80's Nursing Gown

I finally sewed up McCall's 9437! I got this pattern quite a while ago from the lovely ladies at pattern rescue. Initially I just liked it. I love classic-style nightgowns, and there seemed to be lots of nightgown patterns available in the 80's.

This one is great because it buttons all the way down to below the waist in front, so it should make a perfect nursing gown. In fact I was just on the Baby Center boards this morning and people were saying the only good nursing gowns they have found were Laura Ashley! Well this pattern happens to be a Laura Ashley pattern that was issued back in 1985. :) 

 Here is my pattern review.

Robot Night Light!

Korben has a robot night light!

I really wanted Korben to have his own special night light whether he has his own room or not. I'll always remember my night light that I had when I was little and I used it for a very long time. I had this idea of making a night light with a plastic toy robot. But toy robots are kind of collector's items and are actually pretty pricey. Then, I thought, well I can't be the only one who thought of a robot lamp, so I started looking for robot lamps for sale. These were the best I could find:

But, for $98, I thought I could come up with something better. As I was cruising around eBay looking for plastic robot coin banks, or cheap toys that I could maybe salvage and repaint, I came across these robot measuring cups!

They're available in red or white and they're hollow plastic! I decided to get the white set because I wasn't sure what color I would paint the robot. I drilled holes in all the cups and made sure they fit on the Ikea lamp I found at a thrift store for $1.50. It looked pretty good even before the paint job.

I got the the plastic lamp shade and the tiny CFL bulb at Ikea and gave the robot a fire engine red paint job. His volt meter on the front is just a download from google images that I stuck on him and drowned in clear nail polish, so it looks like it's behind glass. It looks really cool when the light is on!

Stuffed Animal Hammock

We have a toy hammock!

It's nice to free up some space in our bedroom by going vertical with stuffed animal storage. I loosely followed the cute Stuffed Animal Net Tutorial from Christie at Lemon Squeezy. But I'm always looking for resourceful ways to save money on crafty projects, so I used some alternative materials. I bought a mesh bag from Dollar Tree and took it apart for the netting. And I used 2 1/2 packages of webbing from my rainbow luggage strap stash.

The bag was really easy to take apart. The stitching on the seam and the stitching on the drawstring casing just pulled right out. Then I cut it into a triangle and serged all the edges to add a little strength.

These luggage straps are one of my favorite 99 cent items. Whenever I see them at a dollar store I stock up. I've used them for sandbags, bag straps and now for the binding on a toy hammock. I just folded it in half and sandwiched the mesh inside- no pinning required! Good thing I still have a couple packages of this stuff left for future projects!

Up next on the list of nesting to-do's: a robot lamp!

Finally sewing for the baby!

I've been seriously nesting! I'm 34 weeks and starting to realize that we're going to have a baby soon! We've had the kitchen/dining room/entry area and living room repainted. And we bought a new kitchen table and new living room furniture. Michael even approved an area rug! The house looks SO much better! Since we're staying in our little condo, we'll have the baby in our room with us. The plan is to have him sleep in the bassinet attachment of a pack n play and store his clothes in bins on the two lower shelves of his changing table. So I bought two of the Fabler Groda frog prince wall pockets from Ikea and hacked one of them into a diaper stacker. I looked all over different blogs for diaper stacker tutorials and I found some cute ones. But this one from Shannon over at Sew Beautiful was my very favorite. (And it's not just because she has such an awesome name!) I love that she made it gender neutral and the pockets on the front are a really cool detail. It also has the biggest capacity for diaper storage of any of the other diaper stacker tutorials I came across.

I harvested as much of the green stripes and dots as I could from the original wall pockets. Even though the wall pockets are over 4 feet tall, they really aren't made of much fabric. So I supplemented with the white cotton center from one of our old bed skirts. Now that we have a platform bed, our bed skirts have no purpose. But, we definitely have a use for a diaper stacker. So, all the diaper changing accessories and baby utensils will go in wall pockets and diapers will go in the matching stacker. Next, I need to figure out a net hammock for all his stuffed toys! He already has tons and after the baby shower tomorrow, I'm sure he'll have even more.

I've already done two loads of baby laundry and all those bins in his changing table are full of clothes, bibs and blankies! What a lucky boy he is already!

We're having a boy!

Right before Thanksgiving we had our anatomy scan. Of course the actual purpose is to check fingers and toes and make sure the little one is developing properly. But, what most parents look forward to, is the big gender reveal. Our sonogram tech was great. She told us right away that he was a boy. Neither one of us were surprised in the least. Michael swore he saw the goods at our last appointment, and he was confident that he knew he was a boy. I couldn't see the screen at the last ultrasound, but I just knew from the moment I thought I was pregnant that it was a boy. I have absolutely no reason for it, I just knew. 

 After the tech chased him around for what seemed like forever, she was able to get all his measurements and my Mom got to come in the room. She was so excited! This will be her first grandson. Everything looks good with the boy. He's extremely active and doesn't sit still for very long. And he's long too! His femurs measure about two weeks ahead. I knew there was a large Viking boy in there! Someone with long legs has been trying to kick through my belly button. 

 We decided way back when we started to talk about kids, that our boy will be named Korben. So he'll be Korben Dino Bacon. That was a very easy decision!

After we had a great dinner with my Mom, we went to Ikea and Michael got his baby boy some toys. He got him a giant shark and two dragons. We had to get each a kitty a baby dragon too.