Another Baby Birth Record

So going back to the baby shower I threw in June, I had also made a cross stitch baby birth record as well.  I used another Dimensions cross stitch kit, the Birth Record for Baby.  Again when I was done, I took it to Michaels to get framed.  I really like how it turned out, especially all the pink for a girl!

Chair Cushion

We have this chair in our living room by the front door that had a chair cushion that did not match anything we have, and was getting old and ratty looking (I think my mom said she bought it in the 80's!).  So this definitely had to be fixed.  After I made the Butterfly Specimen Case I decided that our living room will have a butterfly theme.  So I found this Micheal Miller fabric Wings of Peace on the online store Tonic Living, and ordered some.  I was going to wing it and make my own pattern, but when I was at Fabricland I found this Burda pattern (#7899) I decided I was going to use it instead.

Of course I had to make some adjustments to the pattern.  The seat of my chair was different in size so I had a few adjustments there.  I also really like the look of piping on chair cushions, so I had to learn how to do that and apply it to the cushion pattern.  I really like how it turned out in the end.

The Chair with the old cushion

The after photo.  The butterfly pattern is so happy looking!

The corner detail.  It fits snugly between the chair back posts

It stays to the chair with a couple ribbons

I had to change where the zipper went to allow for the cording

Fall Time Wreath

I know it has been a while since I have posted last, but that doesn't mean I have noting to post.  I have been busy as I have just started back at university.  It has been a bit of a challenge to start studying again and getting used to that kind of routine as I have not been in school for over 5 years!  I do plan on still blogging about the projects have done, it just may take a bit for me to get them up here.

Growing up my mom always had a wreath on the front door that she normally made.  She would change it for each season and holiday.  I also decided that I would like to have a wreath on my front door as it makes my house seem a little more welcoming.  I also am a big fan of fall, and all the fall colours.  I went to Micheals and they had some flowers on sale so I bought a couple bunches as well as some ribbon, and a wreath base.  I simply glued the flowers on the base, and made a bow and tied it with wires onto the wreath.  It was super easy, and I think it looks great!

Katia Triana

Back in June I went to Ottawa to visit my family and ended up in a yarn store (surprise, surprise).  I think the name of the store was Yarn Forward in Kanata.  It was a nice store and had plenty of things that I would have loved to buy.  When my mom came in she saw a sample scarf that she loved and asked me to make it for her.  It looked really intimidating, but it was actually super easy to make.  I think in total it took about 2 to 3 hours.  Not bad at all!  The yarn is Triana by Katia and I used the colorway Fire Red and I used only one skein.

Of course Phoebe wanted to model it!

Wedding Cupcakes!

My sister-in-law got married on July 23 and asked if I would make the wedding cake for her.  I wasn't sure if I could do it as I have never done one before.  But I decided I would be up for the challenge.  I asked her what she had in mind and she told me a giant cupcake.  She showed me this picture as what she wanted.  She also said that they weren't fans of fondant so I wouldn't be able to use that on the cake.  Therefore I would need to have the bottom of the cake just showing cake so I wouldn't be able to carve it out of cake and cover it with fondant.  Therefore I would need to find a good pan.  I ended up buying the Wilton giant cupcake pan as it was the largest I found.  The Williams Sonoma cupcake pan seemed to me to be a bit smaller. To go along with the giant cupcake for them, I would need to make around 100 other cupcakes for the rest of the guests.  I ended up making about 150 (to make sure that there were enough for everyone) and half were vanilla and the other half chocolate.  I decorated them with white vanilla butter-cream icing and silver balls.  I used a silver cupcake liners to tie in with the balls.
The caterer that they had said that they had a cupcake stand that we would be able to use.  However at the rehearsal I saw the stand and was not impressed by it.  So my husband and I made a quick stop at Winners and picked up some plates.  When we got home he took all the cans out of our pantry and wrapped them in yellow card-stock.  The next day he made a display out of the cans and plates that turned out looking great!

It was very stressful making all these cupcakes and my kitchen looked like a cupcake factory exploded in it when I was done.  I did have a couple mishaps like the first giant cupcake I made fell apart when I took it out of the oven and realizing transporting all these cupcakes are not that easy.  I also ended up icing the giant cupcake at around 1:30 in the morning before the wedding!

 

Owl and Book Baby Shower

OK, so I know that it has been months since I have posted last, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy, just lazy in posting.  So back in June I put on a baby shower for my sister-in-law.  She was really liking owls for decorating the nursery so I thought an owl theme would be fun.  Also her and her husband are big book readers so I thought I would throw that theme in the mix, and the two go together greatly!

I have also in May purchased a Silhouette SD which has to be the greatest machine ever.  It hooks up to your computer and cuts paper with a little blade.  (I just looked at their website and they have a new one coming out that cuts paper 12inches wide, must have!!!)  I love the fact that you can use the program to cut what you want exactly how you want it.  Also the online store has a lot of great shapes that you can cut out, plus a free shape every week.  The only reason I mention this is I used the machine like nuts for this whole shower!!!!

 So I made the banners using a book I got for 50 cents at a thrift store.  I cut out all the letters using Times New Roman font and my silhouette (of course!).  In between the words I had cut outs of owls that I downloaded from the silhouette store.  They were a bit of work to glue together, but looked great.  We strung them up using some ribbon.  I absolutely love how they turned out.  We also re-used the pom-poms from the last shower. 

As it was a book themed shower I bought a bunch of used children books from garage sales and used them to decorate the room as well.  My sister-in-law got to take them home when it was done to start a library for her baby.  I also asked the guests instead of buying a card to buy a book and sign that so they would have even more books for the baby!  The best part was there were only a few repeats.

As I am such a huge fan of cake pops, I wanted to make some for this shower as well.  But of course I didn't thing easy.  I had seen some pictures on-line of owl cake pops and thought, well I can do that too.  They were a lot of work, but they looked great.  I used chocolate chips for the ears, candy necklace pieces for the eyes, chocolate covered sunflower seeds for the beak and flower shaped sprinkles for the feet.  The night before I realized I had no way to display them properly so I frantically made a stand for them.  I got a few sheets of Styrofoam that I had in the basement and glued them together with a hot glue gun. I wrapped it up with some brown wrapping paper then wrapped a purple ribbon around to make it look a little more fancy.  I cut little x's were I wanted the sticks to go in, then poked each hole with a pin so they would go in easy.  It turned out great and was stable enough to hold them, and is usable again.

I found some Beatrix potter plates and napkins that I just had to get for the shower for the food table.  I also had found a bunch of these books, so I decorated the table with the books to match the pates!  I just love the little touches like these.

Again, the water bottles just add a nice finishing touch to the shower.  They aren't all that hard to do and make quite the impact.

For a little activity I had a piggy bank that everyone could sign. 

I like having games at showers.  This time I decided to go a little over the top.  I made a Jeopardy game, which took a lot of time to put together, but was a lot of fun.  I can up with the categories and all of the questions.  I cut out all the numbers again with the silhouette and glued them to blue card stock.  I got a foam board and some clear picture corners and attached the questions that way.  It made it super easy to pop of the questions as we went through.  If someone knew the answer they were to put their hand up, and the first would get to answer first.  If they got the question right, I would give them the card with the dollar amount on it.  At the end whoever got the most "money"won.  (I had a prize of a bag full of chocolate loonies and toonies.)

Another game I had was the Price is Right.  I bought a bunch of baby things (after everything went home with the mom) and everyone had to guess how much they thought it was.  I had two prizes for this game.  Whoever had the most right answers (or closest to right without going over) won a prize.  The other was to the person who had a total of everything closest to the actual retail price without going over.  For the prize I got a "new car"sent for their car, and a travel mug. 
I also made another diaper cake, which turned out looking pretty classy!

Trilobite Socks!

I got the book Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy D. Johnson from my friend Shelley for an wedding shower present.  I decided that I would make the first basic sock in the book as a practice as I thought socks were going to be really hard to do. I was very happy to discover that they weren't hard at all.
That was about a year ago and love them, but now I felt I was ready for something a bit harder.  I thought the trilobite socks were a really cool pattern, plus they had trilobites on them! For this pair of socks I used 2 skeins of Patons Kroy Socks FX in Cameo Colors.  They are so super comfy and it's great that they are made to fit my feet perfectly!

Gifts for my Mom

I have made a few gifts for my mom that I have not posted as I had not taken photos of them.  How silly of me. 
For my mom's birthday last year I decided I would knit her something.  So off to Make One I go.  I asked what I could make and the lady suggested I make the Stolen Moments Wrap (a free pattern found here)  Since I have made this I have lost the tag from the yarn but I am pretty sure that it is Misti Alpaca's Baby Me Boo hand painted yarn in Zanzibar.  This yarn was really nice and made the project so much better.   The yarn is a mixture of alpaca, merino wool and bamboo.  How could you go wrong?  I ended up using two skeins.

Then for Christmas I again thought I would make something for my mom.  This time I went to the library.  I took out the book Simple Knits for Cherished Babies  by Erika Knight.  In it they had a pattern for a teddy bear.  My mom has a bit of a teddy bear collection so I thought a knit one would be quite nice.  I used Patton's silk bamboo yarn in bark for the bear, and some scrap black yarn for the details.  When this bear was done it was super soft! 

The bear with Mini, my mom's cat

Entrelac Scarf

For Christmas my husband bought for me lessons on how to knit entrelac.  I was wanting to do this last year but the class was on my birthday, and when I finally decided I didn't care and wanted to take it anyway it was booked.  So I was super excited to be in the class.  The class was at Make One Yarn Studio here in Calgary.  I have taken a class there before and it was awesome and I would highly recommend anyone taking classes there! 
We made a scarf for the class, which I know that making scarfs sometimes can be boring because they take forever to complete, but I find it is a good way to learn how to do something as you have to keep doing the same thing over and over again.  I made it using Tanis Fibre Arts Green label aran weight yarn in buttercup and jewel.  I have to say I love this yarn!!!!  Working with it was so nice on the hands and I never want to use acrylic again (even though I know I will).  I am trying to think of other projects I just have to make so I can use more of it!

The colors are perfect for spring!

The weaving looks so neat and is not too hard to do.

The back side of the scarf.  Really cool as well.

Baby Shower!

A few weeks ago I had a shower for my sister in law and her new baby boy.  I didn't want to have a traditional baby pastel colors so I went with the primary colors.  Also I didn't want to have a bunch of decorations left over that I would have to store.  I therefore decided most of the decorations would be things that the baby would be able to use.

I love the look of bunting, and I know it has been around for a while but I just had to make some.  Actually my husband did all of the cutting for it.  I bought some a pad of scrapbook paper for it, and some ribbon.  We then just glued and stapled the paper onto the ribbon.  Another thing that I love is the big pom poms.  I see the ones from Martha Stewart for sale in the stores and they aren't cheap.  So again we made them ourselves (my mother in law and I).  I went to the dollar store and got some tissue paper, folded it up, wrapped with some wire and pouf-ed!  Again I love how these look, and were so simple to do!

I went to Zellers and got some first word flash cards to decorate with as well.  We hung them on the mantle and off of the counter in the kitchen with string and clothespins.  This was so simple and had a great impact. Also I found some great wooden blocks to put all over the place.  These were a bit harder to find then I originally thought.  I did find them at Micheal's but found them cheaper at PM Hobey Craft.  As well as the wooden blocks I had some plastic building blocks put around everywhere.

A great centerpiece was the diaper cake.  When buying the diapers for this I was shocked to see how expensive diapers are.  I found this great video explaining how to put it all together.  As the diapers I found were not solid white I needed to get ribbon to match.  I used blue ribbon and white ribbon with rubber duckies on it.  Tried to make the ribbon on the top look like a splash of water with the ducky on top.  I also cut out a circle and put his initial on it. 

I have read online about showers in which each guest gets to decorate a onsie.  I thought that this is a good idea, but the mother would have way too many onsie's in the end.  So I had one in which each guest could decorate and sign their name. 

We played a bunch of games at the shower as well.  I had a baby bottle filled with jelly bellies and everyone had to guess how many there were.  Another was I made a bunch of slips of paper with baby items written on them.  We pined these to each of the guests backs and they had to ask yes or no questions to other people to guess what was on their back.  This was a good game for people to get talking to everyone.  Another game we played which was a lot of fun was guess what is in the jar.  I went out and got a bunch of baby food and took the labels off each of the jars and put a letter on the jars.  Everyone had to guess what was in each of the jars of food.  This was tough as most food looks the same when pureed. 

I thought for the cake I would make something really simple, especially since I was so busy with everything else.  I just decorated it with white icing and put some bunting on top held up by some bamboo skewers.  It was simple and cute.

I have been seeing cake pops on all sorts of blogs and just had to try making them.  They weren't too hard to make although time consuming.  I just used regular out of the box cake mix for it and canned icing.  I really like how the sprinkles make them look so fancy.  And I thought they were crazy good.  I can't wait to make them again!

I also decided to make labels for the water bottles that matched the bunting.  These turned out great and are much prettier then plain bottles!

For favors I decided to make Hot Chocolate on a stick.  A saw these on a blog (don't know which one) and thought I really need to make these.  I found this site with the instructions.  When I put them in the milk they did not melt as easily as I would have liked.  I think I needed a higher quality chocolate then what I was using.  I also made homemade marshmallows with Alton Browns recipe.  These were super good. 

Plushie and Tag Blanket

Another gift that I made for my sister in law was a plushie and matching tag blanket.  For the plushie I used the Rainbow Sunshine Plushie Tutorial from Chez Beeper Bebe.  When I first saw this tutorial I knew I just had to make it (as well as stick it to the man!).  I thought it would also be nice to have a matching blanket to go with it. 
For the blanket I cut two 15 inch square pieces from the fleece, cut a bunch of ribbon about 4 inch each, sandwiched them together as in the tutorial for the plushie.  When it was turned right side out and all the ribbon attached, I did a top stitch over the seam as I have read that it holds together better that way.  It was an easy project and turned out great!

Supplies all ready to go.  (I was thinking of adding bells inside the plushie, but decided against it!)

All finished and ready to go.

I love the rainbow of colors!