Maxaloones and The Eleanor Dress

Happy Fall! I can't believe it has been over a month since I wrote a blog post.  That wasn't my intention but sometimes life gets busy.  There are no lack of projects to share but I just haven't had the motivation to post about them.

Today I am writing about 2 patterns for baby/children's clothing that I have tried recently.  The first pattern is a pattern for pants called Maxaloones by Max and Meena Patterns.  The pants have an extra piece in the bottom that makes them great for cloth diapered babies.  They also have a belly band and leg bands that allow the pants to grow with the child by adjusting the bands.  I made a couple of pairs for my friend's son.  It was a pretty easy pattern to follow and they are really cute.

The navy jersey knit and fish interlock fabric both came from our local fabric store Modern Textiles. The deer jersey knit is from Girl Charlee Fabrics.

The next pattern is The Eleanor Dress from Shwin Designs.  This pattern has several collar and sleeve options for the dress and also has a shirt option. The dress also has pockets which I love. I loved this pattern.  It was easy to follow and turned out so cute.  It was my first time using rib knit and the pattern gave really clear instructions on using it.  I plan to make a few long sleeve shirts for her using this pattern in the near future.

The chevron fabric that I used was from Girl Charlee Fabrics.  The green and yellow chevron is no longer available but they have plenty more colors of chevron knits on their site.  When I first saw this fabric I bought about 6 yards because it is the colors of my alma mater North Dakota State University.  I also recently made another pair of Baby Got Back Leggings with the same fabric.

Here she is sporting them at the rehearsal of the alumni band at homecoming a week and a half ago.  I am not sure when or what I will post about next but I have no lack of options so keep checking back!

Digital Baby Book: Using the Scanner to Preserve Keepsake Items

Today I am sharing the next post on Lyla's digital baby book that is now finished.  I can't wait to order a copy so I can see it in print!  So once upon a time I attempted to be a scrapbooker.  I was in my first couple of years of college and I wanted to catalogue all the photos and items from my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college.  I went to a craft store and bought a bunch of scrapbooking items.  I completed several pages that didn't look super great and then I lost my momentum.  It turns out that I don't actually have the patience for scrapbooking in the traditional way.  

After our honeymoon I decided that I didn't want all of those photos to just sit on my computer so I decided to create a photo book of the trip.  Each year since then I have also made a yearly photo book to highlight all of my favorite photos from our year.  I love putting it together every year.  That is why it was a no-brainer for me to do a digital book in place of the traditional baby book for Lyla. 

I did, however, want to preserve some of those items that you would find in a traditional baby book like Lyla's hospital bracelet and all of the cards we received.  I plan to put some of the items (like the hospital bracelet) in a shadow box with one of her first outfits but I turned to the scanner on our printer to help me digitally preserve some of those items.  Here are some of the items that I chose to scan into the baby book.

I scanned in the birth announcement from the paper and her hospital bracelet.  Her birth announcement at the top was actually a screen shot of the digital preview on Shutterfly where I purchased the announcements from.  

In the section of the book on the baby shower I included a scan of the adorable baby shower invite which was made by one of my shower hostesses and her cousin.  

I scanned in all the cards we received from the shower and the ones we received after Lyla was born. I made sure to scan the front and the inside with the message from the card giver.  It was a lot of scanning but totally worth it.  When I arranged the cards on the page I made sure to put the message from the inside on or near the front of the card it came from.  I love how the card collages turned out in the book.

I also scanned in the cards that she received at her baptism and the church bulletin from her baptism.

At the end of her baby book I included the little sheets with her stats from each doctor appointment during the year.

Finally I scanned in some of the little "art" projects that Lyla made at daycare throughout the year.  I wonder if the daycare teachers ever get tired of making art projects with baby feet and hands.  It always makes me chuckle when Lyla comes home with a pink foot from doing an art project.  I really like that multicolored blob towards the top left of the page because I believe that is Lyla's first finger painting.  Also the poor bee and turkey lost an eye somewhere between daycare and home.

Well that is it for today.  Next up on the blog-an update on the pretty much finished bonus room/playroom.

The Teepee-Finally!

Yes it is true!  Today I am finally posting about Lyla's 1st birthday present, her teepee.  I think the idea of making a teepee first came to me from a random "you might like this" post on Pinterest and then I became obsessed with pinning play teepees and tents on Pinterest.  There are a ton of tutorials out there but I decided that it would be easiest to use a pattern and conveniently Butterick makes a pattern for teepee which you can find here.

I saw a few teepees on Pinterest that used vintage bed sheets and I loved that idea.  I found a lovely vintage floral bed sheet on Etsy and then bought white muslin for the rest of the teepee.  While I was buying the muslin I came across some lace and thought it would work great for the small panel above the door flaps.  

The pattern called for ribbon in two sizes so I purchased some gold, pink, and blue satin ribbon.  The beads that the pattern called for were a little hard to find and I had to order them online but I can't remember the place I ordered them from anymore, sorry! PVC pipe is used for the poles of the teepee.  I spray painted them gold but I was only mildly successful with that because some of the paint chipped off almost immediately.

The teepee was quite easy to make but marking the fabric was not very fun.  I used disappearing ink to mark since I was using white fabric and there were a lot of markings.  It was also difficult to work with so much fabric especially by the time I was adding the last panel.  One part of the pattern was a little unclear so I had to improvise.  I wasn't sure how to get rid of the raw edge when I connected the front panels to the lace piece and the directions didn't make much sense.  I end up just top stitching a piece of gold satin ribbon over the raw edge to cover it up.  It turned out to be a happy accident because I really like the look of the ribbon between the vintage sheet panels and the lace piece. I also learned how to sew button holes on my machine for this project.

Most of the pictures in this post are my iPhone snaps during Lyla's one year professional photo session.  The teepee made an awesome prop for the outdoor portion of her photos! And here are a few of the professional shots from exposures by j.linnea

Seriously amazing!  I love her work so much!

Oh and one side note, I just learned about clipping masks in Pixelmator and it is going to be my new favorite thing.  That is how I made the watercolor letters in the picture at the top of this post.  It is like having a new superpower haha.  I know, I'm kind of a nerd.  If you want to read about the romper that Lyla is wearing in the photos check out this post.  Next up on the blog will be another post about Lyla's digital baby book.  Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading!

Digital Baby Book: Custom Calendar Page

Today's post is the first in a new series on the digital baby book that I have been working on for Lyla's first year.  This is a massive project so I thought I would break it up into a series of posts instead of writing a massive post.  The book is almost complete, I just need to add the photos from Lyla's professional 1st birthday photo session once we receive the gallery.  You can take a look at the almost completed book here.  

I chose to use Mixbook for this project because there seemed to be a lot more customizable features than other websites I've used in the past.  So now let me tell you about the first page that I am featuring in this series: a custom calendar page.  I created this page in Pixelmator but it would be easy to create it in any photo editing/graphic design software.

I started by opening up the program and then selected "create new image." I set the preset to "custom" and set the dimensions for 4429 by 4499 pixels with a resolution of 600 pixels/inch.  I can't remember how I came up with these particular dimensions since I did it so long ago but I am sure I looked up the best dimensions for making a custom page and somehow came up with those numbers.

Next I did a Google image search for herringbone background (you could search for any kind of background of course).  You will want to make sure that the image you use doesn't have any watermarks.  I saved the image to my desktop and then dragged the file onto my Pixelmator canvas.

Next I enlarged the image to the size I wanted and duplicated it as many times as I needed to fill the canvas (in this case, I needed 4 images to cover the canvas).  I carefully lined up the pieces so that it looked like one continuous background.

I then drew a square over the background.  

Then I turned down the opacity of the square so that I could see a bit of the background through the square.

I added a boarder to the square using the shape controls right about the canvas.

Then I drew lines until I had the square divided into enough small squares for a month. This was the trickiest step because it took awhile to get it lined up just right. It probably isn't perfect but it looks good enough to me.

I added numbers and the name of the month using the text tool.  You can use any font on your computer for these steps.  You can also change the color of the text using the text controls above the canvas that show up when you are using the text tool.

Then I duplicated the name of the month.

I changed the copy to navy.

My layer with the text copy was actually in front of the other text layer so I just dragged the copy layer down below the original layer in layer window to put it behind the original.  Then I offset it a little from the original text to make a shadowed look.  I saved the image and then exported it as jpeg file with maximum quality.

Next I opened up Mixbook and uploaded my calendar files into my photo library for the project.  

I selected a full page picture layout (it had text but I just deleted the text box) from the layout tab.  I then dragged the month that I needed onto the page from my photo library.

Finally I added text to the days that included milestones, trips, and other special events from her first year.  I added stickers from the sticker menu or that I uploaded myself to decorate the page and make it a little more fun.

I hope you gained some inspiration on how you can create your own calendar page for your digital book project.  I am so excited to share more posts in this series in the future because I am pretty proud of how her baby book looks so far.  Next up on the blog: I will finally post about the teepee that I made for her 1st birthday!  

Sewing for Baby: Haven Romper

I am super excited to share this project with you today!  I love this pattern!  The pattern is from Violette Fields Threads and is called the Haven Dress and Romper.  The first thing that I love about this pattern is the versatility of it.  There are three main options: bubble shorts romper (what I chose for this project), pantaloons romper, and dress.  The sizes included are 6-12 months to 10 years. There are two different bodice options: a sun-suit bodice and a full coverage bodice.  The bodice can also include a lace (or any fabric really) inset piece.  For the shorts romper there is an option to add snaps which I chose for quick diaper changes.

I chose to make the bubble shorts version with the full coverage bodice without an inset.  For the fabrics I used a navy cotton fabric for the shorts and fabric from a vintage sheet for the bodice.  I used pre-made bias tape for the trim of the bodice and lace eyelet for the back straps.  I used pink KAM snaps for the snap panels.

The instructions of the pattern were very easy to follow and the pictures in the tutorial were great.  I love the vintage look of the pattern and I will be using it again and again.  I can't wait to make the dress version!

I was so excited to finish this project in time for Lyla's one year professional photos.  Notice that I used the same vintage sheet fabric in her teepee (don't worry, I will write a post on that project soon, I promise).  Isn't it just a darling romper!

Here is a look at the other posts in the Sewing for Baby series: