Baby needs a changing pad

Here is another baby crafty! I have seen tons of cute changing pads out there, and I decided to make one for myself.  Of course I had to pick purple fabric with birds on it! I made it with a pocket for wipes or a diaper, and it has a velcro closure.  The finished pad measures 13.5 x 21.5 and folds up to fit right into a diaper bag. It was super easy and super fun to make!!

 

Cut the fabric to measure 14 x 22 inches.  The purple fabric is cotton,  the inside is a soft terry cloth, I fused fleece interfacing to the wrong side of the cotton fabric to give it a little bit more padding.  

For the pocket cut the piece to be 7.5 high.  Fold down a 1/4 inch and iron at the top of the pocket and top stitch.

Lay the terry cloth down with the pocket right side up at the bottom, then lay the cotton fabric right side down on top to create a sandwich with the pocket in the middle.  Pin all sides together and sew down all sides leaving a space to flip the fabric right side out.

Hole at the top to turn right side out. Clip the corners to get a nice square once it is flipped. 

The last step was attaching the velcro.  Fold up the pad and pin velcro where you want it.  I used the soft half at the top of the pad and the other scratchy half is on the back of the pad, that way baby won't irritate her skin. 

That's it, about an hour later I had a custom changing pad!!

Bring On The Baby Crafties!!

It has been much to long since my last post! Between all my summer travels and my own pregnancy the time just got away from me.  I knew it had been too long when my best friend lovingly threatened to not follow my blog anymore unless I posted something soon. So that leads me to the beginning of the baby crafties!! I have a couple friends pregnant now, including myself, so I have many crafties in the making all having to do with babies. The first one was so much fun to make I forgot to take pictures during the process, and only have the finished product to show.  So here they are, my appliqued onesies for my dear friend Mischa's baby due in September.

To make these I used my die-cut machine to cut cute pictures out.  I traced them onto some Wonder Under, available at all craft stores, and transfered them to the onesie.  I decided to hand applique them since there were so many tiny details.  A couple of buttons for eyes and noses, and I was done!

A fun tree

A cute little squirrel 

Mischa opening gifts

Whimsy armadillo 

This owl was for my best friend,  I used the same fabric from her wedding guest book I made. 

Spring Bouquet

I love this time of year, spring time! It's getting nice out, gardens are being planted, and flowers are coming out.  I have really loved playing with fabric flowers and I wanted to make a flower bouquet that I could have out all spring long.  So I was searching for some inspirations and I come up with this idea.  I found the inspiration here.

Here is what I did.  I bought a 4 inch planting pot and a half circle styrofoam form.  

I used scrap fabric that I already had in spring colors.  I cut the fabric into 2 inch strips.  The longer the strip the bigger the flower.  I used varying lengths to give each flower a different shape. I decided not use the white when I was done. 

To make each flower fold the fabric in half and iron.  Then baste stitch on the selvage ends.  If you want a fray effect like I did for this project here don't fold the fabric in half so the ends fray when you are done. 

When you are done stitching pull on the thread and you will get this.

Here is the fun part, forming the flower! Circle the fabric around each other and shape it into the flower you want.  Stitch it together a couple of times and then add a button or a bead for the center.  Once I had a couple of flowers made I pinned them to my styrofoam form. 

I used pins to keep the flowers in place so I can move them around if necessary. When I was done this is what I had.

I then of course glued some ribbon around the top and I was done.  I had a pretty spring bouquet for my table. 

Things I love about this project. 

I love fabric flowers because there is no wrong way to make them, no flower is the same so it doesn't have to be perfect.  I also love using scrap fabric because it reminds me of what I used the fabric for in the first place.  The blue was used as binding for my first  quilt I ever made, the green was lining for one of my many bags, and the pink I used for decorating a guest book for my best friend's wedding this summer.  

Happy Spring Time!!