Still Being Crafty: Freezer Paper Stenciled Onesies and Teacher Gifts - July 25, 2011

I don't entirely know how I found the time to do the following projects, but I did. School starts back up next week (yup, early, and yup, HOORAY) so I should have even more time for both crafting and actual money-making ventures (I'm a copyeditor/proofreader/writer and I'm always looking for more clients, plus I have my pinback button/jewelry/accessory business - online and off.) but for now, I squeak it in when I can.

So. First up is my next freezer-paper stencil project. I had so much fun making my daughter her T-shirts (which are too big for her right now, oops) and her new school bag that I kind of invented a reason to continue making things. A friend of mine is due soon with her second baby - her first boy - and I missed her shower, so I decided I'd make her a onesie set.

When I first started out, I figured I'd buy the basic white Gerber onesies - I even had all sorts of coupons and deals so they'd be very cheap. Yeah, they're cheap all right - they're great for when you need to just stick your baby in something before they poop/pee/yak all over it, but they're not so great for actually making into something crafty that will last. I didn't want to put a lot of work into a gift only to have it fall apart in the wash. So I went on a quest, and eventually I bought a four-pack of Carter's onesies at the Carter's store. These are thick and soft and when I combined a coupon, a sale, and a gift certificate (and a bunch of stuff for my own kid in the same purchase, including clearance pajamas for $2 and a clearance tutu for about $1.50, but I digress...), they were very reasonably priced.

And here's the final product (with credit to UselessCrafts.com for these particular designs):

Three freezer-paper-stenciled Carter's onesies. Awwww.

The squirrel onesie came out the best - in fact, I made a mistake with it and it wound up making it look even better:

Click on it to make it bigger and you'll see that the eye and mouth have the tiniest touch of color to them. Mistake! Error! Serendipity! But adorable.

I wish the purple guitar popped a bit better on the green onesie. I am debating adding a bit of highlight in white or gold to it or adding gold flecks all over...but I'm afraid if I mess with it I'll make it look weird. So for now it remains as is. In person it shows up better than in the picture, I promise. I'm super excited to give them to her, and I kind of want to make 100 more. In fact, I went and bought a few more paint colors AND some stuff that you can mix with acrylic paint to make that a washable fabric paint. I'm trying to figure out what to do next - probably I'll wait until I can find some thrift-store shirts/bags to paint.

And my other project was teacher gifts for the three people who went out of their way for my daughter this summer at the co-working/kid-watching space. It's called Bean, thus the bad pun on the label...

I got the basic label from the blog Nothing but Country (by way of Google) and then edited it in Photoshop. If you click through, you'll see that she threaded her ribbon through the label - which I love. I just couldn't quite manage that bit. Anyway, the mug is from Ikea (and it has an adorable firework/flower sort of pattern on it) and it's filled with a Starbucks gift card and lifesavers, har har har, pun pun pun. The cellophane bags were from Michaels (and I had coupons galore there, of course) and the ribbon is from the Target dollar spot (you don't get much at all, but it was enough for this project). I made three of these and I'm, again, super excited to deliver them to the recipients this week, our last week of summer vacation.

Happy crafting!


Link Parties: