sewing - I'm Topsy Turvy

Undercover Mama review & giveaway

March 16, 2012 46 Comments

A few weeks ago I saw the most brilliant invention for nursing mothers. Undercover Mama makes undershirts for nursing mothers that attaches right to your nursing bra! BRILLIANT! I emailed them immediately asking if I could review their top and do a giveaway! This top is AMAZING! I’ve been wearing it for the past week and it’s wonderful!

Staying modest in the front when nursing isn’t hard, the baby is covering most of it! But keeping the side and back modest is much harder. Skin and underwear is exposed, and if your like me you often forget just HOW much is showing back there! Looking at the pictures and seeing how much of the undershirt is showing I’m embarrassed I’ve been letting that much of myself show before now! Even with a nursing cover your sides and back are still exposed.

I’ve never liked nursing tops. They always LOOK like nursing tops. But with this undershirt you can wear your normal (more fashionable) tops and stay modest! I have to say it is the perfect undershirt: fitted, but not too tight. It doesn’t feel like your wearing a girdle, and it’s not too thick yet still slightly snug. And it’s LONG, very long, so it’s a great layering piece as well! I am going to buy a few more, AND they are a great gift for any soon to be nursing mothers.

There are two different attachment styles so it will work with whichever kind of clip your nursing bra uses. Undercover Mama is also giving away one top to one of you! If your nursing, soon to be nursing or know someone in either category you’ll want to win this.

You can enter to win twice
once for liking their facebook page and another chance for following them on twitter! Just leave a comment for both!

The winner will be announced next Friday, March 23rd

Filed Under: baby, clothes, giveaway, me, review

Baby Boy’s Birth Annoucements

January 22, 2012 5 Comments

I created and mailed Baby Boy’s birth announcements at the same time as our Family Christmas cards. I figured they were going to the same people might as well save on stamps! But with as much time as both projects took I probably would have been better off doing one of the other. But I did get everything mailed by the 23rd so I BARELY made it before Christmas!

I created a booklet of sorts for his birth announcements, with the edges getting longer with each page so I could put his information on the sides. There were just TOO many good pictures to leave it to just a two dimensional announcement! I used pictures from my maternity photoshoot, the birth pictures Chelsea took as well as the birth story from Kim, his newborn pictures and finally his blessing pictures!

I used photoshop to create the booklets and printed them on brochure paper. Brochure paper is great, because it’s thinner than photo paper AND you can print on both sides. I created the booklets so I could print one complete book on a single 8.5 x 11 page. Notice I left 3/4″ on each side of the pages (outside edges) for the binding. Here are the layouts:

front: page 1, page 8 back: page 7, page 2
page 3, page 6 page 5, page 4

Then I cut out the pages, and used my sewing machine to “bind” the booklets together (use your sewing machine on the longest stitch for this to work best)! Voila!

Here is the full book layed out like you would see it if you flipped through it!

Cover

Pages 2 and 3

Pages 4 and 5

Pages 6 and 7

BackI am SO happy with them! Thanks again to Kim Olandini Photography and Chelsea Peterson Photography!

Pin It

Filed Under: baby, crafts, family, paper, photoshop, pictures, sewing, thread

Oversized Ruffled headband

January 19, 2012 6 Comments

I made this headband last year for So you think your crafty, it was party of my 7 red items for red week (AKA the week I got voted off). But with the craziness of morning sickness that followed for the few months after that I actually haven’t posted MOST of the crafts I made for the competition! Never too late, right? (some of the ones I DID post were my ruffled quilted stockings and tree skirt, my 6 pillow refashions, my homemade aqua-sand, my ruffled camera strap and my boot-cut to skinny jeans refashion)

I honestly love how this turned out, but of course it matches my faux hawk and hair color really well!!! But even on my daughter (without “spiky” hair it still looks good, but it’s definitely a statement of sorts. Personally I like it big, statements are a GOOD thing in my book as long as it involves being mostly dressed…

This was so long ago I don’t remember my measurements exactly, but I eyeballed it anyway. This actually used to be a blue tablecloth that I dyed red (I love rit dye). I cut the first piece out at about 6 inches wide and 30 so inches long… I wanted a pretty rough, thick look so instead of serging the edges I used a long zig zag to add to the texture. Then ran it through my sewing machine with my ruffler foot attached.

I also cut some tulle at about 5 inches wide and about half the length, and ruffled that too, although not as much so they are about the same length ruffled. Finally I cut one last piece about 4 inches wide and 10 inches long also heavily ruffled. Notice I didn’t worry about ruffling it in the center all the way down, I wanted this to have off center parts where the fabric stuck out farther than others.

Layer all three together and I ran it through my sewing machine one last time down the center to join the layers!

Then I hand sewed it onto a comfortable headband! If you make your own my suggestion would be to put the blank headband on, then play with where you want to have it. Mark the headband with something, take it off and sew your ruffle into place! Wear and enjoy!!!