Baby Crafting

I didn't do much sewing during my pregnancy with Hannah, but I like to make something for my babies. Hannah spits up a lot and most of her bibs are hand me downs or they are super big on her yet, so I made some ridiculously cute bibs. Tutorial and pattern here.

 The tutorial had no measurements for the pleating and I'm not super happy with the spacing, but if I didn't say anything, I'd be one of the few to notice.

I like to no fuss option of using lace instead of the pleating, cute and quick.

 Of course, it's super easy and fast to do no embellishments.

A little reverse appliqué is cute, too.

Before Christmas I wanted to crochet myself a hat. I found a pattern I liked and when I didn't have the proper size hook or yarn to make the gauge requirements, I decided I would practise using what I had and I figured it might fit Abby or Hannah. Sure enough it looks awfully cute on my Hannah. I ended trying one for me later and it was a big fail. Oh well.

Spring is here!

Hello! I hope you are all well and finally enjoying spring, wherever you are. Today the sun is shining and the window is open letting in a delicious spring breeze. What a relief! I have a bit of crafty goodness to share today.

In honour of spring and the hope of it's coming, I redecorated my tree. Apple blossoms and butterflies seemed like a nice and spring~y thing to decorate with.

Behind the tree you'll see my new wall art. I simply cut out letters out of foam board and painted them with acrylic paint. You can't tell in the picture, but the "o" is metallic teal and quite lovely.

I have had fun over the last few days preparing a few packages for my prayer partner in Romania. My friend's parents are missionaries in Romania and have connected some of us gals to pray with a lady in Romania. We were invited to send little gifts to our prayer partners and since our missionaries are coming to Canada this month I put together three packages (to be staggered in their delivery) to send to my prayer partner. I don't know anything about her except her name and what she looks like. I do have a nice picture of her and a list of suggested things to pray for her. Many of the families are poor and in need of consistent jobs, firewood and food. These are basic needs that we take so much for granted.

I wondered what my friend would like. I wanted to give her pretty and useful gifts that aren't frivolous, but might make her feel special for having received them. Here's what I came up with:

The first thing I thought that would be pretty and practical was an apron. I sewed this one up with the waist straps adjusting the neck strap - super handy and cute. Then I thought, I could sew up a little zipper pouch to put it in and fill with little goodies. The picture below shows some of what I put in, but in the end it contained the apron, chocolate, a broach, 4 different flavours of tea, a letter with pictures of my family in it and a felt banner of butterflies and hearts. I used google translate to help me with the letter. I wrote it out by hand in English and then Romanian, sentence by sentence. 

The second package I worked on came with a sudden inspiration. A sewing kit is useful and could be made pretty. I've made these little potholder bags before. They're super handy and a quick project.
I then had fun filling it with supplies. (click to enlarge the picture) I filled two little baggies with buttons. One in rainbow colours and one in black and white. I filled another little baggie with rainbow coloured hair elastics, I use these to sew with all the time. I printed out some cute thread bobbins and wound some thread onto them.  I put in scissors, a stitch ripper, tailors chalk, zippers, lace and ribbon.

I also made a needle book, found the idea on Pinterest (of course) and it's genius!

The last package has a bunch of pretty little things. If it had a commercial wrapper on it, I covered it or replaced it with pretty paper and used google translate to label them. I whipped up another zipper pouch (why use wrapping paper when you can put it in something useful and cute?) and it contains 4 more teas, 2 packages of lifesavers, lip balm, hand lotion, bobby pins for her hair, a little note and a mini bar of my favourite bar soap.

"For your hair"

 

Don't they look cute?

 Abigail has also been getting her craft on. It started with a special picture for Grandma Ang on her birthday.

Abby didn't want Grandpa to feel left out though, so she made this...

"tell Grandpa that it isn't meant to be paper underwear with rhinoceros teeth, but it's meant to be a castle."

Now you know!