My Twins

One thing I wish I did for my two girls is hired a professional photographer for newborn photos. When my oldest daughter was born, I had just purchased an SLR and thought that I could take the pictures myself.  Looking back at the photos, they are no where near professional.  With my twins I decided to hire a newborn photographer. A professional photographer doesn't just have a fancy camera and lots of props and backdrops, they have patience and skill in posing the babies.  I hired Kymberley Day Photography and I couldn't be happier with the results.  She was so patient and skilled in posing the babies.  She took her time on every shot, making sure each pose was perfect, down to the fingers! I loved all the props she had and the care she took into editing each picture.  Our boys peed everywhere but she managed to photoshop all the wet spots out of the photo.  She wasn't even fazed by the mess.

Here are some of my pictures.  They may look effortless but there was a lot of work and care put into getting each and every shot.

Be sure to check out her site if you are looking for newborn photography in the Orange County area. Remember that your babies will only be small for such a short period of time so savor every moment.

No One Puts Baby In the Corner (DIY Onesie Tutorial)

Any Dirty Dancing fans out there?  If you've never seen Dirty Dancing then you probably won't understand this onesie.  It's a line that Johnny (Patrick Swayze) says to Baby before he takes her to dance.

I thought it would be funny to put this quote onto a onesie for my daughter.  There are lots of tutorials on the web where you can use freezer paper to iron on a template and then paint over it.  I didn't have any freezer paper so decided to try using contact paper instead.  For those of you who aren't familiar with contact paper, it's like a big vinyl sticker.  I used my Cricut cut to cut the words and stuck the template onto the prewashed onesie.

Another thing I didn't have was fabric paint.  I googled to try to find if I could use acrylic paint instead of fabric paint, but most websites didn't have an answer, so I decided to try it anyways.  So can you use acrylic paint as a substitute for fabric paint?  Yes!  It worked out for my project.  You want acrylic paint that is not too runny or else it will seep underneath your fabric.

Alexis in her new onesie.

Cut out words using cricut or any die cutting machine.

Remove backing from contact paper.  Remember to save off the insides of the "e", "o", "b" etc.

Stick contact paper onto onesie.  Rub the sticker on securely, especially on the edges.

Use fabric or acylic paint to paint on the letters.  Make sure your paint is not too runny.

I actually wanted the first word to be pink and the rest of the words to be brown, but brown was hard to work with so I made everything pink.  Since the onesie is white, using a lighter color was easier because you don't need to get full coverage.  You could miss some spots and no one would notice.

Pulling the contact paper off.  Yay! Clean lines.

Be sure to iron on the paint to set it.  

Elephant Doll

I was watching Dear Genevieve and she was going to decorate a nursery with the cutest elephant doll.  It didn't look that difficult to make, so with some quick googling I found some instructions on how to make an elephant stuffed animal.

Pattern printed out in 4 sheets.  The only program I could print out multi sheets like this was new Microsoft Paint on Windows 7.  Who knew Paint could do something that Photoshop could not do easily.

Cut pattern on ugly pillow case that my mom purchased on clearnace.  I had to cut the elephand twice, the first time I just put two layers together.  But then I realized the stripes wouldn't line up, so i positioned the elephant again and recut.

Underbody was easier to cut if folded in half.

I did do this wrong because this was suppose to be two pieces and stuffed from the belly.  I stuffed it from the leg, which made it very difficult.

Sew right sides together.

All sewn together.  Apologies for the blurry picture.

Hungry elephant (unstuffed)

Fully stuffed

Looking for more food.

Stripes line up!  It was well worth it recutting the fabric.

Tail Attached.