Baby Doll Cradle Make-Over

For this past Christmas, I decided to make Pretty a big doll, and Santa brought her a little cradle for her doll to sleep in!

I found the cradle at a discount outlet store for a company that does monogrammed things. This store is where all the mistakes go. Poor mom of "Reese", who ordered this and it came back upside down. Oops.

I bought it with the intention of peeling off the vinyl lettering and being done with it. It was only a few days before Christmas when I realized that the letters were engraved about 1/8" down! I wasn't looking forward to sanding it down and painting over it. That's when my awesome husband said, "why don't you just put paper over it?"

Bless him!!

Technically, his idea included normal old copy paper.  But I only used it for the template, and chose a scrapbook paper for the final look.

I smooshed the copy paper into the space, then cut it out so it fit.

Then I used it to trace on the back of the scrapbook paper. I used ModPodge to stick it down and repeated it on the second side.

I also made a mattress for the cradle using some left over 1" foam and spare fabric.

I love it!

 As for the baby, I was hoping this one would replace her favorite toys and be all she played with! Not so much. Maybe when her new baby brother comes in June?

Vogue Pattern 7418

So far the only thing this baby does is sleep. Christmas morning, she opened the cradle first, since it is from Santa. As soon as she opened the "baby" it went in to the cradle and that's where it has stayed for the past 2 months. Not even joking.

Sadly, she doesn't quite fit, unless you squish her legs.

Also, a funny thing. Hero watched me make the doll while Pretty napped. He even handed me pins while cutting out the fabric (and oh my, did that take forever. "Do you want red, or blue, or purple?" with every pin!) Anyway, it wasn't until he pointed it out that I noticed I was using the same purple fabric for this doll's dress as I did for last year's Christmas doll. Hmmmm.

Pretty's birthday is next week (2 years!) and I'm planning on making a blanket and pillow for the bed. Maybe for next Christmas, she'll get another dress for the baby. . . that's not the same purple?

Wow. It's been how long?

Last October, my husband and I bought our first house! We packed and moved with the help of awesome friends and family.

Then, it took forever for me to get my craft stuff unpacked. Not because I was busy, per say, but because I was exhausted. If you follow my FB, then you've already seen this:

That was a month ago. I'm 5 1/2 months along with baby number 3. Hero came with us to the ultrasound and couldn't wait to find out what the baby was. He is so excited that the baby gets to sleep in his room! 

One of my biggest deterrents for not crafting and blogging, is that I have been so tired. Not just because I'm pregnant with my 3rd baby, which is reason enough. . . but because I have an infection. I'm going to go ahead and tell the world (or at least the small number of you who still ready my blog) because I've never heard of this before.

In my first visit to the OB, they wanted a urine sample (normal) and it grew e coli (not normal). The doctor had me take a 10 day course of antibiotics to clear up the bladder infection. One of the side effects of the meds is drowsiness (as in: do not operate heavy machinery). Then two months later, another sample that grew e coli again. Another round of antibiotics was taken. Then, at the 20 week visit, they took a urine sample via catheter (yuck) to make sure that I wasn't contaminating the samples, and guess what?! E coli again. After a third round of the 10 day antibiotic, I am now on a daily suppressant medication (again, drowsy inducing) because apparently if the bladder infection gets to my kidneys, I could end up in preterm labor. YIKES!

I have been told that a bladder infection like this is very common with pregnant women. And that e coli is naturally in your system, so it's not that crazy for it to be what grew, but I'm not a person prone to bladder infections. My mom can only think of one when I was 2, and I can't think of any. So, I'm wondering, has anyone else dealt with this personally, or had a friend who has. As far as I know, I'm the only one EVER (which I know is not true, but boy does it feel this way!)

This is my excuse for not keeping on top of things. I'm now starting to feel better, and have done a few crafty things, including Christmas gifts that I never shared. I plan to get back into the swing of things now that I'm not feeling so tired all. the. time. 

We moved! and Halloween!

If you follow me on FB or on Twitter, you know that my husband and I just bought a house and moved! It was a busy week, with us getting keys on Friday, and a week later on Saturday, moving. It was hectic with packing up all our stuff and trying to clean and paint in the new house. (I'll show you the paint later).

This is how I hoped I would be through the whole experience: happy, excited and lookin' cute.

(google image search)

Instead, I looked more like this, except even worse, because this woman has make-up and earrings, I had neither. They were packed...

(google image search)

I am so lucky to have my in-laws who helped me just dump stuff in boxes the night before the move so that when our friends/family showed up the next morning, we were out of the old place and into the new in less than 2 hours. Not joking.

(google search image)

After 3 weeks, I am mostly unpacked, with one big exception: my craft stuff. I just haven't had the energy for sewing/crafting anyway. It's coming out this weekend though, and I'm excited! It's a big endeavor. 

I only had 4 boxes of clothes (including hangers and shoes), but I have 7 boxes of craft stuff. And that's not counting the 3 plastic storage tubs of fabric... I think it might be a sickness. . . or at least a good entry for Linda's (at Craftaholics Anonymous) "You might be a craftaholic when..." contest.

Moving on to the Halloween part, I didn't do much for the holiday because it was right after we had moved. I whipped up a costume for Hero before we moved. At first, he wanted to be a tiger, then a gorilla. But knowing that I was going to be busy packing and moving, I didn't want to attempt anything big and was thrilled when I suggested Cat in the Hat (inspired by MADE) and he went for it! I did have a moment when he whined about wanted to be a gorilla instead. My response was the choice of Cat in the Hat or nothing. He chose the Cat, thank goodness! I made the hat (a bit too big), and the bowtie. I bought a black shirt and pants, and white gloves. The bowtie is just stitched onto the shirt. I took it off to store and Hero can now use the shirt while it fits.

I reused Hero's old panda costume for Pretty. I moved the bowtie onto the hat for a hairbow instead. . . make it a bit more girly. I figure I can move it back and forth depending on the gender it is needed for. It was a simple thing.

We always go trick or treating at Jake's mom's work in the morning.

And that night we went trick or treating in our new neighborhood. Hero refused to pose for pictures for me, but I tricked them with "Hey, Buddy!" and I'm happy with the resulting picture of both kids. It wasn't until I was almost done with Hero's costume that I noticed they would both be wearing red, black and white. Cuteness.

Hero wimped out on trick or treating after half the street, so he and Jake went home to pass out candy. Pretty was going strong and we did the whole street, both sides. She was so funny because as long as the bowl of candy was on her level, she would keep taking treats and putting them in her bucket. I tried to stop her, but the people thought it was cute. She ended up getting 3 or 4 pieces at each house! On the walk home, she wouldn't let me hold her heavy bucket or hold her. Stubborn girl walked and carried her own bucket the whole time!

Happy late Halloween! And here's hoping I get the sewing machine out this weekend! Wish me luck!

Why I feel a little bit selfish...

See this book? It's rockin' awesome. I found Closet Monsters by John Murphy by chance when looking through the craft books at the library. I borrowed it and just loved looking through it. I made plans to make something from it, so I renewed it the allowed 3 times before taking it back without making anything.

And then I did that 2 more times. This is my fourth time checking out this book and I finally made something! This book is great, because besides showing you how to make the creations specific to the ones he made, he shows you how to make each element individually so you can mix and match to make your own monsters! I really just need to buy this book for myself.

For my nephew's 2nd birthday, I decided to make this one:

I had the perfect old pair of PJ pants to do it with. I've owned these for 6 years, and I got them free at a swap meet. They are the most comfortable pants I ever owned. I wore them all through both pregnancies and they were a staple for me after I brought each baby home. They have stains from where I got paint on them, they were loved. They finally wore holes between the legs that could not be fixed. That was a sad day.

So I cut them apart and started making the "closet monster." Since the instructions where for cutting up a sweatshirt, I just estimated and dove in.

And here is the monster I gave my nephew.

I'm sure there are some questions going on in your head, so let me explain. I got about halfway through making the closet monster from my old pants and realized I couldn't give them up! I'm so selfish! But I just couldn't! Those pants were special... So I stole an old sweatshirt from my MIL and whipped this guy up in about 2 1/2 hours. I finished him by hand stitching the hole closed on the drive to the party.

And that's why these pictures are taken in the car.

He turned out super cute, and fit with his new owner perfectly.

My little brother said he looks creepy, like he's going to come to life and night and get you. My little brother is 21 years old... and dead wrong. That face is cute!

So what happened to the pants? Meet Chills. I finished him up the next day and I love him.

I lined up the stripes off center.

And he is huge! He makes me so happy, it's a bit pathetic!

His face is bigger than Hero's.

Hero agreed to take pictures with him, but neither of my kids really care about him. But I have plans for his role in our family.

When I was growing up, my family had a large teddy bear that was kept up in Mom's closet. If you had a nightmare, you could ask to sleep with Big Bear. Big Bear scared away the bad dreams. I think Chills will be perfect in this job. He can scare away the nightmares and the other monsters. He is a Closet Monster, after all.

The selfish feeling is passing... I'm in love with Chills, don't tell my husband!

Book Wreath (or hat...)

It's been a long time coming, since the shower was about a month ago, but here's the final decoration. Sorry it took so long to upload! I followed this tutorial to make it, with a few of my own twists.

I'll be honest, when I first saw these wreaths popping up about a year ago, I didn't like them. The only reason I decided to make one is because of the library theme... but I love it!!

The tutorial only calls for one book, but I picked three. Why three?

Because I found three different colored edges and thought it would be super cute to have all of them mixed in one wreath. I had considered painting my edges yellow, but then found the pre-painted books and scooped them up for $0.25 a piece at the thrift store. Much easier than painting my own!

I didn't take any pictures in process, but I found myself squishing them together from the back to front as I glued them on, so there wasn't any need to go back through later to fill in the spaces. There were no spaces to fill! I preferred the basic twist because I liked the points it creates sticking out. The "wave" types I used to keep it full.

I also always used two pages together as I rolled, twisted, and glued. I hoped this would make the colored edges stand out a bit more.

The other little change I made was to finish the inside with an open page. I didn't like the look of all the pages vertical, randomly overlapped edges.  This is a much cleaner look.

I'm so glad I made this wreath and think it is beautiful. I still have enough of the 3 books to make another one, and my SIL hinted that she would like one... maybe for her birthday coming up?

Here is another use suggestion, just in case you still weren't sold on making your own. It doubles as a hat. That just pushed you over into the "definitely-doing-it" category, right?

Have an awesome weekend!!

The Traumatic Fix

My sweet little Pretty has two sleep items, the bunny and the blanket.

But as much as she loves that bunny, it's really the blanket that is important. Whenever I check on her in the middle of the night, the blanket is being snuggled, while the bunny is tossed to the side.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the blanket had a hole. I put it on the mental list to fix, but didn't worry too much about it until I saw Pretty playing with the hole. So I decided to fix it right then. Pretty wasn't too happy with me taking her blanket.

Here she is throwing a fit on the floor.

And here she is pulling on the end to get it back.

I decided to do a cute circle patch using Heat 'N' Bond. I traced two circles onto the paper side of the Heat 'N' Bond.

Then I cut loosely around them and ironed them onto the back of the fabric. I picked a scrap piece that had similar colors and tones as the blanket.

Then I ironed one circle on each side, centered over the hole, matching them up as close as possible.

I should have sewed the hole together first, but a bit of a distraction that kept me from thinking clearly. Here's Pretty, tugging on the blanket and crying.

The last step I took was to sew around the circles by hand to add a bit of security. I decided on sewing by hand, rather than machine, to purposefully give it that home-fixed look. And, of course, I had to do it quickly and deal with Pretty tugging and crying the whole time.

So it turned out a bit more home-fixed looking than I wanted, but I still think it is cute.

She was so happy to get her blanket back, she went right into playing with it.

I have mixed feelings about needed to repair it again. I kind of hope I need to so there's more than one lone spot, but I don't want to go through that again. This is much better:

And that's just awesome.