Bumpers!

I don't know how many of you have pacifier babies, but Cailin is definitely a pacifier child. As such, she is constantly throwing/spitting/knocking them behind her crib. I have to try to fit under her crib to fish them out of the back corner, and it's just been a pain. Since I had a bit of fabric leftover from the girls' quilts (just need to be put together, but my machine is seriously BEGGING for a service... weird sad noises and everything... ugh), I decided to try my hand at making a set of crib bumpers to help solve the pacifier problem. I'm pretty ecstatic about how they came out:




I finally finished them last night, and couldn't wait to put them up. I put Cailin in bed when she was almost asleep for a nap this afternoon, but her slightly open eye caught sight of the new bumpers, at which point her eyes flew open to examine her new surroundings. She hung out, awake, just talking to the colors, for about 20 minutes. And when I came back to get her out, she'd moved her head to the one opening in the corner so she could see out. Pretty darn cute.



Linking up to Amy's Sew and Tell. :)

4th of July Outfits

So... even though we won't be going anywhere this weekend due to the chickenpox, I still wanted to make the girls festive outfits to wear. Maybe Cory will take the older girls to the parade on Monday or something, we'll see.

Anyway, I saw these adorable shirts over on Make It and Love It, and knew I wanted to make them... and then I remembered the Reversible Twirly Skirt Tutorial my friend E. did over at PinkSuedeShoe, and decided to pair the two. I've only made one skirt so far, (because I was trying to change up the pattern, and apparently the way things work in my head is not how they work in real life, so when I tried to take some shortcuts, it.. uh.. did not work and I ended up recutting some things and resewing a lot...) but hopefully by the end of today, I'll have a couple more done. Still, I love the one skirt, and if I don't end up making any more, it'll go on Cailin, with her onesie and baby legs (as long as they don't bother her poor chickenpoxed legs... :( ) and the older girls can just wear some jeans.

My very silly older girls (with Janey sporting the skirt I made):


And Cailin's onesie (she's sleeping a lot today, and I'm not up for waking her up just to show off a shirt, sorry):


And baby legs:


And a closer-up of the skirt--there's a tiny white polkadot red side, and a navy gingham on the other side, very fun and patriotic. The white bottom trim also has tiny white stars. I really love how it turned out, thanks E.! :)


I'm linking up to Amy's Sew and Tell, and to Skip to My Lou's Made By You Mondays. They're part of the reason I was still excited to get these done, even when I realized we probably wouldn't be heading out anywhere to celebrate. We'll just have to come up with some great activities for our house. :)

Who has a diaper bag they love?

Me!! And I made it myself! I'm pretty ridiculously proud of it, sorry. :)


The exterior is corduroy, for two reasons. One, I love corduroy, and two, it's so durable! You're supposed to use a home decor weight fabric of some sort, but most of those are dry clean only, which just doesn't scream diaper bag, to me. So thus, the washer and dryer friendly corduroy. :)

It has an outside pocket for papers and such,



an inside pocket divided into three sections, meant to carry three sippy cups or bottles, or other snacks,



and an inside pocket for my keys, phone, wallet, and whatever else.


I've been wanting a bigger and nicer diaper bag for a while now, but just couldn't find anything I loved, and everything was so expensive! So, I finally got up the nerve to make one myself. I got inspiration from this tutorial, and this tutorial, but ended up making it how I wanted it. I still need to sew on another piece of velcro, but because I broke my sewing machine needle (first time for everything, right?), it will have to wait. But I am excited, and I love it. And, it cost me less than $20! (and one sewing machine needle...) Pretty great. :)

Carseat Cover

So after the whole RSV thing, I've been a little bit protective of Cailin... I really, really don't want her to get sick again. So, everytime we go anywhere, I want her covered up. I was using a blanket for a while there, but finally decided to just make a carseat cover--and I LOVE it. It's been so nice to not have to worry about it falling off/blowing away/becoming a baby doll blanket and getting more germy... I love that it's stuck to the carseat. So nice. I used a tutorial from A Wednesday Afternoon, though I saw tons more when I was researching it, and may have tweaked it some to fit my needs. I still need to add some details to the handle thing to make the ribbon prettier, but for now, it's wonderful and functional, and just what I needed.

Another Project...

...and perhaps my last before the baby is born? I suppose we shall see.

Anyway, I've been wanting to make a nursing cover for a while now, and a couple weeks ago I bought the for it fabric on sale (at JoAnn's, as usual). I finally had the time and energy to make it today (maybe Janey is going back to her usual napping self... I can only hope!), so here it is:



I pretty much love it, but I wish I'd used a little shorter piece of boning--the original pattern calls for 16", but I think mine ended up being closer to 18, because I forgot to cut it down after I originally bought it. It's probably just not discreet enough. If it ends up being a problem, I'll fix it and cut it down to probably 14" or so--I just don't want the opening quite so big. I do love the fabric, though, and that I did the straps and everything all on my own, and it was so easy. If you want to make one too, there's another great tutorial over at Sew Much Ado. I love that blog, can you tell?

And for those of you that are wondering how I'm doing, I'm still pregnant, and for the most part doing really well, though I'm very tired, and my body is giving me more grief, pain-wise. The baby may or may not have dropped some, I feel like I'm breathing a little easier these days, but moving is more painful. I'm definitely looking forward to having a normal body again, but am still nervous at the thought of having three kids. I had my 37 week appointment this morning, and I seem to be progressing (dilated 2 cm, 70% effaced, for those who care), so she's certainly on her way. I'm (mostly) excited, and very grateful everything has gone so well so far. Only a few more days until I get to meet this little girl. :)

And here is a picture that accurately portrays how I feel like I look:


nice and large and squashed.

Latest Projects

I've always admired women who were able to get things done during their pregnancies--with both Breanne and Janey, it seemed like all I could do was live from day to day, nothing new or extra. For whatever reason, this pregnancy I've had a little more desire to craft, and many more things I want to make, and even some energy to do them, so I've been trying to get them done. I realized the other day when I was getting things out for the new baby that Janey has taken over most of the baby blankets and uses them for her baby dolls. I don't want her to be taking blankets from the baby, so I picked up some fabric a few days ago, and came up with these blankets today:



A few things of note: I love the purple fabrics, and the edges are purposely left unfinished and cut so they'll fray over time, as you can see in this tutorial, which is also where I got the idea for the blanket. One more thing on this blanket--it was my first time using a zigzag stitch on my machine... go me!



And then there's this beauty, which I LOVE the fabrics on:



Using a tutorial from the same site, for this blanket, I learned how to sew on rick rack, which I know seems obvious, but was actually different from how I saw it working in my head. Don't you love this happy fabric? And I think the rick rack makes it just slightly more girly, so maybe people will still realize the baby is a girl when she's wrapped in it... maybe?



And last but not least, I picked up 2 yards of this fabric, which I love and reminds me of my childhood. I intended on just using it front and back for one more blanket... but I'm not certain I love that idea. What would you do with it?



Next up: a nursing cover. I have the materials and everything, just need to get it done. Hopefully in the next few hours, if Janey will EVER take a nap... all of a sudden she has no desire to nap in her bed. So frustrating. I'm pretty sure I'm going to NEED her to take a nap when the baby gets here. If you have any great suggestions on getting her to stay in her bed for naptime, just let me know.

Making Baby Wipes

I've been meaning to do this post for a while now.  A couple of months ago, I got sick of buying wipes.  I loved the Target brand wipes for both their price, and their quality, but the drive to Target was just too much to justify, just for a box of wipes.  Especially since I never seemed to leave with just a box of wipes...  So anyway, with a little internet searching, and some help from my friend Heather, over at Want What You Have, I came up with this super-easy solution.  I'll be honest, ever since we received a box of Kirkland brand wipes for Christmas, I've felt spoiled, and might be a little bit sad to go back, but the cost savings alone is enough to justify it for me.  Hopefully this will help out some of you, too.

So here are your basic ingredients:

You need: 

2 Tbsp. Baby Soap, 

2 Tbsp. Baby Oil, 

2 1/2 Cups Hot Water, 

and a roll of Bounty Paper Towels (the really nice, thick, expensive kind.  Don't worry, they're still cheaper than a pack of nice wipes, especially since you get two packs of wipes per roll of paper towels).

You'll also need a container that can hold your half-roll of paper towels--mine is actually an old brown sugar container from a set of canisters we got at BB&B for $10.00, and it does the job perfectly.  You can use old wipes boxes, too, but you have to fold the wipes up the right way yourself, which is a big turn-off for me.

If your baby has a little bit more sensitive skin, as mine does, you may wish to switch to Coconut Oil (which seems to be in a solid state, actually), and I also switched to the Oatmeal baby soap, which is supposed to be gentler.

The first step is to cut your paper towels in half. This is the hardest part. I usually use my little hand saw, or a serrated knife. Choose a half to use for this set of wipes, and save the other one for next time. Then, after you've decided on your ingredients,  pour your hot water into a bowl (I just do it all in my measuring cup, for ease), and then you add your oil.  If you're using baby oil, you can just continue at this point.  If you're using coconut oil, you need to wait for it to melt, like I'm doing here.

Once the oil is pretty much melted, you can add your soap,

and then thoroughly stir it all together. I think the oatmeal soap is bubblier, for some reason.

At this point, you put your paper towels into your container, and then pour the mixture over it. Most of it should go into the center, but make sure to pour some on the top, and down the sides as well. I usually only use about 1 1/2-2 cups of the mixture (but make the whole thing so I get the right soap/oil/water ratio).

Now put your lid on, and flip the container upside down. Leave for 5 minutes and check your email, or my blog or something. :)

When you come back, you should find the paper towel center very easy to pull out, and when you take it out, it should start the wipes coming up for you!

Just continue to pull the wipes up from the center, and enjoy the cheap goodness of having done it yourself!  

P.S. Sorry about the sideways pulling-up pic--I can't seem to get it to flip, and I don't really care to figure out why right now.  Off to bed for me.