Craft of Christmas Past

October is almost over, which means I (and maybe you too) have only two months to get my crafting butt in gear if my loved ones are going to end up with anything handmade from moi.  Lucky for them, I've had my thinking cap and my crafting pants on and already have a headstart on the handmade craft of 2012.  But that's not what we are talking about today.  Today, I offer you a Craft of Christmas Past. 

There have been many Crafts of Christmas Past - the year I took a semester of Pottery ranked up there in handmade gifts, as did they year I took Sewing 1 at JoAnne's and made all my girlfriends some pajama pants.  But today's Craft of Christmas Past is truely my favorite so far - the Owl Ornament Craft.

I found this adorable idea on the Burda Style website which included a FREE PATTERN and directions.  I wanted my owls to be a little larger and longer than the original pattern, so I made the necessary alterations and set to work.

The most time consuming part of these little cuties was hand stitching the beaks, because I'm a perfectionist, and I had to get perfect little triangular beaks.  But with a Law & Order SVU Marathon to keep me on the couch for an afternoon, they were finished in no time.

I personalized the owls for my nephews.  I had grandiose ideas of making an annual ornament for them and embroidering their names and the years.  Well, they will always have 2009...

If you are new at sewing, this is a great project to enhance your straight sewing skills.  Super fast, super easy and super cute! 

Now off I go to work on Craft of Christmas Present!  Get it?  Christmas Present!  Because it's for the Present year!  And it's a Present!  And it's Christmas!  And scene.

Diaper Motorcycle

My last post was about a baby gift set I made for my girl Natalie and her little one's (who STILL hasn't made his debut yet!  Foot tapping....) shower.  Well, being the matchmaker that I am, I actually set Natalie up with Michael, a fellow I work with.  They fell in love, and here we are...waiting...for little Max....any day now!!  Anyhow, we also threw a work shower for the soon-to-be-parents.  We work in transportation safety, and Michael works on motorcycle safety in particular.  While doing some research, my colleague came across this masterpiece with an awesome tutorial by SweetAprils:

 
In the words of Rachel Zoe, "I die."  For realz?  It's a DIAPER MOTORCYCLE.  Could this be any more perfect for Michael?  And could it be any more awesome in general?  I think not. 

After letting out a few squees and giggles from our cubicles, we decided it had to be done.  I took to Babies R Us and bought the necessary supplies.

I must apologize here for the quality and limited number of photos.  We did the assembly at my office with limited time.  It was just not the appropriate place to be taking pretty blog photos.  So iPhone quality photos is what you get.  Hopefully more friends will have babies and I will have more opportunities to make more of these and take fancy photos.

Michael and Natalie's nursery is a jungle theme, so I chose the monkey to be our motorcycle rider.

We followed SweetApril's extremely detailed tutorial, which proved very helpful and super easy to follow. 

A few areas of the motorcycle frame needed stablizing, so we used some straight pins here and there.  What we ended up with was this adorable composition:

Sadly we couldn't find a helmet small enough for this little monkey...otherwise he would be ready to ride! 



  Whatcha Got Weekend @ Lolly Jane

Monogrammed Onesie & Fancy Burp Cloths

My girl Natalie is about to have a baby any minute (seriously two weeks ago she experienced pre-term labor, but they stopped it -- keep that baby baking a little longer!) and for her shower I wanted to make something personalized for her little man.  Enter a monogrammed onesie and some fancy burp cloths.  I took inspiration from this pinned adorable monogrammed onesie with some good applique tips here.

My little monogram would be the letter "M" for Maxwell (so cute, I cannot wait to meet the little guy).  I started with a Newborn size Onesie, and fused some lightweight Pellon interfacing on the inside to stabilize the cotton. 

I had already fused the same lightweight Pellon to the back of my polka dot fabric, so then I cut out my "M".

Pinned the "M" to the Onesie, making sure the inside fused interfacing was centered underneath.

To make things more managable, I basted the "M" first, so it would stay put once I started my zig-zag stitch for the outline.  Although, it looks kinda cute with just the basting...

All ready to go, I did a wide zig-zag stitch around the "M" for the border.  I am still getting the hang of maneuvering my machine around corners and angles, but it's pretty good, especially for working around a tiny Onesie with my machine!

The coordinating burp cloths were super easy and fast. I used regular Gerber pre-fold cloth diapers as the base. I used a ton of these as burp cloths in the first 8 months with my baby.

 I cut out my fabric to roughly 18"X6". I folded under approximately 1/2" (or whatever length it didn't overlap the cloth too much) on each side and pressed it down.

I pinned the fabric to the burp cloth and stitched around 1/4" from the edge.  Fancy burp cloths complete!  An adorable personalized gift set for a new baby!

Here's to hoping he's not too big for the Newborn sized Onesie when he makes his big debut!!