Quick Baby Gift – Sheets & Singlet Tutorial

 

When it comes to baby gifts, I’m always torn. I love to give toys, especially to new babies without older siblings, but I also love to give something with a touch of handmade about them. One of my first stops would usually be Big W Toys but I recently checked out the rest of their baby section. So this gift combines the “crafty” with the “baby” and is super quick and easy.

Baby Sheets

When I had my first child, I made our cot sheets. I figured two flat sheets were just fabric with hems – and they were. But someone gave me a set of cot sheets with a fitted sheet and a top sheet, and boy, were they easier to keep on the mattress!

This sheet set was only $11.92 at Big W and included a fitted sheet and a top sheet. (There are also sets that include a pillow case.) You’ll also need a strip of pretty ribbon as wide as your top sheet.

Wash your sheets and iron them so they are flat for sewing.

Lay your ribbon along the top of the sheet and cut it off, leaving about 3cm extra on each end.

Fold the ribbon ends over about 1cm and iron to hide the raw edges.

Lay the ribbon along the top of the sheet (I used the seam as a guide to stay straight) and fold each end over to the back.

Pin it all in place and sew along each side of the ribbon.

Matching Baby Singlet

I decorated a little Bonds singlet to match the sheets, but you could also add this decoration to a T-shirt or jumpsuit.

Grab some left over ribbon – my piece was about 20cm long.

Fold each end over and iron to hide the raw edges.

Start at one end and fold every couple of centimetres to create little pleats. They don’t have to be perfect – in fact, slightly crooked is cute! Iron as you go to hold them in place.

Pin the ribbon to the front of your singlet.

Sew a single line of stitching down the middle to hold it in place. I found the singlet was stretchy enough to move the rest of the fabric out of the way so I only sewed the front. If your item of clothing is not as stretchy, you could hand stitch the ribbon in place.

Note: Singlets like this one from Bonds are very stretchy and you don’t want to restrict that too much or they won’t fit the child anymore. By stitching the ribbon on vertically down the front, the singlet can still stretch around baby.

All done! Two cute and useful baby gifts. Check back tomorrow for a matching flannel wrap tutorial. Or visit Big W Toys for more baby gift inspiration.

More Baby Gift Ideas:

{This post is sponsored. All ideas and opinions are my own. Even if I weren’t being paid, my opinions would be the same. Just saying.}

Let’s play with HTML

Do you have buttons in your blog sidebar? I recently added some new ones. If you do, then there is some code like this that puts them there:

<img
style=”border: 0px solid ; width: 30px; height: 30px;” img src=”http://thecraftymummy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/facebook.png” />

Now I have pretty much taught myself everything I know about blogging, including HTML, by reading tutorials and other blogs. So I thought I’d share something I learnt about this HTML code recently.

First, let me break this down for you:

<a

href=”http://www.facebook.com/CraftyMummy”

target=”_blank”>

<img style=”border: 0px solid ; width: 30px; height: 30px;”

img src=”http://thecraftymummy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/facebook.png” />

</a>

The Green Section is the code for what your button looks like and where it is stored online. The URL  is where I uploaded my Facebook icon – a cute freebie from Sweet Faerie Designs.

The Blue Section is the code for where you want people to go when they click on your button. So this piece of code is to send my readers to my Facebook page.

The Red Sections are the bits of code that show the beginning and end of the code block – kind of like the beginning and end of the paragraph. Without them, the whole thing won’t work!

What I learnt to add

I recently realised that I could change the size of the buttons with this code. For example, if I wanted to add my friend B’s button to my sidebar but it was bigger than all my other buttons, I can add some extra code that resizes it. So I can keep all my sidebar buttons in line and pretty!

I added some code in the Green Section above. You could just have this and it would grab the button and put it in place for you:

<img src=”http://thecraftymummy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/facebook.png” />

But if you add this bit in, you control the size:

img style=”border: 0px solid ; width: 30px; height: 30px;”

You then create:

  • a border – in my case it is set to 0 so there’s no border, but you could change the number
  • width – in my case 30px (for my little social media icons)
  • height – in my case also 30px to make them square

In my sidebar, all my sponsor buttons are 125 x 125 pixels because my sidebar is 250 pixels wide.

Keep in mind, it is better to make the size smaller than the original. If you make them too much larger, the image could become distorted.

So there you have it – a snippet of code that resizes your buttons or images when you want to add them to your blog sidebar.

Sharing Sunday

sunset

Getting Crafty Becci made this gorgeous crochet gift for a baby boy! Love the colour choice Not so Crafty Anne at Domesblissity has listed what she loves most about her kids. Wow! Look where the Eternal Traveller has been travelling! An Arabian Night Trudie shares some great tips on looking after library books over on [...]

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Madeit Sellers who Blog

apple keyring

Plushka’s Crafts has written a series of post about her fellow Madeit seellers who also have blogs. Earlier this week she featured me – thanks!! You can read the interview over at Plushka’s Craft blog. Or visit her Madeit store and check out her cute keyrings and more. Are you a Madeit seller too? Share [...]

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Dreaming of Quilt Books

quilts for kids connie ewbank

 I’m dreaming of buying quilt books… …online, of course, at Fishpond{Click on the picture to shop with me}

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Busy at And Sew We Craft

Lego girls friends hair

I’ve been regularly sharing posts over at And Sew We Craft recently. Those who follow me over on Facebook or Twitter would have seen the links but I haven’t shared here on the blog for a little while so here’s a summary for you. Last week was Yellow Week so I shared a tutorial to [...]

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Clover Cutter Case

case for clover cutter sew tutorial

A few years ago when the items allowed on flights were heavily restricted I discovered the Clover cutter pendant. It is a small pendant with a blade enclosed completely in metal. You can cut threads with it, but not much else, so it is safe to take on board during a flight when you can’t [...]

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Sharing Sunday

sharing sunday

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Mothers out there! Reading… Kelly at Be A Fun Mum  has made a huge list of ways to enjoy nature with your kids. Join B and Team Friday as they encourage each other on their fitness journey – she’s giving up sugar! Narelle is talking about looking after herself [...]

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