One last "nesting" project

I'm hoping by the time this post is published that I will have had my baby... although that may be wishful thinking since I am 39 weeks as I write this. (*Edit: Still haven't had the baby... any time now!)  Anyway, I haven't had tons of energy or motivation to come up with super-de-duper projects lately, and had put many of my crafty things away, including my sewing machine (what was I thinking? It is back out, don't worry...). I guess I just needed one more crafty fling before life as I know it changes, so I pulled out some fabric I bought a year or so ago, and made another diaper bag/ diaper case. I know, it's something I have already posted; in fact you can see my first attempts with links to the tutorials here.

I made a few changes to the diaper bag pattern this time, including making that right side pocket an elastic- topped pocket instead of velcro- topped, so sippy cups and bottles could fit in there more easily.  Also, if you use this pattern, I suggest a few other changes: add 1/2 inch to each measurement for the magnetic snap placement (this will make sewing around them much easier); also, add interfacing to the side of the back zipper pocket piece that doesn't show for more stability.

I had extra fabric, so I made two diaper holders- one for each baby.  I used the outside fabric and the lining fabric from the diaper bag.

My changes: I added a strap to the top of each diaper case for those times when you don't need the entire diaper bag, just a quick trip to the lounge or restroom to change a messy bum.  I think it would also look cute to make the strap shorter and wider.  I would also suggest if you are making this for an older baby (therefore needing bigger diapers) or want to be able to fit a wipes case inside, adding a couple inches to both the width and height of this pattern to accommodate that better.

One step further- I covered an ugly rubberized flannel changing pad with my extra fabric since I love matchy stuff so much...  Here is the outer (cute) side:

This is the original rubberized (ugly) side which I did not cover (see the velcro on the edges? Fuzzy side in.):

It folds into thirds and the velcro holds it shut.  I decided against adding any handles or extra stuff in favor of simplicity.  Very easy!

If you are interested in making a changing pad from scratch (not just covering one like I did here), check out this tutorial from homemade by jill.

Family member flash cards

This was a fun and easy project I did for my son, who loves pictures of people we know, and is enjoying learning everyone's names.  He is slightly confused by the fact that he has more than one set of grandparents (all four of them are "baba" right now) and there are just so many aunts, uncles and cousins, some of which we rarely see or wont be able to see for a year or more. 

My solution is this pack of cards- I printed out wallet- sized pictures of everyone in the family (individual shots for grandparents and single people, family pictures for those married with kids) using Picasa.  I included a picture of my son because what kid doesn't love seeing pictures of themselves?  Each picture has a tag on the back with the person's name on it (my husband thought that was funny and asked me if that was in case he or I forgot anyone's name.  Hey, you never know- the family just keeps growing larger.  This is only the beginning...).  I "laminated" the pictures with clear contact paper, hole punched each card, and put them on a metal ring.  Voila!  Not so complicated, fairly entertaining, and very educational!

Boy clothes refashion and belts

I recycled an old sweater of my husband's into some comfy sweatpants and a cute vest for my little guy (not to be worn together- just clarifying).  It was a pretty quick project, nothing too fancy. 

(ADDED) The finished product:

 I didn't use any pattern other than some of his too- small clothes as a rough guide.  I was kind of experimenting to see how many things I could make out of one sweater. I used the sleeves to make the pants.  (Sorry for the weird lighting in the pictures- don't know what happened...)

 











I had quite of bit of fabric left over, and I'm still debating what to do with it.  I've seen cute little hats and things made out of pieces of sweaters, but it's not really cold enough outside to get any use out of something like that right now.  Maybe I will work on some house slippers/ booty type things for my son since he hates walking on the tile in his bare feet.  (Funny because if I wanted I could pretty effectively keep him out of the bathrooms or kitchen for a while just by taking off his shoes and socks!)

I whipped up these matching belts in just a couple of minutes this afternoon.  I like the idea of my boys having a few matching outfits for special occasions, or just for fun.  I used grosgrain ribbon and a pack of small D- rings (less than $1 for both sets at Walmart).  I doubled the ribbon up at the end to help prevent it from slipping through the rings too easily.  I also have a velcro version in mind.  I saw another cute idea for a toddler boy belt made with snaps here.

Artistic Cake - Starry Night (and Cupcakes! )

Hello friends! It has been a looooong time since I've been able to post, I'm sorry! School has been more demanding than ever, but now that spring and summer are around the corner, I'll hopefully have a LOT more free time to post regularly! I would like to thank Rochelle for being so diligent in her posting though over the past couple months, she's somethin' else!

Some have you may have seen the Taj Mahal cake I made a few months ago for a class I was taking - History of Creativity. Well, I just finished taking the second half of the class this semester, and had to do another creative project for it. Well, due to the positive results from last time, I decided to go with the cake theme again.

I thought it would be cool and fun to try to recreate a famous painting this time, in the form of cake and frosting. After looking through my textbook's pictures, I decided that Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" would be my model. How fun is that?! One of my friends happened to have the book "Hello Cupcake," and in it there are some really helpful instructions in getting the right colors, and there are also some helpful tips on blending techniques.

Take a look at my creation!

And a closer-up view...

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of it. Even though it has been a week and a half since I turned it in, I still have it...and we haven't eaten it yet...
Anyone want a stale (but totally awesome) cake?


Also, I recently had a couple friends over to decorate cupcakes - we had a blast! We used colored frosting and some of my cake decorating tips to make fun designs. Here are some pictures of our little party!:

The lovely ladies
and...

Our lovely creations:

Linking up:

Frugalicious Friday
Somewhat Simple: Strut your Stuff

More burp cloths

After reading this post at Meck Mom, I decided to give microfiber cloths a try- as burp cloths.  I didn't want to buy a huge pack of them to start out with just in case I don't end up liking them, so I started out with a 3- pack.

 I'm not crazy about the colors, but it is all I have to work with at the moment.  I also decided to leave them unfolded and to "cutesy" them up with some ribbon trim.

I know, I only took a picture of the blue and green ones.  All the ribbon/ burp cloth combinations I could come up with for the orange one were just nauseating.  So I left it plain.  I might try to find another use for it.

I do like how soft and absorbent microfiber cloths are, but I have not yet put it to the test as a burp cloth.  I guess I will find out in another 2 weeks or so when Boy #2 joins our family!  If it works out well, I'll be picking up quite a few more of these; many of our burp cloths from last time are falling apart or are just gross after pretty heavy usage.

Any other suggestions for burp cloths?

A couple of window makeovers

I like window treatments, and I usually gravitate towards styles that let in the most amount of light.  I have to say however that I have virtually no experience with actually designing or putting up window treatments, so what you are about to see is definitely not even close to being professional.  I think both cases turned out pretty well considering we had no idea what we were really doing.

This first one is in my parent's room, and is a project  which my mom and I had talked about doing together for several months, but just never found the time on the rare occasion that I was visiting.  Finally at Christmas time, we had the time and motivation to just do it, so we had the men put up the curtain rod, and we went to work on the "sash".
My mom had found some beautiful, chocolate- colored, sheer fabric at a great price and bought it some time before, but it wasn't quite the right size to hang just as it was.  The fix was simple- we cut it right down the middle, sewed the two pieces together at the ends ( so that we had a thinner, longer, more sash- like piece of fabric) and sewed a rolled hem all the way around the fabric to prevent fraying.  Then we played around with draping it on the rod in different ways.

We didn't really know how to keep the fabric in place and it kept slipping (anyone know what the professionals do in such a case?), so we put clear, double sided tape at intervals on the curtain rod to give the fabric something more tacky to grip.  That seemed to work well enough.

I don't have a before picture of the room to show the comparison, but adding this window sash really dressed up the room and made the dark browns (which mostly don't show in the picture) in the room really pop out.  Even my dad, who had been a bit skeptical about hanging it, said that he liked the effect a lot.  And, it didn't interfere at all with natural light coming into the room- a big deal to my family.

Then, a month or two later, I decided I needed a window treatment in my room.  I had some valences and side panels that had come with my comforter set (see picture at the left), but the problem was that the valence just wasn't wide enough for my window, and I didn't want to use a double curtain rods just so I could have the valence and the side panels on the same window.

So... I measured the window and figured out how much extra fabric I needed, and I cut up one of the valences and added the fabric onto each side.  Then, I sewed the sheer side panels directly to the valence, up near the top, so that it was all one piece.  That's all I did- it was easy to hang and made the room feel more cohesive.  I was also pleased that in this case, as with the one I did with my mom, the window treatment framed the window nicely while letting in the maximum amount of light. 

Here is what it looked like in the end:

The wall hangings above the bed were also made by cutting up one of the valences that came with my comforter set (There were 4 in all).  I used styrofoam underneath so they would be lightweight.  Check out this post for more details on how I made them.

Organizing STUFF

I've mentioned before that I have been on an organizing kick recently.  We have done some pretty serious decluttering and organizing (think going through and repacking the stuff in every closet and cupboard in the house, as well as our outdoor storage unit), but I have also done some "fun" organizing. 

I made a quick, easy, and best of all- free- ribbon organizer out of this peanut butter jar.  I just cut a window using an exacto knife, covered the sharp edges with a recycled ribbon, and used the extra to make a handle.  Now I just need to make about 4 more.


I used the scraps from the lap quilt I made my husband last Valentine's Day to make a matching organizer box for my son's small toys in the living room.  There are numerous tutorials for boxes like these- just Google "fabric box tutorials" and you'll get quite a few different options.  The version I made wasn't quite sturdy enough to hold up to my toddlers battering, so it found a new home in my craft room. :)

This plain wooden box got spray painted black and scraps of paper mod podged into each square to become a home for... my thimble collection.  So I have a thimble collection. Don't laugh.

I got tired of little toys scattered around the living room with no good way of keeping like things together.  Using up some of my stash of clear plastic zippered pouches would give me more space in my craft room AND help me solve this little problem!  You know the pouches... the ones that sheets, pillowcases, etc. come in and you keep because they look so handy and compact, but then you accumulate way more than you could ever use and... well, you get my drift.  The pouches I used have a little pocket in the front that had a label with the brand etc. on it.  I mostly used ones that had pillowcases in them, but one had been for a whole set of sheets.  Anyway, I measured the size of the label pockets, and made up a new label that I printed off and cut to fit in the pockets. I found pictures on the web that explained what was in the pouches, so that my son can help put away his toys as he gets a little older.  This project was so easy and fast that I am going to make several more- I think it would work well for matchbox cars, blocks, bath toys, etc.  I've got plenty more of those plastic pouches, don't you worry!

Headbands and hair clips

My mom and sisters were here last week and we had some fun decorating headbands and hair clips with ribbon, buttons, flowers, feathers, tulle, and all sorts of things.  I wish I had pictures of all the cute stuff we made collectively.

We first headed over to the Dollar Tree to get some headbands.  We got packs of 5 and 6 for $1 each.  Some were just plain old plastic, others were covered in fabric.   I had some of these metal clips already on hand, but I have heard you can get them for cheap from Sally Beauty Supply.

http://www.sallybeauty.com/Single-Prong-Curl-Clips/SLNCAR20,default,pd.html

Then we just tried to let our creative juices take over.  I started out pretty simply (sometimes it just takes a while to get a good idea formulated, you know?) by  stretching some lace over the headband and hot gluing it at intervals over the whole band.

We had also bought some flowers from the Dollar Tree, and were trying to figure out how to incorporate them onto a clip or headband without it being to bulky.  We were also slightly afraid of the scary hairy flower centers.

My sister Cara fixed the problem by pulling all the flowers apart (they came apart easily), combining petals, and adding a new center.

Pulling off the back also made the flower flatter, which made it easier to hot glue onto a metal clip.  Much better, I think.

My mom made this clip out of ribbon and rhinestones...

All the cute clips we were making made me want to make a headband that the clips could be fastened to interchangeably, since I don't usually wear clips in my hair alone- my hair isn't thick enough to hold it in place for long.  So I wrapped this headband with ribbon, and added a little loop on the side (its on the left in the picture below).

It worked perfectly to slide the clips into the loop, and I didn't have any trouble with the clips falling out, even after wearing it all day.  Easy way to spruce up your hairdo!

This is a fun project for little girls and big girls alike! And just about each clip and headband individually cost much less than a dollar each, depending on what we used to decorate them with.  I still have extra supplies, so I will probably be making more!

In case of emergency, large or small

I have been in major nesting mode for a while now, and to me that includes all sorts of organization.  One thing I have been working on is getting our important information updated and gathered for easy access in the event that we have some sort of emergency or crisis.  Of course, it's nice to have it all together for handy reference at other times too.
Here are some blank forms you are free to use and edit to meet your needs.

In Case of Emergency- this is great to have laminated or in a sheet protector that you can pull out for the babysitter, or as the need arises.

Important Numbers and Other Information- a place to compile insurance policy numbers, the location of important documents, loan information, utilities information, numbers to call if your credit card is lost or stolen, etc.

I have a binder that I am using to keep track of this kind of stuff.  It also has calendars, current receipts and coupons, and cleaning checklists (which haven't been used in quite a while- ha!) and I want to get some sort of rotating meal plan in there too.  I know that is way more planning than many people like, but what can I say? I am a list person.  I've got lists of my lists.  I like having my life organized, but many of those things are non-essential.  However, I think it is a smart idea to give yourself easy access to important information for those times when stress may prevent you from thinking clearly.

If you are like me, and want tools for organizing every aspect of your life, but don't know where to start, check out The Executive Homemaker Binder or Fly Lady's Control Journal.