This present topper is easy, I’m not lion

My friend’s family threw her a baby shower this past weekend with an adorable zoo theme.  She and her husband opted not to find out the gender of the baby, so it was completely gender neutral.  For that reason I was afraid to buy baby clothes, because even though I am trying to limit my gender stereotyping, I somehow can’t pass up tiny dresses or little tuxedos (just look at my registry).  So instead I decided to buy some sleep themed items off their registry.  Since their registry was fairly small (they are lucky enough to have hand me downs from their siblings’ children) there weren’t many items on it.  So in addition to a couple small sleep related items I bought them a crib mattress.

I don’t know why I didn’t realize how large crib mattresses were, but because of this I had it shipped to my house and immediately regretted it.  Not only was the box so huge that I wouldn’t be able to carry it by myself but she was going to have to fit it in her car to lug it home from the shower.  Perhaps worst of all is that I was going to have to figure out how to wrap it.  I scoured the internet and decided on a genius idea!  I would wrap it in tablecloths from the dollar store!  I spent 7 dollars wrapping the darn thing (including all the bows), but that is a lot less than it would have cost me in wrapping paper and bows.  In the end it looked fairly presentable and matched the wrapping paper I used for the smaller gifts (which happened to coincidentally be zoo themed).  For one final flourish I added a little lion on top made from baby washcloths.  I couldn’t find instructions online, so my instructions are below.

Lion adorning package.

Baby Washcloth Lion

What you’ll need:

• one yellow baby washcloth
• one orange baby washcloth
• yellow thread
• orange thread
• 2 tiny self stick googly eyes

1. Take yellow washcloth and roll two sides to meet in the middle.  This will be the lion’s body.
   

   Roll both sides of yellow washcloth to center

2. Twist the legs as shown.
   

   Twist legs.

3. Using yellow thread, tie around the center twist, leaving 1/3 of the cloth for each pair of legs.
   

   Tie head of lion using yellow thread.

4. Unroll the center twist to form the head of the lion.
   

   Unroll twist to form head.

5. Pull a small clump of fabric from one side of the head to form an ear.  Tie with yellow thread.
   

   Pinch fabric on one side of head and tie ear.

6. Repeat for other side.
   

   Tie second ear

7. Roll the orange washcloth on the diagonal to form the mane.
   

   Roll orange washcloth on the diagonal.

8. Place rolled mane around the lion’s head so it fits snuggly.  Using the orange thread, tie the mane at the bottom.
   

   Tie mane snuggly to head.

9. Tuck the bottom part of the mane under so you can’t see it.
   

   View of mane tied and tucked under.

10. Tie the orange thread around the lion’s neck, holding it in place.
    

    Tie mane to back of head.

11. Stick googly eyes onto the lion.
    

    Add googly eyes

Voila!

Matching packages.