Ruffled Diaper Cover Tutorial

 

 

We have a lot of close friends and relatives who are currently preggers.... Lately the Hubs and I have been thinking about kids, so my pinterest is full of kid crafting tutorials. I have been having a lot of fun making gifts for all our expecting mothers! Recently we found out that one of our friends is having a girl! YAY! There are so many cute girl ideas... I honestly have no idea what we'll do if we eventually have a boy... the crafts are just not as appealing...

 

So living vicariously through our friends I decided to check their pinterest pages for some hints as to what I should be making for their baby shower gifts... One cute idea I found was for a ruffled diaper cover (pinned via etsy... no tutorial) and a pair of lace leggings (again, etsy!)...

 

A while back I printed a diaper cover pattern from MADE. To be honest I was a little lazy and a little overwhelmed by the leg holes... But now having much more sewing experience under my belt I decided to give it a try.

 

I purchased a half yard of "Baby Girl" Kona Cotton from Joann's and 3 yards of lace trim ($2.49/yard).

 

To get started... wash, dry, and cut out the pattern from MADE.

 

Then I pinned the lace to the 'back' side of the diaper cover, and sewed each row before pinning the next... I just free-styled this, just making sure that the layers slightly overlap.

 

 

 

When you're all done sewing the lace it should look something like this:

The last layer was probably over-kill... I would definitely not add another... This should leave you room to finish the waist band later.

 

Sew the front and back together per the pattern... make sure you pin your last layer of lace out of your way.

 

I like to press my seams... just be careful because the lace you choose may not handle heat well and it may melt on your iron (I may be speaking from unfortunate experience)...

 

I don't have a serger so I rolled the top edge over by about an 1/8 of an inch before rolling it down the 1/2" for the waist band... I might have done slightly more than a half inch... again just free-style here... this will ultimately give your cover a more professional finish.

 

I do the same 1/8" roll over for the leg holes and then 3/8" for the leg holes... basically follow the instructions!... but the lace complicates things a bit... just roll with the punches and don't worry if it's not perfect.

 I would recommend that you check the lace side of the leg holes before sewing... you can see that I pinned the lace in a really awkward bunch when I was setting up my leg hole casing...

 

Just re-adjust it before you start sewing like this:

 

 Finish the elastic waist and leg bands like the pattern says... that part is pretty simple... my only tip would be to mark the sides of the elastic that you want to sew together before you thread it through the casing... that way you can prevent sewing a twist into the elastic... I also trimmed the lace here and there if I felt like it was going to look weird later... trust your gut!

When you're done, enjoy the new diaper cover... they're so simple and cute... and the lace is very forgiving so just roll with it!

Rugs are Expensive!

So Andrew and I are in the process of painting all our new spaces... one of the first areas we had to tackel was our kitchen... when we bought the house the kitchen was this mauve-y purple color called Poker Face by Behr...

So in the process of choosing our new color I ended up with 4 different sample bottles of paint... and they're all mostly full... seems a little bit wasteful!

And... our beautiful tile floors were seeming a bit bare.... so I decided to search for a green rug... and I found this beauty...

The rug is by Anthropologie  ... It's 4' by 6' and costs a whopping $298!!!

So it is too big and way to expensive... and then I saw some pretty cool tutorials on Tatortots & Jello and House of Smiths on painting and Ikea rug...

Since I already had a bunch of sample paint I only had to pick up a few more cans and the rug...

This is the Egeby Rug from Ikea - $25.00

Each sample can of paint cost $2.94.... and I got:

Cyan - Behr

Blades of Grass - Disney

Bonsai - Martha

Gone Bananas - Valspar

In addition to the ones I already own:

Ryegrass - Behr

Oolong Tea - Martha

Retro Avacado - Behr

After taping off the edges I layed the rug down on some plastic in the garage and got to painting...

The first layer did not go well... I wasn't sure quite how to get the stripe effect... so I started by just pouring the paint on to the rug in lines and blending the paint from the 1/2" poured paint to about a 2" stripe...I wasn't really worried about overlapping the stripes or too much blending... it really in not about perfection... 

Anyways, the first layer just got soaked up by the rug and was realllllllly washed out.

Oh... and then, when I went to paint the second layer there was water leaking from the ceiling... yikes! A few hours later and a huge hole in my garage ceiling... we figured out that the water line to the fridge had a hole in it and has been filling the space above my car with water and finally burst...

So Yay! We get to replace the insulation and dry wall.... but at least {after the 2nd coat} we ended up with this beauty:

 It is not an exact match {smaller and has a border}... but I think it is a pretty close match...

And it is a fun touch of color for our kitchen... either in front of the sink

OR

Or by the sliding glass door...

It still needs the sanding step... the rug is pretty stiff... once it dries a bit more I will sand it to soften it up...

 

   

A Touch of Spring

So this is my latest creation... I have been wanting a new wreath for our front door... something green, something fresh... and not insanely expensive!

I started out with the following supplies:

1 - Pair of wire cutters (free, thanks Andrew!)

1 - Roll of 26(?) gauge green floral wire ($1.99 - 40% = $1.27 after tax)

1 - 18" Floral Wreath ($2.99 - 40% = $1.85 after tax)

14 - Green Hydrangea Silk Flowers ( $5.99 each - 40% sale - 20% coupon = $2.85ea or $41 after tax)

I get all my supplies from Michaels - and never shop without a coupon... The flowers were my Vday gift and were already on sale, plus we used a 20% off your entire purchase coupon to make them less than half the original price. I arranged them loosely on the wreath in the store and 14 looked about right for me.

Total cost: $45  - which we think is a pretty fair price for such a large wreath - plus it is exactly what we want.



I started by pulling all the 'buds' off the the fake stems. I decided that it would help let the wreath sit flat against our door if I removed the buds from the flower and attached everything individually - rather than have the bottom of the stem poking out behind the wreath.

The I used floral wire, in a twist-tie fashion to secure the buds to the wreath. Be Careful! The wire is sharp! After tying the buds on, I trimmed the wire and rolled the sharp sides in towards the flowers so they wouldn't poke out the back. I also pre-cut the wire into 2" strips so I did not have to start and stop over and over to cut my wire.

Attaching the flowers took FOREVER! I recommend counting how many buds you have and dividing them equally per section of the wreath - for this wreath I had 9 sections (based on the wreath wires) and 46 buds - so I did ~ 5 per section to make sure they were evenly dispersed.

Once I was finished I hung the wreath on our front door. The previous owners had attached a clasp to the door so I did not need a wreath hanger or ribbon - but you may need those things.

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