Colorful Diaper Bag

I have been missing for a little while. I just haven't done anything much to write about. With Mr. Sir gone, I have been keeping really busy. Visiting family, cleaning, reading, working, etc. etc.

But last night I needed to do something with my hands and for a while now I have been going crazy with my diaper bag.

 Yes , it is a big blue backpack. I wanted something that Mr. Sir wouldn't feel weird carrying around, it was big enough for cloth diapers. It worked and it was free. Win, win win. But now that I am doing all of the diaper bag carrying. I want something a little more.... well.... less blue backpacky. Also, 90 percent of the time, it has been a dumping ground for anything needed carrying.

So, to solve my problem of lack of pockets and blue backpackyness, I made a new bag. JoAnne's had this fabric on sale and in their remnant bin. I don't know if you realize this but anything in the remnant bin is 50% off the sale price of the fabric. So I always go scrounging through the bin, I like scraps. There is a lot you can do with 1/2 or 3/4 of a yard of fabric which is what a lot of the pieces are.

 

I came across this tutorial on Pinterest for a DIY messenger bag, I liked it but it didn't have enough pockets for me so as I went along, I added extra pockets.

I really like how it turned out. There are a few things that I would definitely change about it if I made it again. But honestly I whipped it out in about 4 hours and 2 of those hours were also spent distracting James. So for the time and money involved it is well worth it. It's also a bit classier than a big blue backpack.

 

Live and Love

Adding Fluff to the Fluff-Butt

James is cloth diapered. He has been for approximately 7 months now. Do you want to know what that means? That means his prefolds have been washed every other day for 7 months. Which also means that his prefolds are thinning out and falling apart. No longer can we just stick a prefold on him. We need to stuff them too or they end up sopping, soakey, wet. I have been toying with the idea of sewing him fun cloth diapers for ages now. So I started by taking the most beat up prefolds and turning them into some fitteds. I am still playing around with fit and soak. But this is what I am working with.

I figure that I can practice with his beat up prefolds. Once I get the fit and soak right I will make some from scratch.

I used WitteyBums pattern and idea for the prefitteds from here.
http://prefold2fitted.blogspot.com/2011/08/basic-serged-prefitteds.html

I need to toy with snaps too. At the moment I am using a snappi to keep it shut when not in a cover, while in a cover I don't bother clasping it. I also need to toy with the elastic and stretch it more. These whole things are a big game of trial and error.

Live and Love!

A Driving Cap Extraordinaire

Mr. Sir has a Guinness driving cap that we both absolutely love. I love it on him and he loves to wear it. The original plan was to make a matching one for James for his christening outfit (preferably one that didn't say Guinness on it) but that didn't really happen because I was too caught up in the outfit and ran out of time. But I found this tutorial at Bouncing Buttons crafts making it simple and attempted to make it smaller for James later. Well, I didn't make it nearly small enough and it ended up being the perfect size for Mr. Sir's 10 year old brother. Worked great as a birthday gift and he loves it! I highly recommend the tutorial, it is really easy and she has a pattern that prints right off of the computer.
Live and Love

**I am not getting anything for recommending the tutorial, I just really really liked it!

A Christening Outfit for $1.50

I was intent on making James's christening outfit. I started out wanting to make him a gown and ended up making him a little suit. I went to the thrift store and found a nice white mens shirt for $1.50. I made his little pants out of the sleeves and used pieces from the front and back to make his top. The collar and button placket is from the original mens shirt.

To make the onsie top I used this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew. The tutorial made their own collar but I just shortened the original collar by cutting it in the middle of the back, sewing it together and sewing a fine zigzag over my seam to finish it off nicely.

Then to make the little knicker/bloomers I just folded a pair of his other pants in half down the crotch, cut out the fabric from each sleeve of the shirt, added leg cuffs, a waistband, and a few buttons. The button closure on the front of the pants is fake and the waistband has elastic in the back.

The tie was a gift from a neighbor. I was going to make him a little bow tie with suspenders but the little necktie was just too darn cute to not have him wear.

Not bad for a buck fifty, if I do say so myself.
Live and Love

Whipped Shea Body Butter Concoction

So those of you that know me well, know I suffer from skin issues. Excema that is triggered by allergies. I found one cause of my allergies, cats. So the kitty found a new home and since then my skin has been better but not perfect. Winters here in the Midwest don't really help skin issues. A few months ago I started using coconut oil on my skin and it has worked wonders. Regular lotion makes my skin burn which isn't a good sign. So I switched to coconut oil. It took a week or two to actually start working and not make me feel oily. I also hated scraping it out of the jar with my fingernails in the wintertime and if I thawed it out, I ended up using way too much. So I needed an alternative.

A couple people have suggested trying shea butter and I decided that now is as good a time as any to try it out, but shea butter by itself is kind of oily. So after some googling I found a recipe for whipped shea butter.

I kind of mixed a few recipes that I found but mostly I used this blog post (http://www.rawmazing.com/homemade-body-butter-recipe)  and ended up using about 4 ounces unprocessed, unrefined shea butter (bought it off of amazon) about 2 ounces coconut oil and a quarter cup olive oil. I melted the shea butter to make sure I could get out any impurities (due to it being unrefined) then I chilled it again slightly and threw it in my kitchen aid mixer with the coconut oil and olive oil. I let it mix on medium for about 20 minutes. When it came out, I got lots of fluffy oily goodness. I put it in my old coconut oil jar. I didn't add any essential oils or flavors to it. I want to see if the basic recipe works before I start adding other stuff.

My plan is to use it as a body butter, replacing it with my many lotions that I typically use. I am gonna try it out for a month and I will be back to update you and let you know how well it works!
Live and Love

It kinda looks like putty, but feels like coolwhip.

Recycled Baby Leggings

So every year Mr.Sir gets me tall socks for Valentines day. I love these socks, and I have worn through the toes on a few pairs. Also, I hate toe socks. With a passion. My toes are meant to sit together all snug and comfy, not be separated. I also happened to have a pair of Halloween socks that I received from my late grandmother a few years before she died. I wanted to stretch the lives of these socks just a little bit, without having to deal with chilly toes.

So I took my holey-toe and toesocks and cut them off at the heel (or just above the toe confines). I folded down an edge and serged it down (if you are trying it, a zig-zag stitch works just as well), ironed and wha-la. Baby leggings for the wee-one.

We don't know what we are having, if it happens to be a boy, well, I don't think he will care if he is wearing pink leggings just at home.

They will be handy with the bulkier cloth diapers, so when hanging out at home we don't have to constantly take off pants to change the diaper.

 Live and Love

Knitting Dipes

You have probably been curious as to what I have been doing with all of my pregnant spare time lately. Do you wanna know??

I have been practicing my knitting.

Yup, knitting. Sitting watching entire seasons of TV show's and movies (the latest has been all 7 seasons of Monk) with the click clack of needles.

I have been knitting diaper 'soakers'. Technically soakers are made out of wool. They work as cloth diaper covers instead of PUL or vinyl pants. Lanolized wool has a self cleaning property meaning that you only have to handwash them about once a month unless they are poopy. They also breathe better for those babies that are prone to diaper rash. Not to mention they are completely adorable!

I knit my first three soakers out of acrylic because I wanted to practice and get the patterns down before I splurged on wool. The acrylic soakers won't last as long because I will end up washing them more, about as much as the PUL covers. The nice thing about acrylic soakers is that they don't need hand washing.

For the first yellow one I used the Super Soaker pattern found here http://www.spudandchloe.com/patterns/super-soakers/

Then for the purple and yellow ones I used the Plain Wrap pattern found here http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/whw-plain-wrap

Super Soaker

Purple Plain Wrap

Yellow Plain Wrap

Open Yellow Plain Wrap

I just bought some plain Peruvian Highland Wool and dyed it with Kool-Aid using this crockpot method (http://www.leethal.net/zine/?p=764). I can't wait to knit it into something. Right now I am either considering a kicking bag (only if I have enough yarn) or another diaper cover. Can't decide but I will sure post it when done. Now I need to go decide which one to start!

Forgive the sloppy wound ball of yarn, it is my first time winding a ball.

Live and Love

Knit as a Cube

I have been working on a project for a while now. Since I found out I was pregnant to be precise. It started as something else but like all good projects, it evolved.

At the time I needed some simple knitting to work on, something that I could do a row or two and just stuff in my bag. So I started knitting 10x10 blocks. Just random patterns, or no pattern at all. I just needed something to keep my hands busy. As I worked, I decided to turn it into a toy for my baby.

It turned into this; a squishy, pillow, cube toy. Yes, it is a little misshapen, but that is okay, makes it fun to throw at misbehaving husbands.
Live and Love!

Instructions:
Knit 6 -10x10 blocks, and then sew together in a cube.
Before sewing the last side together, keep 2 inches open to stuff it with and then close.
Easy peasy.

Tea/Coffee Cupboard

I am so excited about this that I have to post it. Mr.Sir and I got all motivated tonight and organized the tea and coffee cupboard. We moved all of our bulk tea's into little labeled jars so that we can see what we have easier. Yes, we drink that much coffee and tea that we have an entire cupboard dedicated to it. There is also hot chocolate mixed in there too.

Anyways, every time we go to the Natural Food Coop we always have way too much fun in the bulk tea and herb section. We have found that it is so much cheaper to buy the tea in bulk rather than in bags. It looks expensive when you look at the container (ex. 35.00/lb) but tea and herbs are so light it adds up really slowly. When drinking it, for just one mug we have a 'tea' spoon with holes in it, and for a pot of tea we just put it in the french press. I am not saying that we don't drink tea in bags, because we do. They are just so easy. But we also like our loose tea and our herbal tinctures with basil, oregano, and the such. It depends on our mood and the time of day.

I have also started making my own additions. A couple of those containers have home grown dried mint leaves and powdered orange peel that we have preserved ourselves. I don't have much in the way of an herb garden yet but next year I plan on putting a little more effort into one. It is so easy and takes very little time to make your own.

Live and Love

A Home for my Shiny's.

I have this bad habit of taking my jewelry off and just tossing it on top of my dresser, or dropping it in a drawer.
Not only that, but I have a decent amount of jewelry. It helps having a mother who is a jewelry artist (www.quiltedinclay.com). I can't always wear jewelry due to some excema that flares pretty badly at times but I love having it available for when I CAN wear it.



Anyways I decided that I needed a good DIY project to organize my jewelry and I came up with this.

It is just a long rectangular box that my laptop cord came in, I painted it. Added some roses on top (left over from our wedding cake that I haven't found a use for yet, no they are not edible). I then screwed in a bunch of screws and glued a couple of pearl buttons on to cover a couple of blemishes. Tada! Easy peasy. I  made two holes in the back and hung it on the wall with a couple of nails. I put my hairpiece from our wedding onto the top of it, the long skinny red box on top has a pearl necklace that my oldest sister got me. If you can see the paper that I pinned behind it. It is a love letter that Mr.Sir wrote to me once when we were apart. I have it there to remind me of how good he is to me.






A lot of my necklaces consist of a chain and then a pendant, I had this storage container on hand and decided to put my pendants all in it underneath the chain hooks. That way I can pick out my chain and pendant without digging through the drawer.

Then I needed a place for my earrings. What I really wanted to do was take a embroidery hoop and put lace inside, but alas I had neither hoop or lace. So what did I come up with? Yogurt lids. We go through a lot of yogurt. So I took two lids, cut out the inside, painted them black and glued in some tulle. I finished two of them, but I think I am going to do two more to
spread out my earrings a little better. I also need a system for my bracelets.



Hope you enjoyed.
Live and Love