Sweet Baby Inspiration

It may not be baked goods this time around, but I think it's still pretty sweet...

There are three kiddos in this home.
And 6 special blankies.

Trust me, I don't know how each kiddo ended up with not one, but two blankies that they love.

{You would think that it's helpful and that one possibly serves as a back-up for the other in case of emergency, but nooooo... they each prefer to have both blankies instead of just one.  Seriously.}

Obviously, we are very serious about blankies in this house :)

So when I saw the little animals in Papertrey Ink's new Sweet Baby set and the matching die to go along with them, well, of course, a little blankie was in order. 

And to make it extra special, some Papertrey ribbons on the sides make it into a little "taggie" blankie for little ones who love to play with tags.

And if your sewing skills leave a little to be desired, no worries... this project really is totally simple, not to mention affordable.  As long as you have a sewing machine and a few straight pins, you'll be just fine.

For the base of my blankie, I purchased some white striped minky fabric from my local Joann's store.  I had them cut it at exactly 11" giving me a grand total of $3.44 in fabric... gotta love that.

Besides the price, I also had them cut it right at 11" for me so that I only needed to cut one more edge to get (2) 11" squares.  Just fold the fabric together and cut at 11" to finish the squares off.

This project was small enough to use my rotary cutter on my ScorePal cutting mat :)

The most important part to remember after getting your two squares cut is that now is the time to add the embroidered felt animals!  If you forget and stitch your blankie together first, well... there might be some unstitching happening :)

I used the Sweet Baby die to cut my felt animals in Raspberry Fizz, Orange Zest, and Ocean Tides.  I also used the circle/heart die in the Love Lives here die set to cut out three little Pure Poppy felt hearts. 

At this point, you may find it helpful to stick the animals to the minky fabric with a bit of felt glue.  I added just a bit of Beacon's Felt Glue to the center of the animals and then stitched the hearts in place with a tiny "x" and a bit of embroidery floss.

They're all ready to be stitched up with the sewing machine now!  If your embroidery skills are better than mine, you might prefer to just embroider the edges with embroidery floss :)  I took the easy route and just used my machine. 

A few tips... I had to tighten the tension quite a bit due to the fluffy fabric to keep my stitches tight.  I also shortened the stitches quite a bit to work around those curves and corners more easily.

And to make the circle around little lion's face... get back to your paper roots and secure a little punched circle of cardstock to the center of his face with some dry adhesive.  Then just use it as a guide to stitch around... simple :)

To add your taggies, it can be a bit counter-intuitive.  Pin your ribbons down so that they are on the front of the blankie, facing inwards. 

See?

Because next you're going to take minky square #2 and lay it on top of minky square #1, right sides together, like so...

If you turn the taggies the other way, they'll end up inside the blankie when you turn it right side out.
That would be bad :(

I found it helpful to pin the tags up higher (closer to the folded end of the tag rather than the cut end of the tag).  It just makes it easier to see all the pins and make sure you get them all later.

Once everything's all squared up, just stitch around the edges (I left a 1/2" seam allowance all around). 
Make sure to leave one section unstitched so that you can turn the blankie inside out. 
{Why, hello there, Voice of Experience.}

I trimmed the corners a bit at this point and some of the extra allowance to help everything fold down nicely and then turned it right side out.  That leaves you with a little hole to hand stitch shut.  If you use minky fabric, you're in luck because all the fluffiness makes it super forgiving for hand stitching.
{Also the Voice of Experience here.}

You can see that I also added a little extra stitching around the edge of the finished blankie... that just seems to finish it off and helps give it that "boutique" look.

This sweetie pie gift needs a sweet little card to go with it...

I stamped the little lion in VersaMark on Orange Zest and added a little felt heart to him as well.  The sentiment is from Papertrey's new Bundle of Love set... I just masked the two words and split them apart to work with my design.

The little ribbon tags help tie the card and blankie together...

See?

A super soft, super sweet, handmade baby gift and card all ready for a new mommy and baby.

Good thing I have two close friends currently with babe :)
I guess I'll have to make another.

Considering I still enough fabric to make another, I guess that will bring the total cost for this project to about $2 for the fabric, and maybe $1 or $2 for the ribbon and felt I used. Not too shabby :)

Then again, I should probably go ahead and do that now while my work table still looks like this...

The rest of the Papertrey Ink design team has lots more Sweet Baby and Bundle of Love inspiration for you on this sweet Sunday...

Nichole Heady
Betsy Veldman
Erin Lincoln
Maile Belles
Lisa Johnson
Dawn McVey
Heather Nichols
Melissa Phillilps
Michelle Wooderson
Danielle Flanders

I'd love to know what you think about my set!
I have a special love for sweet baby blankies, so I'm a little biased :)

Back tomorrow with another countdown project!



{Sweet Baby} blankie & card
Stamps - Sweet Baby, Bundle of Love (available 6/15)
Ink - Raspberry Fizz, Pure Poppy, VersaMark
CS - White, Orange Zest
Felt - Raspberry Fizz, Orange Zest, Ocean Tides, Pure Poppy
Ribbon - Raspberry Fizz, Orange Zest, Ocean Tides, Pure Poppy
Die - Sweet Baby (available 6/15), Love Lives Here
Other - white minky fabric, white embroidery floss