Crafting a First Birthday Party

Now that February has arrived, I can finally look back at the whirlwind that was November through January. On top of the usual holiday fun, we had an extra-special event that landed smack between Thanksgiving and Christmas: Vinnie's first birthday!

Hooray! We made it!

I was quite excited to put his birthday party together. I've hosted dinner parties, a Halloween baby shower, and St. Patrick's Day parties, but this was the first time I've put together a child's birthday party (even if most of the guests were adults).

As comedian (and father of 5) Jim Gaffigan pointed out, "the baby's first birthday party is not a party for your baby; it's a party for you." So, I didn't get all crazy with a meticulously coordinated theme or blow a bunch of cash on an expensive smash cake (especially since I had a feeling Vinnie wasn't even going to touch it).

Doesn't mean I didn't get crafty, though! I opted for a primary color scheme and some "Baby's 1st Birthday" plates and signage. I got a lot of my gear at Daiso, (a large, Japanese dollar-store) including serving bowls, plates, invitation supplies, and decorations. My favorite were the pre-folded tissue paper puffs; much safer and (eco-friendly) than balloons, and they're re-usable.

Party favors for everyone!

For favors, I made large gingerbread cookies in the shape of a 1. I bought the cookie cutter from an Etsy store called West Tin Works (check them out, they have lots of fun shapes!). My mama and I decorated the cookies with royal icing. We did this pretty late at night, and I think our exhaustion fed into our creativity.

Batman, zombies, vampire clowns...the usual for a 1st birthday, right?

 Mama and I also baked the cupcakes for the party. OK, my mama did pretty much 99% of the work on those, which is awesome (especially since she used to be a professional cake decorator).

I've always wanted a cupcake tower!

For decorations, I didn't want to go too overboard since I had rented a nice space in our apartment's complex. The main attraction were the galleries of photos of Vinnie, which were mounted on colorful cardstock trimmed with decorative-edge scissors. I did one section that was Vinnie at each month, one that was Vinnie with friends and family, and one that was some of Vinnie's "greatest hits." It was a really nice way for guests to see some of my favorite pictures of the little guy, since I don't post many pictures online.

I think my favorite thing we made for the party, though, were Vinnie's birthday bibs. I finally followed through on my threat to applique. I used the same "1" shaped cookie cutter to make a template for the fabric, then attached it to the terrycloth bib using fusible webbing. My mama then sewed it on with a super-close zig-zag. We made two, one for his birthday at home, and one for the party the next day.

Hmmm...wonder which party Vinnie liked better?

Not that I had to worry about my little man getting messy. As I predicted, he didn't even touch his cupcake. It was still amusing to watch.

"You want me to do what with this?"

I had a lot of fun putting this party together. I had a LOT of help from my family--especially my parents, who flew in from out of town--and I feel so lucky to have been able to gather so many people together to help the Professor and I celebrate our little man's first birthday.

The First Halloween: Timmy the Lamb and Mama Sheep

For years before I became a mom, I'd dream about having a child to share Halloween with. It's my favorite holiday (if you couldn't tell by my past crafting and spooky baby shower), and I'd started to hit that age where raging parties were hard on the body and the schedule. At that point, Halloween becomes a stay-at-home holiday, and I became relegated to the giving end of the trick 'r' treat ritual. Nothing wrong with that...unless the only one that comes to your door is your downstairs neighbor looking to bum a smoke.

So, when I had Vinnie, I began planning his costume waaaay in advance. Maybe too far in advance. Like, when he was a few weeks old. In January.

OK, to be fair, I was hit with a bolt of inspiration thanks to my Netflix queue. I watched quite a lot of TV in the early days of Vinnie's life, and the one show that never failed to cheer me up on the most difficult, sleep-deprived days was Shaun the Sheep. If you're not familiar with Shaun, it's a British claymation show featuring a cast of  mischievous barnyard animals. The lack of dialogue lends a universal quality to the show, making it enjoyable by all ages.

There were two characters in particular that struck a chord with me: the little lamb, Timmy, and his roller-sporting mother:

They were too flippin' cute, and spoke to the core of my new mama-hood. I knew what I wanted us to be for Vinnie's first Halloween.

Easier said than done. Timmy is a very specific lamb, and no generic sheep costume would do. This would involve garment sewing and possibly pattern making, two things I have little to no experience in. So, I called in the big guns: my mother, who is an extremely talented quilter and seamstress. She'd made plenty of Halloween costumes for me and my brother growing up. A couple of sheep costumes would be a piece of cake, no?

Since she lives across the state, we perused patterns online and I'd call her from fabric shops for her input. We decided on a McCall's toddler pattern for the body (which she'd scale up for mine), with leggings and long sleeve shirts underneath. We debated about the hats for a bit, until my mother commissioned a crafty friend to crochet a pair of black beanies. During a week-long visit to her house, we (and by "we" I mean "she") whipped up the two soft, fluffy sheep shells.

Costume fitting!

My job was the hats, and I had to create the ears and face from scratch. It was trickier than I initially imagined. The ears had to stick out, but I couldn't use wires or anything that could hurt the baby's soft little head. I ended up using fleece stiffened with interfacing, then adding a layer of batting. I also did some top stitching to make the ears stiff. I then split them in half a few inches, inserted the ends in the holes left by the crochet, and stitched them closed inside.

I then cut out the eyes on black and white felt, and the nostrils using black felt, and appliqued them to the hats. The Mama Sheep had her rollers to deal with, too, which I attached by winding strips of leftover fluffy fabric around the rollers then poking them through the crochet holes to tie inside, much like the ears.

It's the little details that kept me the most busy. Every time I thought I had it done, there was one more elements to the costumes that needed attention (such as finding the perfect yellow pacifier for the Timmy costume). Finally, after numerous visits to the fabric store, a cross-state trip, things being mailed last-minute, and sewing against the clock, the costumes were done.

Ta da! It's Timmy! All that hard work and...wait...

...wait...

...well, crap.

We got him to wear the hat for maybe a total of two minutes. Maybe.

It was hard not to be disappointed, but as my husband pointed out, there's a good chance we'll be able to use these costumes again next year. Even if Vinnie doesn't appreciate it now, someday, when he's older, he'll look back at the pictures of his first Halloween and see just how much his mama (and grandmama) love him...

...or how crazy we were.

Bibs, Bibs, Bibs (Warning: gratuitous baby pic spam)

If there's one thing my little man has mastered, it's drooling. The kid is like a leaking faucet, and has been since he was about three months old. Luckily, I was ready, with a stack of bibs that I'd stitched up before he was born. Unluckily, it wasn't nearly enough, and I've had to buy and stitch more bibs since. More stitching. Oh darn.

So, in honor of Vinnie's 8 month anniversary, here's some of my favorite bibs (or, um, the ones I actually took pictures of before they got horribly slimed):

At one month old, he was a little young to be thinking of eating with utensils. Despite that, this has been one of my favorites. Pattern by Urban Threads.

Still one month old, Vinnie got in touch with his Latino heritage (yes, my blond-haired, blue-eyed boy is a quarter Mexican) with this sweet lucha libre design from Sublime Stitching.

At three months, Vinnie's 100th percentile head was already too big for his fun Easter hat. Good thing the paranoid bunny bib doesn't have a size restriction. Also from Urban Threads.

Feeling international at five months, the little man sports his French toast bib from UT.

My seven-month-old little monster sporting a little monster from UT.

For a while, these were the only crafty projects I could muster the energy and time for. Now that my little guy is older, I've been able to find a bit more time for more complex embroidery (and blogging, even if I'm typing this with one hand while holding him with the other). I still have a stack of bibs (colored, this time) waiting to be stitched on, or perhaps I'll try applique. I always say that, don't I? Someday, I'll actually do it.

Handmade Princess Bride Westley Doll

"As you wish."

I've been meaning to share this for a while now. I mean, it's not every day I make a doll. In fact, I'd never made a real doll before last autumn, nonetheless a doll of the Dread Pirate Roberts (a.k.a. Westley) from the Princess Bride.

It must have been the pregnancy hormones that made me commit to this madness. I was bandying about ideas for a regular craft swap I do with a friend, and I mentioned making a doll for her wee son in return for a black, crochet baby blanket. I'd been looking for something to hone my sewing skills, since I'd mastered the skill of sewing two squares together. A doll was the next logical step, right?

To be fair, I started with a pattern I found on an Etsy store, Dolls and Daydreams. There's an adorable superhero boy pattern that served as a base for the body and the mask. Rather than making the legs, arms, and body in different colors, I went with black fabric. The tricky parts were the boots (made from upcycled pleather from a couch I skinned), the chest (trying to get that sexy, open-collar look), and the hair (how do I give a doll a ponytail?).

Appliqueing the face turned out to be rather challenging, too, but fun. The mask was made from the same upcycled pleather, but I used wool felt for the hair and mustache, and craft felt for the eyes. It's hard to tell from the picture below, but I machine stitched wavy lines of hair to make it more interesting. Freestyle.

"No one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley."

The chest issue was solved by cutting a slit in the chest fabric and sewing it open to make a "collar," and then sewing a triangle of flesh-colored fabric to fill in the space. I hand embroidered the criss-cross laces of the shirt with a simple back-stitch.

I figured out how to make the ponytail fairly easily: I stitched a little bit of felt to the back of the doll, so that when I sewed the head on it looked like a ponytail:

"Why won't my arms move?"

The boots. Oh lordy, those boots. Remind me, the next time I work with pleather, to make the legs BIGGER so I don't have to turn thick, stiff fabric in a one-inch-wide tube. It took me half an hour each to turn those legs!

I am exceedingly pleased with how my first doll came out, and most importantly, I learned a lot (#&@*ing pleather). It was hard for me to let him go, even though I knew he was going to a good, geeky home. It'll be a while before I have the time or space to make another doll, but fortunately, it'll be a while before my own wee son can play with dolls. If I start now, I can have it done by his 5th birthday.

Star Wars Easter Eggs on eHow

Look, Ma! My hand-painted Star Wars Easter eggs were selected to be part of an awesome slideshow on eHow.com!

Give it a looksee. There's some really great ideas for unique Easter eggs, and there's still enough time to plan ahead to be creative.

Unfortunately, I won't have time this year to sit down and do some involved painting, or get more crafty than PAAS. 'Cause, y'know...baby. But someday, perhaps, I'll be able to expand the collection. There's some Star Wars characters that would look pretty boss in egg form.

Also, welcome to those of you here from eHow! I hope you enjoy my other crafty creations if you stick around to take a peek.

Skeleton Key Sweater, or Adventures in Stabilizer

Finally, FINALLY it feels like Autumn has come to the Bay Area. Usually the temperature starts dropping around mid-October, but this year the heat lingered until early November. Which really sucks when you're eight months pregnant and stuck in a sweltering apartment. 

Besides the discomfort, I love Fall. I love the colors, I love the cuisine (lots of soups, stews, squashes, and root veggies), I love the layered clothes. So, I've been excited that I can finally wear the Skeleton Key sweater I finished embroidering last month. 

Changing room lights make for great clothing photos!

I'm really, super-proud of how this came out! The sweater itself was a find, a $3 score on Target's clearance rack that had no defects. I figured it was a good place to start experimenting with embroidering on my own clothing, which I'd been avoiding since I prefer knit fabrics.

Knits are notorious for being difficult to stitch on, and now I see why. Even with the assistance of some tear-away stabilizer, it was still a challenge to make sure that all the stitches came out even and didn't pucker the fabric. If you make a mistake and want to re-do a stitch, you have to do it sans stabilizer, as your needle's already torn through it! It made for a few little gaps in the design, but they're hard to tell if you're not looking for them.

I used a pattern set from Urban Threads, a skeleton key and a keyhole. After a bit of research (Sublime Stitching has a great tutorial), I decided the best way to transfer was to trace directly onto the stabilizer. It worked like a charm! I used a fine-tipped Sharpie pen, no fancy fabric pen needed, then ironed the stabilizer on where I wanted the designs. Next time, though, I'm going to iron them on one at a time. By the time I finished the first design, the second one was a bit wrinkly and tough to hoop.

With the baby belly.

I'm so excited to finally have a piece of clothing that showcases my stitching! All these years, and I've never tried it. Now I'm looking at my closet, wondering which piece is going to be next.

My Halloween Baby Shower

Happy Halloween everyone! I thought I'd celebrate my favorite holiday by sharing some of the crafty and culinary creations that went into the Halloween baby shower I had earlier this month.

It was a joint planning effort between my mama, my mom-in-law, and myself, and together (with the help of my husband, dad, and sister-in-law) we turned my little 2-bedroom apartment into a full-on Halloween party central.

I'm super-proud of this banner. I could not find anywhere that sold Halloween-themed baby shower signs, either online or in the stores. So, using cardstock, mini-clothespins, and fun orange/black baker's twine, I made my own banner!

 My mom took the idea one step further. She taped more colorful cardstock onesies in the entryway, and encouraged guests to leave their well wishes for the baby. They were cute decorations, and now are precious mementos. Definitely more fun than a sign-in book!

Decorating was such a team effort! My mom- and sister-in-law were climbing like monkeys to get the crepe streamers and balloons up, while my mama spent the evening before making these pumpkin-esque puffs out of tissue paper. 

My contribution to the decor: these adorable Halloween sock monkeys I scored at a card and gift store. I only bought two, then after walking a block away, turned back to buy the third and last one. I also found the cute skeleton-bear at JoAnn's (I think I see a theme-within-a-theme here...).

For favors, we gave out cute tins stuffed with Halloween socks, a notepad, no-sharpen pencil, and candy. I also made little tags for them out of cardstock and "thank you" stickers I ordered to match my invitations. For the kids, we had little plastic cups stuffed with candy. We would have had more for them, but we didn't know they were coming until the day before!

 We had so much food! This is only a fraction of it. In addition to the veggies, fruit, wrap sandwiches, and cheeseball, we had butternut squash soup, spanakopita, baked potato bites, and lots of cookies.

Also, note the stack of plates in the right corner. My mama found these vintage milk glass party plates at an estate sale. I admit, when I first saw them, I was really skeptical. However, once they were in play, I can't imagine the party without them! They came with little matching cups that were perfect for the soup, and were much sturdier (and attractive) that paper plates. I'll definitely be using them again.

The centerpiece of the table: the cake! It was a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, from this awesome bakery in Berkeley called Love at First Bite. It was SUPER-rich, and one 9" cake was more than enough for 14+ guests. 

As for the message, we've been calling the little guy "The Tadpole." We're pretty much set on his name at this point, but I'm a wee bit superstitious and don't want to use it until he's actually born. Who knows? Maybe we'll look at him and decide that name choice #2 is actually more appropriate!

My mom-in-law makes some of the absolute best gingerbread cookies, and was generous enough to bake a couple of trays for the festivities. Mama and I contributed some nutter-butter ghosties, which are super-easy to make. You just dunk the cookies in melted white chocolate and add two mini chocolate chips for eyes. That's it!

After all that work, it was great to see everyone having a good time and enjoying the food and decorations. Here they are playing a game my mom-in-law coordinated, to see who could match and roll 12 pairs of baby socks the quickest. It was tougher than it sounds! As a bonus, I got to keep all the socks. 

The hostesses before the party began: my mama, myself, and my mom-in-law. Since they live so far from each other, it's rare that I get to hang out with them both at the same time, so it was wonderful having them both there. I couldn't have done this all this without them. 

As for the shirt, I saw one on Etsy that I fell in love with, but couldn't justify the price tag. As a total surprise, mom and sister-in-law gave me one the day of the shower. It was perfect!

And yes, I'm totally wearing that shirt again today. Have fun and be safe tonight, everyone!

Embroidered Mexican Linens (Picture Heavy)

Pregnancy is a lot more tiring than I thought it would be. The first trimester (Spring) was mostly spent curled up in a ball on my couch, too nauseated and exhausted to do more than watch Ugly Betty and Arrested Development on Netflix. The second trimester (Summer) was a lot better. The nausea went away, as did most of the fatigue, but I still had trouble rallying to do much more than what I had to (chores and writing).

Sadly, this involved crafting. There were weeks at a time when I couldn't motivate myself to stitch, none the less put together a cool new pattern to work on. If it hadn't been for my stash of pre-stamped Mexican linens, I might have gone all season without embroidering.

I picked up a slew of these little beauties at my hometown swap meet a few years ago. They're mostly 13"x13" cloths, perfect for bread (or tortilla) baskets. I also snagged a few larger ones (17"x17") for some pretty table decorations.

This is one of the smaller ones. All the little petals were deceptively time-consuming to stitch, especially since I decided to get fancy and do the whole thing in split-stitch. I used variegated floss, which is most obvious on the stems and leaves.

When it was done, I backed it with some pretty Dia De Los Muertos fabric. Note the zig-zag stitching. It was my first attempt at using this stitch for, well, anything!

It's kind of a "companion piece" to the first linen I stitched up last year...which I realize I forgot to post about.

See? Perfect for tortillas!

I also stitched up one of the larger pieces. I fell in love with the fruit motif, and I thought it was an appropriate piece to celebrate the late summer harvest. I already miss the lack of good berries and stone fruits in the stores.

I tweeded the floss for the fruit to get a more "natural" tone, I backed this one with a more classic fruit n' flowers fabric.

This one I'm planning on using more as a mini-table cloth sort of thing. If I can bear to put anything that might stain on it!

I still have about ten more of these babies. It's nice to know that if the crafting blahs set in again, I have a pile of ready-made projects waiting for me.

Queen of Snake

I'm definitely in love with Sew Lovely Embroidery's patterns. For me, they're just the right balance of ease and challenge. The patterns are detailed enough to encourage playing with different stitches and colors, yet straightforward enough that even a simple backstitch can make them look amazing. Not to mention, they're the only other place besides Sublime Stitching that I've found to offer "alternative" iron-on patterns. Oh, how I adore the ease of iron-on!

This is the second piece I've done from the "Circus Palooza" pattern set (the first being Lydia, the Tattooed Lady). I'd just finished watching all of the short-lived TV series, Carnivale, and I was in the mood for some carny love. I'd really come to like the character of Ruthie, the snake charmer, and I thought this would be a fun homage (even if the hair color was a little different).

I tried to keep her in a similar color scheme to Lydia, as I entertain hopes of someday making either one big quilt, or several quilted pieces that would go together on a wall. 

A bit of trivia: the albino snake is a subtle nod to the resident python of one of my favorite shops in the world, The Bone Room. If you're ever in the Berkeley area, do yourself a favor and swing by. It's a curio shop meets natural history museum, with a friendly, knowledgeable staff. You definitely won't be bored!

Folklore Crafts Book Tour

Fabulous Publishing is a new ebook publisher for crafters by crafters. Founded in 2012 by Shayne Rioux and Redd Hynes, (two of my fellow writers from my Geek Crafts days), FabPub aims to curate how-to ebooks that are fun and full of fabulous arts and crafts.

FabPub has launched their new series with a pair of adorably themed books: Garden Gnomes and Matryoshka (Russian Nesting Dolls).

Folklore Crafts: Garden Gnomes features 13 projects by artists from all over the world. The projects inside vary from sewing to crochet, paper quilling to knitting, for babies and adults.

Some of the projects include a crocheted hat so you can be a gnome whenever the mood strikes, a cross-stitched plaque to grace your wall, an amigurumi Gnome Chomsky to keep you company and an embroidered cup cozy to keep your favorite beverage warm.

How could you not feel happy wearing this hat?

The Underpants Gnomes won't be
able to resist stealing these!

Who needs ceramic gnomes
when you can have yarn ones?

Folklore Crafts: Matryoshka also features 13 projects by artists from all over the world. The projects inside vary from sewing to crochet, embroidery to traditional nesting dolls with a modern twist.

Some of the projects include a hand-printed hankie using a hand-carved rubberstamp, a sensory doll for your baby to love, needle-felted sailors for the seafarers in your life and even a full-scale costume.

For you Dr. Who fans out there!

You'll definitely win "most original" at the
company Halloween party! 

Cutest felted dolls ever!

***

This is the second to last stop on the FabPub blog tour. To see the thrilling conclusion, visit Geek Crafts tomorrow!