Homemade Framed Calendar

I'm finding it harder and harder to get a good block of time to work on my thesis during the week (keeping the baby wake and entertained), so I'm working piece-by-piece on my short list of craft projects (until the weekend when my husband's extra set of hands can help alleviate the babysitting responsibilities so I can work on my thesis).

For Christmas, my father gifted us a homemade calendar (my father is the owner of BSArts Photography...and, yes, the name is intended to be ironic).  We always appreciate his beautiful photography, but I don't always have a great way to display his calendars, a fact that I really wanted to change.

Along with my very random collection of craft items, I had a large picture frame that I was hoping I could somehow convert into a calendar display case of some sort.  I also had an excess of muslin (which I discovered while organizing my crafts in the basement earlier this week), some wire (left over from when I made my wedding crown and veil) and some little clothes pins from baby shower gifts.

I stapled the edges of a fitted piece of muslin to the perimeter of the cardboard that came with the frame.  I then cut a piece of wire to drape across the board lengthwise.  I then clothes-pinned the February and March picture calendar months to the wire.  I put the cardboard into the frame, cleaned off the dusty plastic, and hung it on a wall.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about the finished product.  I was trying to go for a look that resembled pictures that were drying on a line after being developed.  The real pictures were digital and printed from a computer, but I thought maybe I could  portray the developed picture feel.  Please feel free to comment on the results and let me know what you think (seriously, be truthful - my feelings will not be hurt).

I've temporarily hung it in the kitchen, where we are most likely to need to review it.  The finished product might be too childish (with the strange 'developed picture' theme and baby shower clothes pins), so it might end up in Ivy's room.  We'll see what the boss (ha, ha), my husband, has to say.

 

Chair Seat Cushion

When I was little, I had this cute little rocking chair.

I only vaguely remember sitting in it when I was little, but I definitely remember it being in the house.  Apparently, sometime during my teenage years, my mom submitted it for entry in a neighborhood rummage sale.  It did not sell, and ended up in the basement of my best friend's parents' house.  Ten or more years later, my friend's mom cleaned it up and gifted it to me at my baby shower.  Is that not too cool?!?  I'm so grateful and excited to share the story with Ivy when she is old enough to understand.

The rocking chair did have a pretty old and worn seat cushion, which I decided I wanted to replace.

I took this drawstring bag in which the animal print shower curtain (which I used to make Ivy's window curtains from) was dressed. 

I ripped all the seams, removed the drawstring, ironed the fabric flat, measured and cut the fabric to approximate the dimensions of the original cushion with a 1/2 inch seam allowance, and found ribbon of coordinating colors for the tie strings.  I pinned the right sides together, pinned the ribbons in the corners, and stitched the perimeter with the allocated seam leaving about 2 inches open to be able to stuff the cushion with padding.  Then I used some excess quilting batting cut into small pieces to stuff the cushion.  I stitched the opening closed and then used matching yarn to pull the two sides together.

I then fashioned it onto the chair.

Now some pictures just for fun....
Sometimes when she is talking and smiling in her bouncy chair, she does this motion that reminds me of a 'punching nun doll'.

We bundled her up for a winter walk around the neighborhood.

Here she is napping in the trusty baby carrier that never lets us down when she's tired and refuses to fall asleep.

Ivy's currently recovering from her Dr. appointment yesterday, where she got 3 shot vaccines.  She's doing really well - little fussing but lots of napping.   She's getting so grown up (tear).

Diaper Fail

Second time I've been peed on today.

Rocked the baby to sleep standing up.
Sat down on the couch.
Let her stay on my chest for about ten minutes.
Moved her to her bouncy chair.
Still asleep.
Walked to the kitchen to see what I could have for lunch.
Felt a slightly cold sensation on my lower abdomen and found a surprisingly large wet spot.
Not sure how I didn't notice it when she was on my chest, but I guess her diaper failed to retain the monumental amount of fluid that she is capable of.

Chain Reaction

Yes! - I am one of those mothers who occassionally talks about her kid's bodily functions (example: Blog Post entitle 'My Little Artist'), and
Yes! - I will be speaking in the third person, referring to myself as Mom hereafter.

Cause: To turn a phrase the way my father would say it, my daughter 'filled her drawers' just after waking from a 2 hour nap.
Effect: Mom takes baby to change her diaper.

Cause: Mom changes baby's diaper and uses very cold homemade baby wipes.
Effect: Baby creates a pee fountain nearly hitting mom in the face.  (Yes, she's a girl, but wow can she get some height on that pee....Ok, so maybe only a couple inches, but it still was surprising).
Effect: Mom thinks 'Wow, that was a lot of pee' and proceeds to disrobe said baby from head to toe (as the pee fountain has now soiled all of the clothes - except for the socks which were soiled when Mom had to retract from the pee fountain, thus dropping baby's feet, which then flailed right into the baby feces....sigh...)
Effect: Mom decides she needs to pick up the baby to remove the wet clothes from under her and make sure the area is dry before proceeding with new diaper and onesie.  Mom lovingly picks up now naked baby and holds her carefully to her chest as she throws the clothing in the clothing laundry.
Effect: Baby relieves the rest of her bladder.  (Apparently we're working with a 2-stage bladder here, and it's very well hydrated).
Effect: Mom's shirt is soaked with pee, in addition to the front of the changing table drawers, which were in close proximity.  One drawer of which was open and which contents selectively got wet, as well.
Effect: Baby starts to wail at the top of her lungs because (1) she is not cold and wet and (2) she is famished after her 2 hour nap.

Not to worry - baby was clothed, Mom was re-clothed, baby was fed, and baby is now playing on her musical playmat with Mr. Giraffe.

All has ended well.  And, yes, this will likely be the highlight of me day.  Sad? You may say.  Not to me.

Sleepy Happy Baby

It's pretty late (at least, it's late to the parents of a newborn - both of whom aren't getting much sleep) but I wanted to get to the posting that I was intending to post all day.  Today I worked on my thesis during baby nap times, so I do not have any crafts to post.  Rather, I wanted to post pictures of my baby girl - only a few of the lucky moments I get to experience everyday.  At this age, here are two sides of Ivy that I really love.  (I love them all, but here are just a couple I captured today on camera).

(1)  there's the sleepy baby...

Entitled 'Any bats in the cave?'

I like to call this one - 'Look at my crazy-after-bath-fuzzy-baby-hair mohawk'

And - the view I get most of the day while she is riding in my front baby carrier...

(2) and the happy playful baby...

She loves spending her free time reaching at and talking to her buddy, Mr. Giraffe.  She flails her left arm in his direction and bellows out a 'Wha-ah'...

 

She gets really excited when she accidentally gets ahold of the flower in the giraffe's mouth and surprises herself when she pulls him near to her.

Check out that E.T. neck (like from that scene in E.T. where Elliot and E.T. first meet in the corn fields and E.T. elongates his neck to be the same height as Elliot.  That scene used to scare the bejesus out of me).  She seems to have had a really strong neck since birth.  Here she is trying to look around to see where her puppy dog, Chuck, is.

Here she's demonstrating her coy charms as a photographed model.  (She learns this one from her Grandma Philps, who also likes to close her eyes during pictures).  :-)

And, to finish off for the night, here she is with that smile - one you can't get enough of.

Good night.  Sweet dreams.

Finished Craft Projects

Disclaimer: The pictures in this post are really poor.  I am boycotting the digital camera because I took all of my pictures and they appear to be corrupt when I load them onto the computer.  Therefore, I've taken all of these pictures with my camera phone.  So, I apologize for the poor images.

I wanted to display my completed 'Hippo' art for Ivy's room.  I finished it yesterday but haven't put it on the wall yet.


Here are my completed burp clothes.

And some baby slippers that aren't yet finished.

I also promised my friend, Sarah, that I would help her by hemming a flannel piece of fabric for a baby blanket she is making.  She's a master knitter who also had knitted a beautiful blanket for baby Ivy.

Sarah knitted a beautiful XOXO blanket and picked out some really cute flannel with which to back the blanket.  To prepare the flannel for backing the blanket, I started by measuring the knit blanket and cutting the flannel to the proper measurement plus seaming.  Then I measured 1/2 inch along all sides and ironed it to make stitching the seam easier.  Had it been a project for myself, I'm sure I would have skipped on the meticulous measurement of the seam and ironing and approximated.  But, as this was for Sarah, I felt pressure to make it as perfect as I could.

I measured the seam and ironed it down.  I even mitered the corners properly (not like I usually do for myself).

 Then I stitched the seam down using a zigzag stitch, which I'm hoping is sufficient for Sarah.  I thought it looked a little nicer than a straight stitch, but, if Sarah wants a straight stitch, I am more than happy to restitch it to meet her needs.  (Grrr...sorry, bad picture.)

I then pinned the flannel to the knitted blanket.  Sarah didn't ask me to do that part, but I figured it would help me make sure my measurements were correct and it would save her time (hopefully) in the long run.

 

 

Sarah - you can pick up the project whenever you want to see Ivy and me again. (You can also refuse the project and send it back for fixes, if necessary.)

Burp Cloths

So, another fault of mine is my overwhelming knack for procrastination.  Rather than finish my thesis defense presentation, I've decided to spice up some burp cloths for myself.  Now, I figure my thesis defense will practically write itself - I already have several update presentations from which to pull content and I've already finished the thesis paper.  (Whatever makes me sleep at night, right?)  Also, I figure I am in a great need of additional burp cloths - due to the overactive fire hose and regurgitating baby.

I had several cheap terry cloth hand towels and fat quarters left over from another baby bib project that I did for a friend last year.  So, I took a similar idea from Chickpea Sewing Studio and modified it for hand towels.

Started with the towel and fabric, and cut the fabric to measure about 1/3 of the length and the full width of the towel.

Then I pinned the fabric to the towel in the center of the length.

 

I used my very fancy sewing machine (thanks to my husband!) to zigzag stitch around the edge.

 

Now, the edge of the fabric didn't always match up as well to the edge of the towel as in this picture AND I sewed the fabric on the tag side (wrong side) of some of the towels - not my best attention to detail; I admit.

To which I say - Seriously, the kid's going to be puking on this thing; it doesn't have to be perfect...

To which you might say - Then why don't you just use the towel instead of taking the time to sew some nice fabric on the towel, if the kid's just going to puke on it...

To which I might say - Toche, good point, but remember it's either do this or work on my thesis.  So, there.

So, I repeated the process on six towels.

Hurray!  But now what do I do to procrastinate my thesis?!?  Hmmm, perhaps I'll clean the office which I've now trashed with my fabric projects.

Happy Day!