Homemade Birthday Gifts

We have had a few kiddo birthday parties to attend lately... rather than buying toys or clothes (which are great too in their own way) I've made gifts for the birthday boy/girl.

The inspiration came from these blogs - The Long Thread, Sew Like My Mom and Make It and Love It -all of these I originally found on Pinterest.

My daughter's friend Aubrey turned three recently and I thought a special crown and superhero cape would be a great gift.  I found the tutuorials here Dress Up Crown and here Superhero Cape.

Here's my little Super Girl modeling the cape & crown

The directions were good, although I did get a bit confused with one of the steps on the cape... I ended up making it work though and was happy with how everything turned out.  It was my first experience doing applique too.  Although there was some 'gathering' around the heart I think it looks good - next time I'll try and find some heavier weight solid fabric for the exterior.  I made a slight change on the crown too - I ended up sewing on a longer strip of velcro so it would be even more adjustable.  (I didn't know how big/little the birthday girls' head was - thought this was an easy solution!

The other gifts I made were for a little boy who turned one.  I saw this idea for washcloth bibs and thought 'what an awesome idea'!  Super absorbent and easy to wash!!!  SIMPLE too!

Source:  Sew Like My Mom

Here is a link to the tutorial Washcloth Bibs  I bought an eight pack of washcloths in a gender neutral turquoise at Target for $3.49 and used three of the eight to give to the birthday boy.  (The others I'm hoping I can use to make bibs for my youngest daughter - she's set to try solids soon and I KNOW how messy that can be!)

The bibs turned out great.  I used fabrics that I already had in my stash - so fun to see these great boy prints being used since I'm usually making 'girl-friendly' items!  I hope these bibs will be a huge hit with Patrick's Mommy & Daddy too!

I also made my version of this adorable Valentine's shirt:

Source:  Make It and Love It Monster Shirt

I found an inexpensive t-shirt at WalMart for about $4 and then used scraps from my fabric stash.  Another first - I used fusible adhesive for the first time!  I initially was super confused by the vague directions but thankfully figured it out!

This turned out AWESOME!  I wish I'd found a solid colored t-shirt but the stripes are pretty fun too.  Because I didn't have a white tshirt underneath the monster applique I added white felt to make the mouth.  I also used black felt for the monster's eye balls since this shirt was for a little guy and I didn't think buttons would be very smart.  Other changes I made:  I had extra green fabric so I added a green heart on the back of the shirt.  I also used a fabric pen to handwrite the 'be mine' rather than using freezer paper and making a stencil... a little bit of laziness on my part!

I love how all these projects turned out!