Father's day

I made this card for my Dad, inspired by Stamp TV's video of this week (Gina was making background paper using paper scraps and her sewing machine). I didn't use scraps but beautiful japanese paper that I cut in various width instead. I created a medallion out of balsa wood (cut and embossed with a Nestability). That inspiration came from Dawn who recently die-cut balsa with her PTI dies on her blog "my favorite things". :-D I then stamped the wood with a text background and my sentiment (both PTI).

I really love this card, the different texture of the wood is really interesting in real life. :-D

Quilt

I did consider not posting this one for a second, because of my awful stitching, but I think the beauty of this craft is that things don't have to be perfect. And also that it's a learning curve and you have to be able to laugh at yourself.... My hubby is the guinea-pig recipient and I'm sure he won't mind. I hope you have a good laugh thanks to my card and that it comforts you in your abilities if you are a novice papercrafter! LOL ;-) There is always room for improvement!... ;-)
(BTW I love the card nonetheless... :-) )

Coupon Book

When you get a new baby, at least at the beginning, companies such as Huggies, Pampers and Gerber send you coupons for diapers, baby food and such if you register with them.

Those sure are welcome and, in order not to lose them, I made myself a little coupon book...

You'll recognize the little bear from the baby planner (a piece of gift wrap) glued on the cover. I then made faux stitching with an opaque marker (Martha Stewart for Walmart) and covered it all with Contact paper since it will travel in my diaper bag. (I always have Contact paper at home since I cover most of my books with it, I'm a little obsessed with books that way... ;-)).

Then I glued the inside part that I had assembled with my sewing machine (I didn't want any sticky tape or glue coming undone or staying stuck to my coupons...) against the spine, sandwiching the ribbon in between the 2 layers. Once I was done I realized 4 tiny pockets likely wouldn't be enough, so I added the central panel as an afterthought, and just sewed it to the spine of the booklet.

I did consider stamping the "categories" with a mini alphabet, but thought it would just be too much! ;-) Since it is for me anyway I can do with the sloppy handwriting! :-)

Now hopefully I will remember to take the booklet with me before I go shopping! ;-)

Trip down memory lane, bath towels and baby blankets...

So I was on Lauren's blog (http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/), it's the 1st one I visit, almost every day, she is wonderfully inspiring in many ways :-). If you never visited her blog, hop over there, you'll thank me later!

She had posted this beautiful baby frame she just made for her friend and asked what was the most original baby gift we had done.

My 1st thought was "huh, I am not original in my baby gifts..." and since I only just started making cards and such....but then all of a sudden I remembered!!!

I remembered my sewing projects! :-) I made those as baby gifts for my (twins) niece & nephew, then did it again for my niece on the other side of the family.

So I went to fish the pics in my sewing box and scanned them. I didn't have a digital at the time and the picture are not wonderful but it still helps getting a better idea of the end product!....

That was quite an adventure and I'm not sure I knew what I was getting into when I started this!! The sure thing is that when I was done I swore I wouldn't do it again! LOL

It wa hard work and took me forever and I thought it would end up in the trash more than once! The bath towels especially were a nightmare because of the tiny details and the bulk of the fabric.

For the bath towels I bought matching bath towels and handtowels from Martha Stewart (quality plush for the bottoms of my nephew and nieces! ;-)) and I made the hood from the hand towel. It was easier than starting from scratch and I was sure the towel wouldn't fray afterward.

Then I made little animals faces on the towels, a cat and a dog for the twins, a frog for my other niece. Too bad I don't have a picture of the frog, I really liked it! :-( ...

For the baby blankets I did the same thing than done before for my own kids.

I bought cute matching fabrics and white fleece and sandwiched the fleece between the fabric. Then I sewn little random patterns on the fabric so that everything would stay together after it was washed. For the twins I put their initial also. For my niece I didn't even know if it was a boy or girl at the time I bought the fabric so I went with neutrals (gingham with little embroidered dragonflies), and with the leftover fabric I made a little bag holder for plastic bags. Those are really convenient next to the changing table, and pretty easy to make, it's just a tube with elastics at both ends (and a little pocket or 2 just for the fun...). I sure used mine a lot!

Thinking about all that, I remembered I did those blankets for both my babies, and my little guy still likes to snuggle with it at night (it was a baby snoopy fabric). And I also made matching changing table covers, little pillow cases for the little pillow on the changing table.

I even made curtains to block out the light in their room (of course they were not cut straight! LOL) a padded blanket for the baby carriage, a matching padded belt : → in France you can strap the carriage (whitout the wheels obviously) on your backseat using the safetybelt buckles, and the baby has a large padded velcroed belt around his/her belly that's buckled in the sides of the carriage. That allows the baby to be completely flat, like in a crib. I'm sure this would never be allowed in the US!... ;-). And I even made little door holders (with the blankets' fabric's leftovers) so that they can't slam the door and pinch their fingers in there (from a Martha Stewart project)...

So, this made me realize that I made quite some stuff for my babies (and others!), and it made me all happy and proud! *pat on the back*

And it's good because I needed a little mood lift today. ;-)