Baby: Music Mobile!!

Hello there!  I'm so excited to announce that I've officially added baby mobiles to my shop!! I was inspired to start making these for friends and family and I'm pumped to now make them for others as well.   I've added a Baby Goods & Supplies section to my shop and am featuring a few styles I've already made.

Baby C was born in late July and earlier in the summer mama gave me some basic ideas about what was she was thinking up for the baby room: an awesome music and travel theme (side note: totally love this!).  She then talked loosely about some of the colors she was going to incorporate into a mural she was paining on the wall for this special little nugget.  Yeah, Baby C's mom is an uber-talented artist - no pressure!!  I took this info as inspiration, Googled around to get a bit more, and below is the music themed mobile I came up with.  The mobile was completely made from scratch using felt for the base of the different music instruments.

Here are some closeups: 

 

I've already gotten a sweet photo of Baby C enjoying/memorized by the mobile!! Happy baby win!!  Baby C is uber-precious and I'm so glad that mom and baby (and dad too) are doing really well!!


Check back next week for a DIY tutorial on Santa Pillows.  You can check out a preview on my Facebook site: www.facebook.com/lavenderpaperhearts

HAPPY TURKEY DAY TOMORROW!!

Three Cheers for Baby Buffalo!!

So this past weekend, one of my best friends, Jen, had her baby shower in California!! I'm so sad I couldn't be there to celebrate.  My mom went to join in the fun and she brought along some more gifts from me.  I know that Ali & Lauren threw her a rockin' good time!!

That said, I thought I'd share a few of the gifts I made for Baby Buffalo (thus named because his sonogram looked like a lil' buffalo hanging out in there)!!

Since BB's room is Star Wars themed I knew right away that that would direct the theme for the mobile I made for his room!!  I learned in doing this project that I know NOTHING about Star Wars. I mean, I knew some of the characters, but I didn't know how they necessarily related to one another (beyond the "bad guys" and the "good guys").  I asked the mama-to-be which would be some of the top characters she'd want to possibly see in the mobile and then I went from there by picking - haha - well, the characters I thought were the cutest.

Here are the characters I picked:

Chewy, Storm Trooper, Yoda, Darth Vader, and an Ewok
This mobile is now available in my Etsy Shop. You can find it HERE. 

I usually try to add depth to my mobile so the baby has a lot to look at so I knew I wanted to add some planets.  I did my best to try and research who came from where and then picked the planets I figured I could replicate the easiest.

• Bespin hung above Vader and it's the planet where Vader and Luke Skywalker dueled. 
• Dagobah is above Yoda, because it's where Yoda trained Luke Skywalker. 
• Endor hung above my Ewok because that's where the Ewoks are from!! 

Here are a few more shots of the mobile. It's hard to capture each character since the darn thing kept swinging around, but that is the point after all.

Then, because I kinda couldn't help myself, I made him some stylin' duds. 

I know babies don't really need shoes, but he'll need to keep his toes warm, right?!! Also, these shoes were so cute I basically couldn't stop because of cuteness overload.  I picked out the checker print as it reminded me of slip-on vans.  This is a bad cell phone picture and I think it was too hot out when I made these and my brain was melting a bit because I really should have taken a picture of them from the front too.  You get the basic idea though. 

Here's to wishing Jen & Jeff the healthiest, happiest, bouncing baby boy come September!! He's not even here yet, and I can't wait to snuggle this little one sometime soon!!


Again, the Star Wars Mobile can be found in my Etsy Shop HERE.

Dollar Store Crafts Wedding Craft Contest

Well, I didn't win the Dollar Store Crafts Wedding Craft Challenge.  The winner made a super cute silver bird feeder decoration piece.  I did, however, get 3rd place for my bridesmaid placemat clutches!

You can check out the other runner ups here: Dollar Store Crafts

The Waiting Game Has Me Crafting Up a Storm!

This is my second submission for the Dollar Store Crafts Wedding Crafts Contest!!

I'm in a weird waiting period between the time that I've submitted my dissertation to my committee and when I actually will hold my defense (which is actually tomorrow.  This post got pushed back a bit. Wish me luck!!) Since I've done everything else I can think of for my dissertation (bibliography, appendices, discographies, miscellaneous paperwork, etc.) I've been using the rest of my time reading bad (read: AWESOME) books and crafting up a storm for a variety of different projects.

E and I attending and or are in a few weddings this summer so these were the first few projects I tackled.  Recently I made some banners (using freezer paper) for my cousin's wedding and a hair piece that my sister-in-law will wear on her wedding day. See my Etsy Shop Lavender Paper Hearts for hair pieces! I'll have a similar hair piece coming very soon!!

 

This was my first freezer paper project which I made a few months back for my SIL's bridal shower. They were used as mini-table runners for her shower and looked sweet under her cake.  My SIL is also going to use them to hang on the backs of their chairs on their wedding day!! They could even be made into little door hangs, or if you added a small dowel and grabbed a cute Sheppard's hook from the Dollar Tree you've got an instant welcome yard sign for any event!! 

I also used freezer paper on the wrapping paper for my cousin's wedding present.  I had to press it VERY LIGHTLY so that it didn't tear off the paper when I removed the stencil, but I think it looks pretty cute (if I do say so myself!)  You can find the paper bow tutorial here. I'm kind of in love with it!!

Seriously, if you haven't tried freezer paper stencils you totally should.  These stencils are actually pretty easy to do if you have a little time and patience. You can use them on all kinds of things too! We even had a little baby onesie decorating party for a baby shower this last January!!

Freezer Paper Stencil Tutorial - For Banners or Monograms


For this project I used the following supplies:

• Freezer Paper -I found mine at my local big box store for $7. I have enough to make stencils for the rest of my life.
• Flour Sack Towels from the Dollar Tree - If you don't want to sew be sure to check out the towels. I found that sometimes they have all 4 sides hemmed, sometimes just 3, sometimes just two.  It saves a little time if you can find some that are hemmed on all four sides, but it's a quick zip through a sewing machine if they're not finished. 
• Paper clips or binder clips - on hand
• Acrylic Paint(s) & Brush(s) or Sponges (I used sponges from the Dollar Tree) - on hand 
• Paper, computer, printer - Basically you need these to get your stencil - if you draw it by hand even easier!
• X-acto knife - on hand
  
• Iron - on hand
  
• Cardboard - on hand - I don't know about you, but I LOVE to keep the cardboard that comes with dresses and shirts that I buy online. I may have a supply hoarding problem.
  
• Sewing machine (optional)- If you find a flour sack with hemmed sides you're golden OR if you like the rustic chic look be bold and don't bother to hem!!

Step 1: Basically what you want to do first is figure out what awesomeness you want to create into a stencil.  I used a free online downloadable monogram from Wedding Chicks (who have amazing free downloads!)  Because I knew my cousin wasn't into anchors for her wedding day I used photoshop to modify the design and I added two sea stars which were more her speed.  (Yay for beach weddings!!)  Since the flour sack towels are 3ft by 3ft I blew up my image in Publisher so I could print it poster size. I then taped the sheets together.  (Just to give you an idea - I had 16 sheets total for the larger monogram in this tutorial.)

TA-DAAAA - one ginormous stencil!! You can see in the top right hand corner that I am apparently not very good at matching up lines. I had to fudge part of the swirl by drawing it in my hand in order to make them meet... it seemed easier than taking the whole thing apart and retaping. 

Step 2: Now, because the stencil was so big, I had to tape together two strips of freezer paper. I don't have a photo, but I just laid the two sheets on top of the stencil to see how big they needed to be and then got out my tape and stuck the sheets together.  Note: The shiny side is the part that sticks to the fabric so you want to draw on the dull side. When you open up the package of freezer paper this will be very obvious. Next you'll need your pencil or sharpie and you just start tracing away so that you copy your design onto your freezer paper. *Helpful hint: I also paper clipped the stencil and the freezer paper together since it was such a large job and I didn't want it to shift! I would say it took me about 15 minutes of laying on my kitchen floor to trace this onto the freezer paper.

Step 3: Next I got out a thick piece of cardboard and my x-acto knife and I started to carefully cut out the stencil.  **REMEMBER TO SAVE THE LITTLE FILLER BITS - I don't have a photo of this step, but you can see in the photo below how I had to fill in the bubble part of the letter B. These are strips/shapes that you cut out but you need to remember to save them because they fill in the letter - without them my B would look like a weird D.  I had a few more of these filler bits from some of the swirls too so I laid them out in order as I cut them out so I would remember where they went.

Step 4: Once you've cut out your entire stencil you want to iron your flour sack to make sure it has no creases. This will REALLY help you out when you try to iron on the stencil - I promise!! (I tried to cheat this on my second flour sack and it was terrible and required a lot of fixing. Learn from me - don't be lazy!)  Then carefully lay out your gimongo stencil on top of the flour sack and fiddle with it for a bit until it lays down exactly how you want it.  Leave out the filler bits for now.  After setting your iron to medium high heat with no steam start in one corner and carefully begin to iron on the stencil.  Take your time because you want to make sure it's iron down correctly. If you make a mistake you can carefully pull up the paper (CAREFULLY) and re-iron it into place.  Once you've ironed the whole stencil go back and place in the little filler pieces one by one and press them with the iron onto the flour sack.  Your finished work should look sort of like the image above.

Step 5: Now that you've got your stencil in place it's time to paint.  Put a piece of cardboard behind your fabric/stencil so that it won't leak onto whatever surface you're painting on. For good measure I clipped my fabric to the cardboard so that it wouldn't wiggle and smudge paint on the back side.

Using a brush or a sponge (I used a sponge I cut in half) carefully begin to blot on your paint.  You don't want to add too much at first because the fabric will soak it up. 

Step 6: Once you've applied all of your paint let the whole thing dry for a while.  I let mine dry for about 30 minutes before I attempted to peel the stencil off. I wanted to reuse the stencil for a second flour sack to save me some time so I peeled it away really carefully.

You can reuse the stencils about 2-3 times before they start to not really work any more.  To reapply the stencil I used a sheet of packing paper between the stencil (which now had paint on it) and my iron so I wouldn't hurt my iron - it worked perfectly!

If it's a smaller less detailed stencil you can just cut a new one. For the little monogrammed banners I made for my sister-in-law I just cut a new stencil.  You also might notice that those are smaller - I only used one flour sack that I cut in half and then I hemmed up the raw edges with my sewing machine.

These banners are going to be used as decoration for my cousin's wedding.  They can be hung up on a bar, draped across a table - you could even get a dowel and some yarn and hang them from a sheppard's hook (the Dollar Tree usually has really cute ones in the summertime!!)

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Lastly, be sure to check back frequently - I'm really excitedly working with a fantastic wedding blog, Big Day for 10k, to  host a giveaway for one of my hair pieces in the next few weeks!! I'll make a post as soon as it's all nailed down!! :)

Please follow me on this blog or 'Like' my shop on Facebook for product updates in my shop and other fun posts from my blog!

Other Crafts: Whale Baby Mobile

I thought I'd also share some other crafts I work on from time to time as a way to mix it up a little bit.  There has been a virtual baby-palooza amongst my extended circle of friends lately. It's really exciting to have so many new babies to snuggle and it's also been fun to make things for some of these little people!

This is a mobile I made for my husband's cousin's little one.  The happy couple came up with a whale/ocean theme for baby Owen's room.  Originally I went searching for one on Etsy but I came across only one listing for this apparently very specific theme (who knew?!).  While the one I found was lovely, it didn't really fit the cuddly aesthetic I was looking for.  I decided to attempt to make one myself and figured if it was terrifying I could always start my baby gift search over.

To make the little whales I cut out and hand-sewed each little one and made sure to add some batting so they'd be a little squidgy.  The little whale faces actually had me the most perplexed because I could decide how to go about making them. (Clearly I was over thinking it.)  I ended up using the back end of a paint brush to get perfect little circles - go figure.  I added the details of the spouts (though E rejected my first attempt because he said they looked like a particular part of the male anatomy) and anchors to give the mobile a little more depth and character.  The final touch was the little crystals.  I thought they would be nice and eye catching for baby Owen!!  In the end the baby mobile was well received by Owen's mom and dad and apparently it matched the room perfectly (which is awesome, because I've never seen their house before, let alone the baby's room!)

Now I've got two more baby mobiles in my summertime crafting queue!! :)  ETA: Actually, I've almost finished one... but I'm not going to share pictures for a while... bwhahaha!!

Later this week be on the look out for two different DIY tutorials. I'm submitting them to the Dollar Tree Wedding Crafting Competition!