NICU hats 2011

Here they are!

I almost punted the tradition this year because of the move, but decided about a week ago that I didn't want to, and kicked it into high gear to finish. For those of you who don't know, I crochet 12 preemie hats for NICU every year in honor of the 12 days my kids spent in NICU (10 for Hazel, 2 for Jono). In the past, Hazel and I have taken the hats to her NICU at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, on the anniversary of her discharge and coming home (June 22). This year we are late because of the move, and need to find a new NICU! I assume NOLA has one, so I just need to look it up.

This year's patterns included some newsboy caps,

some football beanies,

some butterfly beanies (my current favorite hat to whip for girls--so easy and adorable!)

and some bear beanies, because every baby looks cute with bear ears. ;)

Thanks for looking!

ABC bean bags

I participated in a swap for 5" "I-spy" fabric squares right before we moved. Yesterday, I got around to doing something with those squares. Bean bags!

Each bean bag has a picture on it from a different letter of the alphabet. The majority of them have a different picture from the same letter on the back. Like, the Ants have Airplanes on the reverse, and Karate has Kangaroos. I just chose my favorite side for the picture. Easy peasy project--the squares were already cut, so I just serged three sides, filled with lentils and then serged them closed. The kids have been having fun with them. They like to toss them around, of course, but they also like discovering the different pictures, and (sometimes) telling me what letter they go with.

arts & crafts storage

I had been wanting to give my kids access to a greater variety of art supplies. I had been keeping everything but crayons in a "no kids allowed" cabinet, requiring them to ask permission. I thought they were mature enough to handle access to more, though, so we're trying this. I put a small cafe curtain rod and hung some tin pails from the Target $1 Spot.

They hold watercolors, markers, scissors, glue sticks, and colored pencils. I want to get something smaller for crayons than the yellow tote since it's only half full. We need as much table space as week can get with three little occupants.

Hopefully by the time Halloween is over and my little tin pails from Target become out of season, I can convince someone who lives near an Ikea to pick me up some of these.

weekend crafting

I did some decorating work in the master over the long weekend and Tropical Storm Lee-enforced indoor hours. I finally sewed the pillowcases for my bed with the fabric I bought forever ago. And I did my first pinterest inspired project--Mr & Mrs letters for above the bed. I started with the big gold letters from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them. Turns out the cream is a little too similar to my wall color, which is apparently not as dark as I thought it was when I chose paint colors. Good enough, though. I'm not repainting them.