Baby Diaper Balm and Lip Balm for Mom

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Want a great baby shower gift that is useful and easy to make?  I stumbled across a site for lots of homemade beauty products--and they all look awesome, but some are complicated.  This one is not!

Diaper cream.  Have you ever gotten some of that white stuff from the tube on your hands?  Its sticky, hard to wash off and it stains clothes!  Although it is very effective at helping protect a baby's skin.  The active ingredient in the store bought stuff is zinc oxide.  In this homemade version you also use zinc, but you also use organic olive oil and beeswax, chamomile and calendula petals.  Makes for a soothing balm that feels good on skin, isn't sticky and is all organic! 

You'll need:
zinc oxide powder
organic olive oil
organic beeswax pellets
organic chamomile tea bag and dried calendula petals (optional)
tin or jar
jelly jar or glass measure cup
scale






I'll send you back over to Humblebee and Me for all the details on crafting the diaper balm--but it takes me about 10 minutes from start to finish to make a single tin (and yes, you can double the recipe and make a large tin).


Coconut Oil Lip Balm

Also from Humblebee and Me--I ordered my balm tubes from Amazon.  You'd think a funnel would help on this project--but it does not.  The beeswax cools super fast, so using a funnel just clogs up and makes things harder. 

5 grams beeswax pellet
5 grams coconut oil
2-3 drops almond oil or vitamin E oil




 
Melt everything in a glass jar or measuring cup set inside of pot of water (on medium/low).  When its all melted, pour into your tubes (don't delay, just quickly pour).  This makes 2 tubes.  You can double the recipe.

One night baby quilt

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I've done many baby quilts in the past--usually a pieced block quilt that I then hand quilt using my lap frame.  I haven't done one in a long time because...they take a long time!  My mom has taken up serious quilting and I wondered if maybe I could get back into it a bit, but in a way that wouldn't add another "not-yet-complete" project to my pile.  A quick internet search of baby strip quilts will yielded lots of inspiration. 

I have a very basic Singer sewing machine, and I didn't hold out much hope that it would be able to do quilting, but with the addition of a $10 Even Feed (Walking) Foot from Amazon, it handled it like a champ! Wow, buy one!


This quilt took me just under 5 hours from cutting to binding--maybe a bit less since I did take a break for dinner and to do a load of laundry. 

I followed the excellent instructions at Thirty Handmade Days and I had zero trouble with the pattern.  I won't put the tutorial here since you can use hers.  I did use my serger to sew all the strips together (no pins!)  instead of my sewing machine.  Also, next time I do this quilt, I would just quilt the along the seam one time.  The double line of quilting took about 90 minutes and my back was tired of leaning over the machine.


This is a good project to use up some of your fabric stash--the owl and alphabet prints I bought new, but the rest were fabrics that I needed to use up.  I'd say this quilt is a casual quilt, with plenty of crooked lines--but its still pretty cute.


The backing will need the most fabric, all the rest you can get away with about 1/3 a yard or less of each kind.  I used 6 different fabrics.  I also used the "cheater binding" method where the you cut the backing about 4 inches bigger than the finished top and then just fold over the back to make the binding.  I managed to not have quite enough backing, so rather than trim down my quilt front (42 inches across)  I made a 4 x 58 inch  strip with 3 of the leftover fabrics and sewed it to the edge of the backing so that my backing was 46x60.  My finished quilt is 42x54 inches.

Baby Toms

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I've had several baby showers recently and saw these cute shoes on Pinterest and decided to give them a try. I purchased the pattern from Twirly Bird

I followed the instructions and they turned out cute. However, cutting the back out of a single piece of fabric (on the fold) would make assembling them a bit easier. The tiny size makes it a bit tricky to maneuver.

I used a corduroy fabric from Walmart for the main fabric, with some brown faux suede on the soles.  The instructions call for elastic, but make sure you choose knit or braid style elastic...the woven type is too stiff to use in these shoes.  My JoAnne's had all sorts of colors of knit elastic (just use your 40% off coupon). 

Baby Jumper and Mary Janes

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I saw this cute jumper on Smashed Peas and Carrots and knew that it would be the gift for my friend Jen's new baby. The best part about the jumper and booties is that I already had all the supplies in the house!


Materials
1 yd of outer fabric
1 yd of lining fabric
2 buttons
thread

First, print out the pattern and tape the pieces together. I have a pile of old clothes that I don't wear anymore, but I thought had some potential for reusing the fabric. I chose a skirt and slit it at the seam. There was enough fabric that I could make another jumper!

I won't go into the details of how to make the jumper since you will find excellent instructions on Smashed Peas and Carrots. Lay out the pattern on, once on the outside fabric and again on the lining fabric.

It took me about an hour to make the jumper and another 20 minutes or so to cover the buttons and sew them on (I had to figure out how to use the button hole foot on my sewing machine). You could use regular buttons or even snaps. If you used cute lining fabric, you could use flat buttons on both sides and the jumper would be reversible.




The booties

I am the first to admit that I am not a particularly good knitter. I can do the very basics, which is all you need for these. I modified a pattern from Knit Simple magazine a few years ago (I think the pattern was too hard for me, so...the pattern isn't perfectly symmetrical, but its close). I often add a big fluffy bow to these booties. The knitting is pretty fast, but the sewing and weaving is what takes up the time on these cuties. I made them in red once with organza ribbon bows...ruby red slippers, oh so cute. I didn't have any buttons in the house for this project, so I just crocheted little balls instead and tied them on.

Baby Mary Jane Booties

Sized for newborn-3 months

Materials

Size 6 needles

1 skien 50g yarn or sport weight—cotton or microfiber

sm. crochet hook

2 small shank buttons

Cast on 31 sts

Next: Knit across

Next: Inc 1 in first st, k13, inc 1 st in next st, k1, inc 1 st in next st, k to last st, inc 1 in last st-35 sts.

Next row: Knit across

Next row : Inc 1 st in first st, k14, inc 1 st in next st, k3, inc 1 st in next st, k to last st, inc 1 st in last st--39 sts.

Next: Knit across

Next: : Inc 1 st in first st, k15, inc 1 st in next st, k5, inc 1 st in next st, k to last st, inc 1 st in last st--43 sts

Next: Knit across

Next: Inc 1 st in first st, k16, inc 1 st in next st, k7, inc 1 st in next st, k to last st, inc 1 st in last st—47 sts

Next: Knit 9 rows

Next: k13, SKP 5 times, k1, k2tog 5 times, k13= 37 sts

Next: Knit across

Next: k16, k2tog 3 times, k to the end of the row=34 sts

Next: k14, k2tog 3 times, knit to the end of the row=31 sts

For the next row, choose either the Right or the Left shoe:

Right:

Next: Bind off 8, k3, bind off remaining sts. Cut off yarn tail. To make strap: knit 20 rows on the remaining 3 sts. Bind off. Leave a long enough tail to make a loop at the end to be the buttonhole.

Left shoe:

Next: Bind off 24 sts, k3, bind off remaining sts. Cut off yarn tail. To make strap: knit 20 rows on the remaining 3 sts. Bind off. Leave a long enough yarn tail to make a loop at the end to be the buttonhole.

With right sides together, sew up the seam of the bootie, using a crochet hook. Weave the yarn ends using the crochet hook. Flip the bootie right side out and sew on a button.

k=knit

st=stitch

sts=stitches

inc=increase

SKP=slip knit pass

k2tog=knit two together

Baby Quilt...in progress

Pin It A very good friend is expecting her first baby and I wanted to make a quilt. I've done simple pieced quilts before and while they aren't too bad, the strip quilting method makes things much faster. I decided that I wanted a more random/crazy pattern for this quilt.

First, picking the fabric is the hardest part! I went with 6 different coordinating fabrics (about 1/4 yard of each), plus 1.5 yards for the back (I'm making a 45" x 45" square).

Next, I used my rotary cutter (if you don't have one, get one! you won't be sorry) to cut the fabric into strips. I varied the width of the strips from 2-5 inches and then lined them up in an order that I liked. I sewed strips together until I had about a 45 x 45 square.

I forgot to take good pictures of the next step, sorry. But, you pull out the rotary cutter again and cut across the strips so that you end up with one long row of the various squares! (Lots better than cutting out each square and then sewing them all back together).

Next, you take all those nice new strips of square and lay it out on the floor. I decided to put the strips upside down on one row and rightside up on the next.

I do have a set of PVC quilt frames, but for baby quilts, I really prefer this small lap frame (I bought it years ago at House of Fabric and recently found another one at a yard sale). I use quilting safety pins to pin through the quilt top, batting and back so everything stays put. Then I move the lap frame when I need to. This makes the project easy to sit on the couch and work on or take on a road trip or put away. I haven't finished yet, but when I get the binding done I'll take another photo.