Product

Easy-peasy.

Now just to wait and see what Chris thinks of my latest project before I start another one soon! Another reason I love summer break!

Total cost for this project was a bank breaking $11.48 and I still have some leftover Heat ‘N Bond and Velcro! Gotta love coupons! J

Sorry about the sidewaysness. It took
forever to load and I'm not patient enough
tonight to redo it.
Note amount-of-sleep-last-night above.

Until next *project* time!