Baby Bunting

Happy Canada Day!

I have a little sewing project I've recently been working on all finished to share with you today.  As you may have read, a close friend of mine had her baby last Sunday (three weeks early and on the baby shower date!).  Well, I had originally planned to make some baby bunting for the shower that could later be used to decorate the little one's room.  Probably a good thing that she came so early, because I was quite a bit behind in getting this project made - it just seemed to keep expanding and taking on a life of its own...

Baby Bunting

My original idea was to be a 'quick and dirty' make - an afternoon of crafting and done.  That's not exactly how it worked out.  I printed out the letters using Arial Black font, point around 80-90, I think, then cut them out and used them to trace out the Heat n'Bond.  I had thought to just stick the letters directly onto the striped pennants but then discovered there wasn't as much contrast between the two fabrics as I had originally thought.  So I had to make up some circles, which I backed with interfacing, onto which I put the letters.  I hand stitched the circles down using a blanket stitch and that alone took up a fair bit of time.

The pennant shape I made myself by simply folding some paper and deciding on an angle and size I liked.  Then I decided since the pennants had already become this involved, we might as well go the whole hog so I backed them onto some white cotton and stitched around the edges (1/4 inch in from the edge), then used pinking shears to finish the edges.

Finally I made some double-sided fabric strips, which I also pinked along the edges, and tacked each pennant along it using four sets of cross stitches (each triple stitched so it's good and solid).  All in all, a two-day project but totally cute and worth it!

Sagan börjar

The bunting reads 'Sagan börjar'.  It's a play on my goddaughter's Scandinavian name, Saga (so pretty - I've always loved that name).  Translated it means 'The saga begins.'

And a little close-up shot...

New mummy received these goodies today and was super thrilled with the idea.  My work here is done.

Whale of a Birthday

I needed to make a birthday card for my step-father so yesterday I set to work on it.  I knew I wanted to use some wood veneer numbers I'd recently bought but was struggling on which papers to use.  Long story short, I (finally) decided on the FP Down by the Shore collection.  I've been wanting to experiment with the new corrugated cardstock and the maritime portion of the collection has an especially nice masculine feel to it.  Prepare yourself for extreme cuteness - no, seriously, this chubby little whale gets me every time:

Whale of a Birthday

Isn't he *adorable*?!  My initial inspiration actually came from the central pennant, where you can see I layered up the wood veneer numbers (my step-father's age) and like I said, I just can't resist that whale and thought he'd be cute layered over the pennant, too.

 

For the corrugated cardstock, I simply stitched it with my sewing machine - the pressure from the presser foot did flatten the area I'd sewn but I also went over it twice so...  If you want to sew your corrugated cardstock and want to prevent it from flattening, I would recommend seeing if your machine has the ability to adjust the height/pressure of your presser foot (check the manual if you don't know this yourself).

I felt more pennants would help support the design and decided to use the anchors, since that's one of the challenge prompts in the current Stash Busters Challenges over on the 2Peas forum.  Then I fussy cut the whale and cut reverse scallops into the striped paper to help ground everything.  Lastly, I wrapped some twine around from which the pennants could hang and tied little knots in the ends.  I wasn't going to add a sentiment to the front but the 'happy happy day' sticker fit so nicely and I really liked how the pennants helped to lead the eye to it.

And yes, if you look closely in the above photo, that *is* lobster/crayfish fabric under the card.  :P

And just because I truly can't resist, I'll leave you with this: