Nesting // Hazel's corner

Well, it's finally done.

Hazel's little corner (of our room).

We are all ready for her!

I tried to get all the little things together that we'll need and put them in her little corner - things we'll need for naptime or night time needs when I don't want to go into her brother and sister's room to rummage around for things.

Sawyer & Aspen picked out a couple of little gifts to give to their new baby sister on her birth day - and this little bear is one of their favorites. It's soooo soft, too. Very sweet!

I found this pretty little frame at TJ Maxx and painted it to help it stand out a bit on our white walls. I'm hoping to get a good picture of our three kiddos together (wish me luck!) to put in this frame :)

I already told you about how I made her crib bedding...

and her butterfly mobile...

so I won't say anything more about them.

I'm not really a fan of those hanging diaper things people sometimes put on cribs...so I created one I DO like. I got this little canvas basket at Target and then used some ribbon to attach it to the crib...inside I put all of the little things we may need for diaper or clothing changes during her siblings naps or when they're already in bed and I don't want to disturb them by rummaging around in their room to find things. I am sure it will come in handy!

A basket full of cozy little blankets...I'll probably throw some burb cloths in there once she arrives - and if she's anything like her sister (who we nicknamed the "queen of spit up") we will need lots! Then again, if she's like her brother (who never spit up) we may not need many at all :)

I also hung up the dress I picked out for her special baby blessing at church. It was the first thing I bought for her once we found out we were having a girl. I just thought it looked fit for a sweet little angel :)  

Aspen is always asking me to blow on the butterflies to "make them fly, Mama!" Sometimes, she tries too but rarely does her little puff of air reach them. 

She's excited to be a BIG sister!

So, there you have it. Hazel's corner. 

I know there are a lot of people in the world who don't have room to design an entire nursery for their babies, and I feel lucky we at least had a few spare feet in our tiny room to make something feel special to welcome and cuddle our new baby. I know a lot of women look at all these beautiful nurseries and would love to have one, but I hope that by sharing Hazel's little corner with you, you may see that it's possible to make something special, even if a tiny corner of your own room is all you have to offer.

Three cheers for small spaces! And beautiful new babies!

Handmade // Layette of Leftovers

Remember a few weeks ago when I said I was going to basically use all of my old scraps from my stash of fabric to make some fun new things for the new baby? Well, I did! I've used up just about everything little thing I've had - and I'm so tired of sewing now that I think I'll just stop already! I've made lots of cute things for our new baby, as well as a few for her siblings, and many many as gifts for friends and family expecting babies. 

You would think that already having a girl and then having another girl, we would be set. But no, because these girlies will be the opposite seasons (Aspen as born in January, Hazel will be June) so I did need to make (and buy, of course!) a few things for our summer girl. I figure they'll catch up after the first year and Hazel will get to experience the joy of mostly hand-me-downs, but for the first few months I had to do something. The great thing about summer babies is that a onesie is pretty much an outfit, so that makes it better on the pocketbook and easy to give old onesies new life.

I used a few patterns - made up some on my own - and then used a LOT of inspiration from etsy for a few of these items. I will be sure to give credit where credit is certainly due! That way, if you want the pattern, or to buy, or to study and re-create your own version of one of these, you will have a resource.

Let's start with seersucker...

The above dress is a free pattern download from Rae Hoakstra, the "bitty baby dress". It's made to fit newborns. I made one for Aspen so I had to make one for Hazel as well :)  I also made one for each of my two new nieces that are due - Emerson (Emmy) in May and Karly in August.

The red seersucker onesie-dress I made by (pretty much) following along with this tutorial I found on-line. It looked pretty straight forward, but it was actually kind of tricky - getting the skirt part on straight all the way around the onesie, that is. Especially for a rebel sewer like me who doesn't ever pin anything together. But it definitely looks like a dress that will be comfy and perfect to take her sailing in!

Okay, just a little more seersucker...for bibs! And here is where you will notice a trend...peaches, creams, and ruffles! Oh, toss in a few rosettes for good measure and we're good to go :) While I was going at it with the bibs and a burp cloth with ruffles, I slapped a ruffle onto some of those newborn t-shirts. I had a ton of leftover white onesies from Sawyer & Aspen, but I wanted to freshen them up somehow. 

You may even start recognizing some of my leftover fabric from past projects (the polka dots, for example were from Aspen's Happy Stacker I made for her 1st birthday - Aunt Tia has some tea towels with the same dots I made her for Christmas as well). So, more bibs, and burp cloth/changing pads (I got rid of the one that went on top of the dresser because we just won't have that luxery this time...and honestly, by the time they're a couple of months old I always end up changing them on the floor anyway, so a little spruced up cloth diaper will do just fine ;) And I copied the binky holder from Aspen's old one - I thought Hazel should have a fresh one instead of one that had been slobbered all over.

Ahem, here are some of my favorite little summery pieces! I totally copied the idea from an etsy shop that I love. If you know me, you know I have a thing for sailboats and all things nautical and beachy, so the anchor onesies I just had to try. I did freezer paper stenciling on the dyed onesies and it was lots of fun. Lots of fun for this preggo lady who still feels sick a lot of the time...hence my only activities the past few weeks have been sewing and crafting because it's something I can actually do while feeling not-so-great...but doing it makes me happy...so it kind of balances things out a bit. I actually had a bunch of leftover newborn sized white onesies but they were from the Gap, and had that little bear on the front corner - which didn't look so girly to me, so I thought the rosettes were a great way to cover up the bear. And I had so much fun trying out dying for the first time! Who needs to dye Easter Eggs? Just give me some old onesies and I'll have a ball! :)

More credit is due! My awesome & super talented friend, Allegra, used to sell burp clothes like these rosette ones in her etsy shop as well - not to mention such cute cute headbands - of which she made me TONS for Aspen. (If you look hard in her etsy shop, you will even find Aspen modeling a headband or two with her bestie!) I actually think she was the first one to create this particular style of rosette headbands and burp clothes...just sayin' :)

I made so many shoes for Aspen, I just had to make something for Hazel's tiny feet. I will probably still make her a couple of shoes all her own, but I also bought this inexpensive downloadable pattern for these super cute baby boots! I had to give them a try! 

Okay, we're almost finished, I promise! So...the project above and the one below...used to be my skirt - you can catch glimpse of it here (me wearing it) and here (thrown under Aspen for texture in her newborn & 6 month photos). I always loved the color, but didn't always love the skirt, it seemed slightly poofy or something, but since it seemed connected to Aspen, I couldn't just give it to the Good Will. It was too pretty. So...I made this teeeeeny tiny dress out of the liner for Hazel (I keep measuring small so the doc says she will probably be very petite like our other babies - which will be good because this dress is more like preemie size!) And then with the ruffly outer part of the skirt I made this little dress for Aspen. I hope to one day take her picture in it - since I have never really got around to 2-year pics, I figure maybe 2 and a half year pics will do later this summer :)

I think all I've got to do now is finish Hazel's little corner of our room...and make her a blanket or two. I've already even been stocking up on newborn diapers (maybe I should get a few preemie sizes? I'm all worried now that she's going to be reallllly small...which is fine, I love teeny babies...just as long as she's healthy.) We're pretty much just READY for this new baby to join our family! But we still have about 10 weeks to wait. I have a couple of non-baby-related projects to work on in the meantime, as well as needing to review my hypnobirthing stuff and just plain relax (although I'm kind of tired of relaxing! Especially when laying down to "relax" often brings on the heartburn!) Now is the time when all I want to eat is smoothies...anyone have a recipe they want to share? 

Here's to being done with the sewing/crafting party of nesting! It was fun while it lasted!

A butterfly mobile for Hazel

I apologize that the blog has pretty much been taken over by my nesting projects - and probably will be for a few more  posts - but it helps motivate me to finish my little projects when I know I can share them with those who take the time to look at our blog. 

So, I was looking around for cute mobile ideas and found this butterfly one that kind of made me pause, it was so pretty. But it is also unavailable (and would've been way out of my budget, anyway). Luckily, I did a little web-surfing and came across this little tutorial, which made my project a home-made, hand-made bit of fun on a Friday afternoon (okay, and late LATE into the evening!)

I modified the diy tutorial a bit to my liking, and at 2am (yes, TWO AM! That is LATE for me these days!) I finally finished my little butterfly mobile for baby Hazel. I didn't want to buy a butterfly punch, so I ended up finding a free font and making my own templates (that way I could vary the species and also the size to my liking) It took me days to find the perfect paper - I keep being drawn to peachy pinks (think peaches and cream or kind of the shade of ballet slippers) and so I finally found one at a scrapbooking store. It was pearlescent as well, which only added to it's beauty! I also used the inside of an embroidery hoop to give the mounting part a bit more strength and shape.

It looked so easy to make...and really, it was. The hard parts for me were that tracing and then cutting out all of those butterflies ended up killing my fingers (haven't used petite metal scissors for a while but definitely needed them for the small details on the butterflies). It took a LONG time to cut out all of the butterflies - luckily I had two little helpers for some of them (ahem, very helpful they were!) Actually, Sawyer and Aspen were thrilled that I was making butterflies so they joined me and we had a cutting party at the table most of the afternoon - they cut all the remnants into teeny tiny pieces that floated to the floor, and begged me in between butterflies for some butterflies of their own to play with - so of course ended up making twice as many butterflies and we now have butterflies all over the house, which is actually kind of nice - very Spring like). I also ended up sewing and attaching the butterflies by hand - it just didn't seem right after cutting them all out by hand to just take a machine to them - so I daintily took my time by hand.

Jacob thinks I was rather crazy to stay up so late for the project - but once I got going I just didn't want to stop until it was done. I hung it over the dining room table when I finally finished so when everyone woke up they had a fun surprise in the morning - butterflies!

I mounted it to our ceiling above Hazel's crib this afternoon - and I couldn't stop staring at it! The pearl paper gives the most beautiful effect when the butterflies dance with the light! It makes the butterflies shine and look like they are different shades, even though they are all the very same paper. 

I know, I'm kind of silly. But I just LOVE this kind of stuff! I love that our new baby will have something pretty to look up at - and I can look right across the room at, too! 

In conclusion, it was a really fun project and anyone who wants to give it a try - should! It cost me about $5 for supplies - the biggest investment was patience and time. Happy Spring!

Hazel's crib bedding

I finished it! This past week I have used every moment of my spare time, for the most part, to make Hazel's crib bedding. We got a mini crib (the same as a regular crib - it's not a porta crib, just smaller dimensions - closer to the size of a pack n play but with a real mattress etc.) to go in our room since we are lacking in space. We have 3 bedrooms but can really only use 2 (2 are on the third floor and 1 is on the first floor and we can't have tiny kids being 2 floors below - so it is our office instead). Anyway, I am a tiny bit bummed that I don't get to do any sort of "nursery" for our new baby, but hello SLAP in the face, we are just so blessed to be having her I feel incredibly grateful for that. BUT I AM trying to make her little corner of our room a special place that feels welcoming and "hers". I started off by making her crib bedding. (I wasn't even sure I would do a bumper because I have mixed feelings about them...but I figured it would be a little protection for the baby when her big sister comes and tries to stick her hands through the slats to give her lots of love - when we don't want her to wake her up or poke her eye out, ha!).

The thing about mini crib sizing is that there aren't a lot of options for bedding, at least that I found. You can get it custom made - but then it's well over the price of making it yourself. Or you can find one option for each gender at Babies R Us, but if you ask me it was pretty darn ugly. So, of course I took the matter into my owns hands and home.

I have been in love with this designer bedding - the Matteo Tat from Layla Grace - for sometime (click here to see it). But who spends over $500 on crib bedding? Certainly not me. So I eye-balled it and studied the pictures and tried to replicate it as best I could. I had to just do it free-hand as there are no patterns or tutorials for this sizing (and I'm too lazy to do the math to convert anything). So, I made the fitted crib sheet (by far the hardest part of the project for me - well, not super hard, just kind of tricky) the bumper and pillow and crib skirt. To ge the "tat" effect, I ripped the fabric rather than cutting it with scissors - I was nervous when I started ripping away at the $60 worth of fabric that I bought, but it all worked out and I love the end result. It took 8 yards of fabric to do all of it, plus the batting for the bumper, and some elastic and thread, oh, and the pillow insert. The fabric was a good deal at $6.99/yard and I got 40% off with a coupon for the batting and pillow insert. It ended up costing me just under $100 to make - a great savings of $400! And the satisfaction of putting in every stitch for the sweet little baby girl who will be sleeping in it :)

And there you have it, Hazel Grace's Bedding. Her Daddy says "it's very girly". I sure hope she likes the ruffles as much as I do! (I am also laughing at myself because before having girls I was never a ruffle-lover myself! Maybe there is a reason God is sending me another girl!)