and he's 3 now!!

My little boy turned 3 years old today! I can't really believe it but at the same time I don't really remember life before him!

He had a great party yesterday and later him and his brother had a blast painting themselves. I don't know what was the highlight of the day for him... cupcakes, presents, or painting.

One Step Closer

I finished up the baby swaddler a couple weeks ago but just now remembered to take pictures. It's laying in the crib all ready for when baby arrives! Once again I found this pattern fairly difficult to follow and thought that there were much easier ways to do it but in the end it turned out great. The only thing I'm worried about is baby being too strong for the couple pieces of Velcro that hold the swaddler closed. So far both my boys have been able to get out of just about any kind of swaddle so I guess we'll see!

sorry for the sideways pictures, every once and a while blogger will flip my pictures around and no matter how many times I try to upload it it will always be flipped. So annoying!

Oh my...

Dr. Seuss Quote - Vinyl Wall Decal by FiggyandWink

Oh wow I love this. How awesome would it be to have a little reading nook somewhere in your house for kids with this quote on the wall?

We recently got a little preschool age package from a work friend of my hubby. It was full of books and puzzles and all kinds of educational things and boy to the boys LOVE everything in there. Both my boys have always had an interest in reading, I think both because Trav and I spend a lot of time reading and because we read to them on a regular basis. I really hope that they both continue to love reading and realize it's infinate value over watching tv.

Shop Update!

I've been doing a whole lot of sewing lately, I just can't bear the thought of not having time for a couple of months once baby is born so I just can't stop :)

I just put a new diaper bag in the shop, this is the third one I've made now and I love it. The fabric is super thick so it stands so nice on its own and I know it's going to last forever. I bought a lot of this fabric so I hope other people love it as much as I do so I can make more!

Tinged

My little sister has opened an etsy shop! If you're into jewelry at all you have to check it out. Here's a couple of items she has in shop right now!

Green Envy earrings

Red Blossom necklace

Recovering a Change Pad - A Tutorial

I seem to have an abundance of formula brand changing pads that I got for free and I've never been a big fan of how they look. I also have been wanting to make a change pad to go with my sisters diaper bag so I thought I'd just recover one of the formula brand pads! It worked out great and was really quite easy, but in just case you were interested, here's a tutorial on making one yourself!

Start with a change pad that has fabric on one side and some kind of vinyl or plastic covering on the other side like this one:

Then grab your seam ripper! (and be glad you're getting it to re-make something, not because you made another mistake!)

Find the starting point on the bias tape of the pad.

and start ripping that bias tape off! If you want to reuse the tape, do this very carefully, I didn't want to so I was pretty rough and it definitely wasn't reusable once I was through with it.

Once the bias tape is all off, it should look like this. I decided to leave the fabric cover on because it wasn't doing any harm and actually would make the whole pad stronger.

Lay your pad on top of your choice fabric and cut it out to the same size as the actual pad is.

Pin the new piece of fabric on top of the fabric side of the change pad.

Then take a short break to take photos of your kids plastic animals... only because they think that's really cool.

Sew the new fabric onto the old pad with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Be careful not to go over that allowance or it will show once you put the new bias tape on.

Then grab some bias tape and matching thread...

and pin that bias tape on, all the way around. This was actually my very first time using bias tape so forgive me if it's not perfect or my method wasn't great. (Amy Karol actually has a great video tutorial on this, you can see it here)

Now sew that bias tape on! This I found to be pretty finicky and next time I would probably put in a lot more pins, just to make sure it stayed in place as I stitched.

And there you go! You have a beautiful new change pad! Of course once I had it all finished I thought how cute it would have looked with some applique or something on it so if you want to do something like that just make sure you do it before you sew the new fabric and bias tape on!

I'm Gonna Be An Auntie!

just so you can see the pretty inside fabric she picked out too.

Come end of August my big sis is going to have a baby! This will be my second time as an auntie and I can't wait! Of course I've been planning all kinds of things to sew and I have a few things in mind yet that she doesn't know about but here's one thing I can share with you!


I made this same diaper bag, in different fabrics for myself a few weeks back and my sister loved it so we went out and picked out fabric together for one for her. It turned out great, and of course the pictures make it hard to tell but it's really one of those fit everything diaper bags. It has a velcro closure pocket on each side on the outside. Two on the front, and a zipper pocket on the back. In the inside there are 5 pockets all with elastic along the top which make them perfect for holding anything from a bottle to a couple of diapers. It's definately a larger diaper bag, which I love, and I've been really happy with mine so hopefully she loves hers too!

this is the diaper bag I made for myself

On another totally unrelated note, I won another giveaway!! I really think it's about time I did another giveaway myself after winning 2 in the last few months, so keep your eyes open in the next couple of weeks for a little giveaway of my own! (I really do plan to do this before baby comes so feel free to remind me to get going on it!) The giveaway that I won was a collaboration between Knitty Bitties and mmmcrafts and I got to choose a pattern from Larissa's shop! I was insanely excited about this because I've been reading mmmcrafts for a couple of years now and when she put up the patterns for the Baby Binky Bunnies I knew that one day I wanted to make one. So that's the pattern I picked! And now I can make one! Anyone have some spare time they can send my way so I can actually make it before baby comes??? :)

Off The Hook

Remember these that I loved so much?

Well guess who got a pair in the mail yesterday? Yup, me! My two awesome sisters in law and brother in law ordered them for me for my birthday and sent them! I was so excited when I saw the return address on the envelope because I recognized the etsy shop name right away.
Seriously though, these gloves are amazing! They are soooo soft and comfy and they fit me perfectly. I have yet to venture out of the house today but when I do they will be worn!
You can check out more gloves like these and lots of other amazing things in the Off The Hook shop.

gettin there

Well the boys don't seem to be doing much better today but I figure they must be getting better, right?

I had an ultrasound today and everything looks great with baby #3! So far he/she is growing well, is proportioned properly, and my fluids are all at a good level so I'm happy. I'm starting to get pretty darn excited to meet this little one!

Still don't have any new projects to share with you, I've done absolutely nothing this week but try to keep the boys happy and catch some sleep here and there when I can. It's funny how when you're expecting a baby you think about everything in how many weeks you have left to get things done and you never really think about the fact that you can lose an entire week of time when your kids get sick. Oh well, in some ways it has been nice to just be lazy with them :)

one sick little face

Sick

Well both my boys are sick so I've done nothing but snuggle and watch movies with them for two days! It's kind of nice I have to admit, except of course for the fact that they are both completely miserable. I'm just gonna hope and pray that despite all the runny noses and coughing fits I've been subjected too my immune system fights this one off long before it begins!

I started that baby snuggler the other day but haven't gotten around to sewing it together yet. If it turns out good I think I'll make a couple more, you can never have too many snugglers!

Just to keep up with my etsy finds lately, here's a shirt that I absolutely LOVE.

Organic Arrow Fletch Cowl Tank by Recession

I really really really love the arrow fletching on this shirt, it's so well done and the colors are amazing... and for those of you who know my husband, this would be one shirt that he would love. I may have to start saving some money...

Big Plans

I apologize for the light posting lately but I've been trying my best to get a ton of projects finished because it becomes nearly impossible to sit in front of my sewing machine anymore. I'm finding it harder and harder to sit for more than 20 mins at a time (due mostly to my damaged tailbone from my first labour) so I'm spending what time I can finishing up projects.

Here's one project I still need to start and finish before baby arrives.

I've been eyeing up this pattern/tutorial from Puking Pastilles for over a year but never bought it because I couldn't justify spending the money when I knew I could figure it out on my own. But then the pattern went on sale! For $3.99! I figured not buying a coffee the next time I go out was worth the time saved trying to figure the whole process out. So now I have the pattern and no excuses to not get it done. Except of course I have yet to pick out cute fabric. Of course the fabric also has to be gender neutral but that's not hard. The carseat I have right now has been through 3 babies already and seeing as this is our baby #3 he/she isn't likely to get a whole lot of new stuff so this is my contribution.

I also plan to make this baby swaddler yet too

It's from Lotta Jansdotter's book Simple Sewing for Baby, which I have, and love. It looks like it should be pretty easy and I have a feeling it will come in very handy for camping this summer.

One more thing I've been working on is diaper bags for my shop. I made one at the begining of the week and it sold pretty much instantly. Thanks Liz! I've had a couple other people ask about it now too so I'm just about done two more for the shop. I hope to put them up today.

So there you go, that's what I've been up to and what I hope to be up to in the next couple of weeks.

Needle Wallets

I've been needing a little case for my hand sewing needles for a while. I keep losing them in various places in my sewing room so I finally decided to do something about it! I made this little blue linen and felt needle wallet and loved it so much I made one for my shop too.

This is the one I made for my shop. It's made entirely out of re purposed materials which I think is pretty cool. There's nothing like taking something old and making it new again!

you can see this wallet in my shop too!