Onesie Makeover

A couple weeks ago, before my hands started to bother me, I spent the weekend decorating a plain pack of onesies into something special for the baby.  Truth be told, I only got to 2/3 of the package before the weekend was over, so there's still one that needs to be spruced up. 

I started with a butterfly (of course, since I am CONVINCED that the baby loves butterflies).  I found a picture of a butterfly I liked online, copied it into Word and then printed it out when it was the size I wanted.  Once that was done I cut out all the pieces and then transferred them onto material. 
I was feeling particularly lazy that weekend and didn't feel like getting my sewing machine out, so I went the no sew route.  I went over the edges of the material with some fray check and then glued them on the onesie with liquid stitches.  Once that was all done I "embroidered" the edges with embroidery floss. 

On the second onsie I made an "Irish" design, since she will be a very Irish baby (hopefully with blazing red hair like her Daddy).

 I'm really happy with how they came out.  What do you think?

Baby Party Time

I've been really bad with updating again. I have swollen manly, old lady hands.

Now, I realize those two descriptions don't exactly go together (manly and old lady) so I'll explain. The swelling, regardless of how much I water I drink or immerse myself in, makes my hands puffy and big like man hands. The numbness, which really is caused by the swelling, makes my hands feel gnarly and arthritic, like an old lady. Hence, how I have manly old lady hands.

I'm on the computer at work all day, which is probably the worst thing ever for my hands. By the time I get home, I just can't imagine typing out my blog entries.  I had been doing them on my phone on the train, but lately I’ve been getting a weird feeling in my hands from that too.  Honestly, I am just a mess until this baby decides to come out and play.   Maybe I should get Dragon until she arrives? Anyone from Nuance out there that wants me to product test for them (I really don’t want to buy it for myself)??

Some days, most days now really, I feel like I could just sit in a room and complain until I am blue in the face, or crying.  I try really really hard not to do that, since really, these are all problems of my own making.  I wanted to be pregnant….desperately really.   Anyway, that digression over,  here I am, powering through the tingles and soreness to tell you about my Maine baby shower. Yay!

My sister through the shower for me a couple of Saturdays ago at her little house in Maine.  She rents the most adorable house I have ever seen (for about half the price of my Boston 2 bedroom I might add). I’m actually pretty jealous of the fact that she comes home to an actual house that is all her own.  I’m even more jealous of the fact that it costs half as much as my apartment does, and there’s no kid that lives above her that doesn’t know the difference between running and walking.  (This kid could be a whole blog article in itself, but I won’t, because my feelings are strong, and the internet isn’t very private.  Don’t want to get myself in trouble or anything.)  The shower had a very good turn out, and it was packed to the brim with people.

My niece and nephew were there early so that they could greet everyone and help setup.  They however, were told they were going to a “baby party” not a shower.  My nephew, Tommy, is terrified of the shower. When my sister asked if he was going to come to my baby shower he didn’t understand.  He thought he was going to have to get into the shower.  To keep him from being scared, they decided to tell the kids it was a “baby party”.  I think this is the most adorable story ever, well aside from how they have to tell him that they are “going to play in the rain” when he actually needs to take a shower.

The decorations were adorable and very girly (my favorite).  And Hubs and I got tons of stuff for Baby O.  I don’t think I’m going to have to buy her a stitch of clothing until her first birthday J It was really fun to see everyone, and to catch up. 

I don’t have very many pictures of myself at the shower, since I was preoccupied with being the guest of honor, but here are a few I took of the decorations and preparations before.

Tommy - my nephew - adorable

I <3 Cupcakes 

My Niece - Brooklyn - "helping"my sister.  She really loves helping.

Diaper Wreath my sister made - still can't bring myself to take it apart

Decorations on the food table - English Daisies - my absolute favorite

The Devils in the (Nursery) Details

For the last two nights Hubs and I have been working on the baby's room.  We had been working on it for awhile, but hadn't completely finished.  All the big cleaning had been done, but there were a few little details that still needed to be completed.  We figured this week was a good time to do it since my baby shower in Maine is tomorrow. 


While Hubs did all the handy and heavy lifting tasks (hanging bookshelves and moving crap to the basement), I worked on finishing the wall hanging banner thingy I had made to go over the baby's crib (which we still don't have...lol).  Awhile ago, way before my hand froze up, I crocheted a heart for each one of the letters in the baby's name.  Recently, I had added the letters of her name to each of the hearts, crocheted up a few butterflies (the baby's favorite, or so I have myself convinced), and sewed them all to a pretty pink ribbon.   When I tried to hang it, things didn't go so well.  The hearts were floppy and I sewed them to the ribbon way too close to the middle.  It looked like a bright pink mess...with butterflies.

I decided what the hearts needed was a nice starch and iron. So last night, that's exactly what I did.  I am in LOVE with spray starch.  Hubs had bought Niagara starch (is there another kind? I don't even know), and I absolutely LOVE the way it smells.  I don't know when I'll ever get a chance to use it again, but it smelled awesome.  Hubs agreed with me that it smelled great, but will probably use it again shortly, since he loves a nicely starched dress shirt.

Once the hearts were nicely starched and ironed I brought the ribbon out and started to assemble.  I had decided this time I was going to hot glue the hearts onto the ribbon.  I thought it would be sturdier..and wouldn't hurt my hand so much.  It seemed like a great idea, until I glued all the letters on backwards.  TWICE!

Hubs had to come and lay the hearts out for me so to make sure that I didn't glue O-L-I-V-I-A backwards (A-I-V-I-L-O) for the third time.  Finally, I got it right.  It really took some finagling with the ribbon, since there was no way that they were coming off on their own.  I had to cut each piece off of the ribbon and re-glue them to a new piece.  Actually, in the back the hearts are glued to white ribbon, cause I ran out of pink.

It's a little fuzzy...but can you see what I did??

Once we got it on the wall I thought it looked adorable, and wasn't so worried about how silly and messed up the back looks.  Hopefully the baby won't want to know why it isn't all hanging on the pretty pink ribbon. What do you think?

With the shelf that Hubs hung. How cute is it that Minnie and Mickey's tails are hanging down?? I died.

Baby Olivia :)

Inspiration: Baby Sewing

Looks like my crochet days are over. I had hoped to be able to finish the booties I had started before she came, but I just don't think that's going to happen anymore. The swelling and numbness in my right hand is just too much to aggregate more with something I don't technically have to do. I mean it's aggravated enough by my job, which sadly I have to do.

I've decided to switch my crafty nesting focus back over to sewing. I figure that should be pretty low impact on my ever swelling body.

For days I've been scouring the internet for adorable baby pieces that I want to attempt to copy. Here's a few of my favorites:

Sara Sara

Etsy - Pregnancy Journals

Hug Me First

Baby Gap

Pure Baby

MoonCakes

AE Kids 77

Shoot...I don't remember about this one either...maybe Old Navy?

Shoot....I don't remember where I got this one....sorry...

Hug Me First

Is there anything absolutely adorable that I should make for the baby that I'm forgetting??

Swollen

Saturday marked my 31st week of pregnancy. Woo hooo! I have less than nine weeks left now (thank goodness). I feel huge.



The Friday before last marked the last time I my right hand felt normal. Since my third trimester started I have been experiencing some swelling in my hands. I didn't think it was that bad, but apparently I wad wrong. That Saturday morning I woke up and my hand felt weird. It was numb and kinda tingly. I assumed I had slept on it funny and it would go away.

I was wrong. It didn't go away. Turns out I probably have carpal tunnel in my right hand now. Google tells me this is very common in pregnancy. Great.

So, here I am complaining, cause if u can't complain to the whole Internet who can u? I'm swollen, getting huge and have a constantly tingly hand. Waah!

Let's hope these last 9 weeks fly.