Meet the Princess

and her friends. Iliana was the unsuspecting victim of yet another homemade gift by Sunny.


There was a dvd, too- just to keep it a little normal. Well. It was Yo Gabba Gabba. Nothing normal there.



Clothespins, clear caulk, yarn and teeny scraps of fabric. Bedroll is made from one 9"x12" piece of felt, folded and sewn to create little bedding channels for the for the girls- with a scrap of hem tape (?) to tie. I enjoyed this process way more than I care to admit.

More Handmade-ness

Yet another homemade gift:
Soft baby rattles made from Ikea fabric.
Of course, you don't have to use Ikea fabric, I just didn't realize- in the heat of the crafty moment- that I did have a character design fabric in my stash already.
I saw this post (I feel like an index for the internet), and I had to make some. NOW! (the link referred to a tutorial, but I couldn't find one. I did however happen upon too, too many beautiful Dutch blogs. Hopefully this isn't too infringe-y, for the record- this is not my original idea.)

1. Loosely cut around chosen design.

2. Choose a coordinating fabric for the back- face right sides together and trim so both pieces are the same shape. These are small enough that I didn't have to pin them.

3. Sew on a machine using a straight stitch, leaving a 3/4" opening.

4. Turn right side out and stuff with polyfil or wool. I tucked a few little jingle bells in there.



5. Sew together the opening by hand, using very small tight stitches.

This is the exact same concept as making a pillow- except, tiny and with bells. Also- if you are going to make these- just do a bunch, as it seems babies come in waves! Also, if you are about to have a baby and you are reading this- just pretend like you didn't :) No surprises around here!



Ta Da! Easy to grasp softy rattle for your wee-est new friend.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, we made up accordion style brag books. Other than having the photographs printed, I was able to use only materials that were already on hand. There are hundreds of great tutorials for these on the internet, but I couldn't find one that expressed the simplicity of my technique. And honestly, I could have benefited from a little (A LOT) more attention to detail. But. I actually wanted to get these done in time for Mother's Day.
These are great for any occasion. I think the "inspiration" for these came from my mental index of Martha Stewart craft projects- this one in particular.


1. Have kiddos make drawings on pieces of paper a little bit smaller than the size of photograph you plan on using (I used 4x6). We did outlines with marker, then filled in with watercolors.

2. Have photographs printed.


3. Cut out strip of paper from a large piece of sturdy stock, or piece together smaller pieces. I added a 1/2" to each frame, making for 4.5"x6.5" frames, and I took the longer dimension- 6.5" and marked with a ruler from the long factory edge of the paper. Measured the full length, then divided by 4.5- which gave me 5 frames/sections/spaces. 6 would have been better as the covers would have aligned to be more booklike. Trim off excess- so the strip of paper was 6.5" wide and 20.5" long. Measure and fold the sections at 4.5" increments. You will have a big zigzag.


4. Cut 2 lengths of ribbon/yarn/thread and glue across the width of what will be the front and back covers (the exterior when zigzag is squished together). Glue previously made art to covers (will hide the ribbon). You can also layer the art onto another piece of paper (or cereal box card) to create a mat-like effect.


5. Glue or use double sided tape to adhere photos to the sections. It's really nice if you have only vertical shots- then you can stand the book up as a display. I didn't have that many to choose from, so I just used vertical on one side and horizontal on the other- at least one side was display-able. Also, we left one spot open for as note.




6. Fold together and tie up the sides.



7. Give to mama/grandma on Mother's Day with lots of flowers and sweets and help around the house and maybe time for a nap.