Introducing Charlotte Rose

Charlotte Rose is here!

8 lbs. 10 oz.

20 3/4"

My sweet baby arrived and has a name: Charlotte.  This labor lasted longer than both of my previous labors combined.  But in the end I still got my healthy, beautiful daughter.  I'm absolutely smitten.

My mom is here cooking and cleaning, spoiling us rotten, and getting in as much snuggle time as I'll let her.  (I can't get enough of my baby, either, so I'm trying to share.)  My mom also showered us with handmade gifts for our sweet baby.  She made the afghan and hair band Charlotte's wearing in the photo - aren't they adorable! - plus plenty more crochet gifts that I'll get to show off later.

This little girl already has my husband wrapped around her little (and I mean little) finger.  I think he's having more fun putting her in all of her girly hair bands and such than I am.

For now I'm going to enjoy my baby and my family.

'Til later, Rachel

Baby Girl's Nursery: Crib Bedding

There's something calming about white.  Combine white with feminine details like scalloped eyelet trim and this crib set becomes a restful haven for my little girl.

I made all three pieces of the crib set: bumper, skirt, and sheet.  The crib sheet was so easy!  I can't believe I never knew about this.  I actually made two sheets - the one pictured is made with quilter's cotton.  I made a lavender flannel sheet as well.  Here's getting the word out, moms - if you're having a baby, pick your fabric and I'll gladly make a set of crib sheets as your baby gift.  Not only can you pick the most snugly soft fabric - or go with whatever style floats your boat - these sheets fit much better than the store bought sheets you have to muscle over the mattress corners.  If you're the DIY sewing type, I took the best from these two sets of instructions: HERE and HERE.  I used the measurements and French seam instructions from the Michael Miller tutorial, plus the all-around elastic idea from Dana's Made tutorial.

The crib skirt is made from white cotton eyelet.  Not only does the sweet scalloped edge mimic the scalloped pattern stenciled on the nursery walls, a prefinished edge means no trimming or hemming.  Beautiful AND easy.

The eyelet fabric was 45" wide (on the bolt).  One edge is scalloped.  The rest of the fabric is embroidered with tiny polka dots.  Since I only needed about 18" from the scalloped edge for the skirt, I had enough of the polka dot fabric left over to cover the outside of the bumper.

I made the ties using packaged quilt binding.  (It's essentially EXTRA, extra wide double fold bias tape.)  I cut the length I wanted (about 22"), turned under the short ends, stitched along all four sides, then sewed the finished tie to the bumper.

I made the bumper using these foam inserts from JoAnn.  I've read good reviews about them all over blogland.  So far so good from me, too.

The photo above shows not only the ties, but the piping I made and attached along the top of the bumper pads.  To make the piping, I covered cotton piping cord with prepackaged extra wide double fold bias tape, using the same brand and color that I used for the ties.

There you have it.  Crisp and clean with just the right pop of color to coordinate with the lavender walls.  Hopefully my little girl will love sleeping in it as much as I love looking at it.  :)

Baby Girl's Nursery: Wall Art

Last night Ben and I finished hanging the wall art in Baby Girl's nursery.  This was the last big thing I wanted to accomplish before her arrival.

I promise I'll post pics of the crib set and rest of the room soon.  :)  Consider this a sneak peek.

Also notice the stenciled scallops on the wall.  Yes, my husband is amazing.  He stenciled 250 scallops, give or take a few.  Once he hit his stride he could paint 10 per hour.  Yes, 10 per hour was the fast version.  So yes, he spent forever paining.  And yes, I love it!

The most meaningful piece of art is this trio of necklaces.  From left to right, you'll see my first string of pearls.  It was a gift from a dear family friend.  He is Chinese by birth, but developed a close friendship with my maternal grandparents, who sponsored him and his family to help them immigrate to the United States. We now consider Daniel and his family part of our own extended family.

Hanging on the middle necklace is a diamond pendant from my paternal grandmother.  I don't remember a time when Nan wasn't battling one of life's demons.  Her last years were spent fighting breast cancer, then lung cancer.  As a child from a poor family, she never thought she'd own anything as valuable as a diamond.  I'm especially flattered that she gave such a treasured heirloom to me.

The silver locket on the right belonged to my maternal grandmother.  She passed away last summer after 91 years of life.  There's so much to say. For the sake of posting this sometime this decade, I'm going to move along.

Next is this shadowbox.  I painted the frame silver, then covered a piece of white scrapbook paper with Prima flowers.  The flowers came dusted with iridescent glitter, which adds such beautiful dimension and subtle sparkle.

Buttons, pearls, and knockoff diamonds - what's a girl not to love?  All three pictures in this post show the background paper as a much brighter green than it really is.  Hmmm...maybe it's just not a good lighting day?  Very few are here in the rainy Pacific NW.  Anyway, I arranged dozens of white buttons, pearl brads, and tiny white flowers with rhinestone centers into a heart shape.  Attaching everything took less than an hour.  Not bad and totally worth it, eh?  The frame was a clearance find that I spray painted silver.

Finally, we have this pair of sparkly, beaded butterflies.  You'll have to click on the picture for a close up.  The butterflies are ready-made scrapbook embellishments - gotta love easy!  Yet it still adds just the right touch.

Stay tuned for the crib set!

Take care,  Rachel

Super Teacher

Making gifts for men can be so tricky, can't it?  Brighton has a male teacher this year.  I never know what to give as teacher appreciation gifts, Christmas gifts, and such for men.  Food?

Fortunately Brighton's teacher is a big super hero fan.  Or at least that's I assume from the dozen superhero action figures dangling above his desk.  So for a superhero-lovin' teacher, we have the Super Teacher Shirt.  The teacher's last initial is B, hence the Super B.  I'm sure I'll aso be making a Super B shirt for Brighton...and maybe even Ben.

To make the Super B symbol, I first adhered the yellow knit fabric to the t-shirt using Wonder Under.  I added the red fabric on top, also with Wonder Under, then zig zag stitched around the edges.

I also made a Super B card to coordinate with the t-shirt.  I found a diamond shape in my Silhouette library, then welded a capital B to make the symbol.  Paper from Stampin' Up! (Real Red, Pacific Point, Yoyo Yellow).

Thanks for stopping by!

TUTORIAL: Peep Jousting

Welcome to the post-Easter tradition of Peep Jousting.  Here's what you'll need:

• Two Noble Knights: Leftover Peeps work perfectly
• Jousting Lances: Toothpicks
• Jousting Arena: Microwave, preferable with a rotating plate so you can better view the competition
• Plate (I accept suggestions for a witty title)

Arm your Peep knights with toothpick lances.  Stick a toothpick in each Peep, then place the competitors on a plate facing each other.

Place your Peep knights in the microwave arena...

 ...and let the competition begin!  Brighton set the microwave at High for 30 seconds, which is more than ample time.  15 - 20 seconds will do the job.  But my boys like to watch the Peeps melt after they've proven themselves in competition.

Watch the Peep knights swell and try to impale each other.  The first Peep to be punctured loses.

Cheer for your favorite Peep.  Or cheer for the one that gets the fattest first.  Though be warned, the victor is not always the Peep who impales the other first.  Often one Peep swells up so big it impales itself on its opponent's lance.

If you look at Brighton's reflection, this match is a real nail biter.

It's hard to see in the photo, but we have a winner!  The Peep on the right had terrible aim.  Its lance is up in the air.  The Peep on the left scored a direct hit to the chest.

Don't you love the expression on Brighton's face?

Now we've moved from competition to spectator entertainment.  My boys like to see how big the Peeps will puff up before 1) collapsing back down, 2) exploding, or 3) the timer running out.  30 seconds is about right for our microwave.  The Peeps don't explode (ew - who wants to clean up that mess!?), yet they still puff up huge...

 ...then collapse back down.

Ha, ha!  Look at the melted Peeps!

Two noble Peep knights sacrificed to the cause of entertainment.

The winner is clear.  The Peep on the left impaled the Peep on the right.  The Peep on the right held his lance too high and completely missed its opponent.

Hope you had a happy Easter.  Happy Peep jousting!

Car Seat Cover + Canopy

Dear Princess,

Your chariot awaits.

Love,
Mom

I bought a car seat cover pattern on etsy.  I'm deliberately not linking to the pattern because, quite frankly, the pattern was horrible.  The listing mentioned that it was a one-size-fits-most type deal with only the strap marking being specific to my brand of car seat.  But I tell ya, I had to alter the car seat cover so much that it would have been easier to take apart my old car seat cover and use it as a pattern.  (I didn't do that because I was afraid that if I botched the project, I wouldn't have any cover for the car seat.)  Anyway, I'll chalk this up to a life lesson learned.  I'm happy with the final result and that's what matters.

The center portion of the cover is a visibly soft rosette minky.  The patterned fabric on the sides is Peacock Feathers in Sea Glass, from the Amy Butler Soul Blossoms collection.  If you look closely, you can also see that I made strap covers out of the pink minky fabric.

I made a coordinating canopy (tent?) to let my little girl sleep in peace.  I love the addition of the large pink ric rac around the edges.  The buttons on the handle are decorative.  Cute, eh?  The straps are actually attached with velcro.

I didn't follow one particular pattern when I made this.  Here are three free tutorials that I skimmed to get the general idea: here, here, and here.

Another shot showing the rounded corners (still love the ric rac!).  I also rounded the straps to match.

Here's the car seat clipped into the stroller.  The reason I bought this particular Amy Butler fabric was because it was the ONLY fabric I could find that incorporated the same green and aqua used on stroller.  Thank you, Amy Butler.

Another shot of the car seat clipped into the stroller, this time without the big canopy.  You can see how the Amy Butler fabric ties in with the stroller.

Brighton wanted me to take his picture.  I was more than happy to oblige.  :) 

Baby beware, this boy practiced driving your stroller all over our corner of the neighborhood.

If Brighton keeps driving like he did today, this girl's gonna be in for a WILD ride!

Silhouette Wall

I just finished decorating the wall above my piano with things near and dear to my heart: my family, the house of worship where Ben and I were married, meaningful words of inspiration, and the children's hymns my children and I have grown to love.

I used my super easy silhouette making tutorial to make silhouettes of my family. The exception being the mother and child on the lower right corner. That's an image I found online that I'm using as a placeholder until Baby Girl joins the world and I can make a proper silhouette of her sweet chubby cheeks.

I still haven't taken the camera class to learn how to use my DSLR, so please pardon the photography.

Behold hottie hubs. Using bookprint for artwork is fairly popular now. When I told Ben I wanted to pick up on that trend, though instead of using generic bookprint, mount the silhouettes over a background of text from our faith, Ben chose this document: The Living Christ.

I printed three copies of the document onto aged-looking paper, then collaged pieces together to form the background.

I chose The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

Since my posture looks terrible here, this silhouette is also a placeholder. Whenever I sat up straight, Ben (playing photographer) said I looked like I had a double chin. Maybe after I lose some baby weight off my face I can try again with better posture. I also think I'll replace this frame with an oval-shape frame whenever I find one the right size so there aren't so many straight edges on the wall.

Here's Brighton (with impeccable posture, by the way). All three of the children's silhouettes are mounted onto sheet music. For each child's picture, I chose one of our favorite children's hymns, scaled down the sheet music a bit, printed three copies of the song onto aged-looking paper, then collaged the print-outs just as I did for the silhouettes of Ben and me.

Brighton's silhouette is mounted onto the sheet music for I Love to See the Temple.

Behind Lincoln's silhouette is the music to Families Can Be Together Forever.

And behind Baby Girl's placeholder is I Am a Child of God.

Central to the wall is the Atlanta LDS temple, where Ben and I were married. I ordered the photo from Altus Photo Design. The Atlanta temple is short and wide and is typically photographed with a landscape orientation. I needed portrait to fit my wall, and the owner of Altus Photo Design worked with me to find an attractive portrait orientation that worked for my frame.

The Atlanta temple has recently been renovated and is open for public tours April 9 - 23, 2011, except for Sundays and Monday evenings. My mom and stepdad are volunteering as tour guides. If you tell my mom I sent you, she'll probably invite you over for dinner. She's just like that. :) Anyway, tours are free, though reservations are suggested and can be made by calling 1-866-537-8457. Feel free to read more about my faith here, or why Mormons build temples here.