DIY Tutu

Bailey is a girl. SAY WHAAAAT?!?!?! I know. Sometimes I forget, too.

Ok, ok-- I don't FORGET, per say. I just refuse to think of her as a GIRL first. She is BAILEY first. She is my daughter. She is adventurous. She is always on the go. She is an intense listener. She is a MILLION things just as important as her being a GIRL. I'm a firm believer we put SO MUCH pressure and just SHIT on gender. Girls like Barbies and pink and boys like blue and GI Joe and GOD FORBID a boy want a pink doll or a girl like trucks. Well, I say SCREW THAT. I want Bailey to like trucks. And dinosaurs.

 

True story: I bought these at a garage sale and I almost got into a fist fight with the lady selling them because she insisted they are BOY pj's and clearly I had a GIRL (Bailey was with me) and I needed to go down the street to one of their neighbors who was also having a garage sale because they had girls. I almost lost it. THEY ARE DINOSAUR PJ's. WHY DO BOYS HAVE 100% OWNERSHIP ON DINO?!?!?! Oh, and- get off me, woman. I'll dress my kid in whatever I want til she's old enough to fight me on it.

 

I digress. Anyway- I HATE all the princess shit for girls. HATE it. I 100% refuse to buy Bailey anything with the word princess on it. GIRL IS NOT A PRINCESS. Generally, I don't even buy her shit with pink on it. She's a PERSON, not just a GIRL.

 

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut-- she IS a girl. I also put hairbow's and dresses on her. Contradiction, party of 1, right here. I know. I admit it. I'm all sorts of conflicted and confused. I'm OK with it.

 

So, when it came time to think about what she would wear for her 1-year pictures I knew I wanted her to do a tutu for the cake smash pictures. SO CUTE!!! But, I also knew I didn't want it to be pink and I knew I didn't want it to cost like $50 (legit-- some BABY tutu's are sold for that much. Whaaaaaaaat????). So, I set out on yet another DIY project. Project tutu.

 

Step 1: Learn how the F to make a tutu. Research online. I used this and this as my main tutorials.

 

Step 2: Gather materials.

I got 1 yard of purple (See! Not pink!!) tulle for $.97. According to this site you'd need about 2 yards of tulle for a kids tutu, so I figured I'd start with 1 yard for a baby's tutu and get more if needed. I also got a pack of elastic. I had no idea what I was doing here. It was $.97, too. Wal-Mart (booo!!) for the win. I just picked one of the 5 options. Luckily, it worked.


Step 3: Wrap elastic around B's waist to see how much I'd need, cut desired length, and then sew the ends closed. I'm not a sewer, but this was easy.  

 

 

 

Step 4: Cut tulle into strips. See the tutorials for MUCH better explanations, but basically I measured out about 12 inches for length and then did about 1 inch wide strips.

Cutting all this tulle was a bitch and took forever and I was about as not-perfectionist as they come. My strips were SOOOOO not even or pretty. I went for speed not accuracy. Luckily, I don't really think it matters much.

 

 

Step 5: Tie all the strips onto the waistband.

I used an empty gallon of milk (yes, it is filled with green liquid... I let Bailey play with it, she LOVES it! It's just water with a squirt of green finger paint mixed in.) as a frame. It worked great! To tie the strips, I folded them in half and then did a sorta U-shaped fold over and pull through method. Again, see the tutorials for a MUCH better description. And then I just kept tying and tying. I used the entire yard and I think it was the perfect amount. I had none left over, but don't think I need any more. Done!

 

Yes, I used my shoes to give some size perspective.

 

 

The whole project took about 2 hours. I did it all during one of B's naps. Not too bad!  

 

So, how'd the final product look on her?

No, she is not playing with pills. I have rice and popcorn kernels in them as a shaker toy. Don't call DCFS.

 

 

 

I'm gonna have to straighten it back out, as she was playing with the material while it was on her like crazy. Hopefully it'll work for the shoot. She won't be crawling around or anything for the shoot, so it just has to look pretty from the sitting position.

 

 

Done! Look at me. Getting all crafty. Who knew?!?!?

DIY Crib Rail Guards

A few weeks ago Bailey started doing this super cute thing where she learned she could stand up in the crib. Not a big deal, right? I mean, she's not trying to jump over or anything. Buuuut, if you know Bailey you know she pretty much has to at least try to put everything in her mouth. And, I mean everything. Dog. Sand. Rocks. Mulch. String. Toys. Books. Table ends. Screen door. Everything.

Only way to keep mulch out her mouth? Paci in her mouth.

So, it should have come as no surprise to me when she started standing in her crib that she would also start to try to put the rails of her crib in her mouth. OBVIOUSLY, Meagan. Duh. Well, girl can't exactly get the entire crib in her mouth, but she can bite on the side rails pretty good. Like, left teeth marks in the wood good. Now, I'm not a huge no-scratches-on-the-furniture-look-don't-touch kinda person. Hello. I dent the shit outta our stuff all the time. I can't very well hold B to a higher standard, right? But, I also would like to avoid bite marks in the wood, if possible, especially as her crib is designed to turn into a toddler and then regular bed head/foot board. PLUUUUS, there's the whole Bailey injesting wood and/or paint thing that kinda rubs me wrong.

Phew. That was a lotta lead up to say, I went on the search for something to protect the crib rails. It goes without saying that I wanted to something cheap, right? I am me, after all. Well, that was a big no-go. Pre-made guards were minimum $20 a SIDE. Hello. Cribs have 3 sides you'd want to protect (the back side is still outta the munchkins reach). That's $60 to prevent teeth marks. No way.

So, I went on a DIY mission. I googled and YouTubed and Pinterested for hours. I decided to combine many tutorials I found, using this one as the main inspiration.

Next, it was time to get the materials. First stop, Michaels. Whoops. No go. Who knew Michaels's didn't sell fabric? Clearly not me. Perhaps now is a good time to mention I'm not the most crafty of people and this sorta DIY stuff does NOT come naturally to me. Anyway- I digress. Back to getting the supplies. Onto Hobby Lobby, which I did not want to resort to after the whole birth control nonsense, but desperate times call for Hobby Lobby apparently. They were NO help. They wouldn't cut 3 separate pieces for me and that's what I had measured and planned out and then they wouldn't help me figure out what that would be in 1 big piece and then they practically laughed in my face when I didn't know how to convert inches to yards. FINALLY when I knew how much I needed, they didn't even have that much in stock in yellow fleece. OF COURSE NOT.

STRIKE OUT.

I was seriously just gonna give up. Those are the only 2 craft stores in my town. But, I decided I had to make a trip out of town anyway and mine as well try JoAnn's Fabrics while I was there. SUCCESS! They were so nice and helpful and OMG SO CHEAP. I got all the fleece I needed (UGH! I'm a terrible blogger and don't remember how much in measurement it was, but I had PLENTY of left overs so it wouldn't help any way. Basically, I measured the length of each side I wanted to cover and then got it 20 inches long to wrap around the rail.) and it was on sale. I got the fleece I needed for $6! I also stopped by a Dollar Tree and got 3 pool noodles for $1/each.

Ok, supplies gathered. Now, onto construction. Ok, ok-- 2 weeks later, on to construction.

First, I cut the pool noodle length wise so I could put it onto the top of the rail. I quickly learned I wasted $2 as the 2 sides of my crib had a lip that the front didn't and were too wide for the noodle to work. Oh well. The noodle worked on the front perfectly!

Then, it was time to cut the fabric. I wish I had some elegant way to say I did this. I don't. I simply laid it on the side of the crib, drapped it over about as long as I thought I'd need to make the ties and then cuuuuuut. It wasn't straight. It wasn't pretty. But, it ended up working great and not mattering.

After I got the piece I needed cut, I draped it over the side and then started cutting slits for each tie. The other online tutorials are much more descriptive and have better pics, I know. I told you I'm not a craft DIY-er. But, I stuck with it and cut all the slits and tied all the ties and, if I do say so myself, the final product looked great!

I finished the 2 shorter sides and viola! DONE! The actual construction part took me about 40 minutes and that was with a few pauses to take fleece away from Bailey or to chase her around. Not bad! And, definitey WAAAAY cheaper than buying it!

I had read just the fleece taste would stop the baby from biting the sides. Yeaaaah. No dice. Apparently Bailey loves fleece. So, she still goes to town on it, but it's stayed put for now and no more teeth marks! DIY Crib Guard Rails for $9... with 2 extra pool noodles and lots of left over fleece. SUCCESS!!