Stroller, carrier, and car seat Blanket

I saw a few stroller blankets and thought the one from Rain or Shine Kids was awesome.  They cost around $70 though and I thought it looked simple enough so I decided to make my own.  Here is their version.  They also have a flat version, but I like the gathered bottom edge for keeping the blanket on.

This is how mine turned out.  It is being modeled on a Bugaboo stroller.

I have another tutorial to make one slightly more fitted.

  

Here is it with a 3.5 year old Disney Princess in the seat.

And here is my sad attempt at modeling it with a baby in a carrier.  My daughter's bunny had to fill in until the next little baby is born.

Notice how the carrier is like a pouch at the bottom?  We always had issues with our first daughter's legs being exposed when we wore her, so I LOVE this idea.  I think it will work really well.

Now for the tutorial.

I began with a 36" by 30" piece of gray suede-like fabric for the outside and I decided to use an old changing table pad for the soft interior.  

I removed one end of the changing table cover and half of the elastic.  So half of the cover was still elastic/gathered and the other half was more rectangular.  If you're using fabric, you'll need to make the interior piece the same as the exterior and add the elastic. 

Make sure your exterior fabric is the same width as your changing pad cover end (the one without elastic).  Mine was 30".  I measured the length of the corner seam in my changing pad and it was 6.5" so I removed a 6.5" square from the two bottom corners and then stitched them together to make a corner seam. 

Now you'll need to lay out the exterior fabric with the soft fabric on top of it.  You want right sides together.

 Start by pinning your two corner seams together and then pin the rest of the way around.  I marked off a 4" space on the bottom edge (I chose the bottom edge because it will always be hidden) by placing pins in a cross so I would have a space to flip the fabric afterwards.

It didn't line up perfectly, but that doesn't matter.  Now you'll need to cut two 22" pieces of ribbon for ties.  I did a 16" piece and it's barely long enough to tie in a knot.  I folded the ribbon in half and pinned it 10" down from the top of the blanket.  You want the ribbon ends to be on the inside so they'll be outside when you flip it.

Now you're ready to sew!  I started at one of the crossed pins and ended at the other.  Avoid stitching on the elastic because it will stretch the elastic out a bit.  I sewed right on the elastic.  Don't do it!  Instead, stitch right inside the elastic but make sure to stitch over the ends you cut so it won't fray on the inside later.

After you stitch, cut off the excess exterior fabric and then flip the blanket right side out.

After you flip it, pin your opening down so it can be top stitched closed, then top stitch around the blanket.

All done!

Birthday shirts 2014

I was very busy with birthday shirts this year!  Some of them were very challenging and some were a lot of fun to piece together.  I truly enjoy making all of these designs (I draw them or copy them from pictures online) and figuring out how to layer them so they turn out correctly.  Without further ado, here are the shirts I made for my friends' children this year.

Curious George

Doc McStuffins - I LOVE this one!

The girl's name is Faylen so I edited the name.

 

Firetruck shirt with a "3" building on fire. 

 Firetruck shirt with an actual building and a 3 on the truck

Hello kitty shirt.  This little girl loves rainbows so we made this match the colors on her rainbow plates for the party. She wore a hot pink tutu with this.

 Iron man

 Minnie Mouse with matching skirt.  Turned out pretty cute!

Lambie from Doc McStuffins - I was very impressed with how good this one looked!

Mater applique up close - hauling a 3 (Mom's idea, and it turned out perfect!)

 Mater shirt

Paw Patrol shirt - the applique would have been too detailed for my machine so I did an iron on of the pup.

Peppa Pig was a hit this year.  I actually made 3 shirts like this!

Puppy shirt - I LOVE the bone and the bow and... well, this is the one I made for my daughter so I love it all ;)

Sully shirt - This is one of my favorites because it was unique and challenging.  Turned out so cute though!

Superman with 3.  This shirt was a NIGHTMARE.  I made two others and this was my third attempt.  Finally got it right.  I sent all 3 to the mom and her son rotates them because he loves it so much. 

Thomas shirt - worn with red tutu.

Tinkerbell shirt in shiny green fabric.  I'm not one for shiny things normally, but I was very tempted to make one of these for my daughter.  The shiny Tink was just perfect.

And finally, a John Deere tractor shirt.  

They are farmers and what boy doesn't love tractors, right? 

Puppy Birthday Party

It's been so long since I've posted on the blog.  Life has been quite crazy!  Our little girl turned 3 in March and we decided to do a puppy themed party.  The girl LOVES dogs.

First, this was her outfit.  I saw a similar shirt on etsy with a different dog and thought it was adorable.  My daughter loves white terriers though so that is what we went with.

 

This was the food table.  I bought dog bowls at dollar tree for the food.  The bowls had cocoa puffs (looks just like dog food!), scooby snack graham crackers, scooby cereal, goldfish, veggie straws, and pretzels.  I made the fire hydrant using a tutorial on Pinterest.  My mother-in-law helped with the dog cookies.  They turned out so cute!  

I had a grand idea to make a dog bone cake.  It was impossible to ice after cutting to shape, so we decided to put cocoa puffs on the outside of the cake.  In hindsight, some sort of chocolate would have been better.  Or maybe I should just learn how to properly ice a cake!  The cake was Neapolitan: strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla!

 

My friend took a cupcake decorating class so I begged her to make the puppy cupcakes.  She did an amazing job!

I made a doghouse for a photoprop.  It was made with 4 pieces of foam board (dollar tree) and a cardboard box for the roof.  You can use foam board for the roof too but it doesn't hang over as much.  I used a marker to make the "boards" and cut posterboard for the "shingles".  

I also made a pinata.  I had NOOOO idea how to do this so I just winged it.  I used foam board for the bone shape and cut two identical pieces.  I essentially made a frame with them so it was hollow on the inside.  I cut squares out with the rest of board scraps and stacked those up to make the two sides of the pinata be about 6" apart.  Then I glued posterboard to the outside and used tissue paper to decorate it.  It was a lot of work but turned out really well!

When the kids arrived, I had felt dog ear headbands ready for them.  I cut spots out of felt and had craft glue for them to decorate their ears.  I also had a face paint crayon and made dog noses on the kids that wanted them.

 

As party favors, I made a dog adoption station.  I bought craft boxes and cut dog doors out of them.  When folded, they made little dog carriers/houses.  Then the kids got to choose their own dog (ty beanie babies) and filled out adoption forms.  They were so excited!

And finally, here's the birthday girl!