One week

 Wahoo, one week out from my induction for my third child, and I finally finished my second child's baby book.  My second child who is three and half.

I kind of love how ghetto baby books are.  You can't frill them up like scrapbooks, they are what they are.  You just glue and fill in with a pen.

Worst Project

I bought a used swing for my daughter, I spent $30 on it.  I really liked it, its a great swing, I like that the chair is not hard plastic chair with a cover on it but instead a hammock style chair, unfortunately the music selection is terrible. Its a Graco Lovin Hug. Unfortunately for this time around the swing is pink, and I'm having a boy.  I thought about getting a unisex covered swing, but at the consignment store I bought it at this was really the nicest swing at the price. Well three years ago, my husband wanted to get rid of it, but it was such a nice swing, and it folds up, and long story short, I never got rid of it.  

There are so many pins about recovering your carseat, I thought great, I'll just recover the swing.  It was terrible, it was a terrible craft.  It was not fun, but I'm grateful that its now blue, and it only cost $7, but it was so not fun.  And please do not come over to my house, and look at my stitches, if you look hard I'm sure you'll see pink.

Actually now that its done, I'm glad I didn't get rid of the swing, our baby consignment store is expensive, and we haven't had much time for garage sales this summer.  The project took about two movie lengths.

If I ever have another girl I can unpick the blue and it will go back to pink.  But if I have a girl, then a boy, he might just have to stick with pink, I don't think I could ever do this again, then again, isn't that like having a baby. I didn't unpick any part of the original swing, I just sewed up on top.

The end of Christmas in July

I finished my stocking board and I'm so very proud of it.  I can't wait until December, but mostly because my baby will be four months, and so life will be easier, and he will be more fun than he will be say in September.

 Need another shot?  The board looks really pink in the pictures, but it is red.  Remember how I like my finished wood project variegated. If you scroll through my painted wood label at least half are variegated paint.  Its just so much fun to only sand off half the paint off, and the do a wash with the paint.

 Once again no cricket, so I did the lettering the old fashion way.  Traced a print out, like this tutorial, then re-wrote over the tracing with a silver sharpie.  Then it wasn't thick enough for my taste, so I cut off the tip of the sharpie, to make it wider.

I love my holly.  I made the same flower rosette as I've in the past, except for smaller and wider, so they look more berry like and less flower like.  Then cut out leaves and put batting inside.  I'm really quite pleased with my free motion sewing leaf veins.

Christmas in July

Remember how we talked about how maybe I'm not so sane in my eighth month of pregnancy?  Well I figured I might as well make my baby a stocking now, instead of in a few months when life could be potentially crazier.  The stores are already selling christmas material so why not.  Well I got out my other stockings and I got out my christmas material, and decided I've never really liked my daughter's stocking.  So I pulled it all apart, and made a better one. It goes so much better with the family's pile of stockings.

Here is the before of her stocking, here it is with the whole family's stockings, see it just didn't match. It needed more green.

  Then I set about making my new son's stocking.  I absolutely love this christmas material, and find it very challenging to match, but I think the black polka dots worked well.

Oh and you were hoping to see his name... all in good time, my eight faithful blog followers.
So here is my happy little family of five stockings.  I decided I'm making a "the stockings were hung" board since I don't have a fireplace. (I bought my friend's Family Home Evening board, for $2 at her garage sale and am refinishing it.)

Then as I stared at the stockings I realized the embroidery on my firstborn's stocking has always looked awful, so I unpicked and redid that.  Plus I have never liked the shape of the toe on his, so I fixed that too.  Can you see the difference from the pictures above and this one.

Ahh, Christmas.

Much Simpler Project

I made a much simpler project for my next pre-baby project.  A baby sheet.  Remember these and these?  Well its just a yard and quarter of calico with a hem on the ends.  Only one layer.  I think this material looked so baby luxe to me.  I love it, when I showed it to my husband, I said it sort of looks like tie material, he said oh yeah, that is what it was reminded me of.
After finding the first link, I wish I had a baby toile material to make another one out of.

Insanity

I might be a little insane.  Want to see my latest pre-baby craft?
First off a trip down memory lane. Last time I had a baby I made this shirt for the older sibling.  For some reason things get bigger and crazier each time. That "big bro" shirt took about 30 minutes.  Instead of a simple shirt, I did this:

Which also served the purpose of a coming home from the hospital outfit for my august baby. I couldn't find anything I like that seemed good for bring a baby home to a hot house during a heat wave.  I pray that the heat wave will be over by then, I thought a onesies and a light blanket would be perfect.  Who knows?
So big brother got a shirt.

 As did big sister.  She is super excited about her shirt and monkey, she loves monkeys.  Unlike my first born. Ignore the fact that you can see my tracing lines under the shirts, I guess I should wash them huh?

 Then the crown jewel baby brother's shirt.

 A close up on the embroidery.  (By the way this is not an original design. That's just not how I flow, and I'm pretty sure most crafters don't.)

Burp Cloths

When my daughter was born my relief society gave me two burp cloths, they were flannel on one side, and chenille on the other. They were absorbent as any other burp cloth for my reflux baby, and were much prettier than normal diapers.  So when I found out my baby was a boy I knew I wanted to make some boy ones.  Bizarrely enough they took a long time to get to the top of my to do list. I finally did them a few weeks ago, here they are.

Wooden Firecrackers

On pinterest I saw craft firecrackers, and knew I wanted to make some.  This is what I came up with.

Turned out to be a great year to make wooden firecrackers since we won't be seeing any real ones lit with the forest fires the way they are, out here in the west. 
I wanted my Independence day crafts to be about the "true meaning of the holiday" that is why I wrote freedom, independence, justice and liberty on them.
Also I have no vinyl die cutter, so I free handed my letters because I'm old school like that.
I also really wanted to make this wreath, but I ran out of time. :(
I would have put it indoor.  I've realized there are indoor and outdoor wreaths.