Amigurumi pattern voting :)

YEAH! I'm so glad you guys share my excitement!

So I went and googled amigurumi and found some crochet patterns. Apparently amigurumi are more commonly knit? There were TONS of knit patterns. But I cant knit, my hands just dont work that well together...

Anyway here they are. I tried to pick some that could be for either a little boy or girl (or you!). But keep in mind the colors you pick can definitely change the gender of an item! You can click on the link to view the whole pattern if your too excited to wait and follow along and already know the basics. Some of them are on free sites that may require a log in like ravlery and lion brand website. I've got logins to them and they don't send a bunch of spam. Which is always nice :)

This cute little guy is rated beginner. I think he/she'd be adorable in a pale purple. I'm sure Hailey would call it a Hefalump!

Who doesn't love a cute little owl? This guy is so sweet!

These little monsters are cute enough to not be too scary. I think I'd make them brighter but that's just me...

Love, love, love matrioska dolls! I am kind of obsessed. Although if I made this I'd have to make like 4 and scale either up or down depending on how big this one turned out! Again in brighter, fun colors!

This little guy is tiny! He is meant to be a keychain but I think I'd put him on a necklace!

This cupcake is much bigger. Still SUPER cute just more for say...your child's play kitchen?! Would also make an excellent gift with maybe a cupcake pan!

These would be perfect for Easter! Just trying to think ahead.

These monsters are really, really cute! Hailey said she wanted one of each! By the way this chick has some AMAZING patterns in her etsy store for sale! Really incredible life like amigurumi patterns!

Meet Lily. She is really cute and a super easy doll. Obviously this would be for a little girl. No way to really make this one unisex but I had to throw it in because she is SO cute and on the website (Sugar n cream, a yarn brand) there are many many different options to make her special and unique. Like changes of clothes and even a Billy (boyfriend)! haha

This is Magdalena and she is by my favorite amigurumi pattern writer ever Ms. Mia @ Owlishly. Keep in mind you can change her hair to be whatever you "style" you like and also change her outfit's colors for a bright fun doll!














Let me know which one is your favorite (and your runner up, maybe we can do two?!) in the comments. And we'll get started! I'll leave pattern voting open for one week even though I'm sure there'll be other posts going up....

Love and Hugs,

Amigur...what...i?

Amigurumi.

Say it with me ah-mee-goo-roo-mee


It's fun to say, right?! Just saying it makes me smile :)


Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll. Amigurumi are typically animals, but can include artistic renderings or inanimate objects endowed with anthropomorphic features. According to wikipedia.com.


Anyway, I found amigurumi when I was looking for some ballet accessories for when Hailey first started ballet (almost 2 years ago now). I found her a cute ballet bag with her name embroidered on it, got her a ballet girl water bottle and found this pattern for a little ballet amigurumi doll (and then I made it) by the very talented Owlishly on etsy! I gave her the bag full of goodies on her first day of ballet. She was SO excited! Since then I have purchased several of Owlishly's patterns and they are incredibly easy to follow. Very well written and illustrated.

Photo courtesy Owlishly.etsy.com I can't seem to find the one I made Hailey.
She said she put it "somewhere special! Go figure...

Photo courtesy owlishly.etsy.com. I've made several of these little girlies for
 a couple special little sweeties in my life! 5 total now! One for
 Hailey and Belle and three for some close friends little girls.

Photo courtesy owlishly.etsy.com. I've made 3 of these now
Hailey didn't want one she said it was too "boy". But I made Belle
a pink and purple one. Then a couple for a friends' little boys who
are twins.

However there are other free patterns out there. I started googling and found some that I thought were interesting. They vary in difficulty from very easy to difficult (just like any crochet pattern) depending on the pattern and how clearly the instructions are written. 


Despite the intricate look of these dolls amigurumi is no more difficult than regular crocheting. I can usually whip one of these dolls out in a bout 5 or so hours. Usually done after bedtime over a couple days so that I can focus on the stitches. 


Anyway I thought it might be fun to do another crochet with me series and do a little amigurumi doll. Is this something you guys want to make? Would you like me to show you how to do it? I had tons of fun with the last crochet with me slippers! If there is enough interest I will pick some patterns and we can start voting again!


Love and Hugs, 

PS. This is NOT a sponsored post. All of the thoughts and feelings are completely my own. I genuinely LOVE Ms. Mia at Owlishly and her amazing patterns!

We have a winner!

The winner of the fabulous giveaway sponsored by

Thanks to random.org!

And the winner is.... drum roll please!

Renea Broadhead

Renea, I'll send you an email shortly with how to get in contact with Ms. Tricia and claim your prize! You lucky duck!

Thanks to everyone who played along and welcome to my new followers! I look forward to hearing form you! This giveaway was really exciting for me, I'll try to do more giveaways from time to time to keep things interesting!

Love and Hugs,

hmmm...did I tell you?!

NOTE: Don't forget to enter the giveaway from Baby Night Night boutique here.

Have I told you all yet that baby Belle (well she's not a baby anymore) has basically been sick since...like...Christmas! I mean seriously! Her fever started December 28th so right after Christmas. I gave it a couple days because I figured it was viral. When it started to spike to 104 I decided enough is enough. By then of course it is New Years Day and the only urgent care open is like an hour away (granted we live in the middle of nowhere, haha). I didn't want to go to an ER because again it was New Years Day and I figured all the crazies/sickies would be there. So I drove the hour to the Urgent care (which does happen to be my favorite out of all the other urgent cares Northwest Medical center urgent car on Ina/Shannon, if your local).

A rare happy Bellie moment for us these past couple months.

The verdict?! She had an ear infection. Only her second ear infection ever (she's almost 3). Which I thought was pretty impressive. I mean Hailey had ear infections like every month when she was a tiny tot. Well...it gets better! I told the doctor that amoxicillin did not work last time and asked if we could just jump straight to augment-en (which is a step up in antibiotic world, just a bit stronger). She said no, to try this and if it didn't work in a couple days to go see my pediatrician.

Well guess what! It didn't work....

So I went to the pediatrician who stepped up her antibiotic. After a couple days I decided it should be working by now (and it didn't seem like it was) and took her back. Yep still has an ear infection. We went back and forth like this until I dunno the beginning of February! Yes FEBRUARY! She had an ear infection for over a month! We tried ALL oral antibiotics and were getting ready to do injected antibiotics. Which did NOT sound like a good time! 3 consecutive days of not only driving to the doctors (a 45 min drive) but then having to make my sweet baby cry because of a shot. Not to mention I'm sure the amount of bowel issues it would cause!

Seriously broke my heart. Literally. She lost any sense of balance a toddler could have. Which meant constantly running into walls and tripping over thin air. She was no longer sleeping, eating, or drinking much of anything. She literally was a shell of herself. She ended up loosing 2 whole pounds. Which is about 10% of her body weight. Not good! Not good at all!

Finally we gave her the augmenten which knocked that stinkin ear infection out! After our 10 days it was gone! Letting me breathe a sigh of relief. February 9 she was declared healthy!

So what happens?!

This Monday she starts sniffling...

Tuesday she starts coughing...

Last night she started with a fever and "barking" like a seal. I'm sure you've heard seals bark. right?! I KNOW what this bark means. It means one thing and one thing only...

CROUP!

She also said her ear hurt. But the cough was icky. I was more concerned about that.

My poor sweet baby cannot catch a break. Luckily for her croup is treatable. A couple days of steroids and she should be good as new.

So what have I learned in this almost 2 month journey?

1. If you are on antibiotics you need to take an acidophulis supplement. Acidophulis is a culture found in yogurt, and promotes digestive health. It also helps combat the side effects of antibiotics. The icky side effects. Ok I'm just going to say it the diarrhea. The pooie that burns your babies bum and makes things just that much more miserable for them. My wonderful neighbor (who is a nurse and AH-mazing Momma of 3) let me in on the acidophulis secret. You can get it at any health food store. It is refrigerated and you can get it in tabs or powder. I got chewable tablets and Belle actually really liked them!

2. Be persistent with your doctor. And if you are at a practice with more than one doctor. Go to your designated doctor. I LOVE my doctor but I think by seeing the other doctors the ball was dropped somewhere along the line. I mean I didn't see one consistent doctor. So everyone was treating it as if it were the first time (or second). Not as if she'd been sick for an entire month. I think the other doctors were great but somewhere between seeing oh 5 different doctors the lines got crossed somewhere. In the end I opted for less convenient appointment times (like 8am, still do-able just not as convenient) in order to see OUR doctor. And if they aren't feeling better in 3 or 4 days CALL THEM! BUG THEM! Tell them EXACTLY what is going on.

3. This is not a time to be afraid of taking medication. I am a big believer in dont take it unless you absolutely have to. But babies do NOT deserve to be in any pain. Most of January we were alternating motrin and tylenol every 3 hours in order to avoid any temperature spike (because she is prone to febrile seizures as well, just another concern!). We also had some ear numbing drops which worked wonders! Ask your doctor for them, you can only get them with a script. But they dont ever go bad (I mean I suppose they expire eventually). But they are a good thing to have on hand. Especially because these things seem to pop up at the worst times. Some ear numbing drops and motrin can get you through a weekend until you can see your pediatrician. Trust me, I know!

4. Keep them hydrated and get calories in when you can. I think Belle lived off of jello, smoothies, juice, and milk for a month. When she did eat I packed the calories into her food. For breakfast I could occasionally get her to eat scrambled eggs. I scrambled the eggs with full fat sour cream, buttered the pan (with real butter), and lots of cheese. Even if this was the only meal she took in for the day at least she got SOME calories. Give them whatever you can to eat, this is no time to be fussy about finishing a meal to get a snack. We also added ovaltine to her milk. Which was only given 2 hours before or after her antibiotic was taken or needed to be taken. To avoid and upset tummy.

I hope and pray that this never happens to your or your babies! I would not wish this on my worst enemy!

LOVE that sweet cheese-y face!

I'm off to finish steroids and start sleep training (sleeping through the night which has only happened twice since December 28th), food training (getting her to understand she doesn't get to eat whatever she wants anymore) and hopefully potty training (something I had planned on working on with her all of January after all she is almost 3)!

Belle's Dress a tutorial

Note: If you haven't already entered the giveaway head on over here and hop to it! What are you waiting for?

So a few of you expressed interest that you would like to see how to make this crazy easy dress! Here goes!

Materials:
approximately 2/3 yard for size 2t dress or 4t tunic top
1 pack coordinating double fold bias tape
coordinating thread
scraps of lace and/or no fray chiffon ruffled
a couple buttons
a bit of elastic

I started with a simple a-line dress and made a pattern. Lucky for you I am SHARING this pattern with you for absolutely free! YEAH! Thanks to Kelly over at Sewing in No Mans Land for helping me create a pattern! She is awesome!!

So go print your pattern and tape your pieces together. I did it so there are only four pieces to print. All 8 1/2 x 11. I did it in such a way so that the bottom piece (pieces B and C) stays the same and you just change out your top piece (piece A) for the front or back of the dress. So print your four sheets out, tape them together and lets get started!

Start by cutting all of your pieces out of fabric. Cut two main dress pieces (one with the front bodice piece and one with the back bodice piece) and two sleeve pieces. If you position your pieces correctly you can get it all out of a 2/3 yard. I actually only used about 20" of fabric. I left it folded in half (selvages together) and the bottom hem of the dress butted up against the selvage, neckline closest to the fold of the fabric. If you need to make it longer I would change the orientation in which you cut your fabric so that you can play with the length more and up your fabric to maybe a yard or yard and a half.

We are going to use a technique called sewing in the flat. It makes things SO much easier. Usually when sewing I will read a pattern before hand and see if there is anything I can change to sew in the flat because it makes most things (especially sleeves) incredibly easy to machine sew.

Place your body pieces right sides together and stitch both shoulder seams. Turn right side out and press seam open. Set aside for a minute.

Take your two sleeve pieces and fold in half placing WRONG sides together (so you have right sided fabric on both sides of your fold).

Stitch with your longest stitch length around the curved side. Pull your strings and gather them up nice and tight.

Fold in half (pointed sides together) and press a crease. This will be your center line. Match that up with your shoulder seam and pin in place. You want the points to come right to the curve of the armpit seam. Finally stitch it down.

Grab a strip of elastic. I used about 5 inches each arm. There is no science to how I did this I just kind of did it. So I pinned it to one side and backstitch it a couple times, until you feel it is secure.

Then I stretched the elastic and straight stitched over it along the edge of the sleeve. Making sure it was about 1/4 to 1/8 inch from the straight edge. When you get to the other end back stitch a couple times to make sure it is secure. Repeat for to the other sleeve.

At this point I decided to finish the rest of the sleeve by folding in the bit of fabric that is unfinished. I simply folded it under and stitched it down. You could also run a bit of double fold bias tape around it to finish.

Now making sure to match up the armpit seams and the bottom hem pin the side seams right sides together and stitch down. Repeat for the other side seam. Turn right side out and press each seam.

Then I stitched the bias tape around the bottom hem. You could surge this also if you dont have any bias tape on hand.

Fold your dress in half and press a crease.

Then cut a 3 inch slit down the middle of the back of the dress. This will make it easy to get on and off of your little pumpkin.

Then stitch bias tape around the entire neck opening. Starting with one side of the slit and working your way around to the other side of the slit. Making a nice 90 degree fold at each corner.

Backstitch a couple times where the two ends meet.

Then grab a dot of fray check and put some onto each end of the bias tape.

Make a little elastic loop slightly larger than you think it would need to be. I think mine was about 2 inches.

Finally attach a button to one side and loop of elastic to the other side.

This is a really cute dress on its own but it needs a little something...

So now comes the fun part! Embellishing it!

Sorry no pics of this step...I dunno where they went?

I think you can get the gist from the pic though! Originally I thought I'd just do multiple layers of no fray chiffon but it didn't give it enough umph for me. So I layered chiffon and some vintage lace that I had on hand.

I started by ruffling a couple 1 1/2 inch strips of chiffon. Then I stitched one down in a U-shape at the front center of the dress. I added a bit of vintage lace on top that already had a bit of a wave to it. Not ruffled but sort of wavy. Still not enough for me. So under the first strip of no fray chiffon I added some more lace. Finally more chiffon under the last round of lace.

After all the lace and chiffon is stitched down I added some of the same bias tape (just unfolded and pressed) then folded one side under the neckline of the dress and ironed the other side under so that it wouldn't fray. Stitched it down. Finishing it off with a couple fun buttons down the front of the bias tape.

As I mentioned before this is approximately a size 2t dress or 4t tunic. It has plenty of room in the width so even sweet Hailey could wear it as a top with some jeans!

I hope you try it out! If you do I'd LOVE to see pictures! If you have issues with the pattern pieces let me know and I'll figure it out! This is my first time offering the pattern so let me know what you guys think!!

Love and Hugs,

 

Reversible baby toucher de-tourer! Car seat cover

NOTE: If you haven't already head over here and enter the giveaway!

A good friend of mine is having a baby soon. She wanted one of these little guys to cover the baby while in the car seat to hopefully prevent strangers from touching him and or breathing their icky germs on him. Tell me I'm not the only one who worries about those sort of things?! I know there are other tutorials out there but I haven't found one that is reversible so I started thinking about it and this is what we came up with. Hopefully you wont make the same mistake I did. This project was ALMOST a huge flop! AH! I'll tell ya more about this later...

This is a really easy peasy project so I didn't take a ton of pics.

You'll need:
1 yard of main fabric (front)
1 yard of coordinating main fabric (back)
20" or about 2/3 yard of a fabric that coordinates with both front and back fabric
coordinating thread

Start by cutting all of your fabric. Here is a cut list for you to make things easy!

8 - 2 1/2" x length (usually 44") strips
Cut each of your yards 19 x 36 and 25 x 36

Lets start with our straps so that we can assemble quickly when it comes time.Start by folding 1/4- 1/2 inch under on each short 2" side. Then lace two strap pieces right side together and sew down the both of the long sides. Leaving the small ends open.

Turn right side out and topstitch all the way around.

Measure how wide your handle is. You want to be able to carry the carseat while the ties are tied. So you want the ties to be just on the outside of where you would grip the car seat to carry it. For us that was 8 1/2 inches.

Take your main fabric pieces and fold in half and press a crease. I put the 4 1/4 mark at the center crease to evenly space the ties. Then pinned the ties to the right side of the fabric where I made the marks.

Then take your other piece of fabric (same print) right sides together and stitch a 1/4-1/2" seam.

Repeat this for the back piece.

Finally place the front and back pieces right sides together and stitch around the whole thing leaving a 4-6" opening for turning.

Trim your corners, turn right side out, press your seams and topstitch. You could also round the corners if you like before sewing them together!

Tada!

See totally reversible! Yippee! It's like a two for one!

So the big flub was: I was so excited about making this that I wasn't thinking straight. It was also sort of late, because the only time we get to sew together is after our cuties go to bed! I cut the fabric WRONG and we almost scrapped the whole project. I cut it so that the fabric was 18x44 and 18x44 instead of the corrected measurements listed above. Luckily I figured it out before we stitched the two pieces together and we basically cut them in half the opposite way and repositioned the straps so that it would work. There is however a big glaring seam down the middle. If you look closely you can see where the pattern doesn't quite line up. But it is still incredibly cute! I wish I had thought of this when my babes were still little!

Anyway I just wanted to share with you all that I am NOT a perfect seamstress. I mess things up too from time to time but it is all about making the best of it!

Love and Hugs,

Happy Valentines Day...and a GIVEAWAY!

What better way to celebrate Valentines Day than by doing a giveaway? Yup I said it! My very first giveaway! Yippee!

Everyone I'd like you to meet my Ms. Tricia the talented designer behind the esty store Baby Night Night Boutique.

Seriously there is some really awesome stuff over there! {Seriously} I immediately fell in love with this sweet little red striped bib front shirt!

These beautiful chiffon ruffled bloomers would be perfect for your little babe OR as a photography prop. I've been eyeing them to use as a prop! But can you just imagine them on a crawling little babe?! Stinkin' adorable!!

What shop would be complete with out some Up-cycling? This dress is crazy cute! Aren't the pockets sweet? LOVE.IT.

And seriously, Ms. Tricia is AH-mazing with these incredible hand drawn portraits! I mean WOW! I took many a art classes in college and was NEVER this good at drawing from a picture! How beautiful would this be framed? 

Of course Hailey had to get in on all the browsing and said that she would love some of these vintage inspired flower leg warmers! In her words, "for ballet of course, Momma". Well, but of course! What else would they be for? Silly Momma!

Guess what?!

Because Tricia is super awesome and amazing she is giving one of you! Yes YOU! A chance to win a $10 gift certificate to her incredible Etsy store! Seriously I wish I were eligible for this! I would LOVE all any of these things!!

So lets get down to it! Here are the rules

1. Head on over to Baby Night Night Boutique's blog and become a follower. Leave me a comment letting me know your a new follower or if you were already following the amazing Tricia.

2. You must be a follower of The Planner and The Procrastinator. Again leave me a comment letting me know you are a new follower or if you were already following along in the awesomeness!

That means you get TWO entries! YEAH! So...what are you waiting for?! Go follow then head over to Baby Night Night Boutique's Etsy Store and take a lock around! Maybe YOU will be the lucky ducky who wins!

The giveaway will close Sunday, February 20th and I will announce the winner Monday morning! So go tell your friends! After all they deserve to get in on the action too!