Frugal Friday--Baby Gift

Two weeks ago we had a baby shower in the office for one of the girls.  As far as I know she hasn't had the baby yet, but then again he is not due until 1/13/13.  I know she is ready though. :)


Right before her shower I asked how she was going to decorate the nursery for this little boy; after two sisters.  Cowboy theme all the way.  Well I had plenty of that from when J was born and when we moved into our house.  But when I went to Target I didn't really find any of that.  

I did pick up a couple of items that I thought would be useful--diapers and onesies, but wrapping it in a box and paper just seemed too simple and plain.  I had a plan... a blanket and a couple of burp cloths to be used as wrapping.  

First, I had some cloth diapers that I bought when c was born.  J&C decided to use a diaper service, but I was thinking about how handy they are for burp cloths and I just never really got around to decorating any up for them; sorry guys.   

Second, I had some leftover shower curtain fabric that was conveniently covered in cowboy print with a nice blue background.  

Third, and most important was the super soft sheet I had rescued.  One of my softest fitted sheets had a catastrophic failure 7 or 8 years ago.  Way back then I carefully took all of the elastic off and have used a couple of pieces of it for other baby blankets for J and maybe others.  Anyway, I came across my stash of this a week earlier so it was top of mind and I knew where to find it.  

What I'm telling you is that I had everything I needed to make this happen in the same whim that I thought it all up.  

Then it was just a matter of attaching the red cowboy print to the diapers, yes as hard to imagine as it was I did have red fabric in my stash, and they were done.  

Those were wrapped around the onesies.  

Since we live in Texas and it is not exactly cold all through the winter, one of my favorite baby blankets is the one that is just two pieces of fabric sewn together (with no batting).  This is a good summer weight blanket too.  

Someone told my mom about this when she was expecting me... all those years ago.  :) The bunny blanket is still one of my favorites.  It was a favorite of S's too when he was little.  

So I combined the cowboy fabric and the sheet 

and stitched right sides together.  Flipped it around, ran the iron around the edges and top stitched the stitched edge and then again about an inch inside to keep it from sliding around.  The finished blanket was about 45 x 36 because that is how wide the cowboy fabric was.   

Finally the blanket was used as the wrapping around the package of diapers.  

Then I felt like I had a little more unique baby gift.  Momma M seemed pleased with the extras in the wrappings.  The girls wanted to know if I was going to blog about it, so naturally I said yes.  

You don't have to be a master seamstress to pull this off, and you don't even have to be able to sew a straight line (mine were certainly not perfect), but you do have to be willing to think outside the box.