Made It :: Beco Stuff Sack (& a Paci Clip Update)

Since I got our Beco Gemini baby carrier, I knew I wanted some sort of bag to keep it in. The whole thing can get a bit unruly when just tossed in the back of the SUV or on the kitchen table, so I used fabric I had on hand, a toggle barrel and some cording to create a bag.

I was heavily/extremely inspired by the baby carrier stuff sacks sold on Etsy by Red Charlotte. If I hadn’t just dropped some major cash on the baby carrier itself, then I probably would have just purchased a sack from Red Charlotte.

Anyway, this bag was super simple. My finished product is about 24inches tall and 6 inches in diameter. It’s definitely taller than it needed to be to fit the Beco, but this way I could toss a few other small things in the bag if necessary. I added a handle on the bottom which has proved handy for pulling the Beco out of the bag and I can use the excess cording as a strap to carry the whole thing with.

Now here are some super bad iPhone photos of it, with the Beco inside. I used the owl fabric that I had on hand from Katie’s room.

And the bottom… (why am I holding my keys?!)

I had that orange dot fabric left over from a few years ago.

Moving on…. I made more pacifier clips using the tutorial that I mentioned in my previous post. And boy, was it super super easy. I made 6 in not very long at all. I used scraps that I had and did a few different lengths.

I’ve found that these are good as toy leashes as well, though the ribbon loops can be kind of tight depending on the toy. If you make one that you want to double as a pacifier AND toy leash, use 7-8inches of ribbon instead of 6. The orange one is longer on purpose and is for use with the Beco. One of the black ones is currently living with the stroller and the other is on Katie’s new teether thing.

I also knew I wanted a Sophie leash. I made this one a bit longer and used snaps instead of ribbon. I actually did two snap positions so this will work for other toys, not just Sophie. Why, here’s Sophie now!

You can’t really tell, but it’s snapped around Sophie’s neck on the snap to the right. The smaller snap length is great for other toys, like Katie’s twisty teether thing. I determined the snap placement by wrapping the fabric around Sophie’s neck and guestimating.

Both of these projects were *super* easy. I might make another bag just for Katie toys and I’m sure more pacifier clips/toy leases are in my future.

Made It :: Pacifier Clip

Now that I’m finally back in the “doing things” camp, I spent a few minutes Friday night (things are wild over here, folks) sewing a pacifier clip for Katie. I already posted a picture of it over on Instragram.

This was suuuuper easy and I have plans of making many, many more. I used this tutorial from See Kate Sew for mine, but I think I’ll use this tutorial from The Crafty Cupboard for my future clips – the second one doesn’t require turning the fabric which is a bit of a pain on something so small.

Here’s the finished product – I can’t wait to make more:

And in use this morning on our way to daycare:

I want to make at least 2 more – one for the stroller and one for the Beco baby carrier. And probably a few more, really… these take about 30 minutes max to make (mostly just fabric cutting time).

Nursery Progress: A DIY Ottoman

When we bought the glider from Pottery Barn Kids, we decided not to purchase the matching ottoman. I searched around on the Internet for awhile but couldn’t really find anything that I liked. So I decided to make my own.

There are lots of turning-a-coffee-table-into-an-ottoman posts and general info out there on the web, but that’s not the route I wanted to take. First, I didn’t feel like hunting around for a round coffee table that would work as an ottoman and second, I’m kind of impatient.

I found an article on the Better Homes & Gardens website about a DIY ottoman. I read through the steps and loosely based my plan on it.

We have an ottoman on the 3rd floor and I based some initial decisions by testing that one out. The ottoman was 15 inches tall which seemed a good height for the chair. It also helped determine an 18 to 24inch radius. We don’t own a jigsaw, so I was really hoping to find a round table top at the hardware store. Without a jigsaw, I couldn’t buy a plywood square and trim it into a circle. I remembered that Young House Love had transformed a table for their old sunroom by purchasing a new table top from Lowe’s, so I was optimistic that I could get most of my materials there. Indeed, I was able to score a 24inch round table top and four legs with appropriate mounting hardware.

Next I was off to JoAnn’s armed with a 20% off the entire purchase (including sale items!) coupon. I bought 3 pieces of high density foam measuring 22 x 22 x 2. I’m not sure if having the bulk foam custom cut would have been cheaper or not, but since the foam was already 50% off and I had a 20% off coupon, I wasn’t too concerned.

I also bought some batting, but turns out that I had enough batting at home so I’ll be saving the batting that I purchased for another project.

Lots of words and no pictures yet, let’s fix that!

First a height check. We’ve got 6 inches of foam, 1 inch of tabletop, and 7 inches of feet (not pictured). So we’re at 14 inches total. Pretty close to my target height.

I have outlined the tabletop on each piece of foam for my cuts.

And I used scissors to cut the foam to size (and electric knife would have been preferable but we don’t own one). Since my foam sheets were not 24×24, I had 2 sides where I needed to piece together the trimmed off foam to fill things in. This worked fairly well.

Next I took the foam out to the garage to spray the layers (and pieces) together with adhesive. I let them set up for a bit and attached the leg hardware. I found the legs in the aisle with trim at the hardware store. These leg plates were right next to them.

I positioned them 2 inches in, leaving plenty of room to staple the batting and upholstery.

Next, I took the tabletop out to the garage and used the spray adhesive to attach the foam.

The next step was applying the batting. I used a double layer and tried to pull it as tight as possible (to smooth out my imperfections with the foam). You need to be careful not to pull too tightly though, the batting can rip.

Then I took a week long break and looked at pretty fabric online. Then I got impatient and took a picture of some fabric I found at JoAnn’s for Matt’s approval.

Matt approved, so this past Friday night I headed out to JoAnn’s and bought a yard and a half. I came home and stapled the fabric on.

With the ottoman being round, things aren’t perfectly smooth and there are little pleats all the way around. But you know what, I don’t really care. If we decide to slipcover it in the future, you won’t be able to tell. I still need to paint the legs/feet, but I’m calling this project d-o-n-e. If I were to do it all again, I’d definitely pick up an electric knife for cutting the foam – especially since my ottoman isn’t a square/rectangle.

It brings some nice color to the room (and you can spy the finally-hung curtains!). But the ottoman’s biggest fan is probably Savannah. I’m pretty sure that Savannah thinks everything in the nursery is meant for her. I actually caught her napping in the crib this past Sunday. I’m hoping that she was only lured in there because she couldn’t resist a nap on the quilt that Grammy made for Baby Kesler.

And here’s the breakdown:

Tabletop, legs, and leg hardware: $38.03
Foam and batting: $31.46
Home Decor fabric: $12.12
Grand Total: $81.61

Baby Shower, part 1

What a weekend, you guys! It was Baby Kesler’s baby shower on Saturday and it was so awesome and so much fun. I’ll have to break this up into 2 parts to avoid a mega-huge post.

One of the best parts was that Kristen (aka Miss Prissy Paige) was able to make the 7hr trek up from Georgia. And not only did she make the trip, but she also co-hosted the event with my friend Maria. Talk about awesome.

But first I want to show you the thank-you-for-being-awesome-and-throwing-me-a-shower gifts I assembled for Kristen and Maria. I knew I wanted to give them something semi-handmade and I took inspiration from the burp cloths I’m currently working/procrastinating on. I bought some plain white hand towels from Target and added some fun fabric to the bottom. I was also inspired to do this because I’ve  been seeing this fun fabric at JoAnn and it just seemed to me like Kristen *needed* it since it’s pretty close to her signature color.

I paired the hand towels with a candle and Starbucks gift card. I picked the candle mainly because of the pretty tin, and I thought it smelled good. I bundled it all up in a hot pink bag with orange tissue paper and tied it up with a leftover piece of fabric.

I hope Kristen and Maria enjoyed their gifts, though I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to thank them enough for hosting and providing this opportunity for us to prepare for Baby Kesler’s arrival.

Baby K’s First Quilt

I purchased the fabric for this quilt awhile ago and had it washed and ready. I finally had time and motivation to work on it and I powered through and completed it in one weekend. I decided to just do strips of fabric instead of blocks to keep things on the simple side.

I added in two strips that were kind of patchworked together to add some variety, and because I needed a little bit more length. I like how they keep the quilt from just being two fabrics alternated the whole time. I kept the quilting super simple – just stitching “in the ditch” or where the rows met. The back is a white flannel with small pink dots. I used this Prudent Baby tutorial for a cheat on the binding. I find binding to be one of the most intimidating parts of quilts. This method worked good enough for me.

Enough chatting, here are some pictures:

Savannah was a big help through the whole quilting process:

In fact, she’s already tested it out on the back of the glider!

It’s far from perfect – I’m sure its not square, the binding is a bit off, my cuts were probably wrong, but it’s finished and it’s good enough for me!

Laundry Room Revamp

Happy Friday, all!

I finally got around to a “to-do” that’s been on my list for an embarrassingly long time. I repainted the plywood countertop in the laundry room.

When I first took on this project not too long after we moved into our house, I had no clue what I was doing. I used polyurethane to seal my painted white plywood. Big mistake. Let’s just say that the countertop was looking more yellow than white.

This picture is actually the BOTTOM side of the countertop. Yeah. The top was worse than this.

So I hauled that sucker outside and gave it a good sanding. But try as I might, I couldn’t get all of the yellowed poly off. So I decided to slap on a coat of Zinsser 1-2-3 primer to hopefully prevent the leftover poly from causing any issues.

Once the primer was dry, I gave the plywood a light sanding with a sanding block, then removed all dust with a tack cloth. Now it was time for the spray paint.

I did 3 coats of a vanilla white color in total, basically the whole can. Did you know that your finger can start to *really* hurt from spray painting? Totally not fun.

A day later, I started applying thin coats of Minwax Polycrylic in a semi-gloss finish. I need this countertop to be durable since the laundry room is dust city and the cats eat on the countertop.

I still would like to get this countertop off of the washer/dryer and secure to the walls, but this is good enough for now. But a refreshed countertop is a good first step.

Have a great weekend!