girl at the (future) rock show onesie set

 my best friend is having a baby girl!

well, you saw the peek at the virtual shower a few weeks ago, now it is time to take a closer look at the onesies!  one of our favorite things to do together is go to concerts, and we have been to a total of 5 fall out boy concerts along with seeing backstreet boys, panic! at the disco and more.  it was on our "to do" list for this summer to go to the hella mega tour, but covid had it's own plans, and that has been rescheduled to next summer.  probably for the best since we were going in houston in the summer and she's pregnant.  so we'll see the show in 2021, but in the meantime, that baby girl is going to be rockin' out in style!

i needed a little decor for the back of my own zoom screen, so i busted out my freezer paper stencil skills and created a set of 5 onesies for the little princess headed our way.  since we love our live music, i picked all the bands we have seen together (or will see together) to give this girl the style she needs while rockin' out to the music i'm SURE her mom is blasting.  i used size 6-9 month onesies for this set, but apparently i should have gone a bit bigger due to the size of some of the band logos!  of course, i ran out of reasonable shaped band logos to do with freezer paper (green day was a bit too intense for my cutting skills)

i painted all the onesies in neon colors, because... well... i wanted to!
the neon just seemed a lot more bright and fun to me, and made them a little more girly.  of course, i had to do the fall out boy one in "mania" ultraviolet purple though.  and the token disney onesie absolutely needed to be in traditional mickey mouse black.  without further delay, here they each are in all their hand painted glory!

the first phase of gifts are now revealed and on their way, while phase 2 is currently under construction.  i'm SO excited with how that part is coming together, i cannot wait for the big reveal on it.  luckily, i've got a 3 day weekend with no live show saturday and neither job on monday (i was strongly encouraged to take the day off from the shop) and a date with a long arm.  fingers crossed my mail arrives on time and things get done!

star wars strip quilt for an itty bitty jedi

when my coworker drew told me his wife was expecting, i got super excited for him.
and then the internal "do i make him a quilt?" struggle began.  i didn't want to set the bar that i'd make ALL my coworkers baby quilts (granted, not many of them are in committed relationships like so) but he IS a pretty cool guy.  so clearly by this post, you can tell that i decided to make him a quilt.  and it worked perfectly with my stash busting fest!
i had plenty of scraps left over from melissa & jared's fandom daisy chain and a good chunk of that was star wars.  if you know drew, and even if you don't, you know he loves star wars.  i put the thought of making it for him, and then when carrie fisher passed away, that triggered me to start on this quilt top for him.  i busted it out in a day, and only had to pick up one fabric as a filler (the r2d2s) and the backing fabric.
i was glad i still had some of this print that had the actual character faces on it, since drew is very about the characters.  i kept it to the original films the best i could, which worked well with the black, blue & white color scheme.  i was even able to include some of the blue sparkle to help break it up but still be a manly sparkle ;)
i loved that i was able to find this star wars flannel.  it was the perfect baby size, and tied in with the front of the quilt so well.  i used one of the prints i had the most left over of to use as the binding, so you can see hints of millennium falcons down the side.
and the remaining tag count down continues!
well, at least temporarily.  my mom said she was able to find and purchase more of these tags for me.  the order still says pending, so they might be here some day.
the little one (baby luke.  i bet you can guess why!) came over two months early, so i managed to get everything done in time just after his arrival.  last weekend, one of my coworkers threw drew & his wife a star wars themed baby shower.  since they already had the quilt (and pillowcases) that i made them, i busted out a few little burp cloths for them to use once they have the little guy home with them :)
i also found these awesome number & counting books on amazon that were right up their alley.
abc-3po
obi-123
the shower was great and from what i hear, baby luke is down to just one more test to pass before he can come home!  i am so excited to meet this little peanut and see these two grow as parents to a little jedi luke.

giraffe abstractions for baby a

you know how sometimes you get those perfect gift ideas in your head, and no matter how hard you try you just can't let it go when the time is right?
this is one of those moments.
i had this moment previously when it came to making the lion king quilt for amy, and it happened yet again when my friend sarah announced she was pregnant.  sarah is a big giraffe enthusiast, and when i saw violet craft's jungle abstractions series, the giraffe was instantly perfect.  i knew the quilt was going to HAVE to happen, but i waited for the gender to figure out what shades to do the background.  she announced she was having a baby girl (yay!) and after hemming and hawing over pink, i decided to go for purple, which was also one of her wedding colors.  i printed my pattern pieced, purchased my fabric and packed it all to take to colorado with me in october where the fun all began.  while i had plenty of time to do this project, i obviously waited until last minute to get it going.  knocked it all out in a matter of weeks, and then got to celebrate at their baby shower.  here's a whole lot of giraffe fun!
i just love the little giraffe face and footies!
there were so many of these big pieces, which were likely just as frustrating as the tiny ones. its so much easier to keep little pieces in pace, while the big ones just flop around to their little heart's desire. oy!
it was so fun to see sarah reach in to the bottom of the gift back and exclaim, "and an emily blanket!" her mom was also at amy's baby shower, so she was just as excited, but i don't think either of them knew the giraffe-ness that was in store for her. i'm so excited for raymond and sarah and their soon to be little baby girl. january is going to be oh so baby-ful! her mom

woodland critters baby shower decorations

a little over a week ago, i had the honor of throwing my best friend a baby shower for her little man!  it is hard to believe it had been a whole 4 months since the gender reveal party, which means that baby is almost fully cooked.  i made a few crafted things for the baby shower, and i am stoked with how they all turned out.  so here's a quick collection of things made :)
diaper wreath
one of the major things i wanted to make was a diaper wreath that would serve a dual purpose.  one, it was a decoration (that erika ended up keeping) and two, it was also a memory game.
the wreath was hung on her front door for guests to see as they came in, then unknown to them, they had to try and remember as many things on the wreath as they could.  having been my first diaper wreath, i am very pleased with how this creation turned out!  here's a few more photos so you can see some of the things put on to the wreath.
i had previously done a similar version of this game at lisa's baby shower in 2010 as a clothesline, but i think if i ever throw a baby shower again, i'll totally do it as a wreath.
lifesaver & jellybean pacifiers 
i had made these for amy's baby shower last year, originally seen at jessica's baby shower so i HAD to do them for erika's!  last time i used fruit lifesavers, and they were SUPER sticky.  this time i used the wintergreen ones and larger jelly beans and i think these turned out a lot better.  the only thing i wasn't so fond of was the string i used this time since i ran out of ribbon (and couldn't find my big spool i bought last year)
we used these for the traditional "don't say baby" game, instead of clothespins.  we also added in the word "cute"as a word to not say.  i still had just enough spray paint from the last round to make these ones.
woodland cupcakes
these cupcakes were one of the first things on pinterest that i knew would be a perfect addition to the woodland theme.  the little "acorns" were the perfect touch instead of having globs of frosting.  i made 2 kinds of cupcakes for the shower.  one, similar to her bridal shower treats, were chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.  the others were vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting - i dyed it green to add a bit of color to them as well.  the acorns are made from a hershey kiss, nutter butter bites cookie and butterscotch chip for the stem.  clearly the buttercream "glue" showed up a lot, so i'd likely advise anyone that made these to dye the frosting brown so it wasn't as obvious :)
side note:
i didn't get a picture of the invites or bingo cards, but you can view them on etsy at inkyinvite.  they were perfect!

just can't wait to be king - quilt for baby leonidas

this quilt has been a long time inspired, but a short time to happen!
at some point when amy and luke were first engaged, i (mostly)joked about making this quilt i saw on fandom in stitches if i had the skills.  at that point in time i had never paper pieced a day in my life, and it was WAY intense looking.  fast forward a few years, and having paper pieced a thing or two, i told her that some day, i would make her this quilt.  she asked me when, and i told her whenever you have a baby.  well, this past spring she found out she was pregnant, and i knew i had to make this quilt happen.  but initially, i thought i had until december.  then, luke sprung the weekend baby shower on us, and i KNEW i had to get it done in order to give it to her in person.  at first, it was pretty easy going.  i'd do a block every so often.  then school started.
then september started.  i started to power through everything, and get pieces together and hard core buckled down.  in the end, the quilt was finished just DAYS before the shower, and i couldn't have imagined it turning out any other way.  it was EXACTLY as i had envisioned it, and loved just as i had hoped.  now, for photo overload!
i found the backing on ebay as a fitted full sheet, so i chopped the elastic off so it would lay flat, and that made it end up being the PERFECT size to work for the backing.
i didn't want to quilt over the blocks, so i stitched 1/4" rows between the blocks vertically and horizontally to frame it in a bit. scar clearly looks thrilled, right?
i went with a black on black print to use for the binding in order to keep it from clashing (the colors on the front really aren't on the back... ha! but the black had these little hash marks with seemed rather lion king-esque to coordinate.
i really lucked out on finding this sheet. it had the perfect hint of simba shapes to it without having more eyeballs staring at you. now that all those photos are there, here are some close ups on the blocks themselves. simply, because i couldn't stop taking photos of it. ha! i was pretty excited it was done, as well as how it turned out :)
the quilt absolutely went over well, and i am so very glad i was able to give it to her in person at the shower. though, i know she'd love it just the same if it came in the mail.  though she's afraid to let baby use it, i think we've come to an agreement that yes, it can (and should!) be used and loved by baby, but maybe once he can control his bodily functions.  haha.
i think this marks the date of the first time i am actually in a photo with one of my quilts.  ha!  i had my mom take one earlier that day of just me holding it as well, but i kaboshed posting that one when i got one with amy.  huzzah!  and yes, there would happen to be a whippet puppy in that photo as well.  wouldn't be a real amy celebration if there wasn't one (see: bridal shower & wedding day).
alas, this completes the baby shower posts, but creates so much more anticipation for december to come and baby leonidas to arrive :)

lion king car seat canopy

when it became apparently that the baby shower was happening, i really had to crack down on getting gifts for baby barto done!  i went from having a november/december finish time to september, just like that!  one thing i wanted to make for amy was a car seat canopy.  i recalled my cousin lisa making one for baby mark, so first i headed her way.  and when i say headed, i mean texted.  she sent me the link she used on pinterest, and from there i began my planning.  of course it had to be lion king, so i used my ebay skills to find something that could be gender neutral enough to be used for future babies as well.  once i found my front fabric, i got a solid green minky fabric from joanns to be used on the back.    i let everything sit around for awhile (literally until the week before the shower) and then finally put it together.  it seriously went together in a matter of hours one night.  the hardest thing was dealing with the stretchy-ness of the minky, but it is not as bad as i thought it would be!
when asking lisa questions about this project, i learned she had just left hers as a car seat blanket. i was a little nervous about strap placement when sewing them down, but being able to see it on an actual car seat made me so glad i went full out canopy for it.
and there's the green!
much thanks to leah for letting me borrow baby elise's car seat at the baby shower!  the pictures of it on my porch look really dumb.  ha!  amy was very excited to have it as well, and even stated that she was in fact looking for a canopy, but couldn't find one that she liked.  now she has a one of a kind one all to her very own.  hoorah!  i also got word not long ago that it also fits the car seat that they have as well :)
for anyone that would like the pattern themselves, here you go! i followed it exactly, including the measurements of strap placement.  i didn't create a pattern to round the corners though.  i traced a cereal bowl.  so much easier :)

amy's lion king baby shower

back in june, amy's husband approached sarah about flying her out here (from alaska) for a weekend, and if we would be capable of throwing her a baby shower at the same time.  uh.  yes!  so we picked a weekend, and got planning.  the thing is, amy didn't know where she was going until the night before she got on the plane!  she flew in on a friday morning, and the baby shower was a total surprise as well.
the plan, as she knew it, was that i was going to pick her up from her parent's house and then we were going to go get sarah so we could go to the fabric store in order to have her pick out some fabric for a baby quilt that would match her nursery theme.  well, safe to say that wasn't what happened.  we filled sarah's home with friends and family from reno to san diego and everywhere in between to celebrate baby barto before his arrival this december in alaska.  here's a few fun photos of party decor, chocolate poop smelling, and present opening :)
instead of doing a diaper package donation, we decided to do a donation jar, since it would be easier to travel back to alaska with that instead. i painted the simba on using chalkboard paint that i got at joanns after i traced an outline printed off the internet. i found a chalk pen at hobby lobby that claims to just wipe off so you can write on it again. i'll have to ask amy if she's tried to re-use it yet!
we wanted to make sure everyone had some food to snack on, including amy's favorites of cotton candy and gold fish crackers :)
i promise, they're all chocolate! the other shower games we had were guessing the size of amy's belly (ribbon compared to measured size) and the "don't say the word" game. our two words you couldn't say were "cute" and "name". the necklaces you see in some of the photos were what we used instead of clothes pins. all they are made from are 2 life savers and a jelly bean to make it look like a pacifier. when i went to jessica's baby shower a few years back, her mom made them for the same game and i thought they were perfect! i feel like i might be forgetting a game... Sarah bought a packet of diapers to use for decorating with sharpies as a "late night" diaper change. some people doodled (I know Leah & I drew animals), while others (well, most of us) wrote things instructing the baby to be given to luke to change.
we asked that instead of cards, people bring books to start building a library for baby. i found a double sided little critter book that had both a story for amy to read (just me & my mom) and a story for luke to read (just me & my dad) to the baby.
and that's all the peek that you get at my gifts! more on those throughout the week :)
a crafty shout out to sarah who knitted this adorable little octopus baby beanie! i can't wait to see it rocked on a baby noggin this winter.
it was sad to have the weekend zoom by so quickly, but just as wonderful to spend time with amy and all these wonderful ladies who were able to trek it out to northern california to celebrate with us.  the next day was spent celebrating even more by going to brunch with sarah, amy & dori followed by a trip to carter to do some hardcore baby clothes shopping.  and then we finally, as promised since day one (haha) made it to the fabric store!  amy picked out some fabric to make curtains for baby's room with, as well as some to make a crib sheet.
it was absolutely a weekend to remember, and i cannot wait to see everyone again once little leonidas is here :)  congratulations again, amy!