Double diaper cake delight

As mentioned in the prior post, a friend's wife is expecting and I wanted to make a diaper cake for her.  I also promised to make one in a special Christmas theme, as the baby is due on Christmas day.

Diaper cakes are easy to make but are a little time consuming.  The design can incorporate baby items or can lean more to a traditional cake design.  I prefer a floral design.

Here is a list of required items:

- diapers (I typically use Huggies Pure and Natural in the <10lb and <14lb varieties)
- elastics
- bottles of baby lotion, shampoo etc.
- cake tray
- ribbon
- flower stems
- glue gun and glue

Steps:

1.  Roll the diapers and secure with elastics.  A three tier cake uses approximately 80 diapers.
2. Glue the bottle of lotion on to the center of the cake tray.
3. Place the diaper rolls around the base of the bottle of lotion and secure with an elastic.  Repeat twice more.

4. Start the second tier, which will require two rows of diaper rolls.  Secure with an elastic again.

5. Depending on the height of the interior bottle, you may need to add another bottle or container.  Secure one row of diaper rolls around the interior structure.
6. Apply the ribbon around each tier.

 

7. Fill the center with the flower stems and arrange flowers around the cake.

For the Christmas design, I limited the flowers to the top and applied two Christmas bows to the front.

I love how they turned out.  Hopefully the parents to be like them too.

Here's an updated picture from the baby shower today:

Somebody found her sewing machine!

Let's start by addressing the obvious question - how does someone misplace their sewing machine.  Easy, when we moved into the house, it was not unpacked right away.  I've been busy with work and haven't needed to sew anything until recently.  My husband wants new drapes for the front door and a few months ago he started cajoling me into looking for the box with the sewing machine.  I couldn't remember where it was!  So, I just let it rest for a while.

My friend's wife is pregnant and I wanted to make a few gifts (in addition to the diaper cakes that will be in the next post), so the search for the sewing machine began again.  Of course it was in the most obvious place (I have a spare room that was originally intended to be my home office but has become a bit of a storage space).

Anyways, sewing machine found, I bought some cotton prints, towels and flannel and have been sewing away each night this week.  I've made burp clothes, a bib, and a rag quilt.  I learned how to sew by age 5 but I haven't quilted in any style in YEARS.  I'm tickled pink with how the burp clothes turned out but I am particularly proud of this little rag quilt. 

I didn't remember to take pictures during the making of the burp clothes or most of the way through the quilt but here are some pictures of the final product.

Burp Clothes and Bib (Cotton prints and towels, patterns were free-styled on newsprint):

 Rag quilt:

 (This shows the rows of the squares of cotton, with flannel backing, lined up ready to attach each row together.)

 (Almost done, all rows together and time to cut into the edges to facilitate the fraying.)

 (All edges have been cut to help the fraying.  I hate this part, it feels like it takes forever!)

 (All washed and dried and frayed! Yea!!  Done!!)

I can't wait to give these to the parents-to-be!

Christmas Crafting - Swirl Ornaments

I was inspired with the vases that I made as Christmas gifts and decided to give painted ornaments a try.  I've seen some great tutorials on these.  For example, Oh Sugarplum! has an entry on swirl ornaments (with a really cool tutorial on making marbleized ornaments as well).

I made eight, some with red and gold, some with blues and white.  My favourites though were a couple with blue, red and gold.  I used Folk Art Metallic paints for these.

Christmas Crafting - Painted Vases

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to make some painted vases as Christmas gifts this year.  This weekend marked the beginning of my Christmas crafting, I did a number of projects just to get a head start.  Since I'm planning on making a number of these painted vases, I figured I should start ASAP.

I tried two different techniques.

Air Blown Painted Vases:

For these vases, I pick two - four colours and "dribble" a little of each colour around the bottom edge of the vase.  From there, I just blow on the paint until it is sufficiently spread around the entire vase and in a design that I like.  Using a straw works if you are worried about getting too close to the wet paint - yes, I have ended up with paint on my nose as a result of losing track of how close to the vase I was.

Once the vases are painted, I let them dry for at least two days and then pop them in the oven to bake in accordance with the instruction on the paint.  I tend to use Americana Gloss Enamels, but mostly because that's the only enamel product that the Michaels closest to me.

 (I store them upside down until the paint dries.)

Interior Swirled Painted Vases:

These ones are as simple as adding a few colours to the bottom (inside) of a vase and SLOWLY twirling the vase to coax the paint around and around until the entire interior is covered.  Additional drops of paint are added as necessary during the process.

When complete, drain the excess paint from the vase.  I stored my upright to dry because I purposely wanted some streaking to occur, caused by the wet paint wanting to pool in the bottom of the vase.  When the paint is dry for a couple days, I'm going to coat the inside with a varnish.

Its amazing what glue, paint and a canvas can become

Once again inspired by Pinterest (see here and here), I decided to continue adding to our wall decor with DIY projects rather than buying something at Homesense or the like.  I was really intrigued by some of the ideas using glue to create raised surfaces on painted canvases.

I ended up making a few different pieces.  I did a simple three piece set featuring concentric circles, a larger piece with multiple circles, and two pieces that I'm not quite sure what to do with yet (with script that didn't really work out as planned).

It really is as simple as drawing a design with the glue, waiting for it to dry and painting over it.

Once they are hung up, I'll post updated pictures.