Two Must Have Sewing Tutorials

I have to share these two sewing tutorials that I've found and used. They are must haves for sewing mamas with small frys. Just starting out at sewing? No worries, they are super easy to follow and don't require any advanced sewing skills.

The first tutorial is perfect for the season: flannel PJ pants! I've already made two pair for my kiddo and a pair for my nephew. My sister wanted our kids to have matching PJs for Christmas Eve, so this was the most economical solution I could find and paired them up with some Christmas Tshirts from Old Navy. I added a bow on the front since my husband was a little weirded out that the first pair didn't have a front and back.

The second tutorial is perfect for my girlie-girl. It's rare to see my daughter not carrying around a baby doll or purse, and I was tired of watching her drag around silly gift bags or reusable shopping bags as her purse. I found this super cute tutorial on how to make a purse from old jeans. The blogger uses her daughters old embellished jeans to create an adorable purse. I didn't have any old jeans of my daughters that needed to be up-cycled (and lets face it, she's only now wearing 18 months; that would be one tiny purse), so I used some pieces of my own old jeans that I had cut off and just sewed on a purple heart. If I use this tutorial again (who am I kidding; WHEN I use this again), I will avoid using the original cuff; it was too hard to sew over.

Mini Ring Sling

I was so excited when I saw these super cute mini Beco's for little girls to carry their baby dolls in. I wanted to get one for my daughter and was immediately convinced that it was going to be one of her Christmas presents. But as I thought about it, I had a few concerns. First of all, would it be small enough for her? My daughter is super tiny, only in the 4th percentile for height and 2nd for weight. Then there was the whole issue of spending almost $30 for something that I might be able to make myself. While a soft-structured carrier might be a little above my skill level, I knew I could come up with something that would produce similar results.

After thinking on it awhile, I decided to make her a mini ring-sling. I had made a few regular ring slings using a tutorial on the Maya Wrap website that appears to no longer exist, so a mini ring sling should be pretty simple, right? I first had to figure out what to use as the rings. I would typically use rings purchased from SlingRings.com, but since this ring sling would be much smaller and carry plastic or fabric baby dolls, I didn't really think anything that fancy was necessary. So I found some large D-rings at Hobby Lobby and used those. I bought a yard of cute fabric and cut it in half so it was approximately 18"x45". I hemmed the long edges and secured the D-rings on one end. I looped the free end through the D-rings, tried it on my somewhat unwilling model, and found that it fit!



Mini Ring Sling!



A fabric that is "reversible" or cute on both sides might work better, but lets be honest folks, this is for my 20 month old. She doesn't mind! After making sure it fit, I hemmed the loose end and hid it so she would forget about it. It's now wrapped and waiting to be put under the tree. Yay for simple, inexpensive Christmas gifts!