Little Man's Nursery

Boy do I love decorating nurseries. Babies and all of their tiny adorable things. I love to search through pinterest to find all of the new theme ideas with 100 interpretations for each. After we finished transitioning our little girlies into their new girly room, it was time to get started on our preparations for little man. We knew our Bemidji babe needed a proper North Woods theme so I went the direction of woodland animals. 

As usual, I did my best to reuse and repurpose where ever I could. His changing table and this shelf were originally purchased at IKEA for Curly Girl's nursery. I loved the idea of displaying some of his adorable woodland animal clothing on the hooks. 

I refinished this sad $10 craigslist find for GiGi's nursery. A fresh coat of white spray paint and a little grey fabric splurge turned this into a cozy little feature. I found a scrap of orange flannel at a local fabric store and turned it into a simple and fun fox pillow. 

Two of my favorite things in the room are this awesome birch tree feature wall and the cardboard deer head I bought at a local gift shop. I also loved the trendy pop of orange with this great arrow print fabric from Premier Prints. 

We squeezed in a day bed with some more pops of orange. 

The changing table

How cute is this little squirrel night light? It's too small put off any real light but was just perfect for middle of the night diaper changes.

My mother found cut outs from a quilt from a discontinued Carter baby line at a thrift store so we framed the fabric circles in embroidery hoops as a perfect way to feature some woodland animals without having a nursery of matchy-matchy baby items. 

The girlies clearly had a great time helping me hang them while they jumped on the daybed in their PJs and tutus. 

Sparkly glitter animal silhouettes in my boy's room? Yes. I reused some decor from our previous home's kitchen with the frames and chevron fabric. I had hot glued some brightly spray painted kitchen tools onto the fabric. I ripped those off and painted some fabric glue on that I covered in gold glitter. Another fun way to feature some DIY woodland animal art. 

My favorite--the deer antler silhouette. 

Of course I had to make my favorite mitered corner blanket with some fun woodland animal fabric and a super soft striped flannel. 

The before pictures--sad, poorly painted purple. 

Ready to paint!

The music notes. I celebrated painting over these… though I appreciate the previous owner's creativity. 

I found this AWESOME stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. No doubt this baby is going to be used again. What a fabulous design and big enough that I only had to do eight sections to cover the wall. One afternoon to finish this beauty!

The finished wall. 

…and an Instagram filter makes it even more dramatic. 

There it is! My favorite room to date. 

Cloth Baby Shoe Tutorial

It was just about a year ago that my maternity leave with GiGi was coming to a close and I decided to take a few delicious days to myself as GiGi started daycare and I prepared to return to work. In those three days, I bought a new sewing machine to replace the $100 Walmart Singer machine that finally gave in and I determined that I would start a blog to help give me the motivation to use it.

Wow. 

What an awesome year it's been. We expanded our family and welcomed GiGi and family life could not be better with her in it. Having two babies in less than two years has certainly been a challenge but a wonderful one! 

...and I started a blog! My sewing has gone from a minor activity I did every now and then to something that has become a part of my identity. I am by NO means an expert and it still makes me laugh a little inside when people come to me for sewing advice because I see myself as a beginner. However, I've been able to challenge myself in some new ways and completed projects I don't think I would have attempted without my blog to motivate me.

But enough musing, let's get to the good stuff!

I started my blog with three posts dedicated to three of my very favorite projects, what I call my "Favorite DIY Baby Gift". To this day, those are still my top posts and one in particularly, my cloth baby shoes, has shot to the moon with nearly 10,000 page views. It wasn't really my favorite post because it was just pictures of cute shoes I made without a real tutorial so it's nagged me all year that I should honor the post by creating a real tutorial. Here it is! 

thatssewnina's cloth baby shoe tutorial & free pattern
Click above for a link to my google docs

Supplies Needed:

• A scrap of a sturdy fabric--an 8x10ish scrap is about all you need (I like to use coordinating flannel if I'm making a full baby gift. I've also used home dec fabric. Cotton quilting fabric is okay too but not as thick and sturdy.)
• A scrap of fabric for the interior lining of the shoe. (you could just use your same flannel here)
• Fusible web (e.g. wonder under)
• Two 8" lengths of 1/8" elastic
• Matching thread
• A sewing machine

Here's how I created my own pattern--and how you can too! 

 I started with a pair of cloth shoes I wanted to copy.

 I turned the shoe inside out and ripped the seams apart. 

Here were the three pieces that made the shoe. 
That's not so intimidating, right?  

I traced the pieces on paper. 

Using a see-thru ruler, I traced a 1/4" gap around the outside of each piece to account for seam allowances.

Here they are! Ready to be cut out.

Pattern, check! Now ready to create my tutorial.

Check out my google doc for the details but here's a little preview of some of the steps. It's easier than it looks--especially if an addiction is born and you find yourself making shoes with every spare scrap of fabric you have. 

Post update: I've received a few questions about sizing. My pattern will result in a shoe with a 4" sole. To adjust it, just photo copy the pattern and increase it by 10% for each size up you want to go (or adjust settings on your printer to print larger). There are a lot of sizing charts out there but adjusting the sole by 1/2 inch seems to be pretty standard:

0-3 months = 3.5" sole
3-6 months = 4" sole
6-9 months = 4.5" sole
9-12 months =5" sole
12-18 months = 5.5" sole

Happy sewing!

-Nina

Cupcake Onesie

Well, here it is! My last monthly onesie for my GiGi. I'm not sure what symbol I would have done for August (maybe a popsicle or something beachy?) so I was glad to have her birthday fall this month so that I could celebrate with a fun cupcake. 

I made this one in a hurry so I failed to document each step but if you've been following my onesie project, you probably know the routine by now. If not, please check out some of my other posts! 

Here's How: Cupcake Onesie

Step 1: Find adorable image on good ol' google images that is easy to trace.
Step 2: Trace said adorable image backward on ironable fusible web
Step 3: Iron fusible on chosen fabric and cut it out
Step 4: Iron the cut outs onto onesie
Step 5: Sew edges (if desired. Just ironing is fine too.) and EMBELLISH!

I made a simple cupcake with some brown stripey fabric for the bottom and pink polka dot top. To embellish, I sewed a little pink button on top.

When I get a minute to do some photo editing, I'll surely put together a beauty of a collage with all of my onesies together. 

In the meantime, feast your eyes on this little sweetie. 

Happy Birthday, girly! Mom loves you!

4th of July Onesie

Inspiration struck for GiGi's 11 month onesie for my onesie project. She hasn't quite hit 11 months yet so I haven't done her pictures but since the 4th is coming up, I thought I should post the project a little early in case you're looking for a little inspiration yourself!

This is another one of my raw edge projects so I intentionally left the raw edges of the fabric out so that it would fray and soften up in the wash. 

I put this on a onesie for G but you could easily apply this same idea to a kid's or even an adult t-shirt by adjusting the size. Check out how I put together this adorable American flag onesie!

What you'll need:

• a scrap of lightweight fusible web (e.g. "wonder under")
• a scrap of red fabric
• a scrap of white fabric
• a scrap of blue fabric (with stars if you can find it)
• fabric marker or marking chalk
• a onesie or kid's t-shirt

Step 1: Cut out the fabric pieces

To fit on my onesie, I cut my flag pieces 4"x6". I cut one piece of lightweight fusible web, one of my white fabric and one of the red fabric. I ironed the fusible web to the back of the white fabric. 

 fusible web

white and red fabrics 

Step 2: Sew the "stripes" 

To make the stripes on my flag, I stacked the red fabric on top of the white fabric--right sides facing up on both. Using a fabric marker, I drew a line horizontally every 1/2" on the red fabric. I sewed the piecies together along the lines to create the stripes of my flag. (You'll cut into these in a second.)

 horizontal lines drawn on the red fabric

the stripes sewn (backview)

Step 3: Attach the "stars" patch

I cut a small scrap of blue fabric 2.5"x2" If you've read about my other onesie project posts, you'll know that I've tried to use scrap fabric for all of my projects. This time I really wanted a blue fabric with stars so I indulged on a $1 fat quarter for this one. 

Sew the blue scrap in the corner of the flag using a 1/8" seam allowance. 

Step 4: Fringe the raw edges

Using a small sharp pair of scissors, cut between your sewn stripes to reveal the white fabric underneath . Snip the fabric vertically as close to the seam as you can every 1/4" or so to create a fringe affect. Do the same around the blue fabric. Don't snip the out edges quite yet. 

 seperating the fabric between seams to create your stripe 

fringing the fabric along the seams 

Step 5: Attach the flag to the onesie

Center the flag and place it about 2" below the neckline. Pin the flag in place and sew it to the onesie along all four sides. Fringe the seam along the outside edge. 

Step 6: Wash the onesie once or twice to fray the fabric

Wash and dry the onesie once or twice and you you'll start to see the stripes reveal themselves more and more. Check the flag out after you've washed it the first time and see if there are any areas you want to trim up and fringe again if the white isn't showing through. 

That's pretty much it! Adorable!

Ta-da!

DIY Word Art

Just in time for Father's Day! A fun DIY project. 

My best friend in the whole world is having brain surgery... yes, brain surgery. She is very light-hearted about the whole thing but I suppose all of the wonderful people in her life can worry enough for her. She is a wonderful godmother to my girlies so I thought it would be fun to put together a little get-well gift that the girls could participate in (well, kinda anyway). (P.S. Out of surgery and doing fine, I hear)

You can ignore the religious context of my project if you like and imagine a canvas full of all kinds of words to inspire! Family, friendship, happiness, peace...whatever you like! This would certainly be a fun project for Father or Mother's Day. 

Here's how: DIY Word Art

What you'll need:

• an art canvas (size of your choosing)
• a bunch of alphabet and/or shape stickers (you're just going for an outline here so color really doesn't matter)
• a few coordinating paint colors
• something small with a hard edge (like a credit card or old hotel key)
• a utility or craft knife

Purchase a canvas at any craft or art store along with your choice letter stickers. This is a GREAT way to use up some old mismatched stickers if you have them. (Vinyl type stickers over papery stickers work best as I'll explain later.) I decided to turn mine into a easy-replace picture frame with the use of a clothespin but you could certainly skip that and just do words or embellish in other ways like fabric flowers or a mirror. 

Place your letter stickers all over the canvas in whatever arrangement you like. Feel free to use shapes in addition to words.  (Flowers, circles, etc. I used some of the extra punctuation stickers since alphabets were all I had.) Remember that we are just using the outline of these stickers so the color of the stickers really don't matter. Swipe a credit or something with a hard edge across the stickers to make sure they are securely on the canvas. 

Squeeze some small blobs of paint around the canvas. A little goes a long way so don't go too crazy to start.

This is the part I was hoping the girls could participate in. Curly Girl got one finger in the paint and ran for her life. I tried to get GiGi to place a neat hand print under the space for the picture and she got paint EVERYWHERE!

Using your edge, swipe the paint around in different sections of the canvas in all different directions. Blend it together and play around with it until you get something you like. Keep adding blobs of paint as you go to get the color where you want it.

Don't forget to paint the edges of your canvas.

Here's my painted canvas! Let the paint dry thoroughly.

Using a knife, beginning picking at the edges of your stickers to lift them off of the canvas. Tip, I seemed to have the most luck when I peeled up at least a full edge of the letter before trying to peel the sticker off. Some of my stickers were a more vinyl material and others were a more absorbent paper sticker. If you have the choice, the vinyl stickers peeled much more easily.

Peeling the sticker off.

You're going to find that the paint does bleed into the edge of your letters. I like the raw look of this but if you don't, I was able to scrape off a lot of it just using the edge of my knife. I'm sure there are some painting tricks to avoid this (like try painting your whole canvas white and letting it dry before placing other colors over your stickers).

To finish it off, I painted a clothespin to match and hot glued it in the center of the canvas. I found a quote sticker I really liked so I also stuck that on my clothespin. Now Godmother can easily switch out pictures as the kiddos grow. 

Ta-da!