Birthday Crown

Inspired by Amanda at Soulemama I made Avi's Birthday Crown.  As promised, I finally got some photos.  I have actually made six crowns for various kidlets, but forgot to take photos before we gave them away. 

I will photograph and post the whole process the next time I make one.

photo bunting

For Avi's first birthday, my partner Jenn had a great idea and asked me to make a bunting, like the one below, only using photos. 

Avi's personalized bunting

She wanted a bunting of photos spanning Avi's first year in this world.  I almost didn't do it because I was so busy trying to find a sugar free recipe for his first cupcakes.  I'm so glad I did it.  It took more time picking out the photos and printing them then it did to stitch this together. All you need are photos, bias tape, and a sewing machine.

Picking the photos I wanted took the longest.  There are so many cute ones! I have all my photos printed with the matte finish,  I like it better than glossy.

I gave myself 12 inches of bias tape at each end for hanging and measured enough tape so all of the photos would fit.  Of course one can make their own bias tape, but I just bought the extra wide double fold.  My machine has the attachment to make bias tape, but I haven't even begun to try.... (someone tell me it's easy as pie so I can have the confidence to give it a go). 

Then stack your photos in the order you want them and start sewing - I used a zig zag stitch.  I marked the bias tape with a pin at 12 inches and then just inserted my first photo. 

Continue sewing inserting your photos one at a time until you have come to the end. 

From the back, you can see there I how far apart I spaced them.

Voila, ready to hang. 

If you hang it in an area where both sides are showing, print doubles and place them back to back when you sew. 

When choosing photos, I wanted all of them to be vertical, however, there were a few that just had to be in there.  So with Jenn's encouragement, I "let go of perfection".  I'm glad I did!

Crafty Mama Blogs

A spring rainstorm just passed through and the birds are singing while the sun lingers high above the cloudy sky... I wonder if she will show her face again today.  Since setting up this blog, my dear son has grown from 12 weeks to now, 9 months old (He is a stellar human and I'm thrilled to be his Ema), I've become inspired by my dear friend Lisa and turned my office/writing studio into my craft/creation room.  With my sewing machine accessible full time, I've tried my hands at a few crafty creations, checked every craft book out of the library, and begun to read these amazing crafting mama blogs. How wonderful to be inspired by so many other mama's out there, near and far, to get me into my craft room or out into the gardens or researching more about chickens. 

I'm trying to find the delicate balance now of how to be online, post and upload pics to this blog and how to be outside in the sunshine or rain, and how to be at the sewing machine finishing one of the several creations I've started.  It's a slow start, but let's see how we can do in the next few week.