Update on Origami birds and some DIY Letters *Gender Spoiler*

So I decided to update the origami birds with some numbers, circles and dots in black and red to make them more eye catching for the baby. I've heard that they see black and red first so I thought I'd go with that. I used permanent markers on the bottom of the birds and left the top the same so only the baby would see them from below. They kinda look like airplanes, lol.

The bottom one is flipped right side up so you can see the top.

***Gender spoiler alert below so if you don't want to know stop!***

I've been looking at a lot of ideas on how I wanted to put up the baby's name in the nursery. My friend Leeanne found this tutorial which looked relatively simple and cheap. I had a few boxes laying around that I could use. I printed out the baby's name in Microsoft Word using Cooper Black font. I made the text a light grey color so it wouldn't use as much ink and made the letters as big as I could while still fitting a letter per page.

Printed out name, this is our girls name. I also printed out the letters M and S for our boy name Miles (Just in case if someone was wrong, I've heard it has happened a few times! I also figured I wouldn't want to do this again lol.)

Here are the letters all cut out, I used the box cutter to cut out the middle of the A.

I taped down the letter and cut around it the first time. The tutorial said to trace first and I thought I would skip that step.

I used scissors to clean up the edges. I suck at cutting them out with the box cutter and had to pop/tear out the letters for the most part.

It ended up being easier not cutting around the paper template and cutting the traced letter! LOL. I did 2 of each letter so they would be a little thicker in the end.

This took me like 3 hours to cut them and it was a big pain in the butt. My wrist was sore the next day. It would've been easier had I picked a less rounded font.

Alice all done!

Miles all done!

I used some Elmer's stick glue I had around the house to glue the same letters together to make them thicker.

This is what it looked like after I glued them.

I picked out some scrapbook paper, girly colors for the A and C, boyish for M and S, neutral for the rest of the letters.

I used some Elmers Xtreme stick glue to glue the paper onto the letter. The box cutter helps for tight areas, like inside the A.

This shows all the cuts you have to do to make the paper wrap nicely. It's pretty time consuming! Gluing the paper on took like 3 hours. I was watching a movie and TV while I did it so maybe it would've been faster if I didn't do that.

End result for Alice.

End result for Miles.

I'm not really happy with how the M and S came out (they were the last ones I did), but since they predicted a girl I'm just going to leave it the way it is for now. If the baby ends up being a boy I'll probably just add some ribbon trim or something to fix it up.

This is what it looks like up! I thought about trimming the letters with ribbon but I think it looks great the way it is.

This is what I used to put the letters up, we'll see if they stay up, LOL. My wall is textured so it makes it more challenging to stick things  to it.

I'm keeping the gender a secret for a few people that don't want to know, hence the spoiler alert. Overall this project was pretty cheap but extremely time consuming so beware!

Origami and some Powerpoint Nursery Art

So I decided to go a cheaper route for the mobile over the changing table/dresser. I'm going to put up a shelf above it and figured I can attach a mobile to it to occupy our little one's time while it's diaper is being changed. I found this really cute origami crane mobile on Etsy (link here). I thought it would be fun to make my own. I thought it would be fun to do the birds out of a math book since my husband is an engineer and who knows it could make our baby better at math in the long run! :) I got a math solutions textbook for free on the Buckley Classifieds on Facebook. I love Buckley Classifieds by the way!

I was looking at how to fold an origami crane and decided that it was too advanced/difficult/much time to make. I looked around on the same site and came across this simple cute origami pigeon. I'm calling them sparrows since they live in the woods and pigeons are annoying.

To cut out the paper for folding, I used this plumbing advertisement magnet that was attached to my phone book as a template. It was a perfect square which is what I needed and I'm lazy, lol.

Math text book with the square template I used for cutting (the plumber ad). It worked out great!

The instructions on the website were really easy to follow. After making about 3 of them I no longer needed the instructions and busted out 10 of these little peeps.

Wings up as shown in the origami directions.

I decided to fold the wings down a bit since this gives the baby more to look at from below.

I'm thinking about adding some numbers to their wings with a red and white marker since those are the first colors a baby sees. Maybe number each bird from 1-10. I'll attach these to a small/medium embroidery hoop (haven't got that yet) with some string like my other mobile. I can't put it up until I have the changing table/dresser or the shelf up in the nursery. I'll post a picture once it's put together and up! :)




I've also been working on some art to hang up in the nursery. I looked around on the internet for some good quotes and sent them to my husband to see which ones he liked the most. I did 2 of them last night in Microsoft Office PowerPoint. I think they came out pretty good. The bunny picture was found on Pinterest which I used as a background to the Dr. Seuss quote. The background for other quote which was used in The Help movie is from Microsoft Office clip art when you search "bird". LOL. It was actually the first thing that popped up and I thought it was cute. I wanted to add a little more color to this one so I added the reddish brown color.

I have 2 more to do, one with a Winnie the Pooh quote "Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart." I'm not sure what quote I'm going to do for the last one yet. All the prints are done with my new Canon printer that I got from my husband for Christmas last year. I love it! The frames are $1.99 at IKEA.

2 Frames above aren't done yet.

Close up on Dr. Seuss quote one.

Close up of The Help quote. :)

That's all I have for now! :)

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. :)