Christmas in July?

So I'm starting to make Christmas gifts already. Sounds crazy but when you want to do a "handmade holiday" You need to start early. Last year before Christmas was insane for me! Way to many projects going and not nearly enough time. And who wants to be sleep deprived and stressed out during the holiday season. I'd much rather enjoy myself. BUT I keep getting distracted :( While I should be working on all of the other projects I'm working on something fun for Maggie. She told me she wanted a baby carrier. So I started and finished it today.

OK well not completely finished but almost.  I made the straps REALLY long.  I always go overboard with that kind of thing.  But anyways I'll have her try it on tomorrow and then cut the straps accordingly.  The color scheme is blinding.  I know.  But I let Maggie choose and this was it.  She knows what she wants!  It is made like a Mei Tei carrier.  And it is a bit rough as I didn't use a pattern and Have never made one of these.  And I padded the straps so that it would be a little more sturdy and despite the crazy colors I think the padding makes it look more like the real thing.

This is a started project.  It will be a newborn gown.  I can't finish it yet because I don't have enough fabric for the sleeves.  I cut these pieces from a t-shirt of mine.  I loved this shirt but it was way to small for me. Anyways hopefully it will be a nice gift for a little boy. 

And the other Christmas project I am working on I don't have any pictures for :(  But I'm using this tutorial for a fabric alphabet magnets.  I love this one and will probably make 2 sets.  One for my niece and one for my own daughter.  It is a great way to get rid of some scraps of fabric.

And one more exciting thing happened.  Grandpa Ed(Maggie calls him Grandpa head)  Brought these books for me.

They came from Snook :)  And I'm so grateful for them.  I'm sure that I will put them to good use!  I'm especially happy about the needle crafts book. 

OH and one more thing!  I need to take a moment to praise my hubby.  Last night I went to bed REALLY late.  Much later than usual.  And then the kids woke up REALLY early.  Go figure.  And I was just having a rough day in general (we all have those right?)  Anyways I think he could tell that too from talking to me on the phone.  While he was at work he found babysitters for the kids so that we can have a date night tomorrow.  Isn't that sweet?  He knew just what I needed.  

I am so blessed to have such a great husband and family :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Bri Bee 

Edit:

Here is a picture of Maggie with the carrier.  Please excuse the bed head.  We just woke up :) By the time I got the camera out I couldn't get her to smile nicely. But when I showed it to her and let her try it on this morning she was smiling from ear to ear!

She tells me she was smelling her babies head.  Two pictures later she informed me that she was done taking pictures like a spoiled model or something.  Gees.  Its a good thing she is so cute.  

Baby brother is now demanding one.  I get to pic the fabric this time :)

Another day, Another Dress

My daughter LOVES dresses.  We have a dress for just about everyday of the week and when given a choice 95% of the time she will pick a dress.  And to mix it up a bit she might throw on a pair of jeans or shorts or maybe even a skirt underneath it.  Her "sense of style" is a constant source or entertainment for me. 

Just recently this lovely tutorial became available.  I love making stuff for my little girl and this dress was irresistible.  Seriously!  And I used all stuff that I had on hand!  So no trip to the craft store (actually I'm a little sad about that)  I just raided my hubby's t-shirts.  And I found a lightly used t-shirt that he had 3 of!  Who needs three of the EXACT SAME SHIRT!?  No variation in color or anything...  I cut into it and immediately felt guilty.  I should have asked my wonderful husband.  But in the end he is such a great guy.  Turns out that they weren't all the exact same.  I unknowingly picked the one that was not the right size.  But even before figuring that out he was not even a tiny bit mad at me.  He is much nice than I because I know that if he just went digging through my clothing and cut up one of my shirts I would be upset! 

SOOOOO I have two pictures of this dress and neither of them are very good.  One is a rear view because Maggie was in no mood to stop long enough for a photo and the other is after it was worn and it is all wrinkly.  Also I haven't quite figured out how to embellish it.  Any suggestions?  Fabric flower?  A splash of fabric paint??  Some embroidery?  I Just can't decide.  I picked this particular shirt not only because there were 3 of them but because it was be so "easy" to embellish but now there are too many options and I like all of the options :(   Typical me... I can't make up my mind. 

Here it is from behind on an ugly Sat morning on the way to the Myerstown farmers Market.

And here it is from the front :)  The pictures do not do it justice.  It is quite cute on her.  But oh well.  I will try bribing with candy the next time so that I can get a better picture.  I plan on making several of these!  Perhaps even some as gifts.  Even if I have to buy a shirt to make it I can still do it for well under $5.  Gotta love that.

Quick note about the farmers market that I previously mentioned.  It is new.  And how very disappointing!  The produce was very expensive!  and there were only 6 or so vendors.  Even so my husband couldn't resist this lovely jar of yummy goodness.

I will admit that I was excited because it is local.  I'm kind of a sucker for local goods and handmade stuff.  Can anyone blame me? 

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week!

Bri Bee

Result of changed plans

So as I was saying earlier... things never go as planned.  Sometimes they go mostly as planned but not exactly as planned.  Tomorrow night was supposed to be girls night out and it was to celebrate some birthdays.  I was going to spend tonight making birthday gifts.  Unfortunately girls night was cancelled. 

So the good news is that because girls night was cancelled I have more time to work on birthday gifts and could therefore push that off for another day.  And so tonight I made this instead.

I got to make the baby shoes after all.  :)  What is awesome is the very small amount of fabric needed for this project.  So I was able to use some scraps for this.  Some deliciously soft cotton inside and some cute but more durable canvas on the outside.  :)  I wish that my top stitching was a little more straight but I can live with the results.

Hope everyone enjoys their Friday!  I'm thinking about getting my nose pierced but I can already feel myself chickening out...

God bless!

Bri Bee

Babyshower gift

Anyone that knows me knows that I love babies and all things baby.  So I get all excited and giddy when I get invited to a baby shower because it means that I get to make a baby gift!  And every time I go to make a gift for someone I have this grand idea of what the gift will look like and how elaborate it will or won't be and how many pieces etc etc... 

 This time I bought "The Happiest Baby On the Block" DVD because it is awesome.  I watched it when my second baby was a couple weeks old and I swear by it!  My oldest son who was 10 at the time watched this DVD and it was so simple to follow that Christian was able to follow the techniques too.  And not only were the techniques easy to follow but THEY WORKED!!!!  I can not say enough good stuff about it!

Anyways...  I got the DVD and was going to just give her that but then I thought about how hard it was for me to find a proper swaddling sheet.  You couldn't purchase them in any stores near me and the ones online were VERY nice but no affordable.  Not for me anyways.  So I decided to make a swaddling sheet to go with the DVD.  And then while I was shopping for the fabric I thought that it would be nice to make a matching set...  SOOO I decided to make burp clothes to go with it.  And THEN I thought wouldn't it be wonderful to make a nice pair of tiny baby booties to go with it!!!!

As usual nothing goes as planned.  Because the swaddling blanket is fairly large it took me longer to hem than I thought it would.  I went with 42" by 42".  You probably think that is huge for a baby blanket but you will have to trust me.  A couple weeks after your child is born the only thing those napkin sized receiving blankets will be good for is well a napkin or maybe a changing pad...  But you probably already have a changing pad...

So then the burp clothes were easy but when it was all said and done I just didn't have enough time for baby shoes.  They are tiny but tedious :(  I really wanted to make them but I will have to save it for another day.   I did have about another hour so I decided to make a nice pouch to put it all in.

Here is the swaddling blanket and the DVD with my shadow.  lol I don't see professional photography in my future.  O well.  You get the idea though.  The blanket is folded twice.

Here is the burp cloth.  I got the idea here.  She has a tutorial which was very kind of her!  This was easy peasy and practical and cute.  I wish I had thought to do this instead of carrying around my boring plain cloth diapers.  I had cute ones from the store but they weren't absorbent enough. 

 

Here it is all next to each other.  And here is the tutorial for the pouch thing if you need one.  This is the second one that I made and I love it.  But its just a tote with one handle lol so if you have some sewing experience you probably don't need a tutorial.    I like the whole  one handle idea because it is a nice pouch to hang on a door knob or a hook somewhere.  You can use them to collect your kids little toys or books or whatever.

And here it is all tucked in the pouch together.  Although I'm sad that I didn't have time for shoes I am very happy with the pouch which will be used instead of a gift bag.  And it has a cute pocket which is just the right size to hold the card :)  Now I hope the mommy to be will enjoy it.

What do you think?

Have a great evening everyone!

BriBee

Birth Story (a day late)

Let me start by saying that this post is off to a rough start.  I am thoroughly irritated!!!  I started off looking for the pictures on my computer and then freaked when I couldn't find them.  Only to remember that I had them all on a Kodak Picture cd.  So then I located that.  Then I had to figure out how to use the dang pictures.  I ended up having to download software because I couldn't figure out how to do it without it.  GRRRRR!  I am so annoyed with it all.  But in the end I'm thrilled and I have really enjoyed browsing all of the lovely pictures of my darling Maggie when she was a newbie :)

Ok so I'm not going to write my whole birth story because it is really long but I would like to share some pictures of the day my life changed.  :)

Ok this is not actually the day.  This is the day after a failed induction.  Yep you heard me right.  Failed induction.  Until this day I did not even know that there was such a thing.  Yikes.  That sucked.  This is my REALLY dissapointed face.  It is no fun sleeping all not in the hospital hearing other babies being born  and knowing that you are going to have to go home the next morning still pregnant.

This is moments after she was born.  I have other "better" pictures but they well all rather inapropriate.  Well honestly I don't mind if everyone sees them but I know that not everyone wants to see that.  lol.  ANYWAYS... Look how happy my husband is!  That is the best part of this picture :) 

And here she is!  Awwww  The first thing that I noticed was her dimples!  lol.  I still remember how she felt when they handed her to me.  So warm and a little wet still but so very soft. 

Its hard to see her all bundled but this is one of our first breastfeeding sessions.  I'm so glad my husband took this.  It was such a beautiful moment.  BUT can you see how freaking swollen I was.  Gees.  I felt like I would pop.  I remember being in the hospital and thinking that even my eyelids and eyeballs felt swollen.  That was aweful.

And this is my absolute favorite picture of Maggie as a baby.  It was her first night and she was laying in her hospital basinet and she looked right at me.  It was perfect. 

For my mom :)

Here are a couple new pictures of the kids.  Alex looking goofy as always.  Christian avoiding the camera as usual and Maggie hamming it up for the camera.  I'm such a lucky momma! 

Birthday gifts

Hello everyone.  Its been a busy couple of weeks doing a little of this and a little of that.  Holidays spent with family and time spent with my own little family.  And well not much time for creating :(  O well.  As much as I enjoy sewing I enjoy my family so much more. 

Anyways the latest project was a birthday gift for my daughter who is turning 3 on wednesday!  I can't believe it.  I'm going to have to post some birth pics wednesday.  For some people pictures like that don't mean much.  But that was a defining moment in my life.  The moment when EVERYTHING changed.  lol.  And I mean everything.  Ok ok I've gotten off subject.  Maybe I will allow myself to gush and perhaps even tell the birth story another day. 

Back to the birthday present.  You will have to ignore a few things:
 
1. Maggie picked the princess fabric and the polka dots and I was left trying to figure out how to pull it together.  Honestly that didn't work out too well.  I don't think my 3 yr old will care that it clashes though.

2. It is already dirty.  I don't have a seperate room or even a seperate area to sew.  Soooo my projects don't really have a safe place and so it has been played with when mommy wasn't paying attention.  Spackle on the ribbon(story for another day) and a mistery blue stain on the princess fabric.

3.Well you will have to forgive a lot of other little things.  My first of things is often pretty bad but then the second and third time are usually pretty great.  So I am very glad that I have a great family that loves me and my projects as flawed as they often are.

This is the open view with nothing in it :)  See the strange and out of place pale pink with brown dots.  O well.

And here it is with the paper pad in it.  The left side has a flat pocket that I will use for stickers and stuff like that.   The right side is another pocket that I will use for crayons or pens or those plastic scissors with no metal blade(you would be suprised what they will cut when you put a determined 2 yr old behind them) and maybe a glue stick if I know I will be able to watch her VERY CLOSELY.

And this is the outside once it is folded up.  I've left the ribbon really long because I can't decide how short I want it.  lol.  Silly right?  Also in retrospect I have no idea what made me decide to put that particular word on the outside.  hmm.  I mean I guess I do really want her to enjoy this but why didn't I put her name on it or something.  Well she can't read yet and she probably won't even ask me what it says. 

So now Maggie will have a place to keep some paper and crayons and stickers when we go bye byes.  :)  Hopefully it will be as usefull as I think it should be...

And here is my almost 3 yr old looking like a moody teenager.  Why am I posting this picture?  Well I just couldn't help myself. :)  I have many others that I want to post but I'll save them for another day.