Bassinet with(out) a view....

After taking our 3 month old baby home to Australia to meet everyone (and to attend a fabulous wedding in Wanaka), we returned back to the UK with our 4 month old baby and a world of knowledge about travelling with infants!! Wander Mum has some great little tips on flying with infants too, many of the tips we used and helped our trip immensely.

From this experience my tips would be:

• If you are breastfeeding you will find travelling a breeze! Simply nurse on ascent and descent and the baby won't get air pressure troubles. I was not allowed to nurse on one of our flights as the ridiculous air hostess insisted the baby needed to be sitting upright in the forward facing position! She couldn't sit yet but anyway, it was a miserable flight because the poor little darling had ear pains due to no nursing. 

• If you aren't nursing, have a bottle of milk ready for the same period, because babies can't pop their own ears, so the sucking motion helps with the pressure change. 

• Pack however nappies you would normally need in the amount of time you'll be in transit, and then add another few too, just incase. 

• Pack a change of clothes. For baby and for you! If you are doing a 14 hour leg and you've got baby vomit on your blouse, its going to feel pretty uncomfortable!

• If you have a long trip and a long lay-over, book into an airport hotel. We did this in Singapore and it gave us time to shower and lay down for a while! Baby M didn't sleep for that 6 hour period, but we could just relax and play with her lying down for a change (which certainly beats airport lounges hands down!). 

• Prepare yourself for jetlag. Poor little ones don't know what's going on and from our experience, it takes about 5 days to recover and get on local time. Apparently it differs depending on what direction you travel around the globe...but i'm yet to properly test that one out!

• Don't stress if your baby does cry. The first time Baby M had a little teary I got all frazzled that everyone else would be glaring at me, but as I looked around I noticed they all had headsets on and so were none the  wiser that there was anything less than paradise on their flight! 

We ended up on 11 planes over the 4 weeks, and had only one bad flight out of all of them. 

I wanted to share this little creation that I whipped up on our first flight and used whenever the flight was long enough to justify the bassinet being attached to the bulkhead. We found that whilst Baby M loved being in the bassinet, it was very distracting having the cabin lights coming on and off and people walking past peering in on their way to the bathroom! So, I had carried with me Micropore paper tape (as well as sticky-tape but the paper tape worked so much better) and a light-weight blanket to create a tent-like-structure over her bassinet to block out the distractions. It worked a treat!! 

Blissfully asleep......but still holding on for dear life!!!

I think Madeleine was responsible for bassinet-envy from all other babies, and lets be real, all other economy-seated adults!

Play cube

I have a few pieces of fabric that I am so in love with but am saving for a special project (which I am yet to have thought of). Until then, I thought I could spare a few small squares and create an interactive toy for our little girl.

I've been wanting to make something to attach to the arm of the highchair we have, and the ideas started lulling around my absent-minded head yesterday. Well, in actual fact, they started lulling at Easter when I saved the little bell from the Lindt bunny I got Pete, thinking that I would be able to use it someday. Hello someday!!

Here is the little play cube I made....

There is a bell that jingles around the cow (sewed on and reinforced like concrete)....

There are ribbon tags for pulling at....

And there is a butterfly with crinkly wings to tickle!

I made the wings from two pieces of fabric sewed together with two small pieces of tissue paper. The tissue paper was easy to sew through and makes the perfect crinkle sound!

Attached with an elastic-ribbon with poppers so that it can go on the highchair arm, the pram, or wherever else we need it to go! Cute huh!?

Book hanger

I am pretty proud of this one! It actually worked out exactly how I was hoping, and having just created it as I went along, I actually wouldn't have changed anything! It was far easier than I had anticipated, even with the pockets having pleats and all!

Here is the book hanger that I've made for the nursery. For my little Niece and Nephew, we are "those" Aunts and Uncles who always give a book as one of their many gifts for birthdays and Christmases. So, naturally, about to become parents ourselves, we have a huge desire for our little one to be surrounded by books. I wanted to make this hanger so that books will always be on hand in her room, so that even when she but a few hours old, we can read to her.

I found this fabric and fell in love! It was everything I wanted for our nursery! I am sort of glad I didn't find it until I was half way through the decorating process though, as otherwise, I'm afraid the walls would have been covered in it!!!

Here is a photo of how the pockets sit without any books in them. It is made from one long piece of fabric, pleated at both sides, and a large pleat sewn in the middle. I knew she would have quite the library, so flat pockets just wouldn't do!

And what would we find wandering amongst the pretty trees and grass, why an elephant, zebra and horse of course!!! I love these Incomparable Buttons so much!!!

 

Nappy Stacker

I've been wanting to make a nappy stacker since well before falling pregnant, but for some reason, became quite timid to ever get started on it.

There's a few online tutorials which I read through, but couldn't find any to be exactly what I was after, or that seemed simple enough for me to follow sans-pattern. I made mine quite large so that it will fit big girl nappies in two years as well as the teeny tiny adorable newborn ones for very soon. I wanted to keep the colours fairly neutral soon so that perhaps one day all that may need changing is making blue ties in place of the pink ribbons.

Although it took me a while to get started, it actually wasn't difficult to make, and I am really pleased with how it turned out.

I found a sturdy piece of cardboard from a packing box and used this as the base size. I then cut my four side pieces based on the cardboard dimensions, and made them all the same height. The two side panels I made into isosceles trapezoids (yep, had to wiki my quadrilaterals for that one). I wanted the sides to be expandable but didn't want to mess around with too many pleats.

I used the base board in the stacker to hold the base firm. I covered one side of the board with batting and covered it in the same fabric. It feels lovely with the padding rather than solid board.

I wanted to use ribbons at the top so that I have flexibility with how it is displayed, not limiting me forever to a coat hanger.

I am really happy with how it turned out and couldn't help myself, and have already started filling it with nappies!! It will hold almost 70 newborn diapers, soooo, that's the first week taken care of!! 

Oh golly...

A book of love....

This is the most love I have felt for a piece of fabric in my life. 

No matter what else I sew in life, this will always be my favourite. I wasn't going to blog about it, in fear of losing some of the special-ness of it, but then thought, sharing the book shares the joy too! 

I have been wanting to make a fabric book for our baby for a while now, and it turned out exactly how I was imagining it to be! I wanted it to be something that Pete and I could make together, and so warned him weeks and weeks ago that he was going to be spending time cutting fruit out of felt! I sewed the book together and prepared the work area with every colour of felt possible, and a list of ten different types of fruit, and we set to work. 

Don't you think it looks super cute?? 

(Pete made the pineapples....aren't they amazing!!)

 I just love the book, loved making it with Pete, fell more in love with him when he proudly presented his first pineapple to me and love picturing us reading it to our children over the coming years.

It is my happy place. 

A call for curtains!

We have drop-down drapes hanging on all the windows in our house, which are somewhat effective in that they block rays of sun, but that's about all they do. They do not provide much warmth in winter, and certainly don't provide much darkness in the early mornings! Whilst this is fine for us, it just simply won't do for our little baby!

I made these tab-top curtains months and months ago, before we knew the babys' gender. I used really heavy quality cotton and backed them with calico. I made the pink ties on the afternoon after finding out we were having a girl, was eager to make anything pink!

The curtains at least keep some warmth in and provide a fair amount of darkness, so hopefully we'll be able to get her to understand the difference between night and day, as soon as humanly possible!!

Bunny buttons

I got these sweet bunny buttons from my friends' button company, Incomparable Buttons. I put them away, waiting for the perfect chance to use them, and I have finally figured out how best to use them. We have a bit of a bunny theme happening for our little one, and so I knew these buttons would be perfect for something for her! 

I bought this plain little cardigan, which is very sweet, but was very, very plain! It came with two plain beige buttons, how boring! Plain, plain, plain...

How much sweeter does it look now with the bunnies! 

Be sure to look at Incomparable Buttons, not only the most adorable buttons I've ever seen, but supports an amazing cause too. Oh, and there's currently a give-away on these exact bunnies too!!!!!

Name blocks and bunting...

We have three girls names that we are tossing up between at the moment, and as the due date gets closer and closer, the decision seems to get more and more difficult!

But, that isn't going to put my nesting instincts on hold, so I am pressing on without a name, and just making sure I have made accommodations for whichever we are deciding between.

When my little niece was due to come in and change our lives 3 years ago, I made her a little cot blanket of varying greens and yellow polkadots (they weren't finding out the gender ahead of time). And then when my little nephew was due to come along, I wanted to make something other than a blanket, and so made him some named soft blocks. I thought until he was big enough to play with them, they'd look sweet in his bedroom, spelling out his beautiful name. And then, he can throw them around (and possibly at his big sister) and it wouldn't do any damage!

For Christmas gifts, Holly enlisted my help to make some blocks for her new nephew and a friends' baby girl too, and so here are the three sets of blocks that I have made:

For my nephew Morgan

For Hollys' nephew Reed

For Holly's friends' daughter Sofia

When it comes to our little bub though, we don't really have a heap of space in our nursery, so I thought I would do Name Bunting instead. But, until we have picked the name, it is just a plain bunting for now (with more than enough letters for any of our options!). I like that the bunting fills the white space of an entire wall, and is an effective tie-in for our colour scheme! 

What do you think?

Now, what letters am I to cut out.....