How to Make a Toddler Belt

This project was really seriously the easiest craft project that I've done in quite some time.  It's almost not even blog worthy....  But to step back for a minute, I figured why not share it.  It might inspire someone else to make their kid a belt.  OR maybe even make one for yourself (which btw is on my list of things to do).

How to make a Toddler Belt.  I purchased 1 yard of belt material from Joann's.  This particular print features turtles!  They had a few other prints, cute fish and something pink and of course the nostalgic rainbow flavor that it seems we all had as kids in the late 70's/early 80's! 

So with two little guys in the house, I decided 1 yard of belting and 1 pack of D rings (they come 4 in a pack) would be sufficient.  To make the belts I cut the yard in half, rolled one end and stitched it down.  placed the D rings on the other end, folded the end under and machine stitched it down.  Seriously folks, each belt was made in under 2 minutes. 

Both kids like them.  I will admit they are a little difficult for the boys to use and we had one bathroom accident occur because of the belt.  They do in fact hold up their pants so I'm happy about that!  And they love the little swimming turtles - you can see in this photo one of them is doing the back stroke - which just cracks me up!

As for future use of this project.  "I" happen to need a belt too.  I however do not need rainbows and turtles in my wardrobe so I'm planning on purchasing some plain cotton webbing and enough ribbon to stitch onto side one and up the tail end (inside) by about 6-8 inches.  So that when the belt is on the inside part of the tail that folds over and is now exposed has some fancy ribbon on it too.  Look for photos of that project in a few weeks.

Do you have a diy project to share? Share it at A Soft Place to Land to win!

Experimenting with Color: Kool-Aid Edition

A few months ago, I was in my local St. Vincent DePaul. While there, I checked the craft section for some sewing notions but instead of finding zippers and buttons I scored a HUGE lot of undyed 100% wool, each skein was $.79 and there were seven skeins ! HUGE yarn score!  I knew right away that I would attempt to hand dye some wool and Kool-Aid would be my dye of choice.

I next had to figure out what I was going to do with this yarn, I knew I would dye it but what knitting pattern would I use?  I finally decided to knit Christmas stockings for my family. I found this pattern (http://home.howstuffworks.com/free-knitting-patterns-for-beginners11.htm#). Here's the Ravelry.com link too.

Next I needed to start thinking about color since the yarn was undyed. I did a quick google search for "how to dye yarn" and this was the first link I came to (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/FEATdyedwool.html). I'm a big fan of bright colors and I'm not going for a traditional stocking look. I want something a bit different. So I decided to use regular everyday colors instead of the usual green and red.

Based on the chart provided in the Knitty.com directions, I chose a few colors (flavors) and headed to the store in search of Kool-Aid. I came away with packets to make orange, pink, teal and red.

Tuesday night was then deemed Kool-Aid party night. A few of my knitting friends came over to see the process and to keep me company.

Before the dying started, the yarn needed to be soaked, I gave it a bath in a big bowl with a few drops of laundry detergent and let it sit for a good twenty to thirty minutes. This process rinsed the fibers and got rid of a LOT of dirt and oils.


I then rinsed the yarn with room temperature tap water and I gently squeezed the excess water from the yarn. It was now time to dye! I started with orange since Max requested that his stocking be his favorite color. Preparing the dye is quite easy, basically 1 packet of Kool-Aid to each ounce of wool. My skeins were three oz skeins. I emptied the contents of three packets into a Pyrex dish, added some water to dissolve the Kool-Aid, placed my yarn into the dish and added a bit more water to cover the yarn. Following the directions, I microwaved my yarn in the dye for two minutes, let the yarn rest, swished it around a bit and cooked it for 2 more minutes and let it cool. I let all the yarn hang out in their Pyrex dishes until the end. As you can see in the photos below, the dye is QUITE bright prior to submerging the yarn. The dye is then absorbed by the fibers leaving a semi-clear water behind.

The dye is then absorbed by the fibers leaving a semi-clear water behind.

I then rinsed and gently squeezed the excess water out again and hung them to dry in the basement.


I'm happy with how each of the colors turned out. The red is QUITE bright! It took two extra cooking sessions to secure the dye in the yarn and the water never quite cleared like the others. Overall, it was a really fun project although slightly messy... I've come away with some awesome colors of yarn and two bright red hands.

More photos of the process can be found here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/cararolinson/).

And the winner is....

Number provided by:

"True Random Number Generator Min:1 Max:14 Result: 5 Powered by RANDOM.ORG"

The winner is.....

"Anonymous said...

So cute!! You friend is very crafty!! Love it.

e h po pe@ live .com

September 10, 2009 8:32 AM"

Congratulations to you! I've sent an email to you and you'll have 48 hours to reply, if you fail to do so in that time frame I will contact the next person.

Again, a BIG thank you goes out to Jo from Two By Two Crafty Creations!

Come back soon, I'm planning a few more giveaways in the next few weeks! Stay tuned!

third time IS a charm and other topics

ok, booties are complete, sorta kinda... i just have to sew them up and sew on some buttons. an hours worth of work, tops. blankie, totally complete and ready to be gifted. this is the second scalloped blankie that i've made from bend the rules sewing by amy karol. this time i used flannel on one side and a wavy chenille on the other. i didn't use a third middle layer since both outer layers were slightly poofy without the middle layer. it took me half the time to sew this one than it did the first one i did for amanda. this one took just over two hours from beginning to end. can't beat that! i need to now pin up and sew the other two i need to make for my own kiddos and i'll be right on track. photos of everything to follow after the weekend.

i went to visit my friend emma at the hospital this evening, she had her third baby on sunday, his name is henry. he's perfect! it was nice to see her and her new little guy :) it was also funny to walk onto the maternity floor at the hospital (where i'll be delivering in a few short weeks) to be greeted by the warm friendly nurses that work there. i had to ask for emma's room number and once she gave it to me the two nurses asked when i would be back! LOL i thought that was pretty funny. anyways, emma is doing well and so is her little guy, they both get to go home first thing tuesday morning.

not much else is new with me. i've been having braxton hicks in the evenings but nothing that is uncomfortable and nothing that is able to be timed.

max is effectively down to one nap, it's been about a week now that he's been taking one long nap in the middle of the day. i thought it would be hard on me... but it's actually going to be ok. since it's such a long span of time that he's napping, it makes it easier for me to get some things done. at least for the moment. until everything goes into a tail spin in a few weeks.... he also got a few more teeth. although he won't let me poke around in there long enough to really get a good idea of how many. he got two during chrismas and i believe he just got two more. that brings us to a total of 12. he's also doing super well with a fork and he can almost get things loaded onto his fork himself. almost.... in a few weeks i imagine it won't be an issue at all.

tips for mamas out there with little ones who aren't using a fork yet. we started out with those plastic forks that are rather nubby and the prongs are very pointy for obvious reasons. however we inherited a few old toddler forks from chris's family in the past few months, they are metal and are basically just smaller sized regular old forks. let me tell you. these have helped max tremendously in keeping food ON the fork. they actually grab the food and it stays there unlike the plastic variety. if you can find some of these, it's worth it to purchase a few. we won't be going back to plastic forks again. also, in a pinch he can totally use an adult sized fork, usually i give him one of the smaller/shorter pronged forks that we use and he's had no trouble with those either. it's amazing how fast this stuff changes!

look for photos of the completed craft projects either late this coming weekend or early next week.

just a short round up

thanksgiving was very nice, it wasn't very relaxing towards the end of the day but the day was filled with wonderful food and much thanks to be given. i cooked a turkey, so did my dad. i roasted mine with a fresh herb butter that i pushed between the skin and rubbed on the outside, then i stuffed it with a fairly traditional stuffing. i also made green bean casserole and chris made some fantastic brussels sprouts with bacon and onions. mmmm big hit! after dinner, my body crashed.... i had been on my feet too much and i couldn't stand any longer. so my mom, mother in-law and sister in-law all did the clean up. i did what i could while sitting. i divided up the left overs so that everyone could take some home with them. other than that, the day was wonderful!

chris and i had a wedding to shoot on saturday, that also went well. i was on my feet a lot that day too but it wasn't as bad as thanksgiving. sunday we sorta crashed. i didn't do much of anything except play with max.

these past few weeks i've just been feeling huge..... like pants not fitting and making me really uncomfortable huge.... i guess i'm just carrying much lower this time around thus the pants wearing and fitting problem... it's totally expected but just a bit of a pain in the belly...

as for everything else pregnancy related, there isn't much to report. i'll be 30 weeks this coming friday. and there are times when i feel like i'm going to split in half at the crotch but hey, i suppose that it's all part of the game right?

as for max, he's gaining speed. no new tricks, he's still helping us clean up the floors which is very helpful of him. he was 15 months yesterday and has his 15 month checkup this friday. he's scheduled to get the first round of mmr shots and a flu shot. i was up in the air about what to do with this for the past few months regarding the autism claims and such. i think we've decided to go ahead with it. there is nothing that seems to really be solid out there regarding claims that it does trigger autism.... i have a few more questions that are directly for the dr. and depending on those, we'll see what happens. chris gets to take max to the dr this time, as i have a meeting to attend.

that, is about it in a nutshell.... nothing too exciting...

ooh, crafty updates, i'm nearly close to being finished with moderne, i'm on block 6 and it's reaching a perfect size. i think after this block is finished, i'll do some sort of boarder and call it a day.

place mats for my mom.... yeah, the fabric is still in the laundry pile. i need to pull that out over the weekend.

crafty updates

i broke in my new machine over the weekend. i completed 4 of the 5 curtain panels needed for the bedroom. i didn't get all 5 done because the fabric is a bitch to sew, it's faux suede and annoying as heck... so instead of being pissed about my sewing i made some coasters.

they turned out ok, they are just for us and were my first attempt at making coasters... i used some of the fun stitches that my new machine can do and frankly i was tired and didn't really consider how to negotiate around the corners with said stitches... so the top two turned out the best, the bottom two are a bit messy but still will act as coasters :)

i also went shopping, and bought this:and this:
the squirrellie fabric with the chenille will be used to make two scalloped blankies from bend the rules sewing. isn't that fabric fun? considering i have never made ONE DAMN THING for maxwell, i figured a blankie would be a good place to start. so i'm making two, one for him and one for andrew.

the bottom fabric will be a set of place mats and coasters for my mom for her birthday. i will be using the place mat pattern from bend the rules sewing for those too.

on the knitting front, i have bootie number two almost finished, i need to knit the straps then sew it together and weave in the ends and sew on buttons. i STILL have not picked up Baby Moderne in way too long. someone needs to kick my ass into major knitting gear.... this gift is due in TWENTY-FIVE DAYS and i'm still only in section 4....