The Lady Beekeeper

Today is going to be the last post I do about projects for Julius’ first birthday unless someone requests I post another tutorial.  First though, I have some stories about Julius.

Our friends gave Julius an alphabet puzzle for Christmas which he was extremely excited about.  It came packaged in shrink wrap so after he was done carrying it around for a while I helped him open it up.  He immediately picked it up and held it vertically and the pieces all fell out.  He handed me pieces while I put it back together for him.  When the puzzle was complete he handed me the shrink wrap.  I realized what he wanted, but with no way to give it to him, I just sort of laid it on top of the puzzle and said “all done!”  Satisfied, he picked up the puzzle again to resume carrying it around the house.  Immediately he held it vertically again, dumping the pieces to the floor.  He looked down, saw what happened and then threw the plastic shrink wrap as if to say “well this was garbage”.  I thought it was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Julius still doesn’t talk, but he is definitely better at getting his intentions across than ever before.  For the first time ever I felt like I really understood what he wanted.  After he woke up this morning, I changed his diaper and gave him a bottle of milk while we sat in the chair in his bedroom.  When he had finished the milk he pointed to his crib.  Sheepy was lying in his crib so I picked him up and gave him his stuffed animal.  But then he looked right back at the crib expectantly.  So I put him down in the crib and he immediately rolled over and went back to sleep!  He NEVER goes back to sleep after he wakes up for the day, but he’s recovering from a cold, so it is not surprising he needed some extra z’s.  But this is the first time he has pretty much asked to go to sleep.  Amazing!

You know what else is amazing?  This craft!  The crown is SUPER EASY to make – with just some basic cutting and sewing skills and some cheap felt you can make crowns for all your tiny royalty!  I modeled these crowns after the invitation I found on evite, and if you’re feeling so inclined you can bejewel them with decorations, or for older guests, let them decorate their own.  Since our guests were all less than one year old I decided to minimize choking hazards and leave them unadorned.   These should fit most princes and princesses from 0 to 3 years old.

Of course the owner of Whimsical Brims had a son who dislikes hats… He only will wear his crown for about 5 seconds. So here’s a picture of the king of the vacuum.

Royal Prince and Princess Crown

What you’ll need (per crown):

• 22″x4″ strip of felt
• 5″ strip of velcro
• crown pattern here

1. Print out crown pattern and trace onto felt.
2. Cut (I cut a couple crowns at once by pinning two pieces of felt together).
3. Place one end of crown over the other end, overlapping.
4. Pin a piece of velcro along the bottom of the crown where the two edges overlap, one on each side, so when the velcro overlaps it will form a crown.  (Note I used a slightly different sized piece of velcro for the loop portion of velcro since I always need more length of loop tape.  But you can make them both 5″ as I mention in the directions.)
5. Stitch along the border of each piece of velcro.
6. When placing the hat on the child’s head make sure the hook side (the scratchy side) of the velcro faces out.  Adjust sizing by velcro to fit child’s head.
   

   Finn is testing the crown out!

   

   Please, no photos, the king insists.

   

   Vicky modeling her crown.

   

   Joanna is being shy with her crown.

I just want to take a quick minute to say something to all my readers out there.  Thank you for reading!  Your support and continued cheery comments, or remarks on my projects when I see you in person, are the reason I haven’t given up on this blog endeavor.  Do you know how much I love hearing from you, readers?  Well, every few days I manually go through the comments on my blog.  99.6% of them are spam from Russian bots or ads for penis enhancements, but for every 249 disturbing spam comments I find that one real comment from you, dear readers, that puts a smile on my face.  That one real comment is the reason I continue to manually weed through my comments day in day out.  “Why don’t you just get a better plugin to weed out the spam comments?” I hear you ask.    Well, that’s a good question.

As promised, this week and next week I’m going to show you how to make another craft from Julius’ first birthday party.  After the birthday segment concludes I’ll show you some of the Christmas crafts that I’m making for folks this year.  (This is partially because I don’t want to give any family reading my blog any spoilers, but mostly because I haven’t made anything yet.  Oops.)

This week I’m going to show you how I did the “Hey Diddle Diddle” dish ran away with the spoon plates.  For this project, I had a lot of help from my brother and sister in law when they should have been sleeping while their son slept!  Thank you both!  For this craft you’ll need two plates per place setting, one in clear and one in an opaque color scheme.  Ideally two plates that fit inside one another like these are the best choice.  I know, I know, the environmentalist in me is kicking herself for doubling the trash.  If you’re like me you’ll get plates that are at least recyclable or compostable…

Dish-Ran-Away-with-the-Spoon Plate

What you’ll need (per plate):

• 1 clear plastic plate (see note above)
• 1 opaque plate (see note above)
• 1 plastic spoon
• 1 sheet of cardstock
• black sharpie
• acrylic paint
• Glue tape or Advanced tape glider or even a glue gun would work
• arm pattern and face templates here

1. Take one of your clear plates and flip is so the back side is facing you.
2. Draw a cartoon face on the back of the plate in sharpie (Can’t draw?  Print these sheets out then trace one of these designs my brother created instead!)
3. Using a paintbrush, color in any areas where you don’t want the plate color to show through.  For instance – the whites of eyes, mustaches, teeth, tongues etc.  Let dry.
4. When the paint has dried, apply a bit of glue tape around the top edge of the opaque plate and press the clear plate on top.  (My plates didn’t quite fit within each other so I couldn’t quite do this.)
5. Next, cut out two arms on your cardstock using the template provided.
6. Arrange the arms on a table under your plate as you’d like them to appear.  The arms must be under the base of the plate by at least an inch.
7. Make sure the thumbs are facing the correct direction, then remove the plate and put a bit of tape glue on the base of each arm.  Firmly press the plate on top of the arms, fixing them in place.
8. Take your spoon and place it in the palm of one of the hands you just glued.  Apply glue tape to the side of the spoon closer to the wrist.  Gently curve the mitten portion of the hand over the spoon and into the blob of glue tape, pressing firmly to secure.

Well we all had quite an exciting weekend!  Julius, Will, Dany and I all went to my parent’s house for the long Thanksgiving weekend!  We were joined by my brother, my sister in law and my nephew as well as my sister and her girlfriend.  Julius had lots of time to play with family while crazy Aunt Lexi and Uncle Will got to hang out with a slightly squishier baby nephew who is very smiley and giggly!

It has become apparent that Will loves babies.  It’s really very cute.  When he’s around any 5 month old baby he always asks to hold them and remarks how Julius isn’t that snuggly anymore.  It’s true to some extent – at five months they are still squishy so they mold nicely to your arms but aren’t as fragile as earlier in their life so there is less need to be so delicate with them.  Perfect snuggling age.  At a year though, or actually even at 10 months when he was crawling, Julius comes over and demands snuggles and hugs from you.  Squishy babies can’t do that; they instead complacently sit there and marinate in your love or else cry until you figure out snuggles is what they need.

Speaking of marinating, Julius had lots of delicious food for Thanksgiving (or as I called it, Turkey Party)!  He loved mashed potatoes and gravy, my aunt’s tourtiere, corn succotash, and pumpkin soup, though he didn’t seem to like the turkey.  He kept throwing it on the floor (presumably for the dog?) a practice he does when he doesn’t like something.  He doesn’t seem to be a chicken fan either, unless it’s slathered in something.  I guess he takes after daddy in that regard.  Either way I am just overjoyed he likes his veggies!

You know what else Julius loves?  Bath time!  He loves to splash in the tub and play with his tub toys.  For his birthday I got him this bath set that comes with 3 floating “water bugs” and a little net to catch them in.  He loves it!  He carries it around with him everywhere, in the water and out.  On top of that he spent at least 30 minutes trying to capture the bugs in the bath the first time he used it.  He first used the net, but then the bugs would float out of the net and “escape” whenever he put the net underwater.  He became suspicious of the integrity of the net and instead captured them in his hands and put them in the net.  Unfortunately the bugs continued to escape when he’d release them into the net.  The darn things just wouldn’t stay put in the net (thanks to flotation).  Eventually he skipped the net altogether, and just captured the bugs with his hands and stuck them underneath his legs to hold them down.  Of course they’d float back to the surface anytime he moved so this didn’t work 100% of the time either.  Watching Julius play with the water bugs was the most hilarious thing I’ve witnessed in a long time.

At the end of bath time we wrap Julius up in a hooded towel and give him lots of snuggles!  We used to use these tiny hooded towels we had when he was a baby, but by 6 months he was too long for them.  At that point we upgraded to a hooded towel we got from a family friend.  One towel is just not enough, so I thought I’d make another one, this one with a fun dinosaur theme!

Hooded Dino Towel

What You’ll Need:

• Two full size towels
• 1/8 yd green fleece (mine was scrap)
• black and white machine or hand embroidery thread and supplies
• Pattern for scales here

1. Cut a 12”x21” piece of towel so that one of the long edges is the finished edge of the towel.
2. Fold piece of towel in half to form a 12”x10.5” rectangle.
3. Pin along the unfinished edge adjacent to the fold, curving slightly at the point.
4. Set pinned towel aside and cut 8 scales, adding .5” seam allowance all around.
5. Pin and stitch two scales together leaving the flat side opened.
6. Notch along curve and clip seams.
7. Turn scale right side out and repeat for other 3 scales.
8. Insert scales between the  two pieces of towel you pinned. Re-pin.
9. Stitch and serge along the towel edge and curve
10. Embroider eyes onto either side of the towel.  (I used a machine and this pattern I made, but you can do this by hand)
11. Fold full size towel in half.  Wrong sides together, pin the bottom of the hood to the towel, lining up edges.  Stitch, slightly into the fluffy part of the towel, past the edging.
12. Trim the unfinished edge of the hood.
13. Fold hood up so the unfinished edge of the hood is covered by the edging of the towel.  Pin.
14. Stitch close to the edge of the edging to enclose the unfinished edge of the hood.

I know I start the posts like this a lot, but very recently Julius has started doing the cutest thing!  He helps me clean up!  Last night I accidentally left a bottle of milk on the upholstered bench upstairs and the bottle wasn’t put together properly and leaked all over the bench, staining it.  I was very frustrated, but this morning I got together some dish soap and water (internet recommendation) to clean it up.  I started working the mixture into the stain with my fingertips and Julius watched me intently and started helping.  Afterwards I started scrubbing it with a cloth and I handed Julius the cloth and he continued the process.  Later today I got Julius all cleaned up while he was sitting in his high chair and then started wiping down his high chair table.  I put the cloth down for a second and he grabbed the cloth and continued wiping!  What a big helper!

This evening I got home from work and Julius pointed to the closet where we keep our shoes and coats.  I opened it up and explained to him exactly what it was for and then put my shoes in the closet (my shoes had been strategically sitting in the middle of the floor ready to trip someone).  Julius then spent several minutes working to shut the door himself (it is in a tricky spot so he kept getting trapped between the closet door and our back door.)  I decided to bring him his shoes, and he immediately reopened the door (laboriously) then took a shoe and put it on the top shelf!  I told him what a good job he had done and then he grabbed the shoe off the top shelf, put it on the floor next to the other one, grabbed them both by the backs using one hand, then thought better of it and chucked one into the door.  My theory is that he saw me grabbing the shoes with one hand and thought that was the right way to do it, but his little hands prevented him from executing and he got frustrated and threw them.  Who knows?  Either way my little pumpkin is growing up fast!

You know what else is going by fast?  Fall!  We are already onto the second snow of the year tonight, though we haven’t even had a single cider donut!  Tragedy!  I’ve been drinking pumpkin beer like they are going out of style (or season) though so at least I’ve got that base covered.  Keep fall around a bit longer by using the stems of your sugar pumpkins to make one of these super cute velvet pumpkins!

Velvet Pumpkin

What you’ll need:

• 16” diameter circle of velvet
• Embroidery thread in contrasting color
• 1 real pumpkin top from a sugar pumpkin (I was able to pull them directly off all my sugar pumpkins before I cooked them for pie.
• Stuffing
• Hot glue gun
• Needle & thread

1. Stitch a long running stitch around the entire perimeter of your circle of velvet, about 1/4” from the edge.
2. Begin gathering the stitches to form a pouch.
3. Stuff full of stuffing until fairly firm, then pull the stitches closed.
4. Stitch a couple stitches to close the hole, then re-stitch through the gathers for added strength and stitch a couple more stitches to finish it.
5. Stitch and knot 3 strands of embroidery thread into the top of the pumpkin.
6. Traverse the pumpkin longitudinally and then you get back to the starting point, pull tight to form a ridge in the pumpkin then stitch to tie off.
7. Repeat 2 more times forming 6 segments of the pumpkin.
8. Squish the top of the pumpkin down and move the stuffing around to make room for the stem. 
9. Knot 3 more strands of embroidery thread to the top of the pumpkin, insert directly through the center of the pumpkin to the underside.  Loop over the 3 threads segmenting the pumpkin and back up into the pumpkin back into the top.  Pull tight to form an indentation, then knot to secure.
10. Make sure your pumpkin stem is completely dry (I waited a week) then coat the bottom of the stem in hot glue and press it onto your pumpkin covering up the gathering stitches and embroidery knots.

I am one today!  Julius is wearing the onesie I made him instead of sleeping before our early wake up to fly to Nashville.

Last week Julius turned one!  Though he didn’t quite understand the concept of opening presents he was very excited for all the new things he received! I decided to make Julius a big giant stuffed animal circus seal.  Yes that sounds a bit weird, so of course there is a story behind it.  For Lauren and Andrew’s wedding the staff came out halfway through the dancing with huge platters of LED glasses, crowns, tambourines, rings, etc.  We all spangled ourselves in fabulous neon glory and danced the rest of the night away.  The next day Julius discovered the cache of blinking goodies and decided the tambourine and ring were his favorite.

The problem with the ring is that it was a giant 1.5″ diameter sphere bauble that he liked to immediately put in his mouth.  Though I think it would be nearly impossible for him to get that ring far enough into his mouth that he would choke on it, I didn’t want to take the risk.  My idea was to take the color changing LED ring and turn it into the nose of my circus seal, that way it was solidly affixed to something, and would prevent him swallowing it.  Unfortunately the idea did not pan out (I had to make some modifications to the ring to attach it, which looked silly), hence the pom pom nose.  The first thing Julius did when I gave him the seal was chomp on his nose though, so I guess I had at least the vision correct.

Also I would have used grey, but I didn’t have any grey material.  Now he’s a sort of sea lion cross snow seal hybrid….

Giant Circus Seal

What you’ll need:

• 1.5 yards fleece fabric
• 2lb bag of stuffing
• 1 large pom pom
• black embroidery thread
• Pattern here 

1. Cut out all pattern pieces as indicated in pattern, being sure to transfer all markings.
2. Pin seal tail pieces together, leaving a 3″ gap in the center as indicated on pattern.  Stitch. 
3. Turn tail right side out and make sure to fold the unfinished edge inside.
4. Using a long running stitch, pin and stitch along three lines you marked on the tail.
5. Place two of the flipper pieces together.  Pin, leaving a gap where the flipper will attach.  Stitch. 
6. Clip points of the flipper.  Turn flippers right side out.
7. Pin two sides of seal together on outside between markings.
8. Pin the belly of the seal to the seal body, lining up points of belly at each marking.
9. Remove pins to open up a gap at the top of the belly on one side about 4 inches wide.  Insert a flipper inside the gap and repin the side of the belly, enclosing the open end of the flipper. Repeat for second flipper.
10. Remove pins to open a gap about 4 inches wide on the bottom of the body on the tail end.  Fold the tail in half and insert into the gap you just created.  Make sure the unfinished edge of the tail is sandwiched in the gap.  Repin, encompassing the unfinished edge of tail.
11. Stitch along seal body pins, stopping on the underside about 6 inches from the seal belly.
12. Turn seal right side out.
13. Stuff.
14. Stitch pom pom onto nose of seal
15. Hand embroider eyes onto seal.
16. Hand stitch the belly closed using blind stitch.

The spider went over very well last week at work, and the little guy really loved the Halloween party!  He tried very hard to chase every single child dressed up as a dinosaur.  I guess he likes dinosaurs!  AND he was the cutest ewok I’ve ever seen.  Just look at this gif!  I guess they even liked my Endor Leia costume because I won second prize in the costume contest (I lost to a guy riding a dinosaur, let’s face it that is pretty hard to beat – Julius would agree).

Julius has been working on clapping his hands during the “If You’re Happy and you Know it” song this past month at daycare.  He’s gotten so good at it that he now associates clapping with happiness.  Every time he’s happy he claps!  For instance today during his bath, I started singing Baby Beluga and he clapped!  This morning for breakfast he ate some hard boiled eggs and he clapped!  Dany paid attention to him this afternoon and he clapped!  It’s pretty great seeing what is going to make him clap.  (Plus it really feels great being applauded for our efforts.)

What makes me clap lately is a clean house… for a while there I was so overwhelmed I let the house get a bit messy but I’m trying to get back on track.  The first thing I’ve been tackling is laundry!  There is SO MUCH laundry to do all the time (partially because of the cloth diapers but also because babies generate so much laundry).  We let mountains of clean laundry pile up on the laundry table which is exceedingly frustrating.  I’ve been trying to take my laundry and Julius’ laundry up once a week.  On top of that, since we don’t have a laundry shoot we tend to just chuck dirty bibs down the stairs until one of us walks downstairs and can deliver them to the sorted laundry bins.  We joke about this being a trip hazard, but it really is a trip hazard.  I finally made a laundry bin to go on the back of the basement door to throw dirty bibs and cloth napkins in.  The hamper was super easy to make and takes up very little space.  After I installed it, I asked Will if he had noticed it and he responded that he had but immediately after he saw it he had accidentally chucked a bib down the stairs instead of using it.

DIY Hanging Laundry Hamper

What you’ll need:

• 2/3 yard of duck canvas material (59/60″ width)
• 41″ of lightweight boning or spring steel wire and 2 inches of nylon joiner tubing

(1/2″ seam allowance included)

1. Cut canvas into a 51″ x 21″ rectangle.
2. Fold rectangle in half lengthwise to form a 21″x25.5″ rectangle.
3. Pin opened sides of the rectangle together and stitch to form a bag.
4. Fold unfinished top of bag under 1/2″ and then under 3/4″ again.  Pin.
5. Insert boning or spring steel wire into flap you just created.
6. Pull bag taunt around the boning/wire and overlap the edges of the boning/wire so they fit exactly to the opening of the bag.  Zig zag stitch boning to hold together or insert ends of spring steel wire in nylon joiner tube and shrink to hold together.
7. Stitch around the flap you created, sealing the boning/wire inside.  Be careful not to stitch through the boning or wire as your needle could break suddenly and dangerously.
8. Finally, cut two pieces of canvas, 2″x6″ each.
9. Fold in half, then fold under 1/2″ on each end unfinished edge to form a long strip.  Pin and sew.
10. Mark the center of the back of the bag.  Measure 6″ on either side of the marking to mark where your loops should go.  Fold each strip from step 9 above in half to form a loop.
11. Stitch rip at each loop marking 1/2″.  Insert unfinished ends of loop into the gap you created, and stitch, backtacking at either end to reinforce.
12. Turn inside out and hang!

Julius is getting good at walking!  He walks like a penguin, without bending his knees, but he can nearly make it across an entire room without losing his balance.  If he has something to hold onto (like your hand) he can walk pretty much indefinitely.  He’s also been working on feeding himself.  In the next classroom (at 15 months) they no longer spoonfeed so he must be able to feed himself!  Since he isn’t great at using a spoon by himself we’ve been giving him finger foods for lunch instead of his usual mushed up baby food.  While easier than pureeing, I haven’t figured out how to store a bunch for later (I freeze the pureed baby food in ice cube trays so I only have to prepare a variety of foods at the beginning of the week).  We try to give him the same food we eat for dinner or lunch but frequently I make items that are spicy or very flavorful so I need a backup plan.  Suggestions are welcome!!

Hammin’ it up!

I’m actually in the airport writing this (another wedding!) and currently Julius is off charming everyone in the room.  He has made a full circuit of the gate area and has befriended a stewardess, the three people next to us and the custodian.  He came back over to get Sheepy and is again making the rounds to introduce him/her to all his new friends.  What a ham.

His personality is evolving constantly and it is so incredible (and bizarre) to see him grow into a little boy with his own opinions and ideas.  Despite looking exactly like Will he has a personality all his own.  Though I do wonder if he’ll inherit Daddy’s affinity for board games or my love of sewing.  We’ll see.

Speaking of my love of sewing, the many weekends of weddings have put me way behind on my craft projects!  I have a backlog of projects that I’ve been trying to catch up on, the first of which is for my work Halloween party which is only a couple days away.  I have been put in charge of decorating the building for the party and of course I wanted to throw in an element all my own.  I decided to cover a wall of the cafeteria with dollar store spider webs and put a giant spider in the center.  I made the spider last week.  You can make one yourself if you’re feeling creepy-crawley.

Giant Hang-able Spider

What you’ll need:

• 8 wire coat hangers (I used the free ones you get from the dry cleaners)
• 1″x5″x12″ piece of scrap wood
• 2 picture hangers
• 1 yard of black fur
• 1 yard of black flannel
• stuffing material (I used a combination of stuffing and packing peanuts)
• thin feather boas – 8 (I got them from the dollar store)
• black duct tape
• 2-8 googly eyes (I used 6 1-3 inches each)
• pattern here

1. Cut out a 24″ diameter circle of black flannel (this will be the head).  Divide the circle into 8ths and mark off 8 equidistant points along the circumference.
2. Fold the black flannel circle’s darts as indicated on the pattern.  Stitch.
3. Trim the darts to 1/2″seam.
4. Draw a 12″ diameter circle on the black flannel, overlap a 16″diameter circle with the first circle, so the distance between the points they intersect at is 5″. Cut out. (This will be the body piece)
5. Attach the black flannel head to the flannel body piece along the small circle (right sides together). Leave a 5″ gap where the two circles overlap.  Stitch and turn right side out.  Stuff with stuffing.
6. Cut out a 24″ diameter circle of black fur (this will be the spider’s bottom).  Divide the circle into 8ths and mark off 8 equidistant points along the circumference.
7. At each point along the circumference, fold fabric so furry side is on the inside.  Form the fold so it is 3″ deep.  Mark at 5″ from the unfinished edge of the fold upwards then stitch from the 3″ deep mark on the circumference up to the 5″ mark on the fold along the invisible leg of the triangle connecting them.
8. Trim the darts to 1/2″ seam.  Repeat for other folds.
9. Attach the fur bottom to the flannel body piece along the larger circle, right sides together.   Leave a 5″ gap where the two circles overlap.  Stitch and turn right side out.
10. Using a set of pliers, straighten your clothes hangers.  Drill 4 9/64″ holes through the . piece of wood for the legs
11. Insert piece of wood into head of spider, through the stuffing, close to the body piece of flannel.
12. Insert hangers through the head of the spider to form the legs.  Remove the piece of wood from the head of the spider to insert hot glue into the holes, place back into head of spider and insert clothes hanger wire.
13. Using the pliers turn the tip of each leg into a small loop so it is not sharp.  
14. Cover the entire wire with black duct tape, enclosing the sharp point of the hanger.
15. Glue one end of a feather boa to the point where each leg meets the head.
16. Twist boa tightly around the leg and secure to the end of the leg with hot glue.
17. Flip the body right side out and stuff (I used mostly packing peanuts for this part so they’d be light).
18. Handstitch the body and head to one another to seal up the holes used for turning and stuffing.
19. Cut chelicerae/mandibles out of fur using the pattern.  Make sure to cut two from one side and two with the pattern flipped.
20. Pin each pair of mandible pieces right sides together.   Stitch along the edges leaving the straight edge at the bottom opened.  
21. Flip right side out then stuff lightly.  Hand stitch the mandibles to the head of the spider just below where the head meets the body.
22. Position picture hangers at either end of the wooden board on the belly of the spider.  Screw by hand into the spider so you have something to hang your spider from.
23. Finally, attach googly eyes to the spider by sewing or gluing (depending on the type of googly eyes).
    

    Spider pre-googly eyes. It looks pretty fearsome.

    

Side note: Julius usually loves cuddling with any toy that is larger than he is but I think the spider freaked him out a bit.  While he didn’t cry when he saw it; he also didn’t run over and try to hug it either.