Quiet Book: Mr. Potato Head

One of my crafting challenges that I've set for myself this year, aside from just getting back into crafting, is to create a quiet book for Ian. If you've never heard of a quiet book, it's essentially a book, usually made of felt, that has little activities, puzzles, and games for your toddler/preschooler to play with.  It's great for car rides and I think the original purpose was for kids to have something to keep them quiet at Church.

There are some amazing quiet book inspiration pages out there and I have a whole Pinterest page dedicated to it. You'll also find a lot of blogs with instructions or whose sole purpose is the quiet book.  I found one such blog that had fun templates like a Mr. Potato Head activity page.  I decided that seemed pretty simple and would be a good starting point.

You can get the templates to make your own Mr. Potato Head quiet book pages here.  Once I downloaded the templates, I cut out the various pieces to assemble my quiet book.  I ordered my felt from Etsy - I found they had the greatest selection of colors to choose from and reasonable prices.

I also have a very extensive collection of embroidery thread. This isn't even the full amount - I have a lot pulled aside for current embroidery projects.  I used a combination of hand-stitching with embroidery threads (especially on the small pieces) and my sewing machine on the large pieces.

I made a whole bucket of various pieces to attach to Mr. Potato Head.  They all get stored in the bucket and Ian can pull them out and piece them on to the potato in whatever way he chooses.

My goal is to create one quiet book page or set of pages for Ian a month until his second birthday. By then he should be about ready to really enjoy the quiet book and he'll have a whole set at that point. I've already completed some of the next pages so I'll share those shortly.

Ian's Mustache Bash

A few months ago, I shared some of the party preparation I was doing for Ian's first birthday. He's now almost 15 months old, so his birthday is long past, but I wanted to share the final result.  I did A LOT of crafting for his birthday - starting back in November. Yeah, I might have gone a little overboard, but I was so happy with the result.  The final look was everything I pictured it to be (thanks, Pinterest), but above all that, I had a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family.



Almost everything we did for his party was homemade. I made paper chains for behind his high-chair, the smash cake and desserts were made by myself and my mom, the bunting, birthday boy message cards, food labels for the tables... I ordered a couple of things from online, just because I didn't have that time or expertise.  Luckily, my new Silhouette made everything else extremely do-able and fairly easy.  I never thought I would veer from my sewing/needlework crafts, but this machine is definitely convincing me otherwise.







This birthday party taught me a lot. The main lesson being that I will never throw a birthday party like this again. At least not until any future babies turn one. It was a huge undertaking and I would totally say I went overboard. It's hard not to get sucked into all of the pinterest ideas out there. I don't regret it, but I don't think it's really necessary in the future.  A couple of things here and there, but I think I'll just focus on activities for kids. At this party we had a little area gated off so that kids could safely play in a small ball pit. I also had a local children's story time performer come in and sing some songs to the kids. I have some great memories from the event and luckily plenty of pictures to remember all of the craziness that went along with the planning.

First Birthday Party Planning

Believe it or not, my little guy is approaching his first birthday. Doesn’t it feel like yesterday that I even announced he was on his way?

I’ve taken this birthday party planning business seriously, and though I was torn between multiple themes over the past six months (yes, that’s how long I’ve been thinking about this), in November I made the final decision to do a ‘Little Man’ theme and have gone full-blown ever since.  Because I’ve had plenty of time to think on this, I was able to take advantage of some great deals, including black Friday and after Christmas specials.  I also made the leap over to the dark side: vinyl and paper cutting with the purchase of a Silhouette Cameo.  I’m kinda addicted.

I want to share with you some of the party resources I've found.  Stores and online shops to buy supplies from, and places of party inspiration.  Today I'm going to focus on the theme, invitations, and favors, but later posts will include decorations, party prep, and, of course, food.

Starting with the theme. I wanted to do something that he probably wouldn’t pick for a future birthday. This ruled out trains and cars (just from what I’ve seen in little boys birthdays, they seem to gravitate towards those topics). I was torn between little man, Where the Wild Things Are, and Dr. Seuss. I may do one of the latter two for a future birthday, but once I found this mustache fabric from Hart’s, I instantly ordered two yards and declared it the winner.  Choosing a fabric to go off of really helped, as I didn’t have to choose from a wide range of colors… they were already selected for me.  And luckily, mustache’s are really popular right now. Etsy is swimming with them for all occasions, Target and Walmart have bits and pieces (Walmart actually has a small section right now with party supplies in the mustache theme), and there are so many inspiration posts in the blogosphere.  If you don’t believe me, check out my Pinterest on the topic.

I made the invitation myself, using Adobe Illustrator and the Silhouette to cut out the pop-up mustaches. I gathered my inspiration from various designs on Etsy, and made it into one that fit the party.  You could pretty easily make one yourself, or again, check out Etsy for some amazing sellers.  Some of my favorites were:

Petite Party Studio

ChelsiLeeDesigns

I got the invitation paper from Paper-Source and with shipping, it can be a little pricey (as card stock goes). I miss the days of having a Paper Source 15 minutes away.  I’ve been told that Michael’s actually has really good card stock, so I’ll have to check next time I’m in the area.  I didn’t know how many paper invitations I would need, as I’ll also be distributing an invitation electronically to most of my local mommy friends, so I went with 50.  I’m going to use the extras to make stationary, so it works out in the end. You can never have too much stationary sized card stock.

I used foam, adhesive dots to raise the blue mustaches on the invitation. I love the effect that it gave it. I also printed the back of the envelopes with a little teaser, and I used mustache printed washi tape to add the finishing touch.

Next, I want to share with you the goodie bags that I put together.  The average age of the kids at this party will probably be from 8 months – 2 years.  There will be a few older (I think from 3-8 years old) kids there, so I wanted something that would be toddler safe (with supervision), and also fun for the older kids.  I really spent a ridiculous amount of time figuring out how to package these things. Seriously, I don’t think normal people do this. I was torn between paper, cellophane, and burlap type bags.  I did a lot of price comparisons and thoughts as to how everything would be displayed when making pretty much every decision on this party, and with my love of fabric, I ultimately went with the muslin bags.  I found them for a reasonable price (again, lots of price comparison shopping), and once I figured out the contents of the bags, I ordered the size I needed.  They came with a twine-type ribbon that matched the bags, but I had ordered plenty of bakers twine in blue so I swapped it out.  It was a little bit of a pain to do as I had to slightly cut the openings of the top of each bag but the twine looks so good with it that I’m really happy with the extra work.

I love the 'goodies' that I found for the bags. They all went with the mustache theme, and aside from the sidewalk chalk, all came from Oriental Trading Company or Century Novelty (both are bulk party supply stores), so they were really inexpensive.

Mustache Whistles
Rubber Duckies with mustaches
Stickers
Mustache shaped sidewalk chalk



The finishing touch on the favor bags were tags that I made on my Silhouette. I designed the top, 'thank you' tag on  Adobe Illustrator, then cut that and the black/blue hanging tag bases on my Cameo. I used the foam adhesive to elevate the two levels, and tied them onto the bag. I used card stock from AC Moore which, sadly, was of disappointing quality. It does the job, but I'm going to check out my other craft stores as I've been told they have some better options.

If you're doing a mustache theme'd party, there are so many awesome products out there! Just in my search for links to share tonight, I saw that Oriental Trading Company has added even more items. As much as I would love to splurge, at this point, I have quite a stash and don't want to be accused of going overboard. Ok, I might have already been accused of it, so too late there.  Regardless, check out resources like your local craft stores, Etsy galore, Target, Wal-Mart, dollar stores... you can find some hidden gems out there and get some great deals!

Lovies and an Etsy Shop

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, though still not a garment for myself - mainly crafts.  One in particular has been little lovie blankets for babies.

Having Ian introduced me to many things... baby love and snuggles, dirty diapers, breastfeeding, and the world of baby accessories being just a few of them. Within this world, I found muslin swaddle blankets.  When I first heard of them, I couldn't understand the appeal.  Sewing muslin does not usually bring to mind the softest of fabrics.  I found that this muslin they speak of is actually cotton gauze. A soft, lightweight cotton that is perfect for swaddling little babies in.  There are a few big designers, especially Aden and Anais, Swaddle Designs... and it seems like so many more are constantly popping up.

Tilly recently featured a post on Selling Your Handmade Stuff. It was a good read, and had a few things I had to consider when coming up with my shop.  I checked out the existing market for lovies and found that most were made from minky and cotton fabrics... but why not from these beautifully designed blankets? I set to work. I made a few designs and offered them within my online mommy groups. They performed really well so I thought it was time to reopen my Etsy shop.  I've made a little inventory and had my first few sales... and I'm really pleased with the results. I think the lovies turned out beautifully and I think they will make many a happy baby. My little guy loves his.  I have a few more versions to make before the holidays but I'm trying to squeeze them in between my own personal sewing projects.

Ian on one of his swaddle blankets

If you would like to purchase a lovie, you can get them from my Etsy shop with a 10% discount for blog readers. Just use the coupon code '10PERCENT'

Happy Halloween!

My favorite pumpkin wishing you a happy Halloween!

Pants for my baby boy

After making shorts for my girlfriend's little boy, I wanted to make some for my own. My little guy is just 7 1/2 months now and the weather is a bit colder where we are, so I modified the original pattern to make a pair of flat front pants.

I had some leftover fabric from the hubby's Halloween costume. Yeah, that's right. I'm making his Halloween costume. Except... I don't know if it's going to see the light of day. The fit is a bit off and I'm just not pleased. Anyways, I had some extra fabric and you don't even need a full half a yard to make a pair of these pants. I had more than enough to make my baby boy his own pair of trousers.



The pants probably took about half an hour to make. I used the original pattern but used a pair of his own pants to determine how much length to add. It was just about 3 1/2 extra inches. Looking back, I would probably use elastic all around the waistband next time. They fit fine but because he's just about crawling now, he pulls them down when he drags on the floor. If he was walking there wouldn't be an issue, so something to think about the next time I make a pair. But again, the fit was great and they look so cute on him! I never thought I'd be able to make clothes for my baby boy, but I'm excited to find these little patterns throughout the web.  I plan on making him a bathrobe next, but first, a little something for myself is in the works...

Little Man Shorts

I've been working on little sewing projects for the last couple of weeks but I've finally made my first garment in a while.  I'm so happy with how this project turned out.



I've been complaining about the lack of patterns for baby boys, when I stumbled across Sew Charleston's blog.  She had recently made baby shorts as a gift and I instantly clicked over to see where she found the pattern.

Dana, over on the Made blog, had come up with a shorts pattern for kids. I love them for a few reasons:

- the basic pattern is so cute, but she offers so many variations and modifications that you can do. This includes making a shorter, 'racer' short, adding pockets to the front or back, flat front or elastic all the way around... there are so many options!
- the sizing is for 12months to 10 years. I can use this pattern for so many more shorts!!! As Ian grows up, if I have more babies... because....
- it's for boys AND girls!
- The price is right! It was only $6 for the whole pattern set. Love. It.



I ran out to get some fabric. A pair of shorts for a baby boy takes up less than half a yard. That can't be beat! I got a couple of options, just to test the waters, and made up the 18 months size.

Let's backtrack a little. Aside from having my own baby boy to sew for, my girlfriend back in California was getting ready to celebrate the first birthday of her own little boy, Dylan.  I was so sad that I couldn't be there to celebrate, and wanted to make something a little more personal.  She has been an amazing support system to me with the birth of Ian and I wanted to make something special.



Her husband is a deep sea fisherman, and avid hunter. I had to tie that in somehow. Oh, and the theme for her little man's birthday? Pirates! So I found two prints that would be perfect... ocean waves with pirate ships, and camo!

I was able to quickly whip up the two shorts. I made the camo version as a regular length, flat front short. I did the pirate ship in the 'racer' style with bias tape trim. I decided to omit pockets because I didn't think her baby boy would need them just yet. I added a little cupcake ribbon tag into the back of the shorts, to help identify the front and back, and to add a professional touch.  All of the exposed seams are serged so there's no risk of it unraveling with use from an active little boy,

Can I tell you how fun it is to make such little garments? Not only are they fast to sew, but they are so adorable and mini... I couldn't stop showing them off to anyone who was around to see them.  I think my husband did a great job at matching my enthusiasm and he only scared me a little when he said 'will they fit?'  Well... I hope so! Though her little man was turning 1, I made the 18 months size because I assumed sizing would be similar to the clothing industry... in which you can typically wear the size until the date. So my little man, who is almost 7 months old, would wear the 12 months version. Baby Dylan, just turning 12 months, should then be ok for the 18 months size. Fingers crossed.

I shipped off the shorts and was excited a few days later to receive some pictures from my girlfriend. The shorts fit great and Dylan looks even more adorable in them! Or is it that the shorts are adorable because of him? I don't know, but look at this little guy - isn't he the cutest??



Now I can't wait to scrounge up some more bits of fabric to make them for Ian and for other babies with birthdays coming up!

Holiday Stocking

Alright, I'm breaking the unspoken rule that September is way too early to be planning for Christmas already, but... I finally finished a craft I've been working on since last November! I know, that's a long time, and I can't even blame things like a baby for it. It was just a really slow project.



The project in question was a holiday stocking for my little man. A cross-stitch stocking. For some reason, I thought it would go a lot faster than it did. But it was so detailed and intricate... Ultimately, I love how it turned out. But I would never do it again. Or at least, I said I wouldn't. Until the same day that I uttered those words, a friend gave me a gift of another stocking kit.  Same company, but luckily, this one is just needlepoint and not cross-stitch. I've actually already started on it and made some progress.



I have a hand-made stocking that my grandmother made for me when I was a child. I've always loved having my own, custom stocking, and wanted to do one for Ian as well. My husband is excited that I got another kit so that he can have his own. Maybe I could even finish his in time for this holiday season? No promises - I'm still working on his Halloween costume so he'll be lucky if he gets that in time!



If you are feeling brave (or a lot faster than I am at cross-stitch), here's the link to the kit on Amazon.  It includes everything you need to make the stocking. I added a velvet back because I didn't like the felt that the kit provided, but aside from that, everything was included.

Time flies... but I'm back!

Wow. Has it really been 4 months?? I'm sorry to have been gone for so long, and boy have I missed it!

Things have been a little hectic here. Ok, 'a little' is an understatement.  A lot has gone on. Not only did Ian enter our lives in March, but on top of adjusting to life with a little one we decided to pick up and move across country.  That's right, we moved from California to North Carolina. Whew!  We were ready for some change and wanted to do it while Ian was little so that he could grow up in this wonderful area.  Moving was hard. Not just because of the logistics of a baby, but my hubby and I were both born and raised in California.  The majority of our family was there and all of our friends except those who had left previously.  But I think we've been adjusting well to North Carolina. The people are friendly, the weather is beautiful (but toasty), and the scenery is incredible.  I'm really looking forward to settling down out here. Now to find the craft stores...

Recent family picture taken in our new home state of North Carolina. Recognize the dress?

So with all of these changes, we've finally been able to get Ian on to some sort of routine, and he's now sleeping in his crib which leaves a little more time to get organized and get crafting again!  I've been working on getting my new craft space in order. Oh it's beautiful! I can't wait to show you pics. Just a few final touches and I'll be ready.  It's a nice, bright space which will be perfect for all of the grand crafting plans that I have in store.

I've started small - just personalizing some cross stitch projects that I made for Ian. I'll post the final pictures of those as well.  But I do have some fun things in store.

This left me to wonder the direction of What's Up, Cupcake?

I don't want to make huge changes to the content - you're my readers for a reason and you seem to enjoy my sewing projects and recipes (I hope!). But I do want to keep it relevant to what's going on in my life.  So. Sweet Treats Saturday will remain, but a little less frequently for the moment.  I'm still working on losing baby weight (ok, in truth, the baby weight is done, now I'm just working on the weight that I wanted to get rid of before baby), so I'm trying to resist the temptation of sweets. But I would love to share some of the new recipes I have been trying - both sweet and savory.

In addition, I'm excited to start sewing clothes again! My shape has definitely changed so it'll be interesting seeing what patterns will still work and which I'll have to modify.  I would love to make clothes for Ian too but I find that the patterns for baby boy clothes are a little lacking. Prove me wrong, please! I'd love to see links to cute baby boy clothes that I can make myself! Until then, I'm going to make some crafts for him. I already have a little lovie security blanket planned and I'll share my process with you.  I'll be trying my hand at dying fabric and sharing some fun ideas I've seen on other mommy blogs and pinterest.  I promise not to inundate the blog with just baby posts though!

So, while I get my craft room in order and ready to share, here are some pics of one of my favorite rooms that is finished (for now) and that I love!  It's Ian's nursery...

It's hard to believe, but Ian has almost outgrown that playmat on the floor.  We keep it downstairs now, but he's on the verge of sitting up at which point I don't think it will be able to hold his interest anymore.

I love his bookcases - it's probably my favorite part of the room.  They're filled with books and toys that Ian received as gifts.  And the little panda bear plush in the top corner is mine from when I was a baby. The bottom of the bookcases are bins that contain all of his toys.  It's one of my favorite finds and I got it from Land of Nod.  Oh, and hanging in the corner is my Little Prince embroidery that I made several months back.

Our Little Lamb

I had a good two weeks before our little one's expected arrival date... but he had other plans.

Ian Scott arrived on March 9th at 1:22pm.

Photo by Two:Ten Photography

I was looking forward to a little down time - maybe get some last minute crafts done - but life suddenly became a bit more hectic.

The hubby and I are ecstatic (and sleep deprived) to have Ian in our lives, and learning a lot about life with a newborn.  So I'll try to check in but I know things will be crazy busy for a while.  But I do look forward to getting back into sewing clothes that I can wear again.  Thanks for sticking with me!

Oh and I have seen the news on Google Reader so I went ahead and setup What's Up, Cupcake? on BlogLovin.  I'd love it if you'd follow me there!

A Simple Project: Burp Cloths from Fabric Scraps

After tackling the #@%$#%@ bassinet cover, I decided to do some smaller projects that would involve stash busting and actually trying out something from Pinterest.  As you can imagine, I have a 'board' of items for Poppyseed.  I thought I'd start small and try my hand at burp cloths.  I have tons of fabric in increments under a yard - fat quarters that I liked or scraps from garments I've made, so I decided to start with that.  I did have to pick up some 'absorbent' material for the base of the burp cloths, but generally everything else was already from my collection.

I found a few burp cloth tutorials, but I liked the version from Made the best.  It was for burp cloth gift sets.  It was perfect for the fabrics that I had lying around and was so easy to do.  This might become a go-to gift item for the future.  Aside from the prep (mainly washing and pressing the fabrics), I got to the point where it only took about 10-15 minutes per cloth.  More on the shorter side if I did them production-line style.

I picked up a yard of terry cloth fabric, on sale at JoAnn's (again, using the rest of my Christmas gift card).  I had four different prints and had enough terry cloth to make 8 burp cloths (2 in each print) and some washcloths with the leftovers.



I cut the fabric into 10x18 pieces (approx, some where slightly smaller depending on what I had on hand).  I smoothed them out, right sides together, with corresponding terry cloth pieces then pinned them in place.  I then stitched them close to the edge, leaving an opening to flip them.  After trimming the corners, I flipped the pieces, once again smoothing and pinning in place.  I then top stitched the cloths, closing up the opening in the process.  I also did as the tutorial recommended and stitched two lines through the cloth, to act as folding lines.  Fold the burp cloth in thirds and voila!



As I mentioned, I made 8 burp cloths - 2 in each pattern.  I absolutely love how they turned out!

I also had a little extra terry cloth so I cut them into four pieces, about 10x6 each.  I also had a tiny bit of leftover gingham from the bassinet cover so I cut it into corresponding pieces.  I had exactly enough to make four washcloths.  I just serged the edges and voila!  All four took maybe 5 minutes to make.

 

I'm loving these little crafts!  I might try to make my own nursing cover next.  I have my eyes on yet another tutorial from Pinterest.  I think I have enough of a scrap fabric left, and I have some boning on hand... so we'll see!  My back aches a little from working over the sewing table so much, but I think it may also be partially because I haven't been used to doing that in a while.

I actually wouldn't mind making more of the burp cloths, maybe next time with a softer fabric than the terry?  But to be honest, I don't know how many you need and 8 seems like a good amount.  We'll see - I might find some other tutorials for little projects for my shelf of scrap fabrics.

Oh, and when I'm not working on the sewing machine, I have been stitching away on a cross-stitch project.  A Christmas stocking for Poppyseed.  I've been working on it since the beginning of December and am trying to get as much done before he arrives.  I would love to have it finished by then, but we'll see.  Otherwise, he may not get it till his 5th Christmas ;)

Reacquainting Myself with the Seam Ripper

Last night I decided to reacquaint myself with my seam ripper. In actuality, I had hoped to just be reunited with my sewing machine but you know how that goes...

I haven't touched my machine since July when we learned our big news and promptly began the voyage through morning sickness.  Luckily, my morning sickness has been long gone, but I feel like I've just been overwhelmed with everything going on and haven't had the time to plan out a sewing project.  I swore to myself that over this winter break (my company shuts down for a little over a week during the holidays) that I would at least get some knitting done.  There's still a few days left of the break and I have not yet touched my knitting needles, but I did tackle a few sewing projects!

So, here's the back-story.  One of my co-workers has been kind enough to lend us her bassinet for our little Poppyseed due in March.  She has a little girl in the toddler ages and didn't currently need it.  I was stoked as I didn't really want to spend the money on a bassinet that is generally only used for a couple of months.  She passed the bassinet on with a few related items - bedding and a bumper.  Did I mention she had a girl?  The bassinet came with a hot pink animal print bumper with brown backing.  I debated just flipping the bumper to the backside so only a hint of pink would show through but said to myself 'you could totally make one of these yourself!' Sometimes I'm too intense for my own good.

I already had a fabric on hand; a minky type print in green and brown with little farm animals, including the sheep that fall into our theme.  My mother-in-law had also been kind enough to get me a gift card to JoAnn's so I was able to get some additional supplies for this project.  I knew I had enough minky to make the main piece, but I still needed the underlining and base.  I went with some basic green gingham.  While I was there I also stumbled across an actual pattern for the basket.  Score!  Simplicity 4636 had a pattern that matched the moses basket shape.  I headed home with my goods in tow.

Now I don't know if I'm just rusty or what, but the pattern instructions for what should have been a simple basket were in Greek or something.  I decided to loosely follow the instructions and use the pattern primarily for the cut-out pieces.  Problem solved... somewhat. Ok, then I had to deal with the minky fabric combined with the cotton.  The cotton cut like a dream but the minky was slightly stretchy and 'slippery' in the sewing machine.  Nothing was lining up! Somehow I managed to get all of the side pieces together but again, as I wasn't following the directions 100%, I butchered the bottom.  I spent at least 30 minutes cursing the pattern while ripping out the seams from the entire bottom piece.  Of course as soon as I finished, it then fit perfectly.  The hubby later remarked that he heard an awful lot of muttering and cursing coming from the sewing room so he decided to leave me alone.  Wise man.

So, what I was left with was a decent fitting bassinet cover.  It doesn't look 100% like it should, but I don't think Poppy will care too much.



Now, as I've promised for the last few months, I'm doing a giveaway this week. No, for real.  I'm composing the post immediately after this one launches.  It'll go live on New Year's Day - a little treat for 2013!  And I'll cover both knitting and sewing.  Intrigued?  Come back during the beginning of the New Year and you could win some fun stuff -  my treat for being such a slacker with the blog!