Tags

My son is fascinated with tags.  He chews tags on everything and will tip himself over trying to grab a tag that's just beyond his reach.  I think lots of babies are like this, which is why someone invented those cute tag blankets that you can buy.  But seriously... I am not in a position to pay even $10 for a little blanket that has cute tags all around it.
What's a mom to do???  Well, my first thought was that I could make one.  (Actually, my first thought when I want or need just about anything is "I could make that")  I'd just have to go to a quilt shop and buy a bunch of "by the yard" ribbon, a little minkey, and be on my merry way.  Then I remembered that I really don't have any extra money right now (payday is so close...) and when I get a project in my head... well I kind of obsess over it until it's done (unless that project's name is 'quilt for my bed,' then I might drag my feet a little... but I have the fabric, so one day, it will be done...It's just so BIG).  In other words, I really wanted to do this NOW... he's obsessed with tags NOW... why can't we have some extra cash NOW?!
So, as I was trying to get my stinker to sleep tonight, I formulated a plan.  This project was taking over my mind, and I have other things to do, so I needed to get it done so I could think about other things.  (Like what I need to do for my new job to actually make money...)
I won't bore you with my whole thought process, but I'll show you some photos of the process... eventually.
First, I stole tags from various items of clothing.  Most of it was in my sewing bin, and the items are waiting for me to get creative with them, a couple of the tags came from t-shirts I had in my drawer (who reads tags anyway? I could have stole from every shirt in Steven's closet and he wouldn't have noticed... but I didn't need that many tags, and I digress...).
Then, I located a piece of fleece.  It was originally purchased (from the remnant bin) to make the inside of a knitted hat warm and soft (the yarn I used wasn't very soft or thick).  I used some more of it a few weeks ago for Steven's Lost Boy costume.  What I had left was the perfect size for what I wanted to do.
I had a little trouble figuring out what to pair with the blue fleece, but when I was cutting tags, I spotted a polo shirt that we bought at DI for Steven, but it ended up being too... tight? short?.. something... and it was in my "do something creative with me" pile.  It was perfect.  Light blue, with stripes.  And soft.
I also gathered some other fun-textured things: gold ric rac from last Christmas (stockings), elastic, ribbon... I wanted some variety.
Then I cut the 2 fabrics to the same size and got to pinning.  I'll let the pictures tell the rest:

 

This was a BEAST to sew... given a do-over, I would find a different way to do it that didn't include sewing over the button (placket?)

Haha, I left the pocket functional :) I think I'm very clever...

All done!

I decided to help hold the two pieces together in the middle, I'd add some fun buttons.  Don't worry, the anxiety mom in me came out and said I should probably be really careful about this and I sewed them on there GOOD.  And I'll probably let paranoid mom check the integrity of the button sewing job frequently, to make sure they aren't going to pop off and try to go down the baby's throat.

Guys, I was so excited when I was done, I almost wanted to go and wake up my sleeping son to see him play with it.  But, cried himself to sleep tonight... that's how hard it was to get him to sleep (I can almost never let him do that, it's just too sad for me... except when I've tried everything else).  Plus, waking a sleeping baby (that's not in danger) is, like, 100 kinds of stupid, I'm pretty sure.  So, tomorrow will be like Christmas... I'm just not sure for who. ;)

Halloween

Bragging time.  I'm not gonna lie, that's all this post is going to be.

So, rewind to... well kind of to last October, when I knew I was pregnant and almost wanted to announce earlier than planned just to have a super cute Halloween costume.  Instead, last year was kind of a flop.  Guess that's what happens when you think about costumes, like, the day of Halloween.  I was ashamed to call myself a lover of the holiday last year, but I digress... I began thinking immediately of cute family costumes we could do for this year.  Yeah, I plan that far ahead (you're talking to a girl who bought a temple dress with an empire waist and extra room in front to accommodate a large pregnant belly... and I wasn't even dating anyone! p.s. that dress TOTALLY worked up until the last time we went to the temple about a week before he was born... it was a smidge tight that time).  I had SO MANY ideas.  We didn't know if we were getting a boy or a girl, so I had several for either situation.

Then, I guess we need to fast forward to... uh, July?  I started seriously thinking about Halloween again.  I had narrowed my list of possibilities to something like 4 ideas.  I presented them to Steven, and we decided that the most fun would be the Football, Football Player, and Cheerleader.  I was kind of leaning toward that one because when I was in Jr. High, I kinda really wanted to be able to be a cheerleader.  But I lacked both skill and money (cheer is not a cheap sport... is there a cheap sport?)  Plus, turning my baby into a football was going to be SUPER easy.

I had the skirt down, All I had to do was make a box pleated skirt with blue on the outside and white on the inside (thank you internet for teaching me how to do this).  I finished it, and I was pretty much in love.  The top wasn't too difficult either, but it was a little intimidating until I figured out just how I wanted it.  AND until I found the perfect sparkly tank to use as the bottom.  I think I grinned to myself like a fool the whole way home from the store that day.  *There was a slight tragedy.  My "A" started peeling off after the first time I fed Bennett with the costume on, so I tried to use my mom's iron to stick it back on, and it melted the shirt a little.  I seriously wanted to cry, but I had already done my makeup and there was no way I wanted that much mascara running down my face.  It's not really noticeable, but the worst part is that I had several promptings to sew the thing on rather than just rely on the spray adhesive, but I brushed them off... lesson learned, I hope.*

 I sewed the "laces" onto the onesie that I had dyed brown (before I even had the baby? like back in April, I think... and I think I did it to make this, but just for going to football games... which ended up not happening this year)  Added a white long sleeve onesie underneath, and whipped up some of those cute baby leggings.  Done.

Enter football jersey.  We thought, "hey, let's just for fun check locker 42's website and see how much a replica jersey would be."  Enter choking sounds, and sudden turning of wheels in my head trying to figure out how not to spend $90 on my husbands Halloween costume.  I honestly don't know how many times I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew with this one, but it turned out fabulous!  I am SO proud of myself.  I bought 2 $9 shirts from Walmart for the fabric (a search at Joann's was fruitless, I tell you), and some $10 spray adhesive.  Made up *rough* a pattern by cutting up an old t-shirt into the shapes I needed... and voila! $30 Halloween costume.  *Bonus: The jersey at Locker 42 just said "16" on the back... Steven's says "Stoddard" and "1" on the back.  Much cooler. (If you're dying to know what it looks like, you can see here)

I ended up making my pom poms out of a white plastic tablecloth and some totally awesome ribbon.  Total: <$2.

Ok, so all of this was very awesome.  I was super excited for it.  But then, I found out that our ward might be actually some other religion that doesn't celebrate Halloween because there was NO ward party.  Not even a trunk or treat.  Boo.  (not like a ghost says, like what you say to a stupid ref...)  I was NOT going to waste all my hard work on nothing to do for Halloween.  Enter my wonderful mother who happened to mention her ward party.  YAY!  Somewhere to go and show off the costumes.  It only meant I had to have them done by the 26th instead of the 31st, but remember how I started in July?  Yeah, not even a problem.  We had fun, the only hitch: a very tired baby and we had to leave earlier than I wanted to.  PLUS on the actual holiday, we got to go trick or treating at Steven's {very awesome} work.  It was warm, and we escaped with way more candy than we should have.  I love candy.

It's hard to get a baby to look at a camera that isn't doing anything remotely interesting... and is 15 feet away from him... we may need to get a photographer for this kind of shot...

A week or so before Halloween, Steven dropped a bomb.  "There's a 'by team' costume contest at work."  Me: slowly "ok."  Him: "Our team's theme is Neverland."  Me: *breathes deeply* "ok"  Him: "I have to be a lost boy."  Me: -_-

How much stinking time did I just spend on this very awesome football jersey?!  Ugh.  But he assured me that we could still go as our family thing at the trick or treating (we did, *happy face*).  I didn't really think anything else of it, since I was focusing on the costumes I'd been planning for months.  Enter October 30th, 8 pm.  I find my cute husband in the closet trying to figure out what to wear to be a lost boy.  I decided to help him out.  We came up with something pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.  And his coworkers thought it was awesome, so... basically, it's awesome.

My Lost Boy

Who would have thought it would be my husband that needed 2 costumes?  Usually it's a kid.  And usually, it's a want, not a need...

Anyway, you can bet the wheels are already turning for next year.  I've got some ideas, but I have no clue what we'll end up with.  *Sigh* maybe I'm a little obsessed.


****Side note from Steven****
I just have to say that Jennie is amazing and I don't know how I would do anything without her to help me. The lost boy costume turned out great, and the thing she did not mention was that we WON the group contest at work. I figure you would all like to see the picture as just me you can't tell how awesome we were.