Boppi Pillow Cover

Finished another baby project this morning. It feels good to be getting items crossed off my to-do list! Our boppi pillow was looking a little tired looking so using all fabric from my stash, I made a new cover. Right now, it's supposed to close by overlapping the fabrics in the back but once I got it on, I think it may need a couple of snaps or some velcro to help it stay closed.

The fabric on the front is Dick and Jane fabric (I think from Michael Miller) and is a cotton woven. The fabric on the backside is minky leftover from Con's blanket.

A Sleepsack for baby

I've finally gotten around to do some sewing for the baby. Because, well, he'll be here in about 3 weeks. Awhile ago, I bought Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings books and fell in love with just about every project in there. There other night I made the Sleepsack using material I had on hand...some blue ooga booga and some plain white flannel for the inside. I also used snaps instead of velcro. Only because I love love love my snap press and hate picking lint out of velcro.

I loved how fast this went together. It was really a quick and simple project. I even made the bias tape with some cotton woven I had in my stash.

The only thing that confused me was putting the lining and outside pieces together. For some reason, I couldn't wrap my head around how to sew the fronts to the back at the shoulder seam and then still have the shoulder seams turned in. After cutting the front pieces twice and still not getting it, I left it with the shoulder seam being exposed on the lining piece (but I'll be the only one who ever notices it!).

I also added 4 inches to the length. The pattern dimensions are 22 inches and well, my last baby was 21 inches so we need the extra length.  :)

Now off to finish a couple more projects before the baby is born. For sure I need to finish a diaper bag because I sold our at a garage sale before we knew we were pregnant!

I was also able to finish a cover for the changing pad. When we were cleaning out the "new" toy room, we found the changing table pad in there but it no longer had the cover. I looked for a new cover on the internet and found one at Target for $19.99! $19.99!! For a piece of material 35" x 23" and some elastic!!! I made one today in under 15 minutes. I could have spent more time on it making the contours and cutting out the corners but this was so quick and easy. I had a fleece blanket from one of the other kids I had put into the diaper material bin that was 36"x24" and simply tacted down elastic around the outer edge.

But I think it will easily serve it's purpose of keeping baby from having to lie on the cold vinly during our chilly winter months!  :)

We reclaimed our living room....

and I slept 11 hours last night! Okay, so being 9 1/2 months pregnant, I probably should not have undertaken our tasks yesterday. But, oh my, it does feel good.

Living in a small house, it's easy for your world to be overtaken by stuff for toddlers and little kids. Now adding in another baby in less than a month, we were really starting to look like a daycare instead of a home. So...we took our junk room off the living room (which was really an old front entrance room (5x5) that had been closed off) and turned it into a toy room. Everything in that room finally found a home, we sorted through all of the toys. Which resulted in 2 garbage bags and 1 box of toys being sent to Goodwill and another garbage bag of toys that were either broke or missing most/all of the parts.

The kids absolutely love it. Instead of their toys and stuff being spread out, it's all separated into bins or stacked into a shelf. They can easily find everything. Connor still is a little hesitant about picking up one bin and putting it away before getting out another but time and patience...

Emily had to bring treats for her Christmas party at school and these are the two treats she made (I really should learn how to use my new camera because my outside pictures are fabulous...inside...not so much). We made Reindeer Pops using this tutorial and Melted Snowman Cookies using this tutorial.

OH. MY. YUMMINESS. The reindeer pops may be an everyday treat at our house until the baby is born. I could easily eat, well, okay, I can eat more than one, let's leave it at that.

My only goal for today is to do some more laundry and finish the dishes. Both of which are everyday events around our house but lately doing the dishes is difficult because I have to stand a foot back from the sink!

A simple kind of quilt...

I feel as if our house has imploded. I would like to think that we only have the grandparents to blame, however, we ourselves seem to have went a little overboard. It's hard because the kids are at "that" age where there is so much joy is the magic of Santa Claus. We did have a lovely Christmas with family and the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve was truly beautiful and moving.

We have some organizational cleaning to do this week. The biggest project being cleaning out the "junk closet" in the living room and turning it into a toy/storage room. It's actually an old front entrance that we closed off and turned into a closet so it's a nice little 5x5 foot room.

I have two Christmas presents for the kids that I did not get finished before Christmas. They each were supposed to get a "kind of" quilt from mommy and daddy, however, I just ran out of time. Con was more than happy to get his Thomas the train blankkie this morning. I am calling it a "kind of" quilt because a quilt would cringe if they saw it!  :) My kids love textures so there is minky on the back side and a cotton woven on the front and I used satin quilt binding. Which I machined stitched on! I thought about doing yarn ties but settled for sewing a big X across it to keep it from bunching up. You gotta love a happy 2 year old!

Now I'm off to try to find the kitchen table and later to find some free patterns for Barbie Doll clothes because Daddy told Em, "Ask mom to make some." Thanks...a bunch...

I know we've been busy...

I'm just not sure what we've been doing! We did get about 20 inches of snow on Saturday. That was amazing! We haven't had snow like that in probably 20 years (and that just made me old since 20 years ago I was a freshman in high school).

Since we couldn't go anywhere, we started on some christmas presents...cause you know we really should have started them 3-4 weeks ago. We're giving away goodie bags full of yuumminess including homemade lip balm, sugar scrubs, and bath salts wrapped up in pretty little brown paper bags tied with raffia and an ornament. Saturday we did get the ornaments done and we made ornaments from paint sticks. I used this tutorial. My 4 year old daughter had a blast with helping me Modge Podge all of the ornaments. Dad even got into the fun and finished them up by tying on the wires. They really do look a lot cuter in real life than they do in the pictures. We used a brown spray paint that had gold glitter in it. We were able to use our ink jet printer with no smearing as long as I used the photo setting. (I'm really not sure why even picture I've taken today won't come out, I think the sun shining and the snow is throwing everything off).

Emily also helped me make her and her little brother some Christmas pillows.

You really can't get much simplier. Two pieces of fabric 11x17. We left an opening and Emily filled them full of polyfill from an old pillow we had laying around. The kids have no taken their regular pillows off their beds and will only sleep on their "Santa Pillows." You gotta love when the simple things in life make kids so happy!

Emily and I also made Chocolate Orange Lip Balm this morning and oh me oh my does the kitchen smell heavenly! So very easy. I tried taking a picture but between my flash, the bright snow sunshine and the clear tubes, it was not turning out. But here's the ingredients below.

Chocolate Orange Lip Balm
4 tbsp. Cocoa Butter
10 chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate but I think dark chocolate would taste even better)
1/2 tsp. Vitamin E oil
1/2 tsp. orange extract (I think vanilla would also be good!)

Melt the cocoa butter using a double boiler and remove from heat. Stir in chocolate chips, Vitamin E oil and extract. I used a syringe to place into lip balm tubes (placed in the freezer first). There was still some leakage in the tubes. I think if we continue to make this, I'd change to a pot container but for now since we have a ton of tubes, this works just fine!

We still have a ton of stuff to make but I think next we'll finish up the lip balms and then move onto the bath salts and scrubs.

A neckwarmer/cowl for kids...

Winter seems to again have decided to make an appearance in Wisconsin. This morning it is cold and gray. My daughter has decided that when she grows up, she is going to be an artist. She loves anything creative but at 3 (going on 16), it sometimes hard to find ways that she can help create when she wants to help me sew. Last week, when I put on my cowl to take her down the driveway to the bus stop, she said she wanted one. So off to the fabric store we went and picked up some fleece. This was probably one of the easiest things I've made. Two rectangles turned and topstitched (24" x 6") and then I added snaps in the color of her choice.

This is her measuring out the fabric and that was probably the longest part of the whole process. All these years I've been sewing and I never realized that along with a tape measure, the length in tractor tires was also important!  :)

And our finished product. There are two rows of snaps so it can be adjusted. Because fleece has stretch, we could have easily made it to just slip on and off over her head but sometimes it's nice to have things that come apart for those days when you haul a sleeping toddler into the house and have to undress them.

Blessings,

Lisa

A family picture

Last weekend, we were all in a family wedding. Yes, this extremely pregnant momma was actually willing to A) stuff her belly into a strapless, fitted bridesmaid gown, and B) be immortalized forever wearing a strapless, fitted bridesmaid gown.