On The Go Toddler Bed Rails

We went on a mini vacation with the kiddos last week.  As previously mentioned here, my boys still sleep in cribs.  They like them and haven’t climbed out yet and I like the peace of mind of knowing that they won’t be getting up and running all around the house in the middle of the night.  I know I only have a few more months of this so I’m just going to enjoy it while I can.

Anyway, we stayed in a townhouse on our trip and had to figure out sleeping arrangements.  The boys are much too big for pack and plays so “big boy” beds it was.  First we tired them out every day so that they would sleep through the night.  One problem solved.  Now how to keep them from falling out of their beds?  I first came across this awesome tip when my girls were little and I loved it so I thought that I would share it with you!

See that little bump along the edge of their beds?  That keeps them in and here is how you do it.  (I promise that this was a nice townhouse but we rearranged the beds like this and took down the pictures that were over their beds because that was just asking for trouble.)

 

 

Take your standard swim noodle.  These are cheap, light weight, and easy to bend for packing.

 

Next wrap it in a towel or blanket.  This adds some extra bulk and keeps it from being so slippery.

 

Finally tuck it under the fitted sheet on the bed.  Make sure to tuck the fitted sheet in nice and snug to keep it form shifting.

Easy peasy!

 

This method worked so well for us that I never did buy my girls bed rails when they were little we just used these all the time.  An additional plus to this method besides being inexpensive and portable is that making the bed is much easier than making a bed with a bed rail.

I hope this helps!

Ballet Shirts

 

 

 

        

Both of my girls and three of my nieces recently performed in dance recitals.  Aren’t they sweet?

 

    

I decided to use my Silhouette to make some cute gifts for them. 

 

 

I used an image of a ballerina.  I cut the ballerina shape and their names out of pink heat transfer and ironed them onto shirts. 

 

 

For my oldest niece, I ironed the image and her name onto a bag.

 

I also did a little fancy stitching on the top to jazz it up a bit.

 

 

I love these girls!  You all danced beautifully!

 

Happy Crafting!

 

P.S. What were the boys doing during their sisters’ dance recital?  Running around in the lobby like complete lunatics!  Thanks for watching them daddy and Uncle Eric!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father’s Day!  Not that I think any dads are actually reading my blog but you’ll pass along my well wishes for me won’t you ladies?  I hope you all have an enjoyable day with your families.
To start you off here is a fantastic dad video you have to watch!

Kimberbell Kids Doll Round 2

A few months ago I made up a couple of Kimberbell Kids Dolls for my little girls.  See my previous post here.  When their cousin saw them she loved them and asked if I would make her one too.  I promised her one for her birthday so here it is.

 

Hers is the one in the middle.  She requested having both of the hair colors that I used on the other two dolls.  It took a little extra time but wasn’t too tricky. 

 

 

I think that my niece was really happy with it.

 

I really love this pattern and would recommend it to anyone who is has never sewn a doll before as the pattern is very detailed and easy to follow.

Happy Sewing!

 

End of the Year Class Gifts

 

 

 

Aren’t these just so cute?!!!  I came across this idea around Valentine’s Day at 24-7-365.  I really wanted to make these but we had already planned to make crayon hearts for Valentines Day.  (See my post HERE.)  I decided that the end of the school year would be the perfect opportunity for these super cute treats. 

My little girls went to their last day of preschool today.  “Sniffle Sniffle.”  I actually managed to keep it together today but they have their graduation on Friday and I’m not making any promises about my emotional state on that day.

Anyway, they had so much fun passing these out today and everyone thought that they were super cute!

Just take a picture of your child with their fist up towards the camera.

Add whatever text you would like.  I used Picasa to do this.

Then using an exacto knife or scissors cut small slits above and below their hand.  Insert the lollipop and tape it down in back.

Happy Crafting!

Warhol Dresses

 

I really love how these Warhol Dresses turned out!  They were made using another wonderful tutorial from Dana at MADE. 

 

The girls really like how soft and cozy they are.  Another plus is that I was able to make both of these dresses from old pieces of clothing of mine.

I used a navy blue maternity shirt (which I don’t plan to ever need again) and this “lovely” pink dress.  (Does it make it any better if I tell you that I used to wear it when I was  a Kindergarten teacher?  No?  O.K.)

 

The Warhol Dress pattern only goes up to a size 4 and my girls wear an 8.  I used the Pillowcase Dress pattern from Little Big Girl Studio to help me get the right size.  The Warhol Dress pattern is on the left and the pillowcase dress pattern is on the right.

 

I laid both patterns on top of each other so that I could get the size from the pillowcase dress pattern but have the shape of the top of the Warhol Dress pattern.  I then traced it out on freezer paper to make my own pattern.

 

 

I was trying to eek out two dresses for my girls out of this one dress of mine so I copied the pattern twice so that I could get a better visual of the layout.  I folded the dress in half to see if it would fit.  As you can see in this photo, the pattern overlaps by about 3” in the center. 

   

I decided to add a strip of the navy blue fabric from the shirt to make it work.  Then I got the idea to add some ruffle.  It was super easy!  You don’t have to finish the edges because knit doesn’t fray.  I just cut a long strip of fabric ( It should be around 2 times as long as the length of the dress. 

 

Then I set my stitch length to the longest setting and increased the tension to the maximum setting.  I sewed right up the center of the strip and it pretty much gathered up on it’s own.  I just gave the threads a little extra pull and it was perfect.  Then I put all of the settings back to normal on my machine and sewed the ruffle to the center of the dress.

 

 

 

Now I did have a little setback with the next step.  Do you ever have that experience while sewing that something isn’t going to work out but you don’t listen to that little voice and you do it anyway and yep, you were right big disaster?  Maybe this is just me.

 

Here is what happened.  I wanted to use the blue fabric to make the ties but because it was a maternity shirt, the fabric was super stretchy.  I figured that the weight of the dress would pull too much on it but I went right ahead and sewed it on anyway.

 

All of the gathers came out because the blue fabric was so stretchy.  It also didn’t hold up the dress at all.  I tried it on my girls and it was beyond huge!

So I had a little 3 HOUR date with my seam ripper!  It took this long because when I sew with knits I always use a triple stitch.  It wasn’t a total waist of time though because I got to sit back and listen to some classical music.  Oh who am I kidding I watched the season finale of Biggest Loser!   :)

Once I finally got the blue ties off, I gathered the top of the dress again and then sewed the begeez out of the gathers so that they wouldn’t shift.

 

Next I cut out ties from the pink fabric.  I made the ties a bit wider and I sprayed the fabric with some spray starch to make it easier to work with.  

 

Then I pinned it really well before I started sewing.

 

 

Guess what?  I like the pink ties better.

 

   

 

I really liked this pattern and I love the end results even more!

         

 

Happy Sewing!