Jackson's First Birthday

My baby turned one! I can hardly believe it. He is getting so big! Actually he's not that big according to the charts, but he sure is big to  me! Our wedding anniversary happens to be on the same day as our little guys birthday and for the second year in a row, we haven't done much to celebrate. But, we did have a big party for Jackson so I guess that's celebration enough. We had lots of friends come and support. It was perfect. Luckily the weather cooled off just in time because we had been having 97 degree days here with no air conditioning. Let me tell you, our apartment was hot! It ended up being a little bit overcast for the party so we were able to leave the back door open so that people could sit out on the deck.

 I made Jackson's "Birthday Suit" onesie. It was pretty simple. I ironed on the words "Birthday Suit." Then I sewed a little bow tie with Velcro on the back and stuck it on.

I have been wanting to make a tiered cake for a while. Mostly because I just wanted to see if I could do it. So, I decided Jackson's birthday would be the perfect time. My cake does look like a Charlie Brown cake. I am well aware of that. I am almost embarrassed to put up a picture of it, but we all have to start somewhere right? I did it, it may be leaning sideways, but I did it. The cake itself tasted yummy though so don't judge it by its looks.

 Here is Jackson's little smash cake. I put some white star sprinkles on it to give it a little decoration.

The smash cake part was so much fun, even though it was a pain to clean up. He somehow flung frosting all over the kitchen. But he sure did look cute!

Here is our family picture. Jackson was trying to touch me with his frosting fingers and he succeeded.
I had blue frosting all over the side of my shirt.

 Here is Jackson getting cleaned up by dad in the kitchen sink.

Yes, he's trying to grab my camera lens cap with his frosting fingers.

Jackson also officially started walking on his actual birthday. He is a rock star!



I used a recipe from Baking Vintage. I knew I wanted a white cake with cream cheese frosting and when I came across this buttermilk recipe, I thought I would try it. Don't let "folding in the egg whites" instruction scare you. It was really simple.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 egg whites

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper, then grease with unsalted butter.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking soda, salt and cream of tartar to remove any lumps. In a liquid measuring cup, combine buttermilk and vanilla. With the mixture on a low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture with the buttermilk. Beat the batter until smooth.

In a clean separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Working swiftly, fold the stiff egg whites into the cake bake in three additions. Pour into the buttered cake pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pans for one hour, remove from pan and allow to cool fully before frosting with the icing of your choice.

Makes 2 8-inch round cakes

With a double batch I made,

two-8inch cakes,
two 6-inch cakes and
two-4 inch cakes

One of the 6-inch cakes I didn't use and one of the 4-inch cakes I used to make Jackson's smash cake with.

I used a cream cheese frosting recipe from Dessert Now, Dinner Later

Ingredients:
 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Place cream cheese in a mixing bowl, beat until smooth.
Gradually add the butter 2 tbsp at a time and continue beating until smooth and well blended
Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Using a hand mixer, mix until combined.

It started with a Crib Bumper...

 

 

I know this post is pretty late but I haven't been able to find the time to blog lately. Jackson has been needing a lot of attention and when he's asleep I find a ton of other things that need to get done. On a good note though, Jackson is finally sleeping through the night!! He is 8 mo. old now and he's only been sleeping through the night for two weeks. I didn't want to do the cry it out method because it breaks my heart to just hear him cry but for my sanity I had to do it. I did it while Tyrone was on a work trip so that he wouldn't be exhausted at work. The first night I did it, I was pretty much in tears with Jackson. I have become such a baby ever since I became a mother. But seriously, it broke my heart. I just wanted to pick him up and hold him. The next night he did the same thing but I wasn't as emotional. Then, the third night, he just whined for a little bit and then he went back to sleep. Everyone kept telling me it would take three nights and they were right. I totally should have done it sooner. With the next one, I am not going to wait 8 months. That's a long time with no sleep! Oh, and did I tell you that Jackson doesn't really take naps during the day either? That's a whole different story. I won't go into that here. I am just so glad that he is a happy smiling boy.

Anyway, onto the bumpers... About a month and a half ago Jackson started rolling like crazy. He had been rolling for a while but then he started the crazy rolls where he was smacking into the sides of his crib and limbs were getting stuck out of the bars.One day I went in there and he was asleep on his stomach with both of his feet hanging out the bars. Seriously, overnight he got crazy. I started getting worried because we have a metal crib and his rolls weren't quite controlled yet. I didn't want him to get a concussion or something. So, I looked up some crib bumpers online and I didn't really like any of them. They were around $35 on average for simple bumpers and I found them to be kind of ugly. I decided I could just make some. I spent a couple nights finding different tutorials on how to make crib bumpers. I took little bits and pieces from different tutorials and I made my own crib bumpers. I was shocked with how good they turned out. It took me a couple days to make them and three trips to Joann's to get supplies. That's seriously the worst. But, they are done and I love them.


Here is how I made the bumpers:

 

This is the crib foam that I bought from Joann's.

You will need 1 1/4 yd of 2 different coordinating fabrics. Cut 11" strips and sew them together until you have an 11"x 160" strip. You may want to measure your crib to  make sure that your crib is 160" all the way around. 

I then, made the ties for the crib. You can use strips of ribbon but I wanted to make them with the matching fabric. I made my strips 1" wide, folded them over and sewed straight down. They were 1"x 24". I would recommend making them at least 2"x 24". 1" was hard to sew. But, they still turned out great. You will need to make 14 ties. You will want to melt the ends with a lighter so they don't fray.

Start pinning with the right sides facing out. You will pin your first ties just an inch from the edge. Pin ties across from each other every 26" approximately. It helps to pin the ends together in the middle so they don't get sew in somewhere. Start pinning your bias tape onto your two main fabrics. This process takes a long time. I felt like I pinned forever. I actually ran out of pins. I had to go to the store and buy another box of them. I've never used that many before!

Laid out on my floor it went from my front door almost to the  kitchen. There is no way I could have even laid this out in our old one bedroom apartment. It is really long!

I finally finished pinning. I stopped taking pictures after this. I stitched the bias tape on the top and then I stuffed the bumpers with the foam. Finally, I sewed bias tape around the last edge, and ta-da. Crib Bumpers!

You will need 4 packages of double fold bias tape. You need a total of 10 yards. 

Jackson gave me a fist bump to let me know he liked the bumpers.

After I had done the bumpers I decided that if I could make that then of course I could make a crib skirt and sheet to match. So, I made those as well. In all honesty, the crib skirt and sheet were really simple. It only took me a couple of hours to make those.

For the crib sheet I followed the tutorial from Fancy Napkin

The crib skirt was pretty easy you just  need to take measurements of your crib. My crib is 10" off the ground when it's at it's lowest setting. I wanted the crib to almost touch the ground at it's lowest setting. These were the  measurements I used. If your crib is up against a wall, you can just do a single long strip for the front of the crib and leave the back.

Two 53" x 11.5" panels for the long sides

Two 28" x 11.5" panels for the short sides

One 52" x 27" panel for the top- I used white because It's not going to be seen anyway.

 Sew the panels onto the white fabric. Sew with the right side of the fabric facing the white fabric. I then, just tucked each edge underneath and sewed straight lines.

I put the whole crib bedding up for sale on Etsy. If you would like one specially made let me know. I had a lot of fun making it.

My latest project is to make some black out curtains. I have leftover mustache fabric so I  figured why not. When I get it finished I will post pictures.

Baby Bibs

I have been wanting to make baby bibs for a while but I just haven't been brave enough to try it. I finally decided it was time when my husband's cousin was pregnant with a baby girl and I got invited to her baby shower. All of the tutorials online say to use chenille as the back fabric for the bibs but no matter what fabric store I went to, they did not have it. I have used the terry cloth from Joann's before for burp cloths but I think it's a little rough so I didn't want to use that. I went to another fabric store and asked the clerk what she would recommend and she showed me a more elastic, soft terry cloth. It was perfect. They were all sold out of white though so I got a sea foam green color and black. I think they turned out really cute. Once I got all of the supplies to make them, they were pretty simple.

Supplies needed:

• square of fabric 7 1/2" x 10 1/2" for top of bib
• square of fabric 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" for bottom of bib
• square of chenille 16" x 11 1/2" for bib backing (I couldn't find chenille so I used terry cloth. You could get creative here on the back fabric. Minky would probably be cute and soft as well.)
• lightweight fusible interfacing
• thread
• ribbon, ric rac, or trim of your choice (optional)
• rotary cutter/mat/ruler
• 2" piece of 1/2" velcro (I bought black to match the backing)
• pattern from Sew She Sews

 I followed the tutorial from Lots of Pink Here The bib pattern from this tutorial was too large for my liking though. I followed her tutorial but I used the pattern from Sew She Sews

I bought fat quarters for the top of the bib. They worked great and then I'm not left with a bunch of leftover fabric. You could probably make 3 or 4 bibs out of two fat quarters.  

 I skipped the ric rac step on mine because I realized that I didn't have thread the same color. Sad, I know. I had been to the store so many times for this project that I felt like I just needed to finish them. I totally bought the wrong interfacing and had to go back to the store for that already. I hate when that happens. I  think they turned out really cute without the ric rac and I'm excited to make some more.