Make Your Own Baby Wipes

… because you can! And they’re easy. Only three ingredients and ten minutes required. The good thing about making your own is that you know what goes in them, you can choose to add baby friendly essential oils and you can tailor them to your own child’s delicate little bottom. I found this tutorial from Ouroutofsynclife.com which I used for inspiration. Heres how you do it:

Materials:

• Kitchen roll (go for a nice soft one, like Bounty)
• 2 tbsp Baby oil
• 2 tbsp Mild baby wash
• a few drops of chamomile or other essential oil
• plastic bag
• A tissue holder or suitable container (I bought this one)

1. Place the baby wash and oil in a jug. Add 1.5 cups of hot water

 

3. stir it all up with a whisk to combine.

4. Take a roll of kitchen roll and saw it in half with a bread knife. Surprisingly satisfying. Place it into a large bowl and pour the mixture over the top.

 

5. Leave for a few minutes then pull the cardboard tube out from the middle – it should be easy now that its wet. Place the roll into a plastic bag.

 

Place the roll and bag in the tissue holder, or another suitable container and pull the central tissue up through the top. And that’s it, all done.

Tia xx

 

Felt Elephant Baby Booties

In the run-up to giving birth, some people let their nesting instincts run wild by cleaning the house from top to bottom, over and over. But before the recent arrival of our son, I think I went a little craft crazy – as well as trying to finish off all my existing projects, I decided it would be an excellent time to make something really intricate and completely new to me!

Because I didn’t know what size he’d be, I aimed this pattern at a 3-month-old baby, figuring he could always grow into them.

For this project you will need:

• 2 sheets dark grey felt
• 1 sheet light grey
• Scrap of white felt
• Scrap of black felt
• Dark grey embroidery thread
• Grey cotton
• Tiny amount of toy stuffing

1. Begin by cutting out the pattern and fabric, as shown above. For one pair of booties you need to cut the following:

• Two feet pieces from the dark grey felt
• Two feet pieces from light grey felt (for the lining)
• Two foot sole pieces in light grey
• Four eye pieces in light grey
• Four ear pieces in light grey
• Four tusks in white
• Four trunk pieces in light grey
• Four larger circles in white for eyes
• Four smaller circles in black for eyes

2. Next, pin the two feet pieces to the back of the sole piece, making sure you’re in the centre of the foot piece. You want the light piece to be on the inside of the bootie.

 

3. Using blanket stitch, sew the foot pieces to the sole pieces.

4. Then blanket stitch the top of the feet pieces together around the edge. You also want to stitch up the front leaving enough room to fit a tiny foot in but not too much that it falls off!

5. Pin and sew the grey eye pieces, tusks and ears in place using cotton thread and backstitch. You want your tusk piece to be tucked under the eye piece so pin it under before sewing. When sewing the ears, only sew along the top of the ear and down the right side so the ears can be pushed out a little and made to flap. Repeat for the other eye, tusk and ear.

 

6. To add a bit more detail, add small snips along the curved edge of the ear.

7. Sew the two trunk pieces together using embroidery thread and blanket stitch, leaving a gap at the base of the trunk.

8. Using a skewer, push a small amount of toy stuffing up the trunk so it will stand up. Backstitch the trunk onto the front of the booties. Secure the top of the trunk to the top of the bootie with a few stitches.

9. Finally, sew or glue the whites and pupils of the eyes in place.

 

~ Laura xx ~

Life In Pictures

Life in Pictures is our weekly mini-gallery of what our Little Buttons have been up to over the past seven days.
    

Life In Pictures

Life in Pictures is our weekly mini-gallery of what our Little Buttons have been up to over the past seven days.

 

  

Applique Elephant Nursery Art

Just after Christmas my brother and his wife had a beautiful little girl called Inara. She wasn’t due till February, so she was the picture of teeny tiny pocket sized perfection. I wanted to make her a little picture with her name on it, so I thought I would applique something as I enjoyed making the photo-applique so much. Here’s what I made…

You will need:

• Printed image for template
• background fabric (big enough to fit your selected frame)
• fabric scraps for the applique
• fusible interfacing

1. Begin by printing an image of an elephant and baby to act as the template for your applique (I used this one). I amended the image a bit so that the mummy could hold a flag with my little neice’s name on it. Draw on the name now then cut out the templates.

 

2. Select fabric for the background and applique pieces (I cut pieces for the elephant, calf, flag, text, flagpole and balloon). Iron on fusible interfacing to strengthen pieces and reduce the amount of fray.

 

3. Place the first applique fabric pieces onto the backing fabric and pin the template on top. Sew all the way around the template (it doesn’t matter if you sew over the paper a little).

 

4. Remover the paper, then snip around the applique. Sew the calf on in the same way.

 

5. For the flag, sew the main piece on as above then place the text fabric over the top and sew over the text. Tear the paper away and snip around the letters.

   

6. Sew on the flagpole and a little balloon (I was quite pleased I added the balloon as the back of the baby elephant does look like he is floating a smidge…!), then hand sew a french knot for each elephant’s eye.

 

As a last little touch I sewed on my neice’s date of birth onto the bottom of the fabric.  Press and frame!

 

Tia xx

Welcome To Our Newest Little Button

Our newest Little Button has arrived. Grayson kept us waiting for a week but it was more than worth it. We’d slightly forgotten that babies like to party all night, but no amount of sleep deprivation could burst this newborn bubble.

Harper has taken to big sister duties brilliantly and has only nearly sat on him a few times. It’s been wonderful documenting Harper’s first couple of years on this blog, and we can’t wait to share Grayson’s journey with you too.

  

~ Laura xx ~

 

 

Nap Time Crafts: Nursery Glitter Artwork

Today’s Nap Time Craft is a really quick and simple one. Add a bit of sparkle to a nursery wall in under half an hour!

For this project you will need:

• Glitter paper
• Moveable vinyl letters and numbers
• Spray paint
• Frame

1. Begin by arranging your letters and numbers to fit your glitter paper. I decided to go with the initials and date of birth of a friend of mine’s new baby.

2. In a well-ventilated room, or outside, spray over your whole sheet of paper. You want all the glitter to be covered. Leave it to dry.

 

3. When it has completely dried, peel off the letters, and then frame it.

 

You could do your whole family in the space of a short nap!

~ Laura xx ~

Balloons Baby Dress Tutorial

I’ve made a few attempts at following patterns to make myself some clothes recently.  I made two skirts and a dress. Well, both the skirts came out too small (I am telling myself it was the pattern. It WAS the pattern) and the dress didn’t fit round my boobs. All that lovely fabric… ugh. So, sod that – I’m having a break from adult sized clothes! But I love making baby dresses – they use less fabric, don’t require much shape and take a lot less time.

This dress is pretty easy – it follows a similar method to the little bunny dresses we made for Hobbycraft back in the spring. I made a dress to fit my 6 month old, but you can make it to any size – just select an existing non-stretch dress in a similar style to get the measurements. This dress is reversible by design too – you just need to use poppers rather than buttons and skip the pockets. This tutorial is for a pinafore dress. The dress you use as template doesn’t need to be a pinafore – it just needs to give you a guide for width, height and arm holes.

You will need:

• existing dress for template
• tracing paper
• fabric for dress
• fabric for lining
• fabric scraps for applique
• bondaweb
• buttons

1. Place the template dress onto some tracing/parchment paper and, using a ruler to give accuracy (and adding a 3/4 seam allowance), draw around one side and along the top and bottom to the centre point of the dress. You could draw around the whole thing but this method ensures symmetry.

 

2. Fold the paper in half and cut out the template. You now have the template for the front of the dress. For the reverse, you just need to trace the front panel and add an inch to the top of the strap, as below right.

 

3. Pin the templates to the fabric. Cut a front and back piece from both the outer and lining fabric.

4. Place the front fabric and lining pieces right sides together and pin along the top, from one armhole to the other (so… all the curved bits!). Sew this together with a 3/4″ allowance. Repeat for the back of the dress and snip all along the curved stitching.

 

5. Turn both pieces the right way out and press.

 

6. Cut a pocket shape from some paper. Cut a piece of outer fabric slightly bigger than the paper – apart from the top as this will be binded. Press the edges in around the paper. Take a thin strip of lining fabric, fold over twice and sew this in place along the raw top edge of the pocket.

 

7. Being careful NOT to sew the lining (I absolutely did not do this…) sew the pocket onto the centre of the front of the dress. I used satin stitch.

 

8. Cut out some balloon shapes from scraps of fabric adhered with bondaweb. Position these in place along the bottom of the dress and press to set. Finish with blanket stitch for a neater finish. Sew lines for the string.

 

9. Now take the front and back pieces of the dress and open them out. Place them so that the linings face each other and outer fabric faces each other (both should be right sides together). Pin together ensuring that the arm holes are matched up. Sew with a 3/4″ seam allowance, all the way along. press the seams open.

  

10. Try the dress on to check fit at this point, and place a pin on the front  straps for the location of the buttons. Sew buttonholes on the back straps and buttons on the front. Use a stitch ripper to open up the holes.

 

11. Finally, finish the hem of the dress by folding over twice so that the lining is visible on the outside of the dress. Sew along the out-turned lining.

   

Tia x

***ps special thanks to Viv over at Binoracle for finding me this lovely star lining fabric on the street! One (wo)man’s trash…***

Magnificent Stanley Baby Clothing Review

We came across these beautiful t-shirts by Magnificent Stanley through our lovely friend Natasha’s blog, The Milk Stand. Her son Max has an impressive collection of these bespoke t-shirts and always looks so cute!

Becky, who runs Magnificent Stanley, kindly sent us an H and an A t-shirt for our Little Buttons to put through their paces.

 

Her online shop, Magnificent Stanley, is full of beautiful products and fabrics to choose from. Babygrows and t-shirts can have letters, numbers, words and woodland creatures sewn onto them in a range of Liberty prints. Becky handcrafts the t-shirts to order.

 

There is close attention to detail throughout, from the range of prints available through to the adorable packaging (who doesn’t love bakers twine and luggage labels!). The overall impression of these products is that they are handcrafted with love.

After much playing with mud and grass by the Little Buttons, we were impressed at how new the t-shirts came up after washing, and were still very soft.

You can follow Becky on Twitter or Facebook.

~ Laura & Tia xx ~

A Baby Sunhat Tutorial

Oh dear me…I’m ashamed to say that my little one got a bit of a burnt head the other day! It was only a tiny bit… but I feel very guilty. So to make up for it, I decided to make her a nice new sunhat. I find the ones in the shops are all a bit samey and boring. This one is bright, reversible and SO easy to make (so easy in fact that I made two). I found a really lovely tutorial and template here on www.purlbee.com.

This hat is to fit a baby aged 0-3 months.

You will need:
2 contrasting pieces of fabric (about a fat 1/4 of each)
Iron on interfacing
Bias binding
Ribbon
Sewing machine

1) begin by printing out Purlbee’s brilliant template (available here). Cut 4 dome pieces from the outer fabric and 4 from the lining. Then cut the rim pieces – two of each from the outer fabric, lining and interfacing, as shown below.

2) Put the outer pieces together in pairs, right sides together. Pin and sew along one side with a 1/4 inch seam allowance (which will be the allowance for the whole project). Open out and press with the iron. Pin the sewn pieces right sides together and sew all the way round the curved edge to create the basic hat shape. NB its a good idea to test this out on your child at this point, bearing in mind that the finished hat will be smaller still. But if it doesn’t fit now… you want to know NOW!

3) repeat the above process with the lining pieces, so that you have two domes.

4) Attach the interfacing by pressing with the iron onto the outer rim pieces. Then pin these, right sides together, along the flat edges and sew. Press flat.

5) Attach to the hat by pinning the inside of the rim to the edge of the dome, right sides together (bit confusing… see the pic below!). Sew in place. Repeat the process with the lining BUT this time, attach the ribbons along the seam before sewing, as below.

6) Now to attach the inner and outer pieces. Place each piece wrong side together and sew a small stitch at the very top centre of the hat to hold in place. Now, lining the seams up, pin the rim pieces together. Sew along the inside of the rim.

 

7) Finally, attach the bias binding by pinning all the way along the rim as  below. Sew, fold over and sew once more. If you haven’t used binding before there are some great Youtube tutorials that can explain the process way more clearly than my brain is capable!

All finished! Whoop di doo, no more burning. And it looks more complicated to make than it actually IS, which is always a bonus.