Crafty birthday gifts

I mentioned in my month goals post that we had a few birthday parties to go to this month. Well... we have 3, and they are ALL this weekend. My*(scroll to bottom to read more) Husqvarna Designer Diamond Embroidery machine has been humming this week. I was helping my mother-in-law embroider some towels for wedding gifts AND I was working on some birthday gifts.


Birthday #1: One of my girlfriends commissioned me to make a "Hungry Caterpillar" shirt for her sons 1st birthday. She ORIGINALLY wanted an appliqued "1", the caterpillar, and his name... so I looked around and found this digitized image and bought in. The smallest it came in was 4x4, which is pretty big actually. I was GOING to try to make it work, but I was embroidering on onesies, and maybe it's just me (I'm sure it is)... but those suckers are difficult. You have to keep the extra fabric out of the way, and out from underneath (yeah... made that mistake once), and keep an eye on it so it doesn't sew over the back of the shirt... and I didn't think I could deal with doing the applique, then all the other stuff.


So instead of charging her for this shirt (since this wasn't exactly the shirt she wanted), I decided to make her 2 and give them as part of her sons birthday gift! Plus, you can't complain about free!


I think they turned out pretty dern cute if you ask me.

Birthday #2: I was going to embroider a shirt with Emie on it... but kind of ran out of time. So... no humming machine for this one. Emie is turning 2, so I stuck with the good ole potato head, book, play dough, and coloring book.

PLUS, she gets one of my handy-dandy personalized gift boxes.

Birthday #3: Let me start by saying, I'm proud of this one!! It uses 2 different crafts in one gift (ok technically 3). Here. It. Is:
Reese gets her very own handy-dandy personalized gift boxes (1st craft):

The party is Strawberry Shortcake themed, thus the paint book and DVD... but check out that apron! Pretty neat huh?

Reese has one of those killer step 2 Grand walk in kitchens that her mom got off craigslist. So... I went and bought a child's apron from Joann (obviously using a coupon), then went to the computer and made the design for the embroidery. When I completed the embroidery (2nd craft), I looked at it and said "this is good". But THEN I walked past where my rosettes were laying and I got the idea to put little rosettes on her apron! (3rd Craft)


A few days ago I was reading through blogs and I saw one girl had put a rosette on her shirt and commented that if she were to do it again, she would button it on so it wouldn't mess up in the wash. So that's what I did...

 I sewed the bottom of the button to the apron fine, but when I was going to sew it onto the rosette I decided to sew it to another small piece of fabric (I didn't want thread to ruin my beautiful rosettes), and then fabric glue that to the back of the rosette. Hope it works!

I hope you guys enjoyed reading about my birthday crafts!

* When I say "my" Husqvarna Viking Embroidery machine, I really mean the one that my mother-in-law bought for us to "spend time together" doing. It's an awesome machine, it REALLY is... I just don't know how to sew. Embroidery is different, it has software ($$$$) which, coming from my background, is a flipping breeze. But anyway, I never wanted the machine, but I use it now. You may be wondering why you haven't seen more embroidery projects on here... embroidering difficult for me for the following reasons:

1. The machine is 20 minutes away, at her house
2. I have 2 children
3. The room is REALLY cluttered and only has space for a couch and a TV, no toys. So if I'm over there and the kids are awake, they have to be watching TV, which I don't really like relying on.
4. I have to plan ahead to get over there to embroider something - I have to make sure I have the design I want on the jump drive, and printed out, make sure I have any fabric I need, the stabilizers, thread, shirt/towel/etc... etc
5. I spend half the time over there re-teaching her to use the machine (that she wanted to buy) because I'm the only one who uses it.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. Hopefully I'll get over there to do more projects so I can get the hang of this beautiful and wonderful machine.

Linking up: Naptime Crafters, Remodelaholic, Lamb Around, Hazel and Honeysuckle, DIY Showoff, C.R.A.F.T., Keeping it Simple, Sarahndipities, Live Laugh Love Lucy, Vintage Wanna Bee, Not Just a Housewife, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Dot Dot Dot, Sew Much Ado, Handy man Crafty Woman, Someday Crafts, DIY by Design, Somewhat Simple, Momnivore's Dilemma, Gluesticks