Taggie Toys

This past weekend we were invited to a Baptism for a good friend's daughter. I wasn't able to attend due to prior commitments, but my husband took Noodle.

I know what an important and special time this is for families and I wanted to make a gift from the heart that the child could enjoy.

I originally considered making a "quiet book" for the little one to enjoy during her many church services to come. However, I didn't have enough time to make one the way I wanted to- and it wouldn't be something she could use right away.

I decided to make some taggie toys for her instead. No squeakers, no crinkles, no noise at all. Just soft toys with tags of different shapes, textures, colors, and sizes for her to play with at church.

I tossed around a bunch of ideas as to what shapes to make- animals, regular shapes, fruits, etc. Ultimately, I decided to make the letters of her name (since it's both relatively short and appropriate to the occasion).

Each letter has two different fabrics (in blue shades)- so the front and back are coordinating fabrics, but not matching. The tags are just different ribbons I pulled out of my stash- some are ribbed, some are satin, and all different colors.

When I went to wrap up the gift, I decided to make a very quick bag to store the letters in. That way it was a cute way to package the gift and reusable storage for the toys. Win win.

My husband was confused by what the toys were, so he let Noodle (our daughter) demonstrate. Don't worry- we didn't let her chew on them! We left that honor to the young lady we were celebrating.

Felt Truck

I went to a birthday party for a friend's two year old son a few months ago (yes, yes- I know it took too long for me to get this post up), and even though we weren't supposed to bring gifts you know I couldn't resist something small and homemade.

My friend's son, G, is really into trucks. I don't know much about trucks, but thankfully I happened upon this great tutorial on Make it and Love it. I omitted several of the details because G doesn't have the book that was used for the model, and I really did want something relatively quick to make.

It was so easy, I can't believe I never thought to try something like this before. I've made some two dimensional things out of felt (and other fabrics) before, but now that I have a vague idea on how to make them three dimensional, I'm looking forward to trying it again.

This has been dubbed G's "snuggle truck" and apparently doubles as a comfy pillow. Hooray!

Finally!

Michelles Diaper Cake
Originally uploaded by Cup O'Cake Designs

Back on January 3, I promised to reveal a secret project in a week. Here we are, a month later, and I am finally revealing the project.

Due to my camera issues, I wasn't able to get photos of the first diaper cake I put together (on January 3) which is what caused the delay on this post.

I have made a diaper cake before, but this time when I was looking for toys I had a hard time finding things that fit with the theme I was using. For the first cake (in January), I was going with a Rock & Roll theme- the parents met while in a band together and are expecting a boy. I found some interesting toys on Etsy, but I didn't have enough time to order them and await their arrival.

For Christmas, my husband got me the book One Yard Wonders. It's got 101 patterns for projects (ranging from home decor to accessories to clothing) that use only one yard of fabric. I flipped through the book and saw patterns for baby booties and bibs. I was sold immediately. If you can't find what you want at the store, why not make it?

Using the patterns as a springboard, I then decided to make two rattles from scratch to go with the cake. For the original cake I made two electric guitar shaped rattles.

The cake pictured above was for a baby shower last night. She and her husband do not know the sex of the baby (what a fun surprise!) and have painted the nursery in sage green and cream. She is my husband's coworker so I was able to find out the nursery colors as well as the fact that she had many elephant toys and stuffed animals as a child.

The booties and bib were made using One Yard Wonders. I cross stitched "Wild about Mommy" onto the bib, and handmade the elephant and corn cob shaped rattle toys. The elephant actually is not a rattle, but has a squeaker inside. (The corn cob is an inside joke between my husband and his coworker).

You can see more photos of this diaper cake on my flickr account.

Many thanks to M. Mulligan for the photo of the January diaper cake.