Bigger Stuffed Woodland Creatures

So I decided to make a tree and a mushroom with the leftover felt I had from making the little woodland creatures for the mobile. To see the mobile or where I got the pattern for the creatures please click here. I might make a bunny later, I figured I would start out with these two. If I end up needing more added to the room, I'll make some more creatures.

So to make them bigger, I copied the pattern from Adobe to Microsoft Word and enlarged them to the size of the whole paper. I printed the patterns out and used them as a template to cut out the felt.

Materials needed:

Felt
Embroidery Floss
Embroidery Needle
Scissors to cut out felt

All the felt cut out and ready to go.

I used a basting stitch to attach the hole in the tree.

I then cut out my own eyes and mouth since I didn't want to stitch circles like I did for the smaller version, that would take forever. I used the basting stitch again to attach them.

I then used white flossing thread (all 6 strings since I wanted it more noticeable plus it's less work) to make dots for the eyes. You start with a short stitch, right under it go a bit wider and repeat until you get to the widest part of the circle. Then gradually make your stitches smaller until you get the desired result.

I started embroidering the corner of the tree. The pattern gives instructions on how to make leaves and such.

I added some flowers. :)

I put the back of the tree behind the front then did the basting stitch on the outside. When I got to the part where I wanted the leaf I just stitched across it to keep it in place.

I took some leftover felt that was big enough to make a bottom and pinned it in place. I put this here so it can stand on it's own (the little ones do not have a base). I didn't bother with sizing it perfectly figuring I'll just cut the excess off at the end.

This shows the excess and my basting stitch to keep it in place. After finishing one side I stuffed the tree with poly-fill, then finished up stitching it up leaving the knot in the bottom.

This is what the bottom looks like after cutting off the excess.

Finished result. :)

The Mushroom:

Cut out felt from pattern, cut out my own eyes and mouth.

Used basting stitch again to attach eyes, mouth, and spots. Used the same technique for the white spots in the eyes as I did for the tree.

I then embroidered the bottom part of the mushroom and used a basting stitch to attach the top to the bottom. I should have done this before embroidering by the way, lol.

Attached top to bottom of the back with a basting stitch as well.

Started with red floss and worked my way around the top with a basting stitch.

Stuffed the top with poly-fill.

Pinned larger piece of felt on the bottom just as I did for the tree and stitched it on.

Once I was done stitching one side I filled the bottom part with poly-fill.

All stitched up, just need to cut off the excess felt.

Finished result! The eyes kinda creep me out so I kinda wish I would've just left the face off but oh well.

That's it! I'll be working on my second mobile for over the changing table for my next blog. :)

Baby Blocks

So after acquiring some fabric scraps/left overs from the burp cloths and the Christmas stockings I made the previous year, I decided to construct some baby toy blocks that I found on Pinterest. By the way I am totally addicted to this site for all DIY as well as organizing projects I've found on Google. My Pinterest site is http://pinterest.com/trulytree/ if you are interested in checking it out. To add a texture element to the blocks, I bought a remnant of some dimpled minky fabric that I found at JoAnn Fabrics. I found the ribbon on sale at Michaels.



The baby toy block tutorial can be found here. I found these blocks to be quite enormous once I finished the first one. The instructions weren't hard to follow but it did take like an hour to do the first one since I was being slow and careful. After I made the first block, I told a friend who was doing them about how huge they were. She made some with a similar tutorial and hers were about an inch smaller than mine. I decided to make 2 large blocks, took off an inch for the medium sized blocks, and then another inch smaller for the smallest blocks.  Overall I think they came out pretty good.

You can see the different sizes here.

This is what I'm most unhappy about. I tried doing a slip stitch on one of the blocks but I have a big feeling as soon as that puppy gets washed it is falling apart. Rather having all 6 fall apart and waste my time, I did an overcast stitch on the rest to close them up.

My dog Angel kept thinking maybe they were her toys and that I made them for her lol. She kept looking at me like, can I play with them?

The blocks all stacked up.

Because of the ribbon loops, I can add those cute plastic rings to them and either add it to the baby gym I have or maybe even a car seat I suppose. I guess the rings might make the blocks easier to pick up as well.

Well that's all I've done so far, I'll try to take pictures for each of the different steps from now on. I plan to do a nursing cover, some bigger woodland creatures, or some hanging prints with quotes on them next. Until next time!

Burp Cloths and Mossy Frames

This blog post is going to be pretty short compared to the first one. So one of my friends who is also pregnant made some burp cloths and I thought it would be fun to make them as well. I found a blog with a tutorial on making them. The link for the tutorial is here. Her's are super cute, I love the cupcake pattern. I had a hard time finding a gender neutral pattern while still trying to go with the woodland theme. I made 12 of them total (based on the amount of burp cloths that Babies R Us recommended). These are how mine came out. :)

My husband and I picked out 4 beautiful pictures on Etsy that initially set our nursery theme. The store link is here. The shop had a great deal where it was buy one get one free at the time. I loved the light pastel colors of her pictures and thought they would go great in a nursery. We picked out these pictures:

The bird pictures will go on the outside facing into each other while the mushroom and twiggy stuff will be in between them. When my husband and I were looking for decent priced frames, we had a hard time finding the 2 different sizes (8X8 and 8X10) in the same kind of frame. We picked these out before he left by the way. Anyhow we decided on some white plain frames and told him I could probably do something with them to make them more woodsy like putting moss on them or maybe stones.

I found some moss that was attached to some netting so it was in the form of a sheet. I bought this since I figured it would be easier to work with and less messy. Unfortunately, after taking it out of the package I found that it had a terrible chemical smell. I had to open the sliding door to ventilate the room while I was hot gluing the stuff to the frames. The moss kept falling off the netting so it ended up making a big mess. I put the frames out in the garage to air out since I didn't want the baby's room to smell like all those chemicals.

A friend on Facebook mentioned that Mod Podge clear coat spray would help keep the moss intact while keeping the look of the frames. I gave it about 3 coats of that and it's helped quite a bit with the mess. They are still out in the garage since the Mod Podge didn't smell too great either, haha. They are still in the garage currently since I want to hang them up above the crib.

I'll post a picture of the finished product once it's done. I figured I can give them all the time in the world to air out until I'm ready to put the pictures in the nursery.

That's it for now! Again as always let me know if you have any questions over anything. :)

First Post: Woodland themed nursery with a DIY mobile

So I'm not the best writer but I thought this might be a fun thing to do on the side. My husband is currently deployed (he'll be gone for about 6 months) and I'm 23 weeks pregnant at the moment. He left for training about a month ago and since I don't work I have some time on my hands. I keep pretty busy between caring for our now 5 pets (we recently re-homed one of our kitties Simba), keeping the house clean, attending social events when I can, and preparing for baby. I love doing crafts, drawing, painting, reading, watching movies, etc.

We don't know what the sex of our baby is yet since it did not cooperate during the last ultrasound so we are keeping everything neutral for now. Honestly, it'll probably stay that way unless they are pretty sure one what the sex is. I have 2 more ultrasounds coming up, one at the end of the month. We're doing a whimsical woodland theme for the nursery. It works great since we both love the outdoors, animals, and we don't have to paint the nursery (haha). The room that we're putting the nursery in was the office when we first moved here and is a nice shade of green.

Some pictures of the nursery as of right now, it's pretty empty/small.

This is a view of the room from the door.

 I LOVE this rocking chair/recliner that I got as a Christmas gift from my in-laws. It's super comfy. I painted the picture above the chair. I'm thinking about maybe painting another picture with a bird's nest with eggs or maybe some other woodland theme.

 Other side of the nursery looking at the entrance, shelves are from IKEA. My husband's model airplanes are still on the top shelf.

 Changing table/dresser is going on left, crib next to it once I get them.

 Other wall across from crib/changing table, my dog Angel sniffing around

I started decorating the IKEA shelf. Most of these items I either had laying around the house or got them on the Air Force Base classifieds.

The gnome is probably not staying up there, LOL. He's probably going on the shelf above the changing table. He's just chilling up there for now. I also got a bunch of pine cones up there which I haven't decided what I'm going to do with them yet. I'm probably going to put them in a glass jar/vase or find some fun craft to do with them.

I love Jan Brett's books, they are illustrated so beautifully!

I painted the apple at a pottery place. These three books are recorded with my husband's voice reading them.

 Every since I found out I was pregnant I've been scouring the internet for nursery ideas, fun things to decorate, etc. I found this great felt woodland creature pattern set on Etsy. I bought both of the patterns with the idea that these would make a great mobile. The Etsy store link for both patterns are here and here. I've never really done felt creatures before and had a fellow AF wife help me get started. She made the acorn and started the cream owl below, I did the rest. These guys took me like an hour each, which includes cutting out the felt. I made some variations to the pattern and overall I'm pretty happy with them.

This one is my favorite :)

The nose is a little messed up but at this point I didn't care to start it over, LOL.

I also got lazy and made this owl sleepy since those eyes are easier.

 

For the actual mobile part, I toyed with the idea of hanging them from a tree branch or putting them on hoops. I decided that hanging up hoops would probably be easier than a whole branch, especially since I'm either hanging it up by myself or have to enlist help. I found these awesome branch wreaths at JoAnn Fabrics in different sizes and thought they would work perfectly! I bought some wired twine at Michael's to tie the 2 wreaths together and I'll use it to hang up the mobile. I used one strand of the flossing I used for the felt animals to hang them on the wreaths. I wanted to use fishing line but couldn't find any and I decided that regular string would work. I placed the string so they are somewhat tilted down so the baby can see them. I'm waiting on the crib to arrive before I install the mobile for placement purposes. I'll post more pictures once it's actually put up since it's hard to take pictures of while holding it.

I'll post more later. I've done burp cloths, baby blocks, and covered moss over some frames for the room so far. I think I'm going to incorporate the felt woodland creatures some more in the room too, like bigger stuffed animals or some hanging prints. :)

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below. I think most of it is self explanatory. I just know the basics of sewing so if I can do the above things, you can!