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Babies Archive: Babies

June 24, 2009

Turn a Placemat into a Bib

Placematbib
Babies and kids are messy eaters so you can never have too many bibs around the house if you ask me. Iuvinthemommyhood shows you how to save some moolah and turn a placemat into a bib.

June 19, 2009

Recycled Wedding Flower Baby Toy

Two of my sweetest friends were just married, and I know how excited they are about someday soon having a baby. So I decided to recycle some leftover flowers from their wedding into a keepsake baby toy. I saved the fragrant lavender blossoms from some of the arrangements, and dried them to use as part of the stuffing for this charming and easy gift. It takes a lovely part of their recent past, and gives it a new extra-sentimental life in the future.

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June 15, 2009

Cloth Crib Rail Guard Tutorial

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Jill at Baby Rabies has a solution for those teething babies that like to chomp on their crib railings. She made this cloth crib rail guard that perfectly matches her nursery decor.

June 2, 2009

Tie Bib Tutorial

Baby Tiebib
I love this ridiculously cute tie bib tutorial by just tutes that comes with pattern to download for the applique.

June 1, 2009

Fabric Scraps Hanging Bird Mobile

Hangingbirdmobile
I love this sweet looking fabric scraps hanging bird mobile by Lisa Tilse of The Red Thread which is featured on the Smaller blog. I know this is really meant as mobile for a baby room but I'm secretly wanting to make this to hang in my office for some crafty birdy love.

May 16, 2009

How-To: Dragonfly Mobile

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Make this spring dragonflies mobile for a baby nursery using wooden clothes pins in this tutorial by Smaller. [ via AT ohdeedoh ]

May 15, 2009

CRAFT Pattern Podcast: Snuggler by Lotta Jansdotter

CRAFT Pattern Podcast

Sew up this cute Snuggler swaddle pattern from Lotta Jansdotter. This pattern is featured in her new book Simple Sewing for Baby: 24 Easy Projects for Newborns to Toddlers (published by Chronicle Books). You can check out my review of the book here. Swaddling is known to make babies feel safe like they are in the womb and helps them sleep better at night. You can sew this cute Snuggler pattern up this weekend!

Note: The PDF includes a tiled version as well as a full page pattern.

Download the Pattern PDF | Subscribe in iTunes

Cover Simplesewingbaby
Book Launch Party Event
If you are in the SF/Bay Area, join Lotta Jansdotter at her book party at the Museum of Craft & Folk Art (51 Yerba Buena Lane in San Francisco) this Saturday, May 16th from 1pm-4pm.

May 2, 2009

How-To: Make a Concert Tee Into a Baby Gown

I'm only slightly embarassed to admit that I have a brown paper bag tucked away on a high shelf in my closet that has written on it in huge Sharpie-drawn letters (and I'm not kidding here), "T-shirts of sentimental value! DO NOT throw away!" My mom made so much fun of this bag of t-shirts and wondered how any t-shirt could hold enough sentimental value for me to declare they not ever be touched. Inside the bag are t-shirts from my time at Space Camp back in 7th grade, from my high school newspaper days and a handful from concerts I attended in college (Smashing Pumpkins, anyone?) I so wish I'd had this cute pattern for turning a concert tee into a baby gown, from This Mama Makes Stuff, when my kids were infants. I may have finally been able to bring that bag down and put all those "important" t-shirts to good use!

[ via Whip-Up ]

April 24, 2009

Willow Branch Art Wall

Babyartwork
Anna Wulick of forty-two roads creates a baby art wall for her DIY baby nook by using willow branches as picture rods.

Anna writes:

I like how the artwork is an inch or so out from the wall and thus functions as a kind of mobile. I used two willow branches and some recycled ribbons to hang up artwork that is mostly from Etsy. The collage all the way on the left is made by me, however. Yay! This little corner makes me happy.

April 10, 2009

Wood-Grain Baby Gifts

CRAFT: Crafting with Nature

Wood-Grain Baby Gifts
By Susan Beal

Woodgrain Outfits

Making a coordinating set of graphic-appliquéd gifts is a fun way to welcome a new baby. My go-to handmade presents are the ones we couldn't live without when my daughter was small: a generously sized swaddling blanket, a handy burp cloth, and a mix-and-match shirt and pants set. I fell in love with this wood-grain fabric and bamboo-blend leaf print and designed these little embellishments around the fantastic patterns — thinking that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Woodgrain Blanketcloth

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April 6, 2009

Clochette Baby Hat Pattern

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CRAFT reader Lisa writes:

SockPixie has created the cutest baby hat called Clochette. Her inspiration was the little buds of the Lilly of the Valley. What a great project for spring babies!

Download the free knitting pattern for Clochette at Sockpixie.

Thanks Lisa!

March 31, 2009

Kimono Baby Shoes

Homespun Babykimonoshoes
Aimee of Home Spun Threads has a PDF pattern to make these cute baby kimono shoes for sizes 0 - 6 months. [ via Whip Up ]

March 27, 2009

Crocheted Baby Bottle Cozy

I must admit that my thoughts are turning more and more to babies as I prepare to have one myself pretty soon, and this crocheted baby bottle cozy seems like a great solution to the glass bottle conundrum. While there are more and more baby bottles without BPA, glass always seemed like the safest bet to me, although keeping it the right temperature and protecting it from breaking sounded like a bit of a hassle. Not anymore! This might even be enough to get me to learn how to crochet. Via Design*Sponge.

March 20, 2009

DIY Baby Book

Babybook Diy
Sara of Party Perfect is a former art director for Martha Stewart's Babies and Kids magazines. In this weekend project, Sara made a baby book for her son Gram by taking photos of objects and spelling out the words with wooden letters. She then took all the photos into iPhoto and had her own book made!

Sara writes:

Last week we bought my son a 'first words' book. It had some common words like 'car' and 'ball'- but the car didn't look like ours and the neon orange soccer ball didn't look like any we owned. So I thought it might be nice to create a first words book exclusively for him, using objects that were more familiar to him and focusing on words that he was either already trying to grasp (ball, momma) or words that would be helpful to me (milk, water).

You can even take this great concept further and make simple flash cards for your baby by printing it on cardstock from your printer at home. [ via AT ohdeedoh ]

March 11, 2009

How-To: Turn a regular bra into a nursing bra

For those of you expecting babies (or who know someone who is), check out this great how-to on converting your regular bra into a nursing bra. I know a lot of women change bra size when they're breastfeeding, but if you happen to have the perfect, comfortable bra already, then this could be a lifesaver! (Thanks, Jason!)

March 9, 2009

Shamrock Baby Booties

Vickie Howell has a pattern to knit these tiny and adorable shamrock baby booties for the 'lil leprechaun in your life.

February 20, 2009

How-To: Maternity Jeans From Regular Jeans and a T-shirt

I finally got around to trying out this great tutorial from Instructables on how to turn your regular jeans into maternity jeans. What a great idea! Maternity jeans cost half the earth, and it's hard to justify buying them for just a few months. So far I'd been making do with one pair of store-bought maternity jeans and many pairs of yoga pants, but it was time for something new in my wardrobe (or rather, something old that I could wear again).

Unfortunately I made a few mistakes which you lucky crafty pregnant ladies can learn from! As you can see from the photo, I cut the waistline of the jeans far too low. The instructions say to cut about 1/2" below the waistband, but make sure to evaluate the jeans you are using first. The jeans I chose had a very low waistline to start, so I probably should have realized that they weren't a good pair to use, but instead I tried to compromise and just cut off the waistband and ended up cutting far too low in the front. As a result, they just don't stay up the way they ought to despite the new T-shirt waistband. You should be able to cut below the waistband of the jeans and still have them sit on top of your hips, so higher-waisted jeans work much better for this project.

Another tip I have for the actual sewing of the jeans is to have a friend pin the T-shirt band to the jeans while you're wearing them--it will save you from having to rip out stitches and start over again if you don't line the shirt up properly (ahem).

This is a great idea, though, and an awesome tutorial with lots of step-by-step photos. If you've got a pair of jeans and a T-shirt you're willing to sacrifice, you won't be sorry!

February 4, 2009

Infant mittens

Just to continue the accidental baby theme I notice we've got going on here, I thought I'd post up some baby mittens I'm working on from Kris Percival's Knitting to Go deck from Chronicle.

I've been looking for a good, quick knit project for all my friends who are having babies right now--booties are great, but they're always a little more time-consuming than I want them to be, and I've missed the size window more than once! These mittens are the perfect thing for winter babies. (Although a friend pointed out that they could protect even summer babies from scratching themselves if knit in a light cotton yarn.) An average speed knitter can easily finish them in a solid afternoon, or they'd be the perfect thing to knit in odd moments over a weekend.

The pattern is rated "Difficulty Level 3", but I found it really easy to do (if you know how to knit in the round, increase and decrease, you're set). Joining the first few rows is a little tricky just because the work is so darn small, so that may be why it rates for difficulty! (As you can see in the photo, with k1, p1 ribbing, the cuff is tiny!) I didn't make things any easier for myself by choosing a fuzzy, lace-weight yarn instead of the recommended fingering weight yarn, but I think they're really cute. I just moved up a size in the needles required to make the gauge. (Tip: if you're looking for small-sized double-pointed needles and you happen to have a set up Pick Up Sticks lying around, you might have just what you need! It turns out the sticks are just the right length, smoothness and sharpness to stand in for DPNs, and by checking them against a needle size card I have, I found a set of size 2s and size 3s just waiting to be repurposed!)

I love the card deck format of Knitting to Go, which came out a few years ago: each pattern is printed on a folded card with a difficulty rating and really clear instructions (there's a separate card that has all of the abbreviations). It's so nice to just toss your yarn, needles and the card in a bag without lugging the whole pattern book around, or squinting at a photocopy, and the card's much sturdier than a print-out. I'm looking forward to trying some of the other patterns in the book (there are a bunch of baby and toddler projects, which is great for me, but there's also a cute knit belt, a man's sweater that doesn't look too intimidating, some patterned shawls and throws, and even some adult-sized mittens). The infant mittens are definitely going to be a staple for me, though! They're adorable, and the perfect thing to use up odds and ends of yarn.

Seamless Knit Baby Kimono

Jacki at The Complete Fabrication shares her knitting pattern to make her beautiful knit seamless baby kimono.

Sew Giving: Baby Blanket Drive

I heart compassionate crafting, and Barakah Life is setting a fine example with the Sew Giving Baby Blanket Drive. If you knit, crochet, or sew, you likely have extra materials laying around that can be whipped up into some cozy love for a homeless child. I have no doubt the receivers of these gifts will feel the warmth of your handmade donation. Barakah Life is doing what it can to support Project Night Night and you can too! They are accepting blankets now through February 29th.

Check out the details on Barakah Life!
Via CraftyPod.

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