Christening Dress

In February Hubs and I had Olivia christened. She was about nine months old. Most of the time the babies are much younger at a christening. We put it off a little longer than I (or our very Catholic families) had wanted to....but her arrival into this world was a little bit more eventful than we had expected.

Before she was born I was DEAD SET on making her Christening gown, but as things got busier my resolve waned. I ended up doing a lot of online gown shopping before I made my final decision to make the gown. Everything I saw online was so shiny or expensive.....or both. I wanted Olivia to look like a baby in a pretty white gown.....not a bride.

So, it was decided, I would make the gown. I had bought this pattern from Simplicity:

image via Simplicity.com

I liked the lace in View A, but I liked the bodice in View B and decided to meld them together. I decided on cotton batiste as my fabric and ordered everything I needed from Fabric.com. This is in no way a sponsored post for Fabric.com (because my blog really isn't popular enough for those), but they were FABULOUS. I got everything I needed....even the buttons, all from one place, only had to pay shipping once, and didn't have to wait in a long line (while trying to juggle a bolt of fabric and a squirmy baby) at the fabric store to have my material cut. It was amazing....and only cost me $35. I was a happy mommy. Oh wait, I just remembered, I got the lace at Joann's.....so I got almost everything at Fabric.com. Still counts. I remember obsessing over the lace. I wanted it to be just perfect.

I took pictures on my iPhone while sewing, so bear with me......

The bodice had pin-tucks on both sides of the center. They really didn't turn out as perfectly as I had hoped, and I really couldn't figure out why. I took them out and resewed them a couple of times, but it always came out the same way. After the second time redoing them I gave up and hoped it wouldn't be so noticeable to everyone else.

The pintucks on the bottom of the gown came out MUCH better. Of course my stitching could have been a tiny bit straighter, but all in all I thought it looked good. I love how the ipod cord and baby toy just snuck into the pic......

All together, no sleeves or collar, but all the hard work done. I ended up having to tack down the top row of lace because it just didn't want to stay upside down.

Completed! Isn't it so pretty?? Honestly, I think it's probably the nicest thing I have ever made. I should have taken a picture of the seams on the inside too, cause I made sure that they were all done nice and neat as well.

Linking up at a few parties.....

Summer commin to an end....

Wednesday was such  nice day in Boston.  It was very warm and summer-like for September.  With colder fall like weather forecasted for the next few days, it felt almost like it was the last nice day of Summer.  Both Hubs and the baby were sweating bullets when they picked me up from work.  We decided to cook dinner on the grill and to all enjoy the weather on the porch.  I snapped a few pics....

Is there anything cuter than a topless baby?? Maybe a baby with a towel on their head.

Wired....

weheartit.com via Pinterest

I absolutely love coffee.  When I was pregnant I had an awful aversion to it the first trimester, but thankfully, got my taste for it back after that.  I only allowed myself one cup a day though...so it wouldn't hurt the baby.  Once the baby was born, I thought I could enjoy coffee again.  I knew I was breastfeeding, but I figured one or two medium coffees a day wouldn't hurt anything. 

Boy was I wrong.

Since I returned to work I've been drinking two coffees a day.  I never thought anything of it cause I usually wouldn't keep the milk that I pumped during the work day.  I was making plenty for Olivia without that milk (basically, I make too much).  But, a few weeks ago, I discovered that Olivia would actually nurse from me, so started transitioning her to nursing when I was home. We've successfully made the transition (yay!! no more quality time with my best friend the breast pump every three hours) and now am not only not dumping the milk pumped at work, but hoarding every last drop of it. 

Last week, Olivia was basically a no nap baby.  Hubs complained that she would fall asleep for a minute, and then wake up immediately.  When I got home, I wouldn't be able to instantly lull her to sleep with my mommy powers.  I would have to rock her and walk her around the house for nearly two hours before she drifted to dreamland.  Friday night, she was really fussy and the rocking wasn't working, so we put her in the car for a ride.  Now, usually the car is a magical place where Olivia doesn't cry, but not that night.  She cried non stop until we turned around and returned home.  Saturday basically picked off where Friday left off.  Then, I had a thought.  Could my coffee drinking be ruining our happy baby?

It's blurry but... that's one unhappy baby...

Sunday I didn't drink any coffee (well minus the sip Hubs gave me of his DELICIOUS iced coffee), and Olivia was happy all day.  She even took a nap in her crib....for nearly two hours.  The evidence was very conclusive.  I was ruining my daughters demeanor with my coffee addiction. 

That's much better.......

So...now I'm off the sauce, and mornings are just depressing. Not only do I have to get out of bed and get ready for work, but I have to do it without a warm (or cold) cup of coffee.   I have been having a cup of tea directly after I nurse just go I won't get a caffeine headache, but it isn't the same.  I miss my coffee.  If only Olivia shared the same love as I do.

Here's my question for you....what do you drink in the morning if you aren't drinking coffee??

Bathtime for Violet

My friend Heidi is having her second daughter any day now.   I wanted to make her a little something for the baby and had been scouring the internet for ideas for weeks.  I settled on making her a hooded bath towel and washcloth from this tutorial .  

While I was still on maternity leave I had gone to the fabric store with my mom and bought some flannel fabric that was purple with fairies on it.  I had loved it and thought I would make another changing table pad cover for Olivia.  She had taken to pooping on her changing table cover and it was always dirty.  Right after I bought it we got a gift card to Babies R Us in the mail from one of our friends.  I love sewing, but being a new mother is tiring.  All Carter's was on sale at Babies R Us for buy one get one 50% off.  I think you can see where the story is going.  The changing table pad covers were bought.  Now that we have three Olivia is dirtying them next to never. 

The fabric was just waiting for something adorable to be made out of it. A few weeks ago Heidi had posted some pictures of the baby's room to Facebook.  I saw on the wall that the name "Violet" was written out in wooden letters. When I saw that the new baby's name would be Violet I knew immediately that I must use it for her gift.  Not only was the fabric soft and cute, but it was light purple!!  At first I thought I would make the towel part out of this brown terry fabric that I have in my stash.  However, currently my stash is in the very bottom of Olivia's closet, underneath her baby tub, and a load of other stuff.  I got lazy and decided to buy this pretty purple towel from Ikea.

The tutorial called for a 30X30 square but the towel was 28X55.  I thought I'd just cut a 28X28 square.  Easy right?  Somehow my cutting ended up so so wrong.  I cut the towel.  Then I cut the fabric.  Did I cut the fabric crooked on one side.  Of course I did.  I cut it again.  Second time's the charm right? Nope.  The fabric and the towel were absolutely NOT the same size.  At this point, I didn't have enough fabric left to try again, so I made due.  I have no idea what happened.  Either Ikea lied about the dimensions of their towel, it stretched, or I am just HORRIBLE with measurements.  

Helping Mommy sew 

Mom! I'm falling!!

Just as a side note....Have you ever cut a towel.  Little pieces of terry get EVERYWHERE.  It almost looked like Grimace had shed all over our couch.

Once I had the fabric and the towel laid on top of each other and pinned I started on the binding.  I bought purple bias tape for the binding (well actually my sister bought it for me cause I couldn't find it at my fabric store). I usually make my own bias tape, but when one has a newborn time saving methods must be used.  The tutorial instructions said to just sandwich the binding around the edges.  I thought that would be MUCH harder than just using the two step method to putting on the binding.  I did it my way and then zig-zagged the edges.  It didn't line up perfectly on the edge on both sides, but I didn't mind.  I thought it made the towel look whimsical?  What do you think? 

Next I tackled the washcloths.  I made those out of scraps of the towel.  Instead of making them with both fabrics like the hooded towel, I decided just a fairy on each side as decoration.  I used the zig-zag stitch to sew the fairies on, and again, the stitching didn't line up perfectly on both sides, and whimsy ensued.

I'm actually really happy with how everything turned out.  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but the end result looked adorable.  Hopefully, Baby Violet will love her bath set!!

Linking this to a few parties :)

Extreme Couponing Diapers

Hubs and I started buying the paper and using coupons a few months ago. I've used coupons on and off for years, but never as many as we are using now.

We started our couponing trips basically cause hubs was bored. Of course we had watched the TLC show a few times and he was intrigued He found a bunch of coupon blogs online and decided to give it a shot. He's very detail oriented and took to it right away. At first we only couponed at the grocery store. We have since added CVS to our couponing routine (if u can call it that). I really like the CVS trip. I'm a sucker for drugstore products.

Last week, we headed over to CVS for our weekly trip. We had all our coupons and extra bucks ready. I had received some coupons from Huggies in the mail so we brought those too. The baby needed diapers (basically the baby always needs diapers...babies poop a lot). When we got there I went straight to the baby aisle to check out the goods. What I saw was a sale so incredible that I filled my arms and ran to get Hubs. The Pure and Natural diapers that I like were 75% off in newborn and 50% off in size 1.




Not only were the newborn diapers on sale for 2.74 (why I have no idea) but I had a coupon for $2 off!!!

We bought everything on the shelf....4 packages of newborn, 2 of size 1. What we didn't realize then is that CVS has a buy six Huggies get one free program going. We ended up getting a free bag of diapers for buying all these heavily discounted ones! Bonus!!

Each package was supposed to be 10.49, meaning that all together we should have paid near to $66 dollars for what we got. We paid about $19 for them all.

Hubs and I were psyched about our find. We checked a few more stores to see if we could cash in more. But they were only 25% off there. I have no idea why they were so cheap at the first CVS we went to, but I don't care. Olivia's butt is covered, with organic cotton, and I didn't have to give up my morning coffee to do it.



There she is...enjoying her organic cotton diapers with her puppy.  She loves how thrifty we are :)

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?