Baby Onesie Sets

Given my love for pets and babies in bow ties it was a given that I had to add a Baby & Pet Bow Tie onesie set to my Etsy shop. Now baby and pup can match for adorable everyday wear or for photo ops. I also will be adding headbands and matching pet bow ties to the shop in September! Either set would make a great shower gift for couples with pets. 

Baby & Pet Bow Tie sets can be found here. 

Click here for a direct link to the Onesie section of my Etsy Shop Lavender Paper Hearts!

Baby Onesies: The Maverick!

In early June of this year I officially added Bow Tie Onesies to my Etsy shop.  I also added a onesie inspired by the film Top Gun called "The Maverick" which was inspired by Tom Cruise's character's name in the film.

I've been thinking about some version of this onesie for, geez, at least 2 1/2 years now but never had it come to life until recently. I had originally envisioned a simple stencil of some aviators but when my hand went ever so slightly wackadoodle while painting and of course, I got the teensiest spot of black paint on the collar of the onesie. Most people probably would NEVER have noticed but it bothered me for 3 days straight until I came up with a solution!! I'd recently begun experimenting with making my own quilt binding so I thought I'd pick up some grey fabric and I could sew a binding or sorts around the top collars of the onesie giving it an ever so slight nod to the Navy flight suits they wear in the film.

The onesie ended up looking even better than I imagined so I added them to the shop. I've already sold a few of these!!

 Click here to buy The Maverick

With the new styles in the onesie section of my shop you can bundle up quite the shower gift!! These two onesies were sent out to a customer in Washington.

To purchase onesies and check out other items in my shop, visit: Lavender Paper Hearts Handmade

Sweet Dreams Mobile

Sometimes I have ideas for baby mobiles that just need to be realized. For a while now, I've had the idea to do an all sweets or ice cream themed mobile would be so much fun for a nursery. So one afternoon I just had to sit down and make it happen. 

 

The fun part about this mobile is that it could totally be customized to your tastes. All ice creams, all cupcakes, etc.  What sweet treats would you put in a mobile? A slice of pie? Cake? The possibilities are endless and so much fun!! 

To contact me about making a custom mobile for your child's nursery, please send me a convo over at my Etsy shop Lavender Paper Hearts!!

Dr. Seuss Themed Mobile

I just finished up this Dr. Seuss themed mobile for someone to give as a gift at a baby shower. The baby's room is going to be Dr. Seuss themed so I came up with this mobile that incorporates different elements from many books, since we weren't sure what the couple's favorite might be. Similarly, I usually design mobiles for specific nursery rooms, but because we weren't sure of the final room would look like I streamlined the design so it incorporated primary colors and was a bit more simple. The finished result is a polished mobile that incorporates great colors and would work in many different settings.

The Cat in the Hat

Green Eggs and Ham

The Lorax

Oh the Places You'll Go

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Using a new fun app I found for my phone called the Party Party app, I made this little video while working on the mobile ring! 

The Dr. Seuss Mobile can be found in my shop!! 

The (Mis)Adventures of Phoebe & Paige

The latest custom mobile I finished up is called: The (Mis)Adventures of Phoebe & Paige. This client wanted a mobile that captured the fun and silly personalities of her dogs Phoebe and Paige for her son's nursery and she presented me with some great ideas and information to start off with. Both of these lovely lady dogs seem to have very strong and yet lighthearted personalities. One of the greatests parts of working with this client was to read how playfully and lovingly she described her dogs personalities. It might sound silly, but it's these kinds of details that let me get a sense of perspective on the dogs themselves, but I also learn about the personalities of the client, their owner. 

First we have Paige, a dainty little Min Pin. My client described Paige as "shy and girly. She sits with her front paws crossed like a lady." Paige also sounds like she can get excitable as she spins around in circles a lot, but she also gets a bit nervous and skittish at times. So, I sort of envisioned her as an excitable yet proper Southern Belle who maybe gets the vapors from time to time. 

Here is a baby photo of Phoebe the Boston Terrier. Phoebe was described as, "is basically exactly like Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toons." She adores her owners and anyone who comes to visit. She also loves to take time to smell the roses (except she's too enthusiastic and she ends up sticking her face in the flowers and then sneezing her face off.) 

Just look at these ladies. How cute are they?!!

Here is Lady Paige as the uber-Southern Belle, complete with pearl necklace and lace gloves. 

Here, Paige is showing off her sort of spastic and constant movement in rollerskates. Paige is also partially blind so her sort of clumsy sort of excitable manner is only heightened because of this so I added a blind fold to play up the loving inside joke for her owners.

  

This piece features both ladies in a hot air balloon - but with all balloons. It's a play on a piece of art called Mr. Penguin Balloons Print by Showler & Showler that my client said served as an inspiration for decorating his room.  

Here Phoebe is taking time to smell the roses (and also sneeze because she does it 100%).  I made really small flowers and added some white cotton fabric to her other paw to give her a hanky. 

These flower details are in the early stages of drying. My long tweezers and sharp scissors definitely came in handy for these.  

Phoebe is apparently quite the adventurer. She apparently is so adventurous in fact that she's permanently injured her leg from being so carefree and jumping off of things more often than she should. 

As always, I like to add a few subtle extras to add layers and depth to the mobile.

The finished product is one I'm really proud of, and one I hope their baby boy loves looking at! This client was also a dream to work with. She had some great ideas to get me started in the right direction and she gave me so much fun backstory that I felt like I really got to know not only her, but her personality, and that helps me translate what she's looking for in the perfect mobile for her baby boy. 

xoxoxo

If you have an idea for a custom mobile, I'd love to hear it!! You can contact me through my Etsy shop Lavender Paper Hearts. 

Custom Mobile: Little Bugs

I think one of my favorite things that I make in my shop Lavender Paper Hearts is baby mobiles. I love working with customers to come up with a design that ends up being exactly what they're looking for. Plus, my customers have AMAZING ideas that are often times things I never would have thought of.  Plus, working together to help make something that will help their baby's drift off to sleep is an extremely rewarding feeling.

Recently I had the pleasure of making a custom mobile for some dear friends of mine. When we started talking about what they were looking for for their baby's room, Jen and Jeff sent me some photos of concert posters they were having framed to use in Baby Bowie's room. The concert posters, as you can see below, were really cute retro-inspired brightly colored cartoons with bugs of all sorts. The bugs served as the jumping off point for the mobile. Jen and Jeff gave me a lot of flexibility to go in any buggy inspired direction I wanted. I tried my best to mimic at least a few of the bugs in the posters below as well as added a few bugs I thought would be a cute addition to the overall aesthetic of the final design.

I was also asked to incorporate the lightning bolt from David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album as a nod to Baby Bowie's in-utero nickname and now actual middle name! 

Here's what I came up with: 

I'm not gonna lie, I love how the wings turned out here. They added a nice extra layer of complexity to the mobile, and they were flying bugs, so, duh, they were necessary too!!

In addition to the rainbow featured above with the bee in the photo above, here are two other little extras I added to the mobile. I like to add what I call extras as a way to add further depth to the mobile. They give baby even more thing to dream about.  Below are the David Bowie lightning bolt and cloud.

I could not be more elated for Jen and Jeff. They will experience the true definition of overwhelming joy as they welcome little rainbow Lena Bowie in to the world, and I can't think of two people who deserve as much in this moment. I cannot wait to snuggle this little one in January when I head to California for baby-palooza.

XOXOXOXO

If you have an idea for a custom mobile, I'd love to hear it.  You can contact me through my shop Lavender Paper Hearts over on Etsy.  I have another custom mobile in my shop work queue that I can't wait to share with you once it's done in January. This one is puppy adventure inspired and is going to be so much fun!!

Custom Baby Mobile: Family Fun

In July I was commissioned to make a super-duper custom mobile for a special little baby.  Baby's aunt asked me to make a mobile that reflected mom and dad, and their three dogs!

The specifics: Auntie requested that baby's parents be dressed in jerseys from their favorite college football teams - Oklahoma University and Louisiana State University. I was told mom loves to wear black eye liner and fierce eye lashes so I was sure to do them up, and I was told that dad loves to rock a goatee and has bright blue eyes!

*I usually throw in a toothpick to give a sense of the mobile figure's size. 

Look at this teeny tiny jersey!

This gives you a sense of how I built their faces. It takes a lot of layering to get the features just right. 

Here is a photo of two of the puppies in progress. I worked hard to make them as three dimensional as possible.

Here are the photos of the dogs that my buyer sent me: 

 

Bear is a Newfoundland and is a big boy at 200 lbs. 

Drake, a Clumber Spaniel, is actually the smallest at 65 lbs. 

Nancy Reagan is a Great Pyrenees and weighs 130 lbs. 

I did my best to incorporate each puppies specific spots, coat textures, and other details.  

I ended up adding a shopping bag above mom since she loves to shop, and a football above dad.  Did you know footballs have 8 laces? Google told me.  

I included some of my homemade dog treats to the package for the dogs and shipped it off. It's being given to the new parents at their family baby debut party and I hope they love it!! 

You can check out my other baby mobiles in my shop: HERE. Do you have a custom mobile idea you'd like to see come to life? Contact me on Etsy at Lavender Paper Hearts or you can drop me an email at LavenderPaperHearts at gmail dot com.