A Little Bit of Quiet

For Christmas, I wanted to make something special for Little Bear that he would enjoy, he could grow into, and would provide a good source of distraction when a little quiet time was needed.  After much browsing on (where else) Pinterest and gaining a ton of inspiration, I came up with the idea of making Little Bear his very own Quiet Book! 

After many many hours of cutting, sewing and going crazy, here is the end result: 

The Cover page was pretty simple but fun to just play with.  I ended up doing the cover in brown with cream insides so it would look like a real book.  Also, I added straps to the cover so when we are traveling between the car and someplace, I can bundle it all together.

 The First page is a simple sensory fringe page.

 The Second page is a Lion with a ribbon main (which Little Bear loves to chew on). 

For the Third page, I made a field of grass and hid animal shaped beads in the grass.  For now, Little Bear loves to try to find the hidden animals.  Later, he can learn to match the animals at the top of the page with the animals in the grass.

 The Fourth page is a cute simple button color page. 

The Fifth page is a color/shape matching page. :)

 The Sixth page is a Abacus type page made out of ribbons and beads.  The letters are made out of Puffy Paint which add a nice dimension to this page. 

The Seventh page is a zipper page - pretty self explanatory there.

 The Eight page is a shoe tying page.  I made the shoes out of felt and they turned out very cute.

The Ninth page is a page put together using an old pare of overalls that I cut up and sewed onto the page.  The straps come unlatched and the pockets are open so Little Bear can put stuff into them.

 The Tenth page is the life vest page where the straps latch together. 

The 11th page is well - its the end!

 Oh and here is what the back cover looks like.  

Its really plane but the idea was to make it look like a book.

The whole book is held together with binder rings so if I wanted to, I could always add more pages if I wanted to in the future.  I used felt as the base for the pages and for most of the notions on the pages as well.  Although I used a lot of inspiration on Pinterest, I ended up not using a specific pattern, but just used the inspiration and winged it until it looked good enough. ;)  

I also made 2 other books (excluding pages 9 and 10) for my nephews too! 

Oh and I would like to add a very supper special thank you for my amazing husband who without his help in keeping Little Bear preoccupied for many hours, I would not have been able to get this done!!!

March 1, 2013

Now that Little Bear has had this for a few months, he loves it!  I keep it in the car and it makes the rides to and from day care and while we are running errands but more enjoyable. :)  Overall, worth every bit of effort!

Monster good time

A quick fun little project that took one evening to through together was this little monster stuffy that I made for Little Bear. 

I made him out of scraps and I even made the big blue patch on the front into a pocket and Little Bear loves to stuff it with his other toys. ;)

 Oh and he has got a sweet orange row of spikes down his back.

 

Little Bear's 1st Birthday!

A whole year has gone by in the blink of an eye and my little squishy bundle of joy that come home from the hospital a year ago has marvelously turned into a squirming ball of energy who brings joy, giggles, and endless silliness to our lives! :)

 Here is the birthday boy opening a few gifts from mommy and daddy first thing in the morning. :)

He was more in love with the bow than anything else!  hehe

We had quite a party for the little man for his first birthday - it was mostly my family (the in-laws had been in town the previous weekend) and a few close family friends.  We went with a monster themed party for which I drew a lot of inspiration from Pinterest.  But it turned out really cute. 

The food was quite delicious and of coarse very monsterly. ;)

Ben wasn't quite sure what to do with his first candle and cupcake - I think he squished more into the highchair than what went into his mouth!  

He also loved all of the gifts and attention that he got from everyone - well ok, he mostly just enjoyed the wrappings that the gifts came in. ;)

And most of all he enjoyed hanging out on Grama Natalie's lap. 

But at the end of the day, all he wanted was to chill out safe and sound on Grampa Larry's lap. :) 

Thanksgiving Time

This year for Thanksgiving, we were selected to host Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's family.  It worked out well because Tim's parents live 7 hours East of where we live and his brother & wife live 9 hours West of here.  It made for a busy couple of days trying to get the apartment ready for house guests and prepping for Thanksgiving dinner.
I might have gone a little overboard on the goodies forgetting that I wasn't baking for my ginormous family of 12+ people.  Here is proof:

 Everything turned out Delicious!  We also had a great time spending time with my husband's family and Little Bear got some much enjoyed time being doted upon. :)

As a follow up to Thankful tree that I started at the 1st of the month, we did manage to fill it out quite nicely by the time that Thanksgiving rolled around.  It is amazing when we stop to reflect, just how much we do have to be thankful for. :)

Give Thanks!

Today is all ready November 1st and with Thanksgiving fast approaching, I wanted to do something special this year to help celebrate Thanksgiving all month instead of for just the one day.  I also wanted to help remind us what Thanksgiving is really all about.  Besides food, Thanksgiving is about giving Thanks to our God for his blessings.  The first celebrated Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims to give thanks to God for his protection through their journey to the new world and the first year here.  The first official Thanksgiving as a national holiday was started in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens".

 Because of the true history of this day, I wanted to do something through the month of November to help remind us of this.  And I wanted to do this to help set us into a thankful and grateful frame of mind for the Holiday season.  So after doing some searching for some ideas on Pinterest (where else!), I found a neat idea called a Thankful Tree.  The basic idea is to make a tree of some kind and leaves or tags to put on the tree.  Then throughout the whole month of November, to write down what we are thankful for on those leaves/tags and put them on the tree.  The whole idea is to have a tree full of things we are thankful for by Thanksgiving.  I love this idea and decided to put something like this together for us to do.  It turned out quite easy to do and since I had most of the supplies on hand, it didn't cost hardly anything at all either!  So here is to a whole month ahead of learning to give thanks for all I have! :)

Cupcakes Cupcakes Cupcakes!

So I think I now understand why everyone has been obsessed with cupcakes as of late.  I made the mistake of clicking on "DC Cupcakes" on Netflix one very early Saturday morning as I was sitting on the coach all blurry-eyed as Ben was running circles around the living room.  Besides the sisterly drama (which I can completely relate to! lol), the delicious cupcakes had my mouth watering in no time!
Late that day, I dug through my mom's old recipes and I found her recipe for "Crazy Chocolate Cake" which sounded perfect (Mostly because I actually had all of the ingredients in my cupboards).  The cake batter mixed up perfectly and make exactly 12 cupcakes!!!
While those were in the oven, I kept looking through mom's recipes for some kind of frosting because cupcakes aren't complete unless they are frosted!  And I found the perfect frosting - "White Fluffy Frosting"!  Its a spin off of a marshmallow type frosting and just melts in your mouth. :)
The end result were some pretty fantastic tasting cupcakes that ended up not lasting too long.  ;)  Yum!

Quick Project

I dont often get a chance to do any of the million sewing projects that I want to do or that are sitting on Pinterest begging for me to sew them into life... But a few weeks ago I ended up being home for a couple of days with Ben.  He had come down with a minor cold and although he wasn't too sick, he was too cranky to go to day care.
Soooo, during nap time for a few days, I sewed away to my heart's content - or at least until baby woke up!
Here is the fruits of my labor -
  A cute little double sided shoulder bag.  I found the pattern on Pinterest (where else) and with a few modifications to make it my own, I think it turned out pretty fantastic!  I love it because some days, I just need to run out and I don't need to take the entire diaper bag, so this works great! :)
 Here is the pattern in case anyone is interested: http://verypurpleperson.com/2010/04/making-reversible-bag/.  I just lengthened the straps by about 4-6 inches. 

Baby Wearable Blanket Picture Tutorial

Hi All!
So this is my first photo tutorial that I have ever put together so bear with me. I can't take full credit for this - it is a combination of other tutorials I have come across and a lot of trial and error. And mostly I am posting this for my sister who also has a little dude running around who is constantly outgrowing everything!
Since my little dude is still little enough to kick off any blanket we put on him but way too big for all of the sleep sacks I have for him, I decided to tackle making him some new ones. And through a lot of trial and error - I think I have perfected the process.
Good luck! and of course this can be adjusted to really any size you want but for simplicity this pattern makes a wearable blanket / sleeping bag that is a little big for my little dude who is about 31" long and 24 pounds. Hopefully it will take him a little bit before he outgrows these.
Oh and if this seems a little long - don't get overwhelmed by it. I tried to include all of the step so it would be very easy to follow. Overall, I can sew one of these together in about an hour from start to finish.

Step 1:
You will need to obtain 1 yard of Fleece material. I use fleece since it is stretchy, warm, soft, and you can get away with more raw edges which makes this easier and faster to sew together. Other material could be used but the seem allowances would need to be adjusted to accommodate the raw edges.
If you want the sleeping bag to be longer, you can buy more than 1 yard. Wash and dry the fleece to ensure it is clean and pre-shrunk for you.
Lay out on a flat surface and fold in half so you have 2 layers of fleece. This is helpful so when you cut the pattern you only have to cut once and then the front and back will match perfectly.

Step 2:

I made a quick pattern (through some trial and error) using some brown packaging paper. You can use any paper to do this, I just found this is sturdy and holds up well through several uses.
Here is what my rough pattern looks like. I folded it in half to make sure both sides were the same while making the pattern. The dimensions are as
follows: 2" from center of neck hole to edge of shoulder with a 3/4" dip/curve cut in. The shoulders are 5" wide. The Arm Hole is 6" long with a 1" dip/curve cut into it. At the bottom of the arm hole, the 1/2 pattern should be 8" across.
I left the length up to you but the bottom of the sleeping bag can be as wide as the material will allow. I found 24" for total width works well.

Step 3:

Take your pattern and center near the top of your material and pin it into place.

Step 4:

Using a yard stick or other straight edge, mark the bottom center of the bag onto the material.

Using a yard stick or other straight edge, measure your desired width to the bottom of the bag 

and mark both the bottom and the outside bottom edge.

Line up this mark with the bottom side of the arm hole and draw a line connecting.

This will be one side to the sleeping bag.

Repeat for the other side. 

Step 5:

Once this has all been marked, you can now cut out your material.

There is a slight variation at the neck line that you will need to make between the back and the front pieces. For the front, while the pattern is still pinned to the fleeced after it has all been cut you, cut a slit in the pattern of 3.5". Fold the pattern from the edge of the neck hole to this point for both sides. Use this guide to cut out a "V" only on the front piece.

                                                                                         
 
 Step 6:

Once you remove your pattern and are done cutting, your fleece pieces should end up looking like this:

Little Dude was having fun playing under the table while mommy was cutting and sewing away. :)

Step 7:

This is probably the longest and most complicated step - putting in the zipper.

Take your front piece and fold in half with the wrong side facing out. 

Choose the zipper that you want to use and lay it along side the folded edge. 

For mine, I used a 22" long zipper since this is what I had on hand. 

I do have to tuck little dude's legs in but I find its a decent length to use overall.

Line up the top of the zipper with the top of the folded edge.

Flatten the zipper and line up along the folded edge. About 1/2" above the bottom of the zipper, 

I place 2 pins. This helps to mark how far I need to sew.

Take away the zipper and place pins all along the folded edge. Even though the edge is folded, 

I find that by pinning helps to ensure that the center fold stays put.

Sew along the folded edge with a basting stitch. I also use a left justified needle for this to ensure that I have 1/4"+ of edge. Do NOT back stick! These stitches are meant to hold the material in place while the zipper is place and will need to come out later. 

 Sew until you just pass the double pins and stop. 

 Cut along the folded edge until you reach the double pins and stop.

Remove the double pins and lay the piece flat with the two raw edges laying flat as well as pictured.

Attached the zipper. Line up the top of the zipper with the neck hole and seam and pin into place.

 Pin the zipper along the center of the seam all the way to the bottom. 

Attach a zipper foot to your sewing machine and sewing with a center justified needle and a moderate stitch size sew along the front of the zipper seem as shown. Start on the top right side of the zipper. 

 When you reach the bottom, turn and sew back and forth across the bottom just above the bottom of the zipper. Turn and sew up the other side of the zipper. This is how it should look once finished.

Once the zipper is sewn into place, use a seam ripper to rip out the basting seam that you sewed into place along the center of the zipper. Be careful doing this since it is easy to slice into the fleece and make a hole...

Step 8:

Pin together the front and back pieces along the shoulders and sides (with the fronts/right sides facing each other). Sew together leaving the arm holes and neck hole unfinished for the moment. 

Step 9:

Turn the sleeping bag right side out. 

For each arm hole, fold over 1/4" of material and pin into place at both the top and bottom seams to make sure that they line up. 

Sew around the arm hole and repeat for the other arm hole.

Step 10:

For the Neck Hole: Starting at the left zipper top, fold the zipper top over and fold the fleece over that - tucking the zipper end under the fleece and pinning into place. 

 

Pin down 1/4" fold over of fleece all around the neck hole to keep the fleece in place while sewing. 

Sew around the neck hole from the one side to the other.

And now you are done and it should look similar to this:

 Little dude was modeling this sleeping bag for me - wasn't too thrilled at being the model:

and tried to run away:

and then tried to strike a pose:

and then was like "ok mom - is this over yet?":

The finished sleep bags hanging up in little dude's room:

:)