Baby Blocks: New Kids on the Block

After I got involved with Stephen, I found myself kicked out of the "We're young, single and ready to mingle" stage of life that I had been enjoying with all my college friends and into the "We're all married and having babies" one.  Now don't get me wrong, I love all the new friends I met through Stephen - they are totally fun and great great people, but there wasn't really any transitional "We're all getting married and being each others' bridesmaids" time with them.  This is what happens when you marry someone 5 years older than you I guess. Now I find myself sitting around thinking "Am I supposed to be having babies now?"  Ok, I don't really do that (much), and this post is kind of getting away with me. The point is this: I have friends with babies now!! 

Babies are great because they are new, and they are cute, and they get to have lots of cute things with bright colors, and that happens to be my very favorite kind of thing to make!  Since cute little things with bright colors don't really fit in that well in our grown up house, I really like having babies to sew for.  So far I've got primarily little girls to craft for, which is also great because I like pink and purple the best!

On to the project.  I've been making baby blocks!  These are soft stuffed cubes with the babies' names on them with rattles inside!  I made a set for new baby Karis, and soon to be new baby Vivienne!

I really like projects that use small pieces of extra fabric, and I really enjoyed making something personalized for these two who might not have the easiest time finding their name on the racks of personalized pens at Walmart.  Did I also mention that I like bright colors?

While making these blocks I started thinking about baby name that only have straight lines.  No Melissa's or Jessica's for me.  Those curves are tricky to sew over!!  I sewed all the letters K through I on the Karis blocks before it occured to me "hey, I have some fabric glue, why don't I just glue the letters down before I sew them."  Duh -  that was a good idea, the S ended up going a lot more smoothly than I thought it would.  The Vivi letters were extra easy - glue and all straight lines!  YES!!  Good name choice Ken and Jami!!!

Karis got little ribbon taggies on her blocks, but I totally forgot to put them on Vivi's until it was too late.  Bummer, because I also happen to love taggies, and have had a weird obsession to put my finger in any loop of fabric I can find.  I still do it now, and I can't help myself.  One day I was walking to class, and when I got there I found that my finger had made its way into the tag in the sweater I was carrying in my purse.  I'm such a weirdo.

It was nearly impossible for me to give these wonderful, new, "virgin" tags away...

Both sets of blocks have rattles inside, so they make a delightfully annoying sound when shaken!  You're welcome new parents!!  Finding a container to make those little suckers was harder than I thought!  I ended up finding some little screw top containers at the container store for the Karis blocks. I decided to use bee-bees for the rattly part of the rattle, but then I got really paranoid about giving a baby something filled with bee-bees.  I guess I got newborns confused with puppies and thought Karis would rip the blocks to shreds or something...  Anyways, I ended up super gluing the little boxes shut, and then gluing another strip of fabric around the opening, just in case.  

 

Baby proof???

I couldn't make it to the container store when I made the Vivi blocks, so I had to run around Waco looking for something that could work. My new containers ended up working really well! Here is where I make up for forgetting the ribbons on this set.  Vivi's baby blocks have BABY BLOCKS INSIDE!!!

Not as exciting as I made it out to be...

So Vivi, on those nights when you are longing for a taggie to put your little finger in, just be comforted by the fact that your blocks are cute on the inside too.