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.

Carseat Canopy

I really really wanted a carseat canopy for this baby, my daughter is just barely too old for them.  They were out, but just barely, so that I saw no one use one until she was about 6 months old. I used this tutorial, and was surprised at how long it took me.  That says nothing ill about the tutorial, just my skills. I wanted my cover to have ties not buttons or Velcro.  

Then I just used calico on the inside, I didn't want anything too warm.  Our babies move young, so he'll be crawling before the winter is over, I won't have a very long shelf life on this thing.  But the cover matches the carseat!

 When I started on the craft since we didn't have a name picked out, I used the H monogram for our last name, and added babe. Then I guess if I have another boy, I can still use it again!  Ignore the fact my crayon hasn't worn off yet.

I love it, I think it is beautiful.

Subway Art

There are only so many lifetimes you can spend on pinterest before you start to feel left out that your house has no subway art.  Actually I just really liked the Fourth of July subway art and wanted to embrace the fad. Plus I'm low on Fourth of July crafts/decorations.

Also this year I'm on the Relief Society Activities committee, which means I had to come up with a craft for Freaky Friday.  That is not the name, I can never remember it, they changed it from Super Saturday to Friday night.  I was really quite trilled, I couldn't wait to find a hip new craft, not the same ol' same ol'. By the way I was suppose to come up with multiple ideas.  I thought of a subway art frame, where you can change the pages.  Here is what I made.  As I stayed up finishing this craft the night before the meeting, at 11 o'clock that night I knew they wouldn't pick it.

I think overall it was too hip.  Instead, I am in charge helping ladies of making my wreath. Maybe I was just more bossy when it came to a wreath, pretty much every Mormon who walks into my house, tells me we should make a wreath like that for a RS craft. Funny thing is a wreath is hardly the new hip craft, but they have made a resurgence in the craft community and a widely popular. 
Back to the subway art though, don't you love that summer subway art?!  I think its fabulous! I'm sure my idea is not original but I realized, why.. why why why would you want a different frame for each holiday, who wants one more thing to store even if its only an 8x10 frame, plus why buy 10 or 12 frames?!  That is a waste of money.  So this frame matches with my kitchen, and I can just trade them out from behind, its perfect.  I love the rosette I made for it, it is left over fabric from my kitchen curtains. Plus I decided to add pearls this time.  Here is the tutorial for the rosettes, I don't use fabric glue, I just use glue gun on low, and burn my finger tips.

Although the frame is not that easy to open, so maybe, one day I will change it up.  Its on top of my hutch.  I also spent hours pinning all the most perfect subway art pictures in my opinion.  Slightly a waste, but I didn't realize it was too hip of a craft until the night before, hours after I searched down a unique subway art design for each month. Check out my subway art board.  (I mean unique as in I didn't want the same designer month after month.)

Remember These

Remember these?  I made them for my sisters/sister in laws I that I saw last Christmas.  Well my mom felt real left out she didn't get one.  So we bought frames at goodwill, since I wanted one too, and then I couldn't bare to sand the frames, oh the thought of it sounded so nauseating to me.  Finally a month ago, I just grinned and bared it, outside during nice weather.  Oh course it only took about 5 minutes to sand them, but then a good 15 minutes to clean the glass. The frame color and painting is definitely different then the last set, but that's the way I craft.

This is my mom's, she wanted a big one.  The print is only 8.5x11, but I think the frame is a 11x14.

 Here is mine.  I used a different background then the others, I'm not sure if I like it better. There is a pretty good chance, I just like mine the least amount, maybe I need a mat.

Shower

I'm going to a baby shower tonight.  My friend is having a girl next month, I made a blanket, and two matching burp cloths for her.

The burp clothes are the calico on one side, and striped chenille on the other side.

More projects

Turns out I have more unposted projects.  My daughter went to another birthday party, back in April.  This is the crown I made for it.  Who knows what they thought of a homemade present?  I think it turned out wonderfully.

Two finished

I have a new niece, the only one born this year, we just saw her last week. She was about four weeks old, I think. Here is the blanket I made for her.  For some reason this blanket was my Eleanor.  Normally I whip out these blankets, but for some reason I really struggled with this blanket.  I love it though, because I like purple. Luckily, her mom seems excited to receive it.

 By the way, for the sake of privacy, I use to not post pictures with the names of my nieces and nephews that embroiderer on the back of the blanket but now looking back I can't always remember what blanket went to what baby.  So privacy is going the way of privacy online, sorry.
My daughter absolutely loved her new cousin, and want to be very helpful.

She also adored her new boy cousin who is two month olds.  There are still two more boys to be born both in August.  Its a race to see who wins! (I'm sure I'll lose, I go late, and I'm due a week later.)
Oh no, I just tried to link up the last baby blanket I made, for the two month old, but I couldn't find it, turns out I didn't post it, so here it is.

I have had this green material for so long.  Its been waiting for the right baby boy, a baby boy born to parents who wouldn't mind wrapping their son in beetles, frogs and lizards. I will also say it was hard to find a backing, but I think the orange polka dots are perfect!

Back

I made a back for my baby quilt.  I didn't want just a plain piece of white material.  

 Close up now, I got the circle idea from my this wonky baby quilt, but I did my circles differently then they did.

Now my mother has the quilt, she is quilting it together for me thankfully!