Make Your Own Baby Wipes

Yep...I bought into the fad idea of making my own wipes.  Mainly because we didn't renew our Sam's Club membership (I loved their wipes) and the cheapy Walmart brand seemed to cause more diaper rashes.  Here is the formula I use and prescribe to.

Materials:
- Roll of paper towels (I like the select-a-size ones); each roll makes two.
- 1 Tbsp Baby oil
- 2  Tbsp Baby wash (I use Aveno due to a sensitive skin kiddo)
- 2 cups water
- Lavender essential oil - just a few drops **I added this on later as I found one girl was getting rashy/yeasty somewhat frequently...Lavender oil is an anti-fungal oil and is also gentle for babies skin.  It has done the trick; and no I'm not a hippy haha**
- container (I love my Sterilite ultra seal container found here)
- cheap steak knife (I bought some at the $1 store with jagged edge/teeth to save my good knives)

Cut your paper towel in half.  One half of a paper towel fits perfectly in the Sterilite container linked above.  I don't remember the exact measurements on baby wash and oil (and I just guess when I make them now anyway) but I do recall it is more baby wash than baby oil.  I mix up my water, oil and wash (if you're container seals tight enough shaking is great) then submerge your paper towel, put the lid on and immediately flip over.  Add small amount of water if need to wet missed parts.  Remove your tubing once it is wet and pull wipes from the middle.

Free Craft Friday -- Fabric Ball

I am playing with the idea of doing what I like to call Free Crafting Fridays.  This will be me finding or coming up with various crafts (sewing, home decor, etc) that you can do for free or at least on the cheap.  I have been finding so many fun craft ideas online recently and this has lead to a little obsession with pinterest.com.  I'm sure many crafters have been on this for years (has it been around that long?) but I'm just wetting my feet.

Anyway I want to try out some of the free sewing patterns and other DIY (do-it-yourself) projects that I've been finding.  Of course I will be giving credit to the people with the original tutorial and will not be listing any tutorial credit myself just tips on what I learned or liked from the project.

Sooooo... to start off I am introducing my fabric beach balls care of Purl Bee's tutorial.  Awesome awesome awesome...thank you for making it so simple and easy to do.  As I was playing with my almost 9 month old twins I realized they were missing something from their arsenal of toys...a ball.  So I hopped online and found this tutorial from Purl Bee, ripped out my flannel scraps and I kid you not had my first ball complete in the space of one nap (an hour and a half).  And now with practice I am even a little faster at making these.  My girls (and hopefully my friends' girls as I'm thinking Christmas presents) are going to love these to play with.

 What 9 month old doesn't have a ball to play with...not my girls anymore that's for sure

Hmmmmm...with that question comes this...I wonder if these could be used as a humanitarian project??

Infant Sun Hats

I made it my summer's ambition to make my girls sun hats.  I didn't want to buy a pattern.  So I found a free downloadable pattern online.  How hard could it be?  That's what I thought.  But after more than half a dozen hats "finished" and only one or two that were moderately okay...I broke down...I bought a real pattern.  We were going to visit my parents in Florida in less than a week.  Nothing like cutting it down to the wire.  I finished up the last hat of two the night before our flight.  They turned out pretty darn cute.  I plan to use the same pattern to make fall/winter hats.

 I added a ribbon on the inside so the we could tie the hats on for windy days and boat rides

 I did a zig-zag stitch in order to catch the underside seam also (I missed it the first try)

Crib Bumper Pads

For this project I used the Nu-Foam Baby bumper pads.  These were super simple to use and retain their shape without quilting the bumper pad.  You can fancy them up or simple them down (as I call it)...adding piping, notions and other details.  A friend of mine also used the same pre-made padding and had her mother make the bedding.  Both of our sets turned out very well but are very unique also.

**My apologies that this was also a completed project at the time I started this blog so there are no step-by-step picture instructions**

Crib Bumper Pads in place - these have been used and kicked for months at this point

I have twin girls so I made these in two different colors with black and white

Similar but different...just like they are

Finished Product - Front of bumper pad

Materials Needed
3 1/4 yd total fabric
thread
ribbon or 3/4  additional fabric for ties
notions (optional)
Nu-Foam Baby bumper pads (6 panels in a package) 26" x 10"

Instructions
(pattern included in the Nu-Foam package found here)

1.  For the bumper pad style I chose to do I determined to make one side solid and one a simple panel style. 

Two panels (solid and pieced) joined together

 2.  Cut fabric into 12 separate 27" by 11 3/4" panels.  For my design, I drew up a separate idea for my paneled side and determined how many inches wide each piece would be and totaled them to 27" (allowing for seam allowance to join the pieces).  For the solid side I simply cut out 27" by 11 3/4" panels.

Back of bumper pad

3.  Construct your ties with the additional fabric or by using ribbon.  These need to be 2" x 20".  Lay one panel down and pin the ties/ribbon to this piece.  First fold them in half and press flat then pin to the 4 corners of the piece.  I found it easier to pin the ribbon to the corner with both panels in place.  Also pin the excess ribbon away from the edges to avoid sewing over it.  

4.  Pin the fabric bumper panels with right sides together.  Do not insert the bumper pad until the last step.  Sew a 3/8" seam around all of the sides, leaving one side open to insert the foam.  The directions state to leave a long side partially open.  I decided to leave one of my ends open on each panel to slide the foam into. 

5.  Turn the panels right side out and insert the foam panels.

6.  Once you have completed the panels and have slid the foam into each panel then stitch each panel closed. I did a press around my open end and then sewed them shut.  

Left side shows sewn end method -not the neatest but I am amateur after all 

7.  To keep your ribbon clean and stop fraying singe the ends of it with a match or lighter. 

Ribbon with singed ends to prevent fraying - I have used these bumper pads for a number of months now...thus the ribbon is quite wrinkled from tying.