Big Butt Baby Pants

I am in LOVE with this pattern. Made By Rae designed the most adorable wide leg baby pants with a special panel in the bum for cloth diapered babies. It's amazingly brilliant, and I can't stop making them.

When I needed something for Colin to wear at his baptism, I went shopping. I only had a couple of days to figure it out, and all I found was a sweet little cardigan. So, I made some pants. Voila. I'm telling you, this pattern is awesome.

A few months ago, I bought some of this brown and blue collection, not having a pattern in mind, but knowing that I wanted to do some cuffed pants for Colin with it. I think this was the perfect pattern for it. And quite by accident, it coordinates cutely with this elephant sweater that I found at a consignment sale. 

The picture of him wearing the outfit? Is the best picture I could get. That child would not be still. Plus, we all know by now that I am a terrible, horrible, awful photographer. Which isn't a great quality in a craft blogger. At least this time I remembered to actually take pictures. Bonus.

You can buy the pattern licensed or unlicensed so that if you want to make the pants to sell, you can. You just have to give Made By Rae credit for the design. You can add pockets easily, and if you've got a little girl, you can add ruffles to the butt panel. It's the cutest! 

Something else I love about this pattern is that it only takes a half a yard to make Colin a pair of pants. Less, if I'm doing a contrasting cuff and bum panel. So I'll be able to destash a lot of fabrics that I have just because they are adorable.

I've made some monkey pants with a polka dot bottom, and I have several other combinations picked out and waiting to go. I'm obsessed. Baby bottoms are already cute enough on their own, but these pants just send me right over the edge. Darling.

Felt Tree Garland

This adorable garland has been tempting me for a couple of years in the Land of Nod catalog. However, being the cheap cheapo that I am, I refused to drop $30 on some felt tree garland.

Thus began a valuable lesson in crafting. Sometimes, it's worth the money to just buy the darn thing.

I had a ton of felt left over from my Christmas stocking project last year. I'm not so good on the estimating, and since I was making them from my own imagination, I bought "a little extra" just to be sure. I could now wallpaper our family room with felt, but that's beside the point.

I figured the felt wasn't really a cost, because if I didn't use it for this, I was just wasting it anyway. However, I probably spent $15 on sequins and other decorating doodles for the trees. Then there was the expense of the ribbon and glue.

Not to mention, the expense of the time involved. It was time consuming. Just ask Lovely, my stepdaughter. She spent about an hour gluing the trees onto the sequin strands.

So, meh. Felt tree garland. It's cute, but I would just buy it from Land of Nod.

First Birthday Party

Even though I thought that the whole of my craftiness lay in sewing, my friend Boo has proclaimed otherwise. She is due with her first child next month (we are holding out for me and LL sharing a birthday on Fat Tuesday!), and I have assured her that the maternal hormones are where craftiness lies dormant until you become pregnant.

Boo said to me this past Saturday at Little Bird's first birthday party, "You are so crafty!" I blushed, and wondered if it were true. Maybe, but I have to acknowledge much help and inspiration from my 12 year old stepdaugher, Mallory. CC's party would not have been possible without her assistance last week.

The party started with a dog theme. We made the invitations with some Microsoft clip art and Publisher. However, we did this on my desktop, and I cannot figure out how to get it onto my HP Mini. Of course, I could get up and go into the other room, but the invitations weren't inspiring enough to warrant actual physical movement.

Mallory and I made these cookies for party favors. The instructions came in the February issue of Parents as an idea for Valentine's Day. We thought they would be perfect for a doggie birthday party.

We looked for a cake pan that was shaped like a dog bone, but couldn't find one. I was alright with that because in reality I didn't want to spend the money on it. However, I am so not a cake decorator, it's not even funny. I can't write on a cake at all. It's horrible. We decided that we would make a puppy paw cake, and even though I had to tell several people what it was supposed to be, I was still please with it.

I also made little puppy ears out of some of the miles of felt I have leftover from our Christmas stockings (don't even get me started about how wrong I was about how much felt I would need for that project. It's embarrassing). We bought children's elastic headbands and sewed the ears onto them. Here are a few of the fabulous models:

And just because I am so pleased with how it turned out, here's one more shot of the birthday boy in his birthday shirt:

Tassle Hat Distraction

I needed a distraction yesterday. Since it is about to get colder than it has been in several years, I decided to tackle a tassle hat project I had been saving for Little Bird.

Last year, I worked on dog coats for my two girl pups. One turned out way too small, and one turned out a little big. Both left me with scraps of fleece, perfect for Little Bird's hat. I also had enough of the red fleece with stars to cut out a matching scarf this morning. I didn't sew any of it; I just fringed the edges and went with it.

All in all, this was a simple project. I'm not happy with the finish around the base of the hat, but I'm sure I misunderstood something in the instructions. I do that often. I'm planning on making some more of these and working out my own way to finish the seam at the base. My stepdaughter, Mallory, and I have plans to make some fleece blankets when she gets here tomorrow. Maybe there will be some more good scraps from that project.

I love good scraps. I love my little scrapper down there too.