Baby Related Craft Things..

I thought I'd put it up there in the title to warn those of you who aren't interested in reading baby posts. This is a post all about babies! I've just had the midwife round to make my birth plan and now with four days to go until my due date (three if you don't count the actual date itself, two if you don't count today as we're already most of the way through...) it's all starting to feel a bit real!

I'm fairly into crafts, as some of you may know, and I also have this horrible habit of going round shops looking at baby stuff and squealing about the extortionate prices and how I could make it myself for much cheaper. It's annoying, but it's true! I've been waiting a while to do this post, as I started several projects at the same time and was waiting to finish them before I posted. Alas, I've run out of time - most of them are only partly finished but I'm going to post them anyway. So, to begin with the one thing I have actually finished:
Excuse the light reflections and general bad photography in all of these - I'm really not good at photos! We saw an alphabet mural we liked in TKMaxx for £15. While I want to make the nursery walls more interesting than plain old white (we can't paint because we're renting..), I really didn't want to pay that much so we made our own. Some of the animals are kind of obscure (M is for macaw, Q is for Quail, X is for X-ray Fish..) but all are totally legitimate and I'm quite proud of myself. It's been a loooooonng time since I've done any paper craft type stuff!

The blanket I've been working on for what seems like ages but actually isn't because I knitted a smaller one for Rhys' neice who has also just had a baby first. The one I decided to make for us is bigger and really nearly finished which is good because it's cold in our house and currently baby only has one smaller knitted blanket and a big one my grandma made him. While it's taken forever, I have been looking for more blanket patterns as the repetitive motion is quite soothing...

This is the bottom half of Captain Hook. I haven't done cross stitch since I was about fourteen, but we found some little kits in a charity shop and they were unopened and really cheap and I needed things to do, so here it is! I could've got a 101 Dalmations one, but for some unknown reason I decided it would be better to put a creepy pirate on our baby's wall...Now he just needs a head, cos you know there's nothing more relaxing for your baby than a creepy pirate, unless it's a headless creepy pirate...

The final thing I've made isn't actually for the baby so much as to stop him from stuffing his head in plastic bags and suffocating. It also represents a turning point for me, as I've realised that I need things like plastic bag stuffers in my life a lot more than I need admittedly beautiful but definitely too small Monsoon bridesmaid dresses and 4 inch heels that I sold on eBay this week. Sob. I think this is how middle age begins... :-/
This is one of those things that would have been a lot easier if I'd actually ever figured out how to use my sewing machine rather than just shoving it in a corner and continuing to hand sew everything. I also had a slight crisis with how to get small pieces of elastic through much bigger amounts of material till my mum came round and did it in two minutes with a safety pin. Sigh. If you also feel the need for a bag stuffer, I made it from the pattern here.

The last couple of things are not things I made myself, but just highlight the absolute loveliness of bloggers. Laura really unexpectedly sent me some hats that she had made for the baby, which I am ridiculously excited about because, well, look! They're super cute! (I don't know why the picture is sideways - it isn't sideways on my laptop but somehow it is when I come to put it up here!). I also got sent The Very Hungry Caterpillar yesterday in board book form, slightly less unexpectedly but still amazingly by Ellie. For people who haven't been keeping up with my Books for Baby feature, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the book that I've been lamenting our lack of from the start and so I'm really happy that he finally has it, because it's so beautiful! People in my real life keep commenting on how lovely it is that people I've never met would continually (and they are continually sending things!) send presents not just for me but also for the baby and every time they say it I have to be like 'oh yeah, we've never met'. It feels like we have. Why haven't we?! Anyway, I just wanted to put this in so they know how much they're appreciated :-)

This is probably the most photos I've ever put in one post so I'm going to stop now, but there we have it. I am currently feeling very proud of myself, and now I just have to actually finish the blanket...