Diaper Protection

Sorry to bore you with more personal items but that is what I have had time for these days. I do have some projects coming up to show you, but it take a week or so. With the cloth diapers we use, hear about them here, we can not have the diaper rash cream touch the diapers because it will affect the absorbency. Instead the manufacturer recommends having a layer between the cream and the diaper so we made these flannel inserts that will just go on top to the diaper against baby's skin. These will be washed separately so the cream stays away from the diaper.

We have just started using the cloth diapers that we own and not the diaper service inserts and I am so excited to finally use all of the items that we bought. Only bad thing is that this means more laundry for me. It looks like we will be getting a lot of use out of these fabric pieces because my husband loves to slather on the diaper rash cream. Hard to stop him. :)

Cute Business Card Envelope

One of the photographers that I have used had this great photo session on Saturday that was a fundraiser for a friend and new colleague of theirs. That family is adopting and Fresh Art wanted to help them raise the money. They were asking people for donations and wanted to give gift bags to those who did donate and helped make their session great. Soooo I created a coupon for those gift bags and had a great time doing it.

I made an envelope with my silhouette machine and put the coupon info inside with a business card. I made the envelope out of wallpaper samples, they are recycled!! Then stuck a sticker on the outside to keep them closed. I loved that these stickers had buttons on them. Buttons are a part of my business image.

I loved how these turned out and I might even use this envelope design for future coupons and gift cards that I will be setting up soon on my etsy site.

Giveaway Winner

Well I am learning what you guys like and don't like. With only four comments that count as entries it makes me think that maybe the baby items are more desirable. I would agree that is my main business but I also love these scarves and pillows. I guess I will just have to sell those more on Etsy. I am also guessing the color or pattern of these items were not as exciting. Well thank you to those that did comment and those that didn't, I get why just wait there will be more stuff you like later.

Anyway on to the winners. Looks like two of the three of you are going to win. Using random.org here are the winners.

The winner of the scarf is:

Rachel!! Congrats and I will email you later tonight to notify you and get more information.

The winner of the pillow is

Elisabeth!! Congrats and I did not plan you win it, it just happened how lucky are you! Sorry jmlo, but you are a guy and these are a bit girly so I am sure you are okay with it. I have no idea about algorithms but I used random.org so you can check out what their algorithms are. :) haha

New Fabric/New Find Friday #62

I recently heard about this new way to use an erasable pen-on fabric! These Pilot Frixion pens not only writes on paper and can be erased with the eraser that is attached but also writes on fabric and erases with the heat of an iron! How genius! It comes black, red, and blue.

This is a great new find that I am excited to use on fabric projects when I want to mark the center of an item or mark where I should sew a hem etc. I have yet to buy them but will be on the lookout for them soon. I hear they have them at Walgreen's but I am not sure if it is just Walgreen's on-line or in store as well.

PS. Don't forget to go to HERE to enter to win THIS or THIS by tonight at midnight. I will post the winners tomorrow.

Blog Birthday Giveaway #2

I have been looking forward to these blog giveaways for quite some time and was so excited to have a pillow made and ready to give away but as I am learning, life with a newborn is no longer about me but about him. I now have to take care of him before myself and before my desires and having a husband with an injury makes things sometimes even more challenging. ANYWAY I did not get a chance to finish the pillow so instead of showing you finished picture of the pillow I am going to show you the fabric. Lame I know but a girls gotta do what a girl gotta do.

Here is the pattern as a whole. I know this might not be every one's cup of tea but it is so pretty in person.

Here is a close-up of the fabric to get a better idea of the colors.

The front and the back of the pillow are the same fabric, a designer fabric that I think will go well in so many rooms, but seems like it would fit best in a comfy chair or in the middle of a sofa or bed. The pillow will be 20" x 20" with a poly fill inside no zipper.

Be sure to go here to see the rules and comment to win.

Blog Birthday Giveaway #1

I hope you were reading over the weekend that saw that I am going to post two items this week for my blog birthday giveaway. The first item is a ruffled scarf that I finally finished making this year after being in production for two years! I know crazy what happens when life flies past you. 

It is a neutral colored scarf made from a textured poly material. It is great for dressing up an outfit or just to wear with your coat on colder days. You can read more details about it here.

Here is a better picture of the color and texture. Please go back to this post to read  about how you can enter to win and leave all comments on that post, comments on this post will not be counted.

Come back Wednesday to see the second item of the giveaway!

Blog anniversary

Today is the second anniversary of this blog. I like to call it my blog birthday and you know what happens on birthdays, you get presents. That is right YOU get presents. I will be giving away two items this week to two special people. The two things I am giving away are two of my newest items, a scarf and a designer pillow.

I can not believe that two years have gone by so quickly and I hope to grow this little blog over the next year.

Here is how you can win.
1 leave a comment just to say hi
2 follow my blog and leave a comment with your favorite designerjules item
3 friend my facebook page and comment there under this post and comment here saying you did so
4 heart my etsy shop and comment here telling me you did so

You get one entry per task above so your name can be entered once or up to four times. More entries more chances to win. I will post the items Monday and Wednesday and you have until midnight on Friday night to enter. I will pick a winner at random from the comments to this post at the end of the week and announce the winners.

Happy blog birthday and feast of St.Joseph our family's patron Saint.

New Fabric/New Find Friday #61

This Friday I have a new find, a great change from the new fabrics I have been showing you for the past few months. After making all of those really cute ruffled scarves that are featured on my Etsy site I realized there was a sewing machine foot that ruffles!!! I made those scarves by sewing them and then pulling the thread, this foot makes all of that so much easier. All you have to do is take your piece of fabric and sew it and it ruffles as you go. I LOVE IT!

I tried it out on some cotton tee shirt fabric and am looking forward to making a few scarves out of this type of material for a more causal looking scarf as compared to the more dressy scarf on my Etsy site. I also see lots of cute ruffles on shirts, onesies, and little girls skirts. I might become a ruffling fool!

What do you think? Would you want to own a more casual scarf or a more fun dressy one?

Homemade Diaper Wipes

I bought some Birdseye diaper fabric a long time ago thinking that I would make diapers for burp cloths. It turned out not to be cost effective so I just had the fabric sitting around. When baby bee was about to arrive I realized that I had this fabric and I should use it. Since we are using cloth diapers I thought it would be fitting to use cloth wipes. I will already have to wash the diapers, why not wash wipes and save some money and the environment.

I made 20-something and that was just not enough so we went out to buy more fabric to make more wipes. I just cut them into squares and sewed two of them together with a zig-zag stitch and let them be a bit frayed on the edges. Now hopefully we have enough to use between washings.

In case you were wondering we use Flip-Bum Genius diapers that we got from Cotton Babies. We love Cotton Babies you should go check them out. Since he is so small still we can't just put him in those diapers or he would leak out of the leg hole, instead we use prefolded diapers inside and use the flips as covers. We have been using a diaper service that was a gift to us they really help fill out the covers and we have only had a few leaks. We love not having to wash the poopy diapers yet, but I am sure that day is coming soon.

New Fabric/New Find Friday #60

While running errands last week we went to the fabric store and picked up a few things that we needed. I say "we" because the hubby and baby came with me, and hated waiting for the fabric to be cut. That is hard sometimes to wait and now I know what I will be dealing with having kids with me at the fabric store. :) I forgot to take pictures before I cut into them bit you get the gist.

We went in for the white fabric and also found fabric that I needed in the remnant bin. The blue flannel and the cream flannel are both for a project I have in mind. You will see more about those soon. The white fabric I am going to post more about on Monday. Stay tuned. The pink and white polka dot fabric was just too cute to pass up. I don't know yet what I will do with it but no worries it will get done.

I thought I would have more time for sewing but it seems that each day just flies by and nothing gets done. Sleep seems to be the most important right now.

New Fabric/New Find Friday #59

When I was a little girl I had several corduroy outfits. Some were overalls and some were overall dresses. My mom made a few of the outfits and the rest were hand-me-downs and I loved them! I was thinking that when I have kids of my own I would love to dress them in my clothes or clothes that are like the ones I wore as a child. Do you notice that for really little kids styles don't change as much as they do for adults? 

I found these fabrics a few months back on sale and had to pick them up in hopes that I could make something for my baby to be. Now that we know that Baby Bee is a boy I am not sure I will be making him something from the stripe fabric. I will save that in hopes we have a girl or use it for someone else. The blue and green are fun and I can see even adding something to the overalls like an applique turtle or something like that. A pocket for sure!

Now I just have to wait to see how big Baby Bee is going to be next fall to know what size to make these. I love how narrow the wale of this corduroy is and it reminds me of a cream corduroy skirt that I bought this winter.

I am loving the warmer weather and hope that spring really does come early this year like the groundhog predicted.