Belated Birthday presents

 I like to make things, especially for presents. On my husband's side of the family there are a lot of kids. He is one of 7 and my kids are 2 of 17 grand kids. It is a little too overwhelming for me to wrap my head around gifts for that many people, so a few years ago I kind of decided that I would do a baby present when they are born and a 1 year present.  This month there are 2 nephews turning 1, so I wanted to make activity books for them. After I got about a week into the first one, I realized how long it would take me to get 2 done and had to revamp my idea for the second nephew. I haven't even started it yet, so I'll save it for another post. This is a little activity book made around his name, Owen.  

 

 The first page has vinyl pockets that I envisioned putting his family pictures in, but I didn't have any current ones, so I added basic colors and they can add what they want later. I made the large envelope to hold the extras papers or pictures like animals, letters, numbers, whatever they want him to learn, or at some point maybe crayons or other small toys. I will let the mom customize them her way. 

Next is the ocean scene with a removable shark and fish. There are snaps around the page that they can put the pieces in different places. There are a lot of textures for him to feel and the treasure chest opens to see gold coins (gold sequins). The grass is grosgrain ribbon hand sewn with bumps in it to look wavy and the ends melted to prevent fraying. The words are printed on fabric made for your printer I had bought years ago to sew a picture blanket for my sister and still had some laying around.

 The next page is the bird house. The eggs are removable with buttons and the bird can be tucked away in the bird house (or the eggs too). The bird is sewn to be used on either side with little wings that flap.

 The last is a race track with a little race car to zoom around. It is attached to the page with velcro. He could also zoom around other cars, or the other animals from the book!!

 I mostly wanted something that could be fun with lots of colors, and textures and letters and different activities for fine motor skills. I used a very stiff pellon which makes the pages stiff like a real book and the removable pieces are double sided so they can be played with on the page or separately and all are made with the same material so they aren't floppy like the felt kind you see around.  This is the first book I have made like this, so it was a learning curve. Lots of sketching, making things and throwing them away and lots of hand sewing, which is not my thing, but I liked the way it turned out.  Of course I am much more critical of my work and can see so many things I want to change, but that's a slippery slope that leads to never finishing anything!!!  It's not very long, but hopefully long enough to keep him entertained for a few minutes and small enough to tuck in a bag or have in the car. I made a few similar pages (but kept them lose so they could both pay with them and not have to fight over the same book) for my kids almost 2 years ago and they still fight over who gets which one when I pull them out. Their favorite is the race track and our ocean scene (I put some pics of them below if you are curious). I hope this is as successful.

 

Good Ideas??

Anyone have a good teacher gift idea.  I know I am super annoying about planning months in advance, but it gives me time to budget and create and re-do if necessary.  Plus when the holidays come around and I am not rushing around I have so much more fun just enjoying them.  So......any suggestions??

I can see the appeal of a machine

Most of the time my scrapbooking needs/skills are minimal, so I have never been one to see the upside to the cost of a cricut or the other kinds of cutting machines......until Amelia requested for her birthday that I make her a banner with her name on it since Ben got this one for his birthday.  In my husband's family his mom had a tradition of making treats and signs for when they came home and he liked the idea of keeping this tradition. Since her birthday was the day before school, I felt like we had just done a birthday celebration so another day of treats and decorations was a little much.  Instead of all that, I decided to make her a welcome home banner with her name so she could hang it on her wall like Ben. I had some cute school themed scrapbook paper and some cute letter stickers and got to work.  3 hours later (I am sooo not kidding, I was almost late in picking her up) I made this and vowed never again to tackle one of these without the die cuts. That's a lot of cutting!!  But I think it turned out cute and was totally worth it to see her face light up and it's something we can keep for a while to make it all worth it.

(I apologize for the unfocused and dark pics!!I was rushing to snap a photo and my house is the worst for candid photos, but not everything can be staged, right?!?)

I'mmm baack

OK, I have been out of blogging mode forever, as well as project mode.  But now with one less child at home (for 5 hours a day, can you tell how easily I adjusted to that!!!) I am finding myself getting back into being me again. So hopefully I am back at projects and postings.  First off,  my recent gifts to my Tangled crazed daughter, a Rapunzel costume and a hobby horse version of Maximus. Sadly, her birthday was an entire week ago and I just finished Maximus today, but luckily she is very patient and forgiving.  The costume will also be her Halloween costume, so I lucked out with 2 birds with one stone. I actually had most of the stuff on hand. The light purple was a damaged PB sheet from my UT trip a few months ago and the dark purple, velcro and the eyelets I had in my stash.  I just ended up getting the trims.  Since it is dress up, I wanted it to be a 2 piece so she could do it herself, plus a skirt and top was way easier without a pattern than trying to figure out a dress.  It will also grow with her more. The back of the top closes with velcro the whole way down so she can get it off easily, but it still stays on. And I wish I had an embroidery machine, but instead I bought variegated thread and used one of my decorative stitches on my machine to make the stitching down the front and hem of the skirt.  IF I wasn't burned out of this project, I think I would have liked to get a lacey fabric as on overlay on the top to be more true to the movie, but who's looking that closely?!?! It's pretty cute and she loves it.