Pacifier Clips Mini Tutorial

These pacifier clips are a great addition to an baby gift. This is a fast, simple gift to whip out if you need just a little something more to give or if you like them sooo much that you just have to have one, two or ten:) for your own munchkin. Just in case you like these but never dust off your sewing machine, you can find these paci clips HERE at my site.

Here you can see how the reversible ribbon looks, it's the exact pattern on the back with opposite colors:

All you need is about 10 inches of 1-inch wide reversible jacquard ribbon (you can use other 1-inch ribbon if you like but jacquard is heavier and reversible so it just works better), 1/2 inch of velcro & a mitten clip. I have a small business where I sell some of my handmade items so I have a source for smooth, round top mitten but if you are just making a couple they sell these at Joann Fabric's:

At one end of the ribbon, fold over about 1/4 inch and iron down, fold over 1/4 inch again, iron and stitch down one piece of velcro making sure to overlap the fold. Sew the second piece of velcro about 2 inches away from the first piece. On the other end, fold over the ribbon about 1/4 inch, iron down, then fold over about 1/2 inch and iron down. Place the mitten clip under this fold and stitch a straight line across to secure all the layers of ribbon.

Folks, that's it! You're done!

OK, off to finish the next item on my sister-in-law's baby shower!

Amy

Kids' Fishing Set Tutorial

I have seen these fishing sets ALL OVER the place on different blogs and have loved every one of them so I just had to make one for us too! Of all the blogs I looked at I liked the set from From an Igloo the best so I started there!

I first made one practice fish and felt that I wanted the shape to be a little different so I kept working with the pattern until I really liked the shape of the fish. I am not as computer savvy as some and I could not for the life of me figure out how to give you a pdf to print but I can show you the shape:

My fish pattern was 6-7/8" long- you can print this and enlarge it to that size.

Start by sewing around the fish using 1/2" allowance, leaving 2" open on the bottom. Cut around the edge with a pinking shears (sewing scissors that cut a zig zag). If you don't have a pinking shears you can snip the fabric close to the seam all the way around but this just takes a little more time than pinking shears. Turn the fish right side out, stuff, hand stitch the opening closed. To finish, sew on button eyes and a washer on the mouth.

*Reminder: magnets if swallowed can be very dangerous! Please make sure all stitching is secure and keep away from young children!*

For the fishing pole, simply take a wood dowel and drill a hole through it, lace one end of a heavy string/cotton twine through the hole and tie a knot real tight and then trim the end. For the "worm" end of the pole, take a pinking shears and cut a 2 1/2 inch circle. Then do a simple running stitch by hand about 1/2 from the edge, place a magnet in the middle and start to draw it closed. Just before you pull it tight, turn the raw edges inside the pouch and insert the other end of the string with another knot tied tight at the end of it. Pull the pouch tight and sew through the closure and string many times to make it very secure for safety reasons.

Enough of all this jabbering- time for some serious fishing:

You can see that my fishing poles can hold many (all) the fish- I used high powered magnets and I do suggest finding some for this project since I heard on many blogs that they had to make the fish small so the the magnet could "catch" only one fish!

 "Whew- after all this fishing we're parched! Time to stop for a little refreshment!"

Happy Fishing!

Amy

(and if you like it- pin it!)

Tag Blankie!

I finally got a small start on my bundle of baby shower gifts for my sister-in-law!

Here is my first item on my gift list to make:

This tag blankie was super simple! I found the "pattern" (you don't really need one) from "Simple Sewing for Baby" by Lotta Jansdotter. I was going to give a link to her site but for some reason this book isn't for sale there. It really has a ton of super-cute super-easy projects for baby items!

This tag blankie is basically two 13x13 pieces of fabric sandwiched right sides together. Then insert the ribbon (folded in half) between the two pieces. Pin, sew with 1/2 inch allowance, leaving 3 inches open. Turn right side out, trim seams to 1/4 inch (except at opening), iron flat & run a stitch around the edge. Wooala! A tag blankie! I will see how my niece likes this one but when I make more in the future I'm thinking that I might make the ribbon a little shorter.

Happy Sewing!

Amy

Golden Book Baby Shower Invitation

 Here are the invitations for the upcoming baby shower for my sister-in-law:

I can only accept a tiny amount of credit for these adorable invitations. I knew that I wanted to do a book themed shower and found an entire shower based on Golden Books at Aesthetic Nest. This woman is crazy talented. Check it out- she even "whipped out" a Little Tug Boat painting the night before which is awesome!!! Being slightly less creative than her I decided to pretty much copy her shower ideas and add just a few additions of my own!



The only change that I made to her invitation pdf that you can find HERE is that I assembled the invitations by printing out a sheet of the animals on yellow and then printing the invitation separate and a copy of the picture and sticking them together with scrapbook circles. This took a little finagling with copy and pasting her invite pieces to a word document but I got it to work in the end. I also printed a copy of the picture and added it to the back of the envelope. Her invitation pdf allows you to simply add your information if you don't want to make any changes.



I plan to add a little more vintage flair with some of the original Fisher Price and other awesome wooden toys that my mom still has from when my brothers & I were little.

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

Amy

Doll Diapers

When I discovered the world of blogs (which only took me until last spring- what's wrong with me?) I found THIS tutorial for dolly diapers and put it on my must-make list! Thankfully, my committing to giving them as Christmas gifts gave me the push to finally make some!

I will start by saying that I am soooo glad I found the tutorial for these diapers from make it and love it! My only issue with it is that the tutorial may be a little difficult for some to be able to create a pattern for their doll. My diapers actually look fairly different in shape than hers. I didn't have extra time before Christmas to document every step in the process but my mother would like diapers for a number of her dolls so I plan to do a small tutorial on these in the future! I will give you the tip of starting by measuring the baby's waist, crotch width and length you want the diaper to be from front to back and start to sketch with those measurements. Once you get a "rough draft", cut it out and put it on the doll and adjust what you need to from there!

Since the doll that I gave to my daughter (which actually was mine from when I was little!) is a larger doll (I bought a Carter's 3 month outfit for her), I purchased special velro from JoAnn Fabrics in their new Babyville Boutique section. It comes in many different colors which is awesome but since I sent my husband to the store with no coupon (regular price is $3.50/package) I just bought the white. Oh and by the way, the package says "Boutique EZ Adjust Tape" instead of "velcro". My only complaint about it is that since it is sold to make real baby fabric diapers, the velcro is so strong that my daughter sometimes needs help getting it open which would be a great quality if you were purchasing this to make actual baby diapers!

I also made the changing pad that she has her doll laid on and I will do a post on it soon! It was out of a book called Simple Sewing for Baby. I love that it is so soft and how it rolls up so nice and small. Of course, I made it smaller than instructed since it was for a doll.

It is amazing how often a doll can go potty or the other in her diaper in such a short period of time! You can see in the background that this is the third diaper she had to change in a row! I sure am glad real babies don't need changing that much- I'm exhausted just at the thought!

"Look Mommy! I did it!"

Here are a few much smaller diapers that I sent to my niece for Christmas:

These diapers are much smaller so I used a regular one inch velcro but purchased the "soft & pliable" variety.

I am almost embarrassed to look at this picture as this was my first diaper that I made and the stitching is far from perfect but from what I hear, she loves them anyway:)


Happy diaper making!

Amy

Homemade Slime!

OK, I know that after being gone for a while this is an odd first post but the kids had so much fun that I just had to share!

If you're kids love getting their hands dirty (we have many pictures of our playing with worms for fishing), seeing how stuff works or helping you measure out ingredients for recipes, they will LOVE making this homemade slime!

I found a kit for this at a Generations at Play, a wonderful indoor play area with coffee shop and gift store in Bayside, WI. It is my favorite spot for play dates during our long, cold winters in Wisconsin!

Here's what you do:

In a first bowl, stir together 1 medium size glue bottle (she said the cheaper the brand, the better) and 2/3 cup water. Then a few drops food coloring until desired color is attained.

In a second bowl, add one teaspoon borax to 2/3 cup warm water.

Slowly pour borax mixture into glue mixture and stir with hands and watch slime transform almost immediately! The longer you play with the slime, the more firm it becomes. 

Enjoy your slime making!!!

Amy

I'm Back!

I apologize that I completely abandoned my blog recently. I don't know how some women do it but the holidays got the best of me! I was trying to get gifts made (I will be doing posts on these very soon), do Christmas crafts with the kids which they gave as gifts, make cookies, restocking some of my locations for my Chic Threads by Amy business, and the normal hubbub of the holiday season with all the gift wrapping and such.

My upcoming posts will include those about a stuffed fishing set, baby doll diapers, dollie changing pad, my first project working with knit fabric which was an infant hat with a flower accent, and an entire baby set that I am working on for my sister-in-law's shower! As always, I will continue to throw in recipes, kids' crafts and other mommy odds & ends. I have decided that instead of doing Monday Inspirations every Monday I will just throw them in whenever I find something that I just need to share!

Thank you for rejoining me and watching to see what I'm up to in 2012!