Car Seat Cover

Okay, time for another tutorial. Have you seen those really cute car seat blanket/tent/canopy/whatever you want to call them? I know I have, now I don't have a little one in a baby car seat right now but I have plenty of friends with baby showers coming up. So i googled and searched and I think I pretty much every tutorial there was for these things. I took all the best of those tutorials and combined them into one that I liked best. At the end I will tell you what I would change for the next time around.


Materials"
2 yards coordinating fabric
Sew-on or Iron-on Velcro
Wonder Under
Other coordinating fabrics
Thread
Sewing Machine
Iron

Okay here we go... I wanted to put an applique on the front of my cover, if you don't skip these steps. I cut out flowers on my cricut... To cut Wonder Under on the cricut place the paper upside down on your mat to cut (this will only work with shapes- letters will be backwards if you do this).

Iron on your flowers, etc. Put your ribbon under the flowers. Then stitch around your flowers and ribbon stems.

Cut your fabric- I cut mine to 36" by 40". I really didn't want the cover to drag on the floor once it was finished. That being said I'm not sure all car seats are the same size so lay your fabric on top of yours and see where you're at size wise. I cut them at the same time so they would line up. Save your scraps- these will be our straps.

If you want your corners rounded, put a bowl down on the edge and cut around.

Then put both right sides together and stitch around the edges, leaving a small opening to use when you turn your fabric right side out. Turn your fabric right side out and then iron all your edges. Iron the space you left open to match your other edges, then top stitch around the entire cover.

Remember your scraps we saved, now its time to use the. Cut four 4" by 7" pieces- these will be your straps. I really need to recover my ironing board the cover is hideous- hilarious but gross.
Lay your pieces right sides together and then stitch around the edges once again leaving a space to turn them right side out. After that's done, I trimmed a little of the corners off to make smoother corners. Then turn them right side out and iron them flat then top stitch.
Then sew on your Velcro.
Then lay out your cover and decide where to put your straps. I fold my blanket in half then in half again to see where the middle of my blanket was then space from there. Then just stitch the straps two or three times on the machine and your all done. Now clip your loose threads and enjoy!

UPDATE: A few answers to some questions: Sewing around the flowers takes more patience than practice- although I have done a lot of applique in the past year. Just take it nice and slow and you will be just fine. The plus about this kind of applique is that if you wash the cover or just use it the flowers will fray a little covering up any mistakes you have made.

My friend I gave the cover to, has a wider car seat handle than the one I have, so you may want to add a couple of inches to the straps.

You can make your cover reversible by making an extra set of straps and repeating the process on the other side.

I'm linking to:

Keeping It Simple, DIY Showoff, Twice Remembered, Making the World Cuter, The Girl Creative, Skip to My Lou, Persimmon Perch, Tip Junkie, Somewhat Simple, Life as Lori Bloggeritaville

Birthday Shirt

I needed a quick thank you gift for a nice family that is letting my husband crash on their couch this weekend while he interviews for a program for next year. (If you are reading this nice family because my husband is shamelessly promoting my blog- then thank you for letting him stay with you.) My husband told me they had a daughter and she was 22 mo- no other details- he's a guy after all... I'm impressed he remembered she was 22 months. So I thought I would make her a birthday shirt that's been in my head for a while now. I think my favorite part is the ribbon flame. Now I just have to wait until it's lil A's birthday to make another one- and that birthday can take its own sweet time- she's growing up too fast.

P.S. Today is the last day to enter our giveaway.

Kid Friendly Door Hanging

I'm back with a new tutorial... and have one in the que for tomorrow. Today's tutorial is a kid friendly door hanging. As I was working on my banner (tomorrow's tut) my 2 yr old "ruined" one of my circles- (can you see the black smudges?) well I hate for anything to go to waste so we decided to turn it into her craft.First I used my handy cricut to cut out the circles for the banner. Then I inked the edges of the white circles with green ink.

I had my machine out already so I quickly stitched around the white circle instead of using a glue stick. I like how paper looks after sewing.

Then we inked lil A's hand and she placed (smacked) it down onto the paper. Then she helped me stamp the word "lucky" above her hand.

Then we of course washed her hand.

Proud crafter... I took a scrap length of ribbon and looped it, then stitched in to the card.

Now lil A has her own decoration for her room.

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