A New Doll Bed and Quilt

My Grandpa Park is amazing.

Grandpa with Hailey (6 months) at my cousin Aubrey’s wedding.

He has a woodshop in his garage and loves working in it. As a wedding gift when all of the grandchildren get married he makes them a wooden bench, which he designed himself. It is a very anticipated and cherished gift.

Grandpa recently designed and has started making doll beds for his great-granddaughters. I got a call from my aunt Leslie one day who said she wanted to stop by our house with Grandpa to deliver a doll bed for Hailey. I didn’t even know he was making one for her. What a great surprise!

Isn’t it great? The wood is unfinished, so we have full reign over what we’d like to do with it. I think we’ll probably just put a urethane coat over it and keep the wood light.

Hailey loves her doll bed. She has been so motherly recently, so the timing has been great. Hailey loves to wrap her baby up, rock her and then put her to bed when she is sleeping. She will close her playroom door because baby is sleeping and we need to be quiet.

I told Hailey to kneel down by her bed so I could take a picture of her. Next thing I knew she started praying. She asked that baby would “grow big and be healthy”. I thought that was funny.

And then she decided to read baby a “special bedtime story”.

Since baby now had a bed, she needed a mattress, blanket and pillow to sleep with. I made the mattress using this tutorial from Ana White. It was easy peasy and quick to put together. I made a quick pillow case and used an existing doll pillow we already had (that used to be mine).

For the quilt I decided I wanted to try out making a small herringbone quilt. I think they are fun. I used this tutorial from Bijou Lovely. And I butchered it. Ok… I didn’t really butcher it, but I didn’t put enough thought into what I was doing. The quilt blocks on the tutorial are 12.5 x 12.5, which is great if you’re making a full sized quilt. The doll quilt is small and I didn’t want it to be made up of just a couple of blocks, I didn’t think it would show off the design enough. So, I wanted to do a small scale herringbone quilt. But, I also just wanted to do it quickly and be done with it. So I made the first half of the quilt block and cut that in half. And then I made the second half and cut that in half. When I put it all together it didn’t line up right and it really bothered me. But, I had already cut out my fabric, so I reminded myself that Hailey won’t care and continued on to finish the quilt. When I had all of my mini blocks cut out, I laid them out and really didn’t like the look of it. So, I rearranged them and added white borders to the blocks to space them out enough that the seams didn’t clash. And here is the result:

Despite turning out totally different than I had planned on, I really do like the quilt. I plan to try again, but this time I’ll think through my strategy better so it actually is a herringbone pattern.

But who cares what I think- Hailey loves it, and that’s all that matters.

Thank you Grandpa Park for all of your hard work! We love you!

A Makeshift Spool Winder

What do you do when you’re in the middle of a sewing project and run out of thread? Go to the store and buy more?

Yeah, you can.

But I didn’t want to.

Luckily I have an awesome husband who wound a new spool of thread for me- man style. A large cone of white thread + an empty spool + a drill - a trip to the store = a new fresh new spool of white thread. Sewing can now continue and I can stay in my pajamas.

Making a Fruit Loops Necklace

Ellie came over to play one day. We decided it would be fun to make a necklace out of Fruit Loops.

I used yarn for the string and taped the ends with scotch tape so it wouldn’t fray and would be easier to thread.

The girls had fun. It kept them entertained for a good 15-20 minutes. Which in toddler time is a decent amount of time.

The best part of making a Fruit Loops necklace?

When you’re all done you get to eat it!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and an Egg Carton Caterpillar

My friend Katelin has started reading a book and doing a craft once a week with her girls. She posts about what they do each week. I decided to join in on the fun this week. (Thanks for the fun idea Katelin!)

Hailey and I read the classic book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We then made our own caterpillar.

I think he’s super cute. I even enjoyed this craft as much as Hailey! Want to make one too?

We used:

• pipecleaners
• washable tempera paint
• craft google eyes
• egg carton
• glue
• paint brush
• a painting surface (we didn’t have any newspaper, so I used a small cookie sheet I had bought at the dollar store)

I cut the bottom of the egg carton lengthwise and then flipped it over. This is the body. Then we painted.

Hailey of course wanted to use a little of every color we had. Our caterpillar became a very colorful caterpillar. I thought it was fun- gives him some character.

After painting we glued on the eyes, and then gave him antennas and legs.

To make the antennas I used a knife and cut two small holes in the top of the head. I cut a pipe cleaner to the length we wanted and Hailey put the pieces through the holes. From the underneath, I rolled the pipe cleaners up so it wouldn’t pull out through the holes.

To make the legs I again used a knife and made small holes towards the bottom of the egg carton, on either side of it. We cut down more pipe cleaners and Hailey put them through the holes. From the underneath, I wrapped the pipe cleaner up around the edge of the egg carton to hold the legs in place.

Tada! A very colorful caterpillar.

Maybe we should make a cocoon for him and in a couple weeks he’ll be a beautiful butterfly! 

Happy caterpillar making!

Color Sorting

One morning, while I was busy in the kitchen, Hailey got into one of the drawers and pulled out our corn on the cob trays. Next thing I know she tells me she is playing a game.
She decided, all on her own, to lay out the trays and sort the skewer thingys by color.
Totally caught me off guard. It kept her plenty entertained. I could finish what I was doing and Hailey was happily occupied. Score. No complaints from me!
As difficult as the toddler years are, I’m loving what Hailey is becoming. She has gained so much independence- it’s great! The other day, while I was in the shower, Hailey decided she wanted to color. All on her own she went into the basement, grabbed a few sheets of computer paper and brought them back up to her room and colored. After I got out of the shower I opened her door to check on her. She was happily coloring away. She told me that no one was around to help her, so she went and got paper all by herself. I was so proud! (And so happy that that was all she got into.) Yay for entertaining herself!