Personalized Onesies

More blogging goodness- Hooray.

My husband's coworker recently had a beautiful, healthy little girl. We wanted to give them a small gift (separate from the office gift) because we also do things with them socially.

Like myself, my husband's coworker is hoping that she can offer her daughter a wardrobe that isn't all pinks. If you've been in any store that sells baby clothing recently you'll know what a challenge that can be sometimes (personally, I've taken to shopping the boy section on occasion- what? My daughter can rock a guitar onesie like no one's business.)

Mom & Dad both enjoy comics which is something that we have in common. I decided to make some fun onesies for their new baby that would celebrate their love of comics and superheroes.

I took some scanned comic panels and arranged them in photoshop, and then printed reverse images onto iron-on material. From left to right we've got Women of DC, X-Men, and Tiny Titans. The inset photo (Girls Kick Butt!) is on the rear of the Tiny Titans onesie. They all turned out fantastic.

I think the next time I consider making a personalized gift like this, I'll look into printable fabric. It's a more permanent medium and I think the extra dimension would make the onsies even more interesting.

Wet Bags

Yeap, I'm totally posting two days in a row.

Yesterday I mentioned sending some gifts to my friends who recently had twins and I shared with you the humorous gift I made.

Today, I'm sharing one of the more practical gifts. Homemade wet bags!

Before I had my little zucchini muffin (she gets all kinds of bizarre vegetable nicknames because it's more fun than calling her "the baby," though we do that too), I never really considered the fact that I might need to bring an extra outfit for her in case she needed to change while we were out and about. Now? Sometimes I bring two extra outfits- because you never know.

The first time I had to change her clothes, I had no idea what to do with the dirty clothes. I didn't want to put them directly into my diaper bag because they might get everything else in there dirty. So, I scrounged up an old grocery bag to use. Which made me think, "Hmm...wouldn't it be nice to have a reusable and washable bag to put this stuff in?"

The answer, is yes, it is nice. I made these bags without a pattern, just kind of winged it. I based the shape on the brown paper lunch bags I used to carry to school- but a little larger. The bags are lined with washable rip-stop nylon and have velcro closures. You can see the lining in the inset photo above.

These are my new favorite baby gift. They're super quick and easy to make and the materials aren't at all expensive. They use about a half yard of fabric each (with some to spare- just in case of mistakes) and a little bit of velcro.

Baby Cross Stitching

Some friends of ours recently had twins. I wanted to send them a few gifts. Knowing how much the gifts we received have helped, I thought for a long time about what to send.

In addition to some more practical items, I stitched up this sampler for the new parents. They have a great sense of humor and I knew they would appreciate this.

The pattern is from Subversive Cross Stitch. I modified the pattern to include two pacifiers and changed the colors up a bit (I wanted something a little more neutral and brighter). I'm happy to say that the parents understood the spirit in which the gift was given.

Tomorrow, I'll share some of the more serious gifts.

Wonder Woman Inspired Baby Attire

So, I had a baby almost four months ago. My last post was written five days before my little lady decided to make her dramatic entrance into the world.

Since then, I've been busy, but I have found some time for crafts and baking. To make up for being so absent since last summer (holy crap, for a full year- that's really bad, I'm sorry!), I'm going to post every day this week. Woo!

First up is the newest outfit I made for my tiny one.

I love Wonder Woman. I've loved her since I was small- I had a photo of Lynda Carter as WW in my room and I even made my own WW costume for Halloween in high school. So, when my daughter was born (we didn't find out our baby's gender in advance) I knew she needed at least one WW outfit.

A few years ago DC Comics put out a Justice League series called The New Frontier. The artwork in the series is absolutely gorgeous. So, that's the image I chose for the onesie. I used a simple iron-on, printed the image in reverse (so the text would display properly), and resized it to fit on the onesie. I looked for fabric that would match WW, but I couldn't find any blue fabric with plain white stars. Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with the fabric I did find.

Next time, I think I'll invest in some printable fabric instead of iron-on material. The onesie looks just fine, but the image is already starting to break up because of how stretchy onesies have to be by nature. I was originally planning to sew the skirt directly onto the onesie. However, I decided to make it a separate piece so that we could pair it with other outfits.

Tomorrow? I'll be sharing some cross stitching.