Sewing for Baby: Tula Hoodie Hood

Hello everyone!  Summer break has started for me and I am looking forward to taking lots of walks and having lots of adventures with my daughter using my Tula soft structure carrier.  I have enjoyed wearing my baby girl since she was a newborn and I carried her around in a Boba wrap.  It is also an awesome way to get a baby who won't nap to take one because those really young babies can't resist falling asleep while being snuggled up against you.  A Tula carrier was on my list of major wants and once she started to get too big for the Boba wrap I decided to make the investment on one and I love it!  I bought the Fizz canvas carrier which you can find here.

I joined a Facebook group for Tula wearers and the people in the group were always talking about the accessories that they bought for their Tulas.  When I found this pattern for a hoodie hood by Carry Ella Creative I just knew that I had to make one to accessorize my Tula.

The tutorial and pictures that come with the pattern are great.  The pattern instructions are so easy to follow and there are lots of options with the pattern for instance you can add ears (I of course had to add some kitty ears!) or you can choose to add a bill (like I did with the eyelet trim).

I found the fabric for the exterior at Cotton Candy Fabrics which carries many of the fabrics that Tula uses in their carriers.  The fabric of my Tula is a Michael Miller print from the Fiesta collection called Emilia Grape.  The fabric that I chose for the exterior of the hood is also from the Fiesta collection and is called Ernesta Grape.  For the interior I used some embossed minky that was leftover from another project.

I also added a bow made from the fabric that matches my Tula and some lace ribbon.  I thought it would be a cute touch.

I probably should of taken some photos of Lyla in the Tula while wearing the hood but I am not a great selfie taker so here are some blurry photos of her wearing it around the house.  She is in constant motion nowadays so they are a little blurry.

By the time I snapped the second photo she was wearing the hood sideways haha.  I am currently making some drool pads for the straps of the Tula from a pattern by the same Etsy seller.  I can't wait to share that project with you too!

Updates to the Bonus Room

The last time I posted about this room which we have referred to as the bonus room (that is what this room was listed as on the real estate description) was back in February of 2013 in this post. In that post I talked about how this room was more about function than aesthetics for me so I hadn't done a lot of design updates to it.  This is changing now though because of 2 unfortunate springs of water damage to the room.  I don't have any photos of the water damage but the carpet was ruined. Thankfully the exercise equipment, TV, and futon didn't suffer any damage.  We decided that this room would probably continue to risk getting water in it so we had two basement companies who install drain tile come in and do bids for the room.  We ended up going with the same company that did the drain tile in our main basement and we decided to have the company do some updates in flooring and add a drywall railing to the stairs while they were working on it.

To install drain tile they cut out the bottom portion of the drywall and removed the concrete floor around the wall.  They were able to put a sump pump in the closet under the stairs. The other company wanted to put one in along the walls so we would of lost floor space in the room.

We decided to put laminate flooring in instead of new carpet.

As you can see from this picture of our cat, the staircase used to be open on one side and there was no handrail on the other side.  It wasn't very safe and it would be impossible to put a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Since we intend on using this room as a playroom for Lyla that was a big problem.

We had the workers build a drywall railing on the other side of the stairs.  Here is what the room looks like after the workers finished up their part of the work (we still have a lot to do down there).

Our next job in this room is to paint and install the baseboards.  You can see the baseboards that we picked in the last photo.  The paint has been selected and purchased as well.  I have also bought a new futon and a rug for the room.  We will still need curtain rods, curtains, and a piece of furniture to hold the TV and to use as storage.  We also need a new door for the closet under the stairs because the one that is in the room now doesn't shut.  It will be hard to keep the baby out of that closet unless we have a door that shuts!  I will keep you updated on the progress of this room.  I am excited with how it looks so far!

Gift Card College Survival Kit Grad Gift

Hello Everyone!  Happy May!  I am back today with a very belated blog post.  Last year my brother graduated from high school and I made him a fun gift that I wanted to share on the blog. For some reason the photos of this project disappeared from my iPhoto so I was unable to.  About a month ago when I opened my iPhoto it had a message that it needed to reconfigure itself and after it was done these photos had magically reappeared!  So now I get to share it with you almost a year later than planned but it is perfect timing for anyone who needs some grad gift ideas for this year.

I wanted to come up with a unique idea for my brother's graduation gift and when I saw a gift card book and then another idea about a college survival kit with gift cards on Pinterest I decided to combine the two.  My brother is attending the University of Kansas so I purchased gift cards that he could use in Lawrence.

Then I cut some paper I had on hand to make the book part.  I purchased scrapbooking paper in black and gold colors for the decorations in the book.  I used my Silhouette Portrait and printable gold foil for all the sentiments in the book.

I got him a Starbucks gift card to help him stay awake while studying.

I got him an iTunes gift card to keep him pumped while studying and a Wendy's gift card to help with the hunger during an all night study session.

I got him a movie gift card for when he needed to take a break from studying (which he used to see the latest Star Wars movie, good choice!) and a Walgreens gift card for stuff when he was feeling a little under the weather.

I got him a Target gift card for any other essentials he needed and a KU book store gift card for school spirit items.  I made all of the gift card pockets with black card stock and my Silhouette Portrait.  I loved the way it turned out!  What do you think?

Nursing Cover

So I have been kind of terrible at blogging lately but that is okay because this blog is just for fun!  I have not been terrible at completing projects though and eventually I will share them all on here.

Today I am sharing an easy sewing project: a nursing cover.  The hardest part of having a child for me has been breastfeeding.  You would think that since it is the natural way to feed a child that it would come easily for everyone but it hasn't for me or many of my friends.  Thank goodness for lactation consultants!  The first 6 weeks with my daughter was so hard because I wasn't producing enough milk so I had to feed her + supplement with formula + pump at almost every feeding. Newborns eat 8-12 times a day so that was a lot of extra work!  Basically I would get done with one feeding cycle and then have 30 minutes to an hour until it all started again.  I almost gave up several times but it worked in the end.  There are still bumps in the road but I am proud to say that I have made it almost 9 months and my goal is 1 year!

Some women are very comfortable nursing in public without a cover and I admire them.  I am too shy for that though so a cover is essential for me.  And my daughter is at the age where she is a distracted eater so sometimes I even use one when I am at home just to get her to focus on eating.  I bought some adorable scarves on Etsy that could be used as nursing covers but they just didn't work for me because I couldn't see her and she often needed help latching in the beginning.  I found that a nursing cover with a stiff piece at top was the way to go like one I have called the Udder Cover (seriously what is up with that product name...great product, terrible product name).  It never occurred to me that I would be able to easily make one myself until I saw this tutorial and this tutorial.

I mostly followed the first tutorial but I used the second to help with the boning step because I was having trouble with that step on the first one.  I think it was my brain not working that day because I think both tutorials are good.

The project only required a yard of fabric, coordinating thread, corset boning, and d rings so it was a cheap sew too.  I got enough boning to make a ton more.  One thing that I would change is the part with the boning sags a little and when I looked at my Udder Cover I noticed that the straps were overlapping with the edge of the boning instead of being right at the ends of the boning.  I think making that minor change would help the boning to be supported a little bit more.

I have been at the sewing machine for most of my projects lately but my husband has been working on a project for the nursery that I hope to have finished soon and soon *fingers crossed* our bonus room will be getting a big makeover.  The work was supposed to start at the beginning of April but contractors are always on their own time.  I can't wait to be able to use that room again!

Sewing for Baby: Boppy Cover

It would seem that every break I have from school I am sick.  This nice long Easter break is no exception.  I have a terrible cold and pink eye in both eyes.  Oh the joys.  So since I don't feel like doing much else I thought I would write a blog post on a project I completed quite a while ago now. This project started with the purchase of some fabric that I had to have but had no clue what I was going to do with it when I bought it.  I got the idea of making a cover for my boppy nursing pillow (I don't use it for nursing anymore but it is great for other uses with baby like propping and sitting assistance).  I found this tutorial from the blog Vanilla Joy (remember the pattern weights from the last post).  I didn't have quite enough fabric for both sides of the cover so I decided to do the other side with this embossed minky from Fabric.com:

The tutorial has link to a free pattern and it was pretty easy to make.  The only difficult part was trying to sew a zipper with minky.  I am not so great at zipper sewing as it is and minky is a really tough fabric to use with zippers because it is fluffy and slippery.

It was worth it though because it is so cute!  I have a few bonus pictures with today's post.  One of my best friends (who I co-hosted this baby shower for) had a baby boy this past Wednesday.  She made his nursery have a woodland/mountain theme and even painted a mountain scene behind his crib which turned out awesome!  I decided to sew a few items for her and the baby so here is a look at what I made.  You can find the links to make all of the items as well as links on how to make the leggings and scarf bib that are pictured on my daughter at the bottom of this post.

And here is a look at the one of the changing pad covers in the nursery.  Gotta love Snapchat!

The cotton prints on the changing pad covers are from Spoonflower.   All of the rest of the cotton prints are from Joann Fabrics.  All of the minky fabric is from Fabric.com except the grey dot minky on the mountain changing pad cover.  That one is from Joann Fabrics.  The snuggle flannel prints for the cloth wipes are all from Joann Fabrics.  The snaps on the car seat canopy are from Kam Snaps.