Monday, August 22, 2011

Friday, August 12, 2011

Homemade Baby Food

And the real reason for the lack of crafting posts.... I've been making my own baby food.  Best. Idea. Ever.  My son loves the food.  I feel better about what he's eating.  And I love that is so much cheaper than buying the pre-packaged baby food at the store.  $1 for one Gerber container vs. $1 for a bag of carrots that makes a week's worth of baby food.  Easy decision.

I won't give you the full tutorial on how to cook and make your own baby food, because there are LOTS of websites out there that show you that.  But here are my top two favorite baby food websites:

Momtastic
Homemade Baby Food Recipes

But I will show you how I freeze and what I use regularly to thaw the frozen food.

When I am finished pureeing the cooked food, I freeze in ice cube trays, and when they're frozen in the trays, I pop out and put in a plastic freezer bag, label the food and date, and stick in the freezer.

Then, each night, I pull out a few cubes for the next day, stick them in the plastic Gerber baby food containers and put in the fridge overnight.

By the next day, the cubes are thawed and ready for my little baby to eat.

So easy!  I sometimes make a big batch of baby food at once, or some nights I boil just a couple carrots or just an apple, while I'm making dinner anyway, so it's no big deal.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Flower Bows

We had some family in town recently, so all the girls got together to make some hair bows.  So fun!  I just wish that I had a little girl to use the bows more than I will in my own hair :)

Puffy bows.  The black has a layer of polka dot material, a layer of black lace, and then a cute matching button in the middle.  The pink is satin and tulle mixed together in both layers.

Yo-yo flowers.  By far the easiest to make. Love. 

Pinwheel flowers.  This is from a 4" square.

More pinwheels.  These are from 2" squares.  Wouldn't they be super cute for a toddler girl with pigtails?

And a belt bow headband.  Fun.  It's just an old belt that is cut and glued together, with a hair elastic attaching the two ends together to keep in your hair.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Ruffle Henley

Sorry for the lack of posts lately!  Lest you think that I have given up on crafting, I better start posting all my recent projects!  Over the next few days I'll be sure to post what I've been working on.

For today's project, I decided to make a ruffle henley.  I saw these henleys in the Old Navy ad this week and fell in love.  Too bad though that recently I have bought plenty of clothes,
and I just couldn't justify the purchase.

Lucky for me, I had an extra shirt around the house that I could make my own ruffle henley!  Yay!

Oh my gosh, this was the simplest shirt to make ever.  Start to finish was all completed while my son was down for his nap.  Now that's a great project!  Here is what I did:

Step 1: Cut the sleeves off to the desired length

Step 2: From the sleeve portion, cut open the seam, and cut off the finished edge

Step 3: Sew the finished edge from the sleeve onto the front of the shirt. I sewed so that I could fold the added piece over so that there was a nice finished edge to the henley opening.  And then I cut along the shirt right where the seam is now.

Step 4: Cut strips from sleeve portion, make ruffle, and sew onto shirt.  Step 5: Fold over the edge and sew the buttons on to the strip.

This was taken before the buttons were sewn on, but you get the idea.