Doll nappy / diaper #2...quick 'n' easy project

So, you may remember that last year I blogged about a teeny weeny nappy (or diaper) for dolls...
As time goes by, I am acquiring a bit more experience with the sewing machine (as it is obvious) but also, I'm cutting corners to make the little time I have go a little further.
So, here it is a quicker and easier version of my tutorial to make a doll nappy.


Who would have said that the brave little mouse needed a nappy????

These are the materials you'll need, slightly different from my previous tutorial :

Materials:

• Old small bath towel (or a small piece of knitted fabric, easier to work with and less bulkier than towel. I've used an old baby bodysuit) - for the internal part of the nappy
• A little cotton fabric of your choice - for the external part of the nappy
• A strip of Velcro, 1 and a 1/2 time the length of the wider end of the nappy
• a doll / teddy to put it on (please note: I based this on one of Little Miss' doll, which is long 26 cm head to toe and has a 22 cm waistline; if your doll / teddy is bigger / smaller you'll need to scale the measurements given to suit)

Follow the instruction in my previous tutorial to measure and cut yourself a paper template, according to your doll's size.

Cut the cotton fabric (for the external part of the nappy) following the paper template you have made.

Now, the easy bit: cut roughly a square of the knitted fabric, a bit bigger than the cotton fabric piece. Lay the cotton fabric on top of the knitted fabric WRONG sides together. Pin in place.

Sew the two piece of fabric together following the shape of the cotton fabric, using a zig-zag stitch (that would allow some elasticity and stretch to the nappy), leaving one of the short sides open for turning inside out.

Cut the excess knitted fabric all around and turn the work inside out. Press and top stitch all around for a neater look, making sure you fold inwards the open end beforehand.

Sew a strip of Velcro (soft half) on the front, at the narrower end of the nappy (this will be the front of your nappy) as illustrated.

Then sew two small squares of Velcro (rough half) internally, at both ends of the wider side, as illustrated.

And that's it!!! How easy was that???

Happy playing! :)

 

 

A new career in baby carriers?

Oh my poor neglected blog friends!!!!
How could I just not write for...well, three months!!!
where has my life gone???
If I think about it, May and June are always an incredibly busy time for me (due to Little Monkey's & friends' birthdays...) but this year it has been double busy...because I've started to think seriously about setting up my own small business of natural bodycare products, handmade toys, and baby carriers...things that I make anyway for myself and my family, that I am passionate about and that reflect the way I want to live...a way that is more in tune with nature (in spite of having a real problem with wasting time on my iPad...not very natural, is it!).


Proud of my new business cards!

So, in the past three months I've made prototypes, using lots of generous resources on the Internet, and giving it my own twist, to ensure I can produce quality, handmade products for those that would rather support a part-time micro-business run by a mum than a multi-national...

But today let me tell you about baby carriers, because this is the one thing I believe in that truly changed my life as a mum, for the better.

Carrying your baby in a fabric support is not new, obviously, it has always been done and many cultures still do it as a normal way of life.

Courtesy of National Geographic

 

The Western world, though, is less accustomed to the "high contact" and only a few today "wear" their babies; is this because manufacturers of baby products  push you hard to think you need the most expensive type of stroller, or because society tells you that "if you carry him  all the time, he's going to grow up spoilt" (there are plenty of studies demonstrating that in fact carrying a baby regulates his breathing and heartrate, and it's just what nature wants him to do, just like it happens in all the other mammals...until the little ones can be independent).
I learnt in the last three year (since I had my little one) that babywearing has so many advantages that it just seems  the thing to do! From the convenience and ease of use of baby carriers (you have hands and arms again, and no staircase can stop you now!), to promoting physical development of the baby, to improving mother-baby communication and even encouraging milk production, there are lots of reasons to wear your baby.
Check out Babywearing UK and The Natural Child for a full list of benefits and to know more.

If you have been following me since the beginning, you'll know that I started making baby carriers for my Little Monkey some time ago, the first being a Mei Tai based on a pattern I found on the Internet (here you can find my original blog post...), followed by a mini-Mei Tai for her doll (here), until I came across different kinds of baby carriers (ring slings, pouch slings...WOW, the world of babywearing is huge! endless possibilities according to the situation, the age of the child...).
I also realised that I wanted my Mei Tai to be different, to have wider supports on the shoulders, a wider belly support, a pocket to keep small items while on the go...to cut a long story short, I was ready to start making my own prototypes, based on the invaluable lessons learnt through experience and the numerous (and generous) resources found on the net. 

Pouch sling for a dear friend who had never used a baby carrier before...

Gorgeous Joel Dewbury fabric from the Notting Hill collection (http://www.sewscrumptious.co.uk), featured in this light twill ring sling



Me and Little Monkey demonstrating my Mei Tai prototype...how cool is the animation!!!

Friends and family have started asking me to make baby carriers for them, so this is what I have been doing in the last few months, working also on the look (they need to be pretty accessories, not just utility objects, don't they?!), and I have tons of new ideas that I can't wait to experiment...
So watch this space, because I am close to finish a website, and to show you more pretty things that are boiling in my witch's cauldron...
In the meantime, happy babywearing, and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Crafting with kids: magnetic paper dolls

Can you believe it's the end of March and today it snowed again?!
SO fed up with this weather...I'm not one to go out when the thermometer goes closer to zero, so what to do with my little one in an afternoon like this?
Paper dolls!
When I saw some cute paper dolls on Pinterest, a few days ago, it reminded me of when I was little and used to *LOVE* this simple game of dressing up bi-dimensional dollies with different dresses, which had tags to fold over the paper doll to stay in place.
So, here it is my family, paper doll-style:

Materials:

• Paper
• Pictures of your family members or friends or celebrities or whoever you like; you only need the face, alternatively, you could use a picture of the whole body, rather than drawing it as I did
• Magnetic photo paper (I use the Pound Shop's one = extremely cheap!)
• Scraps of fabric
• Other craft accessories / decorations (optional)
• Sharpie or other black fine tip marker
• Glue stick

So, first step is to cut the faces out of your pictures and stick them to a piece of paper. You can cut the individual figures but I wanted the family to be together. Then, draw the bodies under the faces.
Be creative: you can draw animal bodies or cartoon bodies or just, like I did, some sort of body that resembles reality - well, almost, I do have some more curves than this!
I also made a little mistake, as you can see, drawing Little Miss' body...never mind! I was rushing to get finished before making dinner :) You can obviously colour the bodies, and draw underwear if you wish, as I said, I didn't have much time for the details...

Next, lay another sheet of paper on the first one, and draw the templates for the clothes. You should be able to see through the paper because you used a dark sharpie...so it should be easy to trace the clothes' contour around the bodies.

Cut the clothes' paper templates and lay them on the fabric scraps to trace and cut the shape of the clothes. I haven't traced them, actually: I cut out the fabric straightaway using the paper template as an approximate indication. Be creative, again: I made an awful green stripey dress with sparkly yellow ruffle and a pair of cords for myself, and even a little beanie for Little Miss. My husband has a choice of two T-shirts and some jeans. If you have time, you could make different clothes for different occasions...or even little dress up clothes!

 

Here even the younger kids will be able to help: take the fabric clothes and glue them on the white side of the magnetic paper.

Cut out the little clothes.

Now, fix the paper dolls to your fridge door or other magnetic board, and let the fun begin!

Easy DIY monkey costume for last minute dressing up!

So, I was blogging a few days ago about the dilemma around World Book Day and nursery dressing up as book characters (yes, I know I should go out more!).
This year Little Monkey chose her costume for the first time (sob sob! she is not a baby anymore!), so she picked "MONKEY" in line with her favourite book of the moment: "Monkey Puzzle" by the authors of the Gruffalo.

The usual quest on Pinterest (did the world exist before Pinterest?!), and the fantastic and rich creative community came to help. A quick and easy monkey costume made using a brown hoodie and some felt...this is what I needed! Using a brown hoodie a friend gave me, and some brown and pink felt, it took me only a couple of hours to put together a really simple, but cute, costume.
The felt was used to cut out the ears (pink at the front and brown at the back), the tummy, and a tail. I then stuffed and sewed the ears to the side of the hood by hand; the tummy shape was drawn by using a plate to have a perfect circle on the pink felt, which was then cut in half and sewn by machine on the hoodie; and the tail was a simple, long rectangle of brown felt, folded in two and sewn along the longer dimension, then to the back of the hoodie.

And here is the monkey in action...

But being me at the moment, with lots of things to do and running around all day, I thought World Book Day was on Friday the 8th...turns out it was the day before! So, poor my little one arrived at nursery WITHOUT a costume, when all the other children were dressed up...and went to nursery the day after WITH her monkey costume, the only one dressed up....ehm ehm, I hope I didn't emotionally scar my child for life!
For more simple ideas on dressing up, have a look at my post on Children Dressing Up Fun. I would love to see your creations too!

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Dressing up fun...children costumes

World book day is approaching again (8th of March, this year)...at Little Miss' nursery they always organise a party with the children dressed up as their favourite book character. I find it VERY difficult to come up with something that respond to the multiple challenges of:
1) Being as comfortable as possible: you can't possibly cover your child in fur, no matter the season - although you can see plenty of examples on the Internet of poor little things wrapped in heavy, way too warm costumes...probably getting steamed in there! or perhaps all living in Alaska?!
2) Looks: it needs to be recognisable, or the child won't see the point of wearing it
3) Relatively easy to make - I'm alright with crafty stuff, but as soon as it comes to clothing, I've pretty much got no idea...
However, have a look at these three simple costume I made in the last 12 months...

VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR COSTUME
Last year I made a Very Hungry Caterpillar costume (see my post here), which all in all came quite nice, mixing some basic crocheting and some basic sewing.

HONEY BEE COSTUME
A few months before that, I made a bee costume, which is really as easy as it gets (not sure about famous books with bees in them, though!? but worth keeping this in mind if you are running out of time).
All you need is a yellow or orange top (I have had to dye a white top, as couldn't find any yellow ones in the shops), some black or brown leggings, and black fabric (I've used corduroy) to make the stripes and the sting at the back, which I then stuffed with a cushion's stuffing. I found in a high street accessories' shop a lovely set of bee wings and antennae that helped making this very simple costume the winner of the nursery competition!

OWL COSTUME WITH WINGS AND MASK
How about dressing up as the owl in the Gruffalo? or Winnie the Pooh? I found this sweet idea in a blog called Llevo el Invierno, written in Spanish and English. Here you can find the instruction for the wings, pretty simple to make and assemble (no hems required, hurrah!), if only a little time consuming. I didn't attach the wings to my child's neck, though, I instead added two loops so that she can wear them like a rucksack on her shoulders.
To complete the costume, I made a little felt mask (I found a nice tutorial in a blog called Petit Poulou). My personal invention in the mask making was using an elastic band with a little spring stopper (taken from an old jacket - see pics below) to regulate it. This way, I hope, the mask can be adjusted more easily and last for longer.

But since I call her my Little Monkey...can you guess what this year's costume will be?! ;)

Sunday morning crafting with kids: homemade fishing game

Since my life has turned much more crafty (and I have a toddler to experiment with!), I make a point of doing some simple crafting on a Sunday morning, especially since this is the time I'm on duty with my little Miss, while daddy catches up on sleep. So silent games are the best at this time of the week.
This morning I didn't know what to come up with, though. Last week we did a giant butterfly collage, the week before we did a poster with all Christmas cards she received as a keepsake (you'll know if you are following me on Facebook...), but this week my tired mind really didn't have a clue... So, I picked up a book I bought in a charity shop ages ago called "365 things to make and do" by Vivienne Bolton. It's an old 1990s edition, but still a useful reference for parents when they run out of ideas to entertain their kids.
In this book, I came across a game I *LOVED* to do with my little brother when we were kids, the "fishing game". At that time we had a "sophisticated" version, it was a set of little fishes which had a magnet inside their mouth, in a rotating plastic pond; the scope of the game was to catch the fishes with little plastic rods with a piece of metal at the end of the rope. If you are about my age you'll know what I mean!
The one I saw in the book was the homemade version, using cardboard to make the fishes and paper clips to do the hooks. I happened to have some cheap Pound Shop materials that keep on turning very useful these days: magnetic paper and coloured foam sheets. These seemed perfect for what I had in mind.

So, if you want to do the same, this is what you need:

• Crafting foam sheets (you can substitute with cardboard, but this way the fishes are a little more resistant)
• Magnetic paper (you can use simple paper clips to do the hooks, but this way it's so much better!)
• Scissors
• String
• Sticky tape
• Two pencils or pens or chopsticks or any safe sticks you have handy
• Colours to decorate your fishes
• All purpose glue (this is slightly more toxic than kids' paper glue, but more effective in this case, so I suggest an adult does the glueing, rather than a child)

All you need to do is to cut the foam in little fish shapes (I cut a couple of special pieces as well, a sea star and an octopus: if you are playing with points, these could be worth more); I didn't follow a template or drawn the fish on the foam first, I just quickly cut the shapes, but of course you could download some templates off the Internet and do a much more professional job. I was after "quick-fun-who cares lets be quick so we can play with it". The limitation with foam is that you can't really decorate the fish (although my little Miss has drawn eyes on all of them; older kids could also do the cutting, glueing and assembling), but if you decide to use cardboard you can let your creativity go wild!

Once the fishes are all cut and decorated (I made an odd number of fishes so that there will be always one winner) you can cut little pieces of magnetic paper and glue them on the fishes, with the non-magnetic side to be glued on the fishes.

Now, the last part: making the fishing rods. Just cut two pieces of string of the same length, then tie each one to the end of each of your sticks (or pencils). At the other end of the string, glue or fix with sticky tape a piece of magnetic paper, slightly larger than the pieces you used for the fishes (the string should be stuck on the non-magnetic side of the paper).

That's it! Now put your fishes in a plate or tray and start playing by catching with the magnets at the end of the fishing rods as many fishes as you can in a minute. At the end of the minute, wins the player who caught most fishes. If you want to add another educational element (apart from the eye / hand coordination needed to play this simple game), number the fishes or write a letter on each and for example pick the fishes in numerical order or so that you form meaningful words.
Happy playing and happy Sunday! X

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More upcycling: Mr Tango the Sock Monkey

Still on the theme of toys made with simple household materials, let me introduce you to a new friend for my (not so) little sister...Mr Tango, the sock monkey!

I pinned the sock monkey tutorial ages ago, but never made any sock monkeys because for some reason I didn't think they were cute enough for toddlers to be interested in them. Wrong, obviously. You should have seen my Little Miss playing with the body BEFORE I added ears, eyes and mouth...she was basically playing with a stuffed sock with legs...but, for once, the finished toy didn't end up in kids' hands. Instead, Mr Tango bravely flew a few thousands miles today to reach my little sis as a birthday present. :)
If you want to make your own sock monkey, good, step-by-step instructions can be found on Craft Passion's blog here.
This is a fun, one-evening project that can be easily done with used or new socks (I used new, Pound Shop socks, simply because my husband's socks are all block coloured and I was looking for stripy ones). I had fun deciding the expression of the monkey, all really down to the eyes, so I suggest you try a few eye types / styles (buttons, felt, big round, small embroidered...) and experiment a bit, until you are happy with it.
I also added a touch of femininity with the scarf, made out of a piece of particularly fancy ribbon. Another slight change from the tutorial I followed was not stuffing the tail; I just couldn't face stitching along the whole length of the tail and then turning the tail inside out...I think it turned out pretty sweet anyway.
Happy birthday Cele, love you loads... I know you'll make Mr Tango happy! X

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Bye Bye 2012...and a Happy Sun Handmade Soft Toy

Bye bye 2012...thank you for having seen the blossoming of my creativity, and the birth of this blog. Thank you for allowing me to feel myself again and express my crafty side...
And thanks to the hundreds (or thousands!) of people that have visited the blog so far (last count, 8,600 and something visits...thank you!), I do hope 2013 will bring to you all (and my loved ones, of course)

"PANE, AMORE E FANTASIA"!!!

(i.e. bread, love and creativity)

Now, down to our favourite business...I shall close this year with a post that I hope will inspire you to use your hands a little more and create simple (but lovely), environmentally friendly things for yourselves and your loved ones.

This one is a cute Happy Sun soft toy I made for my new little niece, Ingrid.

Young babies really love staring at faces, so I thought I'd make a happy face for her. My own daughter, when she was a baby, loved also pulling and chewing tags, so I decided to give life to a "Happy Sun" soft toy, using several scraps of fabric to make the tags and, for the face, a soft cotton muslin that had been my daughter's (washed and washed time and time again, so really soft and environmentally friendly).
I added the blue cheeks cutting them out of a piece of microfibre cloth (but you could use any material, I like the microfibre because it's soft and has texture). I stuffed this soft toy with the usual cushion stuffing. However, for my next toys, I'll use pure wool. I have a lovely colleague at work who buys sheep wool and spins it, before knitting her knitwear. She very kindly agreed to give me some of her leftover bits of wool, so on Christmas Eve I decided to clean my first batch of smelly wool in my kitchen. Not much difference with a barn, but in the end I had a bag full of lovely, natural stuffing made out of Jacob wool.


The construction of the Happy Sun soft toy is super-simple.
You'll need scraps of fabric, ribbon, toy stuffing of your choice, and a little bell (optional).
I started with cutting my bits of fabric:

• Two circles out of the muslin cloth (I used a small side dish plate as a guide);
• A number of rectangular pieces from the scraps of cotton to make the tags, which I then folded in half. I also used a few pieces of ribbon. The tags will all need to be positioned snugly around the circles, so make sure you take into account their seam allowance when counting how many you'll need. You can always add more as you go if you need, though;
• Two small circles for the Happy Sun cheeks.

Next step, I embroidered my happy face by machine (but you could do this by hand if you wanted to) and stitched the cheeks on the right side of one of the two muslin cloth circles. See picture at the beginning of the post for an idea of how to do that (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step!).

Then, I sewed a small seam all around three sides of each tag (not the ribbons), and turned the tags inside out to reveal their right sides.
I took my tags, I arranged them and pinned them all around the right side of the soft toy embroidered circle as shown below, so that they would fit snugly, with their open sides one next to the other, and the rest of the tags overlapping as needed.

Then, I sewed all around the edge of the happy face circle to secure the tags to it.

I then put the other muslin circle on top of the first one, right sides facing each other, and sewed a seam all around, leaving a couple of inches gap to allow the toy to be turned inside out and stuffed.

Lastly, after I stuffed the soft toy firmly (and inserted a little bell inside to make a soft jingly sound), I sewed the gap by hand.

Ta-dah!  Soft toy finished and ready to be gifted to a lucky baby!

Happy 2013 everyone!!!