Tag: kids

Sewing a Stroller

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Bebe, the soft doll the boys have, came in a stroller. It matched his pajamas and was perfectly sized for a small child to push around the house/neighborhood. What it wasn’t perfectly sized for was a four-year-old plopping his rear in it and pulling himself around the house. So it has needed some surgery for a couple years.

I had some green cotton left over from fixing up the balance bike, and I had some random remnant bin finds. I salvaged the hardware from the original seat and used what was left of the seat pieces as a pattern for the new one.

I made the main portions of the seat from the green material, then made bias binding for the edges. Actually, I first tried to reuse the original edging, but somehow it wasn’t long enough despite the fact that I used the original seat as the pattern. Go figure.

I also changed how the top attached to the stroller. It originally had a couple elastic pieces that went around the handle. I chose to do button straps instead. That way the whole thing is easily removable in case it needs to be washed. And there’s no chance of the elastic breaking down as the old ones did.

Valentine’s Gifts for the Kids 2015

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In the midst of the many other projects I have going on, I needed to make some quick valentines for the kids I babysit. I originally was trying to make a couple things, but in the end it was taking too long and I just went with the smallest, fastest ones I had.

The oldest boy had found a beaded bracelet in a shop that he liked, but his mom wasn’t about to spend over $50 for a bracelet for a kid. I thought that was a little insane as well, so I decided to go back to another craft I had abandoned a while before and make him one. But what I make for one, I have to make for all. Luckily this was around the time I was thinking of valentines anyway.

I made one for each, with their initial in the middle. That way there will be no fighting over whose was whose. I had originally planned out the pattern, but then ended up messing up early on and created the rest of the pattern as I went along. Once I had one finished, I used it as a template for the rest.

Then, because I decided to give up on the second thing I was making (which will now likely become Easter presents), I was ready to make the cards at 10:00 at night. And I had no red paper. And I had been to the craft store earlier that day to get crimper beads…Anyway, I made the colored paper again and cut out hearts. Then I cut the spots for the bracelets wrong and ended up having to tape the bracelets in place in the back. That is what I get for doing this at bedtime the night before I needed to give some of them.