Penny Lane is in my ears and in my Eyes

When we first moved into our house, Jesse was working 2nd shift. I hardly saw him at all during the week. By the time he got home I was already in bed. I'm not complaining - I know gotta do what you gotta do, and having a job was pretty important at this particular juncture (being that we just bought a house). I was however, a little nervous - I had lived with my parents all my life up until this point, and rarely was ever alone in the house. So Jesse wanted to make me feel safe when I spent most evenings alone (isn't he a great guy) so we talked for a while about getting a dog. We went over all the pros and cons, time, budget, etc, and he did all his due diligence research (as per the norm). He knew everything there was out there about raising a puppy - literally everything. He would at times be on a forum on his laptop, and simultaneously look up another webpage on his iPhone (no joke). I had almost given up hope on getting a puppy (he seemed so against it, we both worked full time bla bla bla) when one morning I was making breakfast and he said "you wanna get a dog today?". I thought he was kidding - but he had been in touch with a man in Felicity, Ohio about a Boston Terrier female puppy, and he said its mine if I wanted it. Um, duh! So we went out on the craziest trip ever to pick up this dog. We were in my mustang (which historically gets TERRIBLE traction in snow and slush) in the middle of a bilzzard in December to a place 2 hours away we had no clue how to get to. In retrospect, probably not the best timing we ever had, but it was all worth it when we got to the breeder. He handed me this tiny fur-ball of a dog and she immediately climbed up into my neck.

That was it - I was sold. Jesse likes to tell people how he intended on haggling on the price a little with the breeder, but once he saw my face over this little cutie - that was all she wrote :) We named her Penny Lane (partly after the Big Bang Theory - one of our favorite shows, and the more obvious part after the Beatles song). She's our little fury friend, and sure brings some comic relief to our household. For those of you thinking "she said they both worked full time, how can she take care of the puppy during the day?" don't fret - we don't keep her locked up all day. Quite the opposite actually. My Mom, so generously offered to dog sit during the day while I'm at work. She said it works out pretty good because she also baby-sits my Cousin's daughter who LOVES to play with Penny. So never fear - the dog is more than well taken care of :)

I'm not the only one whose heart this dog melted... Jesse fell hook line and sinker to her snuggling....

DIY Diaper Cake

If I haven't told you yet - I love DIY projects, especially if it means I'm going to save money (I'm cheap). My cousin and his wife are expecting their first baby this summer, and so its baby shower time! My aunt is throwing it for her this weekend, and I wanted to get them something they would like that wouldn't also break my budget. I was getting to the shopping a little later than everyone else in our families and the pickings were slim. Anything I would have gotten would have been mashed random things and wouldn't be as cute. I thought about the different things I could get and went over some stuff in my head. I kept coming back to "those diaper cake things", they're simple, cute, and what new parents don't need diapers?! I looked on Etsy to see about buying one already made - one serious case of Price Tag Shock later, I decided to make one myself. (You'll notice some of the same materials I used as the one this chick wanted to charge $99   for! insane)

There are LOTS of instructions on-line about how to make a diaper cake, the concept isn't that hard at all. I, however, did not look it up on-line (because I always think I already know how to do everything). So I just got some supplies and winged it! Again, this isn't the most elaborate diaper cake, I've seen some with pacifiers and lotions and all kinds of crap hanging off of it. But since I wanted it to be a budget cake - and plus I don't really like the look of all kinds of crap, I went simple.

Here are the supplies I got -

• 2 packs of diapers, 90 total

• Ribbon, 1 inch wide, patterned to fit the baby shower theme (jungle) I actually already had this in my scrapbook stash

• pack of 4 receiving blankets

• Paper crinkle to match the ribbon and blankets

• Decorative animals to match the theme

I just jumped in with the rolling - With absolutely no idea how many on each layer I would include... I thought I would figure that out along the way. This wasn't an issue at all - but if you're hyper type-A you may want to plan this out. I ended up using 20 in layer 1, 30 in layer 2 and 40 in layer 3. Worked just fine. To do this, you just take the diapers, one at a time, roll them up tight, starting from the butt of the diaper and rolling it to the waist. The tighter the better. I also taped the diapers in the rolls - using a removable tape I already had as well, they should be able to peel the tape off no problem when they go to use the diapers. These are the inner diapers for the cake and also the most time consuming part.

Once I figured out how many in each layer I wanted, I just stood them up on the table and tied a ribbon around each bundle - scientific I know. Looking at some of the instructions now, I feel like people try to make this step more complicated than it needs to be. Its really pretty straight forward. Once I had all three layers bundled, I stacked them on top of each other to make sure the proportions were correct. Beginners luck - they were.

After that, I simply wrapped the receiving blankets around each layer and pinned them in place, at which point i untied the ribbon already on it and re-tied it on the outside of the blanket - then removed the pins. I found the felt and wooden animal decorations at Michael's for .59 each - you can't beat that, they're so cute. I hot glued them onto the ribbon, careful as to not ruin the blankets.

Then I wanted to add the crinkle paper stuff - also careful not to ruin the blankets or diapers. So, I cut up sone paper plates (also that I already had) and hot glued the crinkle paper to that instead of the diapers or blankets. I thought about not gluing it at all and just setting it around it and that was a disaster - would never have stayed on.  You'll notice on the middle two layers, I only paper crinkled the outer rim of the plates. I figured you wouldn't be able to see it if I did the middle anyway, and hey, waste not want not, right?

Once all the individual pieces were created, all I had to do was stack it. I kind of wish I had a cake platter thing to stack it on, but I tied the ribbon pretty tight so it didn't go anywhere. I also made a topper with the letter "E" for Evan (not pictured), the baby's name just for fun. I'm so proud of how it all turned out, I really hope she likes it. Especially since I had no clue what I was doing! What do you think - is it a winner?

And the best part is - the cost breakdown:

• 2 packs of diapers - $10 (thank you, Kroger digital coupons)

• Ribbon (already had) - $0

• Pack of 4 receiving blankets - $13

• Paper crinkle - $4

• Decorative animals - $1.77

• Tape and Paper for topper (already had) - $0

Total spent $28.77.... Eat your heart out Etsy. I couldn't believe the difference in price - especially since I used some of the same materials I found at Michael's for less than a dollar. These aren't hard to find materials or anything. I mean come on, what is she thinking charging more than triple the cost to make? Ouch.  Total savings of $ 70.23 (not including the shipping cost). 

Tell me about your DIY cost saving projects. What about any others that you were pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out?





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@ achina90 :  This thing isn't letting me reply to your post - I got them at Micheal's, they were in the wood craft section.  Below is a link for the same ones, but they're a little more expensive because they come in packs of 6.  I hope it helps though!
http://www.woodcrafter.com/animals-2.aspx

So it seemed like a good idea at the time.... I had all these t-shirts I wasn't wearing, but for some reason could not being myself to throw them away. One was my High School Senior Class shirt. Which literally has not been on my body since then. A lot were from college, with sorority every event having a shirt to go with it, my collection grew exponentially. Albeit I gave several away to underclassmen like hand me downs, I still had about 10 or so. The others were just randoms that I got either on a vacation or fun trip with friends. They all had a story, which is why I had a heard time parting with some of them.  

So it was my Mom's idea to turn them into a blanket. This sounded like a great idea, and it would free up some closet space. Win win. It started out innocent enough. I'd made quilts before, but never with a stretch cotton. So, I researched it on-line to find the best way to do it. I got all the shirt I wanted to use together, I needed 30 squares to make the size I wanted, so that amounted to about 18 shirts (some I used the front and backs of). Once I decided how big to make the squares, the cutting went super quick (if you don't have a rotary cutter, go get one for this, its magical how easy it is). I ended up making them 14' tall by 15' wide. This was to accommodate the images on some of the shirts. I wanted all my blocks to be the same size, but you can totally cut different sizes and piece them together like a puzzle. This just wasn't what I wanted to do. I'd also cut 2 inch strips of a neutral border fabric that I planned to attach on the bottom and right sides of the squares (the strips would come together when i started to sew the blocks together). In hindsight, I wish my border strips were wider, but these worked.

From my research It was pretty clear I'd have to get a soft interfacing in order to keep the shirt from stretching when i sewed it. This might have been the most tedious part. I then sat and ironed all 30 squares with the interfacing. BBBOOOORRRRIIIIINNNNGGGG. It took me three nights to do it. make sure all the squares were straight and nothing wrinkly, nothing was burning in the ironing process, etc. After that super exciting part was done, I sewed my border strips on the bottom part of the shirt square. I sewed on a half inch seam to make it stronger. The last quilt I made i used a 1/4 in seam and it eventually fell apart without much use. I wanted to be able to use this quilt on a regular basis. This eventually made the border strips only 1' wide all around the square. Which is fine, I just liked the wider stripe look better. Just my personal opinion. After all the bottom pieces were sewn, I pressed the seams open, and did the same after the right sides were done. That again was tedious. Ironing is lame :).

Now all I had to do was start sewing the blocks together. This went pretty quick actually. I just had to make sure the colors were spaced properly. I didn't want like 4 white blocks or two green one right next to each other. I made the quilt 5x6 (blocks I mean). I did all the horizontal rows first, then came back and attached each row onto each other. If you're planning on doing this: PIN THE ROWS BEFORE SEWING. You don't really need to pin anything before this point, it'll trim away. I admit, I tried to do it without pinning the rows and ended up getting off alignment and my border strips didn't align properly. So seam ripper to the rescue, and start over. Once I did that little extra step of pinning, everything flew by. Next thing I know, I have a front to my quilt.

I picked a soft flannel plaid fabric for the backing and a medium weight batting to make it extra snugly. I added an additional border around the outside of the front of the quilt in the plaid flannel to make it feel like it matches. In order to put it all together, I laid the front face up, then pinned the backing on top of it, followed by the batting. Sew it all around leaving about a foot open on one side. This is so you can turn it right side out. Then you just hand sew up the hole you turned it through. I also tacked down the three layers in order to keep it from getting all matted when I use and wash it. I did this with just a few stitches at each of the corners of the blocks in the seams. I did it this way so you cant see the stitches from the front. After all that's done, I washed it just to get rid of excess strings and to fluff up the interfacing a little. And Viola, a brand new planket that no-one else has! It was definitely a labor of love, but I really am happy with the result of it. Although, I probably won't be trying to make another one any time soon :)