Baby Shower Autograph book

My good friend recently hosted a baby shower for me.  It was a lot of fun & I really wanted to preserve a fun book of signatures from my guests.  This baby is expected early December 2012 so we planned to have the shower first & then a "meet the baby" tea late in January or early February 2013.  December is rife with holiday busyness, cold & flus and it just made sense to straddle the holiday rather than deal with all it's craziness.

 I found this old card kit in my stash.  It is still cute but quite dated looking, "Paper Magic, you make the Magic" by Sue Dreamer.  I Made a template, & used my Bind-it-all to punch 8 holes in the cards.

 I used some heavy cardboard to make the covers same as how I made the circle smash book.  I covered the covers with glue stick & "Max & Whiskers Basic Grey paper."  The baby nursery & shower theme is baby animals or zoo animals so this fit perfectly.  The covers are 1/8" larger than the card envelope size since I did punch a few envelopes to use as pockets inside the book.  I used the BIA corner rounder to round the outer corners.  Hockey tape sealed the edges of the covers nicely.  Tip:  Use sharp scissors to cut hockey tape, it is very sticky!

 Here is how it looks inside

 All the embellishments were premade as part of the card kit.  I had some making memories fabric tape that I used to cover the preprinted credits on the back of each card.  I used a bit of smash tape to note the date of the event and sticky notes to reserve the first & last pages for notes of the fun shower & tea party details.

I hope this post inspires you to have a look at your stash & think of new ways to enjoy using it.

Teenage Sleep Shorts

I've been slowly digging my way through my sewing pile.  I had a cheap McCalls patterm that said it is sized for teen or men's small.  Grumble grumble grumble, don't get me started on McCalls pattern sizing!  I got stung, AGAIN!  The silly thing is, I should know better by now since I have been stung by this lesson a few times.  McCalls patterns have always had crazy generous sizing. 

 I sometimes trace a pattern to save the multisize or simplify it.  I tape it onto a window & then tape stretcher paper over it & get busy tracing.  Stretcher paper is a little known secret of quilters that work in health care.  Some doctors clinics or hospitals will give you the end of the roll if you ask.  You can get a whole roll for very cheap from your local hospital.  I can't recall the price now since the roll I have is many years old & it goes a long way.  Remember to mark the cutting lines, grain lines, notches, and dots if you need them.  I was able to trace off the fly & pocket markings since they weren't needed.

 Here is the finished shorts, modeled by my 14 year old son who is as tall as me. 

 As you can see, they are clearly HUGE!  Oh well, they're comfy & he will remember them a long time since they will be in use for a few years I suspect.

I hope I've made you laugh, with this post, I do now but I wasn't so pleased at the time.

Heat packs

These are an older project I made but they never let me down.  These are about 8 years old now & just as nice as when I made them.  I used scrap fabric & plain sewing.  There was some covers that have gone missing so that will age them faster using the heat packs au naturale.  They are filled with flax seed, about 1lb each I guess.  They also freeze really well to function as cold packs.  The long one is 5 compartments, finished size 22+3/4" long x 4+3/4" high.  It is perfect for neck or joints.  The rectangular 6 compartment one is 9" x 10+3/4" and is perfect for belly or back ache.  They also work really well to prewarm the bed at night, we all need our toasty comforts. 

I wasn't overly fussy about making them since they were from scrap fabric.  I compartment-ed the flax seeds so they wouldn't become one mishapen lump.  I don't think I even measured the fabric but folded it once the overall shape was sewn to figure out the compartments.  Once I figured out the divisions I did use a measuring cup to evenly distribute the flax seeds & sewed the compartments closed as I filled them.  They lie nice & comfortably where they are placed which I really like.  This is what works for me.  These are well worth an hour of sewing time to make.  Thanks for looking :)

I will be doing a bunch of preposting now so this blog won't be totally abandoned.  As of this writing Nov 19, 2012 there is about 2 weeks to go until my baby is due.   I hope you have great days every day!