Baby Girl's Quilt

Every pretty baby girl needs a quilt. 

Baby Greta's quilt is based on this pattern... with just a few modifications (namely being about 6x bigger) I made the blocks as instructed, then sashed it with 3 1/2" strips all around. My very favorite part is the aqua binding...

Crib sheets are the simplest thing ever to make. Here are some very easy to follow instructions - and it makes the quilt seem extra special to have matching sheets! What I {L-O-V-E} about homemade sheets is that you can choose a fabric that is high quality and very very soft. Sometimes store bought crib sheets are like sandpaper... and what baby wants that?

(10 weeks!)

Greta loves her quilt!

<3 AmberLou

sharing at a few of these parties... :)

The Knights Who Say "Ee!"

Today is my kids' first Halloween ever. Really.


No, I'm not one of those people who hates Halloween, but every year from October 25th until November 5th, our family has gone camping, and so we've never bothered with Halloween. 


Kindergarten changes everything!


My son came home from Kindergarten in early October, and said "Hey Mom, there is this day, it's called Halloween, and you're supposed to dress up and people give you candy!" 


My response: "It must be a brand new holiday!"


So Eli told me he wanted to dress up as a knight. (Halloween is a foreign concept, dress up is not)


His tabard is 1 yard of muslin, cut in half and sewn into a long strip, with a hole cut for his head (edged in bias tape) and his personal "coat of arms" appliqued on the front. For his coat of arms, he wanted a dragon, a lion head, and a letter "E". After I made the uppercase "E", I was informed that it should have a lowercase "e" also. That is so Kindergarten!

He also has a belt and a "sword holder", sewn from red flannel, interfacing, and a couple of "D" rings. I bought a sword for $2.97 at Wal-Mart. The crowning glory of his Halloween costume is his shield. I drew a template for the shape, my husband cut two pieces of thin oak veneer and glued them together. I painted the coat of arms on the front and we stapled nylon webbing straps on the back. 
Easy peasy. 

He is in love. 

(some action shots...)


Iris was going to be a dragon, so Eli would have someone to fight, but when she saw his costume (the sword especially...) she wanted to be a knight as well. 


So she's the purple knight. 

Same concept, except that she is shorter, so I got away with using only a half yard of muslin for her tabard. Her coat of arms is a kitty, an iris, and an "Ii". She also wasn't interested in a shield, so we skipped that bit.


Baby Greta ended up being the ferocious cuddly dragon. I had a size 0-3 month fleece sweatsuit from Old Navy. I used a bit of red fleece and green felt to make the tail, ears and spikes, and some shimmery green scaly fabric from JoAnn for the belly. Red socks complete her scary adorable dragon costume! 

So having your first Halloween at age 5 is slightly hilarious. We went to a Trunk or Treat, and Eli went to the first car in the line, said "Trick or Treat!" as instructed, and got 3 pieces of candy. He was thrilled, and went to get back in the car. His eyes almost popped out when I told him that he could go get candy from EVERY car.  
We'll see what happens when we go Trick or Treating in our neighborhood tonight!


{HAPPY HALLOWEEN!}


<3 AmberLou

Baby G's blessing gown

I've told how I learned to knit here. I love to make lovely things for my children and grandchildren. When my first grandson was born 5 years ago, I was only just beginning to knit, but he had a few sweaters and blankets that I'd made for him. Two summers ago, my daughter Amber was pregnant with her second child and she asked me to knit her a christening gown, in the hopes that her baby would be a girl. Then she told me to make 5 more christening gowns so that if I died before her siblings had children, she wouldn't have to share with them. Such a kidder, that Amber! Ha ha. (I'm pretty sure to this day that she wasn't kidding).


So I made a lovely little gown and baby girl "I" was born in February of 2010. She was oh so sweet in her little gown, but had a hard time expressing just how much she loved it.

The week that "baby I" was born, my older daughter had an ultrasound and learned that her first baby was a boy. I had 5 months to come up with a blessing suit for baby M who was born in July.

When Amber learned that baby #3 was another girl, she asked me to make another blessing gown for her. I wanted to make something a little more ambitious (because I have a bit more experience now). Amber selected this pattern and I was able to get a wonderful bamboo/silk blend yarn. Since I live in Hawaii, I buy most of my yarns online and I was slightly disappointed when the yarn arrived and it wasn't pure white, but a bit of an ivory. But the dress turned out so pretty, I wasn't disappointed long. I'll be going back to Hawaii before her blessing, so we had a little fashion show a bit early. Here is our newest family member, Baby G, modeling her gown.

And, of course, the outfit isn't complete without the shoes.

 I loved making this for my baby granddaughter! I imagined Amber saving the dress for G's daughter to wear in 25 years!

-Lorie

A New Arrival

You may have noticed how us posters here at Paisley are a little distracted with life and not too consistent at posting lately. Look and see what a beautiful distraction we have... Happy BIRTH-day to Amber's new daughter and Lorie's new granddaughter, Lil' Lady G! She weighed in at 7 lbs and 8oz. She was delivered at home and her and her mama are doing GREAT!

More Dinosaurs...

I came across this pattern while looking for a fun 
homemade baby gift idea.

littleblackteapot.blogspot.com

So sweet! 

I made one of these little guys for a friend's baby shower. 


My son stole it and took this picture with his dinosaur toys.

My little girl stole it from him, and wouldn't give it up.

So I made her a pink one. 

My 5 year old wanted one. 

He wanted it to be really big, and he wanted to stuff it himself.

He did. For about two minutes, before he got bored and graciously allowed me to finish it.

Since then I've made a few more...

I am SET for a few upcoming birthday gifts!

My son informed me that this is a LONG-NECK, not a STEGOSAURUS, so it shouldn't have spikes. 

He's the dino expert. 

Then he told me I should make a stegosaurus.

So I did.

(I just tapered the pattern to a kind of point instead of making the neck swoop up)

I made this stegosaurus for another friend-with-baby, and made the spikes ribbon taggies. 

I just LOVE this pattern! 

Go print it! Her directions are super easy to follow, it takes just a scrap of fabric (stash-buster!) and the kids love this guy! If you've been wanting to try out some three dimensional projects, this is a great one to learn on!

<3 AmberLou

sharing at some of these parties...

Sweet Baby Handprints

Phew! And we're back! Happy February, everyone! 

I've missed being here. A lot! Weddings, funerals, and missionary farewells are {hopefully} done for the year. 

For Christmas each year since my son was born, he has (well, I have) made a hand print gift for my Mom. 

For his first Christmas, we made her a t-shirt with a reindeer

For his second Christmas, we made a giraffe painting, and we've stuck with framed paintings in the years since. 

Third Christmas

Fourth Christmas

This year we deviated from the jungle theme, and made an undersea painting, and added his baby sister's footprint (the squid) to make it a family affair.

This has been a sweet gift for Tutu (grandma), even though it makes us all a little sad to see how much his little hands are growing!

I found this blog useful for hand and footprint art ideas. I found it very useful to glob the paint onto hands and feet instead of dipping and stamping. I used regular non-toxic acrylic paint, and it washed off very easily. As my boy got bigger, he was able to finger paint the other elements (grass, trees, the sun) by himself, which of course makes him so proud.

<3 AmberLou

Babies and Owls and Bats, oh my!

My family is growing again! We added two new babies this year! I'm very excited that I'll get to see all of my children and grandchildren for the holiday wedding that is planned in a few months. Since I blew my wad on plane tickets for the trip, I don't have a lot of cash for presents, so I'm making as many as I can this year.

I found this cute idea for making pillows and made a cute little owl for my granddaughter.

It was so much fun and turned out so cute, I made another owl and a bat for my two grandsons.

I wish it was this easy to make presents for my husband and step-son!

Lorie

Make a Cake

For my daughters 1st Birthday, I wanted it to be special and very family oriented. I decided that I would make her birthday cake and smash cake...even though I had ZERO experience in cake decorating.

I had some family advice and a good instruction book from Wilton :

And this is what I ended up with:

I was pretty proud that I can add cake decorating to my list of 'crafting' abilities:]

Visit your local craft store or Wilton.com for awesome ideas and make a cake today!

-Amanda

Sweater Conversion

Update! I made the Top 10 on the Iron Crafter! Go here to vote for me... pretty please?


There are fewer things that I love more than refashioning, or as my husband puts it "cutting apart perfectly good clothes... blah blah"

I knew he wouldn't mind this project though, 
because he {hates} this cardigan!

I'm a redhead, and I'll admit that it's not my best color, but his dislike of this sweater seems totally irrational to me!


anyways...

I love, love, LOVE sweater dresses on babies! 

and I have a baby girl...

I saw that the Iron Crafter's "Secret Ingredient" was sweaters... 

and I am so in love with the end result I could {die}!!!

First I got a knit shirt that is a bit big for my girl to use as a pattern

I cut out 2 pieces to use as the front and back, the whole length of the sweater.

Then I sewed them together along the sides and at the shoulders

the sleeves of the original cardigan had this super cute button detail that I totally wanted to keep

so I lined up the sleeve of the baby sized shirt, with this along the top

and cut out the sleeves.

I sewed the sleeves into a tube, and attached them to the dress

here it is inside out...

Lastly I made the neck. I took the last piece of trim from around the bottom of the sweater and sewed it into a tube

and sewed it to the dress to make a little turtleneck!

I hand-sewed a few of the buttons from front of the old sweater onto the turtleneck to keep it from rolling up

I had to restrain myself from waking up the baby to try it on her...


(she woke up on her own eventually...)

I think this is my favorite refashioning project EVER!


p.s. I used a women's size Large for this project, and the end result is about 9-12 month size with very little left-over. If you make a sweater dress from this tutorial, please link it to our flickr group; I would LOVE to see it!

<3 AmberLou

sharing at a few of these parties

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