31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 25 {Decorated Onesies}

Welcome to Day 25! You can find the other 31 Days posts here.

Everyone knows that onesies are a necessity for a baby, so they make a great gift.  It's even better when they aren't just the store bought onesies, but are personalized and unique!  The great thing is that they don't take too long to make.  And they can be quite affordable too.  Craft stores (Michael's, JoAnn's) sell Gerber onesies in a multi-pack for about $10.  If you have a coupon you can get 5 or 6 onesies for about $5-6!  And with dye (I've used Rit dye successfully) you can make them unique colors too!
There are lots of ways to embellish a onesie...

1. Appliqued Onesies

Image Source: Bump Smitten

 
How adorable are these!  My favorite is the turtle.  You don't have to do anything elaborate, just a simple shape adhered with something fusible (Heat N Bond) and outlined in a simple topstitch is perfect! 

2. Simple Onesie Dress

Image Source: Prudent Baby

With just a little fabric, you can make a onesie into a complete outfit for a little girl!  Prudent Baby has a super simple tutorial for a onesie dress.  You could even embellish the top to add to the cute factor!

3.  Painted Onesie

Image Source: Faye Dodges Zombies

 
I love this one and will definitely be making it for our little girl!  The flower stems were painted on with a freezer paper stencil and the flowers are fabric circles sewed on.  You could also use rosettes and use fabric glue to adhere them (that stuff is strong!).  I'll be doing a freezer paper stencil tutorial after the 31 days, so stick around if you're interested in learning how.

4.  Heat Transfer Onesie

Image Source: Homemade By Jill

If you have a way to cut out heat transfer material (Silhouette, Cricut or super awesome scissor skills) heat transfer is a quick and simple way to embellish!  I haven't tried it with my Silhouette yet, but I will be soon!


5.  Ruffled Onesie

Image Source: UCreate

Who can resist a ruffled bum?!  I know I can't, and I'm sure other mommas would say the same!  Ruffles don't take long to make, so this could be done in less than 10 minutes.

I hope you are onesie embellishing inspired!  Have you made any embellished onesies?  Please share if you have!

31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 20 {Fort Kit}

Welcome to Day 20! You can find the other 31 Days posts here.

Today's gift idea is a fort kit for the imaginative child in your life.  What a great idea!  It would be perfect for almost any child from about 5 to 10 years old. 

The items that you could include in the fort kit are:

• several flat sheets (I'd say 2 - 4, and work best if you sew strings/ties on the edges to hang the sheets up)
• rope (to drape sheets over)
• clothespins (to attach sheets to rope)
• suction cups (to put on wall to hold up sheet)
• flashlight
• large clips ( to attach sheets to whatever is available)
• any other fort building accessory you can think of!

Saltwater Kids has a great tutorial for making a fort  as well as a tag that you can print for your fort kit bag!  Bloom has another tutorial you can use.  Would you all include anything else in the fort kit?

31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 11 {Kids Quiet Book}

Welcome to Day 11! You can find the other 31 Days posts here.

Since we are still expecting our first child (and we should find out TODAY if it's a boy or girl!!!!), I still have some time to make this craft.  It's such a great idea and I can't think of a child who wouldn't like it!  I don't know if you have seen some of the blog-mom's quiet books, but I will share my favorites. 

Last year Oopsey Daisy made this quiet book.  I can't include every page so click on over and check hers out! 

So cute and creative!  This book was for a boy but some pages could be used for a girl or made a little more "girly".  If you are going to make one be sure to visit her site, she has a template for some of the pages!  She also gives some details on how she made it.

Alison at Oopsey Daisy also made a color book for her son using scraps.  I love this idea too! 

This next quiet book is A-mazing!!  It was made by a friend of the girls over at The Crafting Chicks.

I just love the bright fabrics and those felt animals are amazing!  You can see The Crafting Chicks quiet books here and here. Such great inspiration!  Are you getting tons of ideas in your head about what to put in a quiet book?  Because I am! 

31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 9 {Letter Bean Bags}

Welcome to Day 9! You can find the other 31 Days posts here.

The future teacher in me likes to give educational gifts to children, especially kids that are not in school yet.  My favorite gift is alphabet bean bags.  There are quite a few ways that you can make these so I will share some that I have found. 

Image Source: etsy

I like these felt bean bags with the letters as reverse appliques.  They could also be done as normal appliques sewn on top.

Image Source: The Crafty Cupboard

The bean bags above are made out of cotton fabric with the letters painted on using freezer paper stencils.  I just love the fabric she used for the beanbags for her daughter, and that she had her daughter paint the letters on.  How fun!  Lil Blue Boo has a similar tutorial with an alphabet template you can download to make your freezer paper stencils. 

Image Source: Dollar Store Crafts

The bean bags above are made out of old t-shirts, so you may not even have to buy fabric if you have enough t-shirts.  Awesome!  I also liked that on one side is the uppercase letter and the other side has the lower case letter.  Very smart!

I haven't decided which ones I will make, but probably one of the first two, or both!

Hope you all are having a great Sunday!

31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 6 {Crayon Roll}

You can find my other 31 Days posts here.

Ever since I saw a crayon roll when I first joined the blog-world, I have wanted to make one!  I still haven't, but hope to change that soon.  It is a great birthday or Christmas gift for toddlers or children (even teens that are into drawing).  Here are some of my favorite examples and tutorials.

This cute polka dotted pencil roll is from Martha Stewart's website. (I just love looking around her site!)  My favorite part about this pencil roll and tutorial is that it is made out of a place mat!  That really makes it a pretty affordable, fast and simple project (if you can find a place mat cute enough). Also, you can make it for colored pencils, markers, or any other writing/coloring utensil whereas most other tutorials are for crayons.

The above crayon roll was made by The Pleated Poppy.  There is a tutorial available at the link.  It seems to be a pretty straight forward tutorial, just quite a bit of steps.  And it's all straight lines which is great for a beginner's sewing project.

The above crayon roll was made by Make it and Love It for her daughter's erasable crayons (so it's good for markers, pencils, etc.)  This is one of my favorite blogs for sewing tutorials and ideas.  I recommend you take a look around.

To finish off this gift, it would be great to give filled with crayons/markers and a coloring book or two!  Or if the recipient is a crafty kid, some construction paper, stickers, etc. would be fun to include.

Hope you all have a great day!  The weekend is almost here!

31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 5 {Hooded Bath Towel}

For other 31 Days posts, go here.  Is it me or is October going by fast!?!  The 5th day already?

If you have seen the hooded towels that they sell for babies then you know they are small and very thin.  If you're a parent then you probably stopped using them before your child turned one.  I recently had a friend ask me to make hooded towels for her two kids, and it was quite an easy project!  It took me about 1-2 hours to make 3 hooded towels.  Here are the towels I made (for 2 girls and boy).

In case you were wondering, the teal and yellow were for the girl and the green for the boy.  To make the hooded towels I started with a tutorial from Prudent Baby, but found that I liked the tutorial over at Simple Bliss better (it was a little easier to follow and the hood is bigger, so it should last a little longer as the child grows).

Cost: Less than $10.  I purchased towels (a bath towel and hand towel) on sale at Target so one finished towel cost me about $8 plus the strip of fabric I had on hand.  Towels might be cheaper at Wal Mart if that's more convenient for you.

Time Commitment: 30-50 minutes per towel, less as you make more and get better at sewing them.  I found the third towel turned out the best and was the easiest. 

This is a great baby shower gift, or even a 1st birthday or Christmas gift.  And it can be done by someone with any sewing skill level, even if you are just learning to sew.  It would be a great first project!

Hope you all have a great day!  See you tomorrow!

I'm also linking up with Christina @ Christina's Adventures for her 20 Below Thursday!

31 Days of Handmade Gifts: Day 1 {Bow Holder}

Welcome to Day of of 31 Days of Handmade Gifts!  If you are looking for any of the other 31 Days Posts, you can click on the "31 Days of Handmade Gifts" tab or go here.  If you are wondering what the 31 days is about, you can read about it in my post yesterday. 

Today's gift idea is a bow holder for a little girl.  I have made two of these for friends having baby girls and they were a huge hit!  Here are the two I made.

 

 

The great thing about the bow holders is that they can be personalized with the girl's name and the colors of her room and/or bedding (which is what I did for the two above).

How to Make:
1. I used acrylic paint to paint the background on an 8x10 canvas (that has a wood frame).
2. The names and bird were cut out of cardstock using my Silhouette (because I cannot freehand paint that well).
3. I then used modge podge to attach the name to the canvas.
4. Next I used fabric glue to glue two pieces of ribbon together to be the bow holders.
5. Then I used my staple gun to attach the ribbon to the canvas.  To cover up the raw ribbon edge at the bottom I glued bows on.
6. Using ribbon I made a holder at the top and attached that using my staple gun as well.
7. And to make it an even better gift you can attach bows, flowers or hair clips to the bow holder!

Cost: Less than $10 (depending on the canvas you get and which supplies you have on hand-my canvas was on sale at JoAnn's and I only had to purchase the pink and green ribbon)

Time Commitment: About 2 hours or less (most time consuming part for me was deciding what to do!)

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Day 2!

Ric Rac Owl Toy Pattern Review

One of my favorite blogs to read, See Kate Sew, invited some of her readers to become pattern testers.  I jumped at the chance to sew something new and was selected to review her newest pattern, the Ric Rac Owl Toy!  I was very excited to get started.  I selected a solid pink and black and white polka dot cotton fabrics that I had on hand (purchased from JoAnn's).  Here is my finished owl!

Isn't she such a cutie?!   If we have a girl, it will be the first thing I have sewed for her!  And a boy, then I guess I will save it for later.  :)

If you are interested in making your own sweet Ric Rac Owl, head on over to Kate's blog or her shop where you can purchase the pattern!  She has some other great toy patterns available so be sure to check those out too!  The dino is perfect for a little boy! Also, if you are wanting to learn to sew, Kate has some great tutorials and posts to get you started.

Little Blue Truck

I made this truck for the 1st birthday of one of our friend's son.  It was my first time not sewing on a straight line, so I was proud of my progress!  To make the truck I followed Ashley's tutorial over at Make it and Love it.  I changed the "embellishments" a little to match the truck in the book.  It was my first time sewing a stuffed toy, so it wasn't perfect (to me) but to a toddler it is!

If you have not visited Ashley's site or looked at her tutorials, please check them out.  They are so detailed and easy to follow, not to mention some great end results!