I love making homemade gifts. When I was a kid I would buy little teddy bears and hot glue lace tutus on them for birthday gifts for my friends. Looking back on that just now I realized what a lame birthday gift that must have been. If you ever received one of those teddy bears from me I’m really sorry; I owe you a Starbucks gift card.
These days I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that don’t involve hot glue and peach colored lace. But seriously, homemade gifts are just so much fun and this summer I had a handful of opportunities to make some seriously cute stuff.
Our good friends Heather and Eric had a baby boy and I had the pleasure of sewing a fitted sheet for his crib.
Unfortunately this is the only shot I got of it, but come on, grey and white polka dots? Adorbs. I LOVE making fitted crib sheets. They are super quick and easy and you just can’t find cute ones in stores. There is a great tutorial that I found over at danamadeit.com (Love her stuff. Take some time to check out her site; you won’t be sorry. She’s so fun.) You can find the tutorial for ithere.
I also couldn’t resist whipping up one of my minky blankies for him. ROBOTS! Little boys are fun.
Josh’s cousin Laura and her husband Lance threw a party for their sweet little girl who was turning 1. Bear loved playing with bean bags at that age so I raided my fabric stash and sewed these little cuties up.
I filled each one with different size beans and rice that we had on hand so each was a bit different from the next in weight and feel. I picked up a container from the dollar bin at Target and Volia! A quick and easy bean bag toss game.
Josh’s other cousin, Les, invited me to her baby shower (All these cousins having babies is the best!) and I got to make her a couple of things. First I sewed up some flannel burp rags; you can never have too many. I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of flannels at JoAnn’s. Pretty good right?
I found this great nursing shawl tutorial here and thought I’d try it out. They turned out pretty good, not sure how well they work, but it seemed like a much better idea than the nursing cover I used with B.
And last, but not least, our sweet friends Johnny and Anna’s little girl turned 5! They threw her a totally rad horse themed party and Anna made the most delicious and beautiful birthday cake covered in frosting roses. It looked too pretty to eat, but somehow we managed. I couldn’t decide what to make for sweet little ‘M’ so Josh stepped in and made an awesome suggestion.
And a reversible cape was made. What 5 year old doesn’t need a cape? You can find the tutorial here.
Well, that’s about it…Oh wait! There’s one other thing I’ve been working on…
That’s right, baby Deaner #2 is in the works.
This is my all time favorite thing to make! I should be finishing this big project up late March or early April. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!!
Leave me a comment and let me know what the best homemade gift you ever received was.
sugars and boogers 