Craftiness and trying to stay sane...

So, yeah, I'm still pregnant. So considering the fact that I don't have any adorable new baby pictures to show you yet, I thought you might like to see what else we've been up to in the past month. (After we caught up on very much needed sleep and recovered from Ethan's illness of course!)

First up, there was sewing for the baby. Since she is due to arrive (any minute now baby please!!) during the coldest season of the year I made her a car seat canopy. My little ones spend almost no time at all in their car seats, much preferring to be held in a baby carrier or sling of some sort. However I like to put them in the car seat while we are still inside the house and cover everything up so they stay toasty warm on the way out to the car! We don't have a garage to park our car inside in this house, so walking through the weather has to happen when we leave to go anywhere! I called up my friend who I made the car seat cover for, over a year ago, and asked her if I could borrow it, to try and remember how I made hers...

 Close up of the fabric I chose for her canopy. Isn't it adorable? I love the floating bunnies and little girls!

And now for the part I'm really proud of. I actually ended up recovering her car seat. 

I very loosely followed the tutorial found here, for recovering the car seat. The picture below shows "why" I had to recover the car seat. I honestly had no intention of ever taking on such a big project this late in my pregnancy, but when I pulled the infant car seat out of our storage room and took the cover off of it to wash it, this is how it came out of the washing machine! It was frayed and falling to pieces! I had followed the manufacturer's recommended washing instructions exactly, and this was the first time in the life of the car seat it had ever been machine washed. I called the manufacturer and they said that since the seat was just over a year old, I would have to purchase a new cover for it... So I thought what the heck, I might as well give recovering the thing a try since, if that didn't work I'd still have a few weeks to buy a new seat cover and get it shipped to me. Well, not only did it work, it turned out super cute! I am so happy with how it looks! Much prettier than that weird plastic-y orange! 

Logan also has been rather crafty lately! He got invited to a friend's birthday party recently and had no idea what he should get for the girl. I suggested that he make her a T-shirt with her favorite video game character on it. He liked that idea, so he looked online for an outline to print out to use as a stencil. He found the design below, printed it out and very carefully cut it out of freezer paper. He then ironed the freezer paper onto a blank shirt he got from the craft store. He used fabric paint to carefully fill in the stencil and once it was dry he peeled the freezer paper back to reveal his shirt. It turned out great! He friend was thrilled with such a one of a kind gift and he was really thrilled with the fact that he had made it completely by himself!

At the end of October our three big boys when to a costume dance party hosted by our local homeschool group. Ethan went as a Plastic Army Man also known as a Little Green Army Man. I made his costume out of a large green tarp, and just used a simple pajama pattern for the shirt and pants. My sewing machine hated sewing that tough plastic! I broke 7 needles in the construction of that thing. One of the needle points even flew off and hit me in the corner of the eye! I was ok, but it hurt! I ended up wearing safety goggles to finish it! I spray painted his rubber boots and a Nerf gun bright green and we painted all exposed skin green using a water soluble face and body paint.. (The face paint stained his skin and for the following three days he looked a bit like Frankenstein's monster! ) 

Matthew wanted to dress up as Frodo Baggins the Hobbit. So I made his cape, vest and the pants were part of a costume that I made for Logan last year. The ring and the clasp for his cloak I got off of Amazon. 

Logan wanted to go as a Gentlemanly Steampunk Scientist. So, thankfully, he already had a Velvet coat with lace trim I had sewn him last year for his costume, which still fit nicely. He was entirely in charge of creating the rest of his costume, which consisted of a very interesting hat with a "steam" engine, copper piping, and various other gears and contraptions. He also had a copper coated gas mask, that he made, in case it was needed while escaping dastardly villains armed with noxious gases. I really didn't help him at all with his costume this year, except for offering a bit of advice when asked. He took charge of putting the whole thing together himself!

I am currently in the middle of making Claire a "baby" doll for her birthday, which is coming up in the middle of December. I'll try to get pictures of it soon. I also have several Christmas presents in the works that I plan on showing as I get them completed or nearly so. But first, honestly I'd really like to have this baby! I've been having super strong braxton-hicks contractions for over two weeks now. They'll get almost regular, and fool me into thinking that this must be it this time. You'd think that with this being my 6th baby I'd know for sure if I was in labor or not, but no it doesn't appear that way! I keep getting my hopes up only to have things peter out, with no baby to show for hours of contractions, and no sleep either! So I am trying to find little things to occupy my mind and hands because while I do feel perfectly fine, I just really don't have much energy at all at this point and everything tires me out so easily! 

I'm feeling like a bit of an emotional mess, because of a continual lack of sleep and not knowing when this little one is finally going to arrive! The end of pregnancy hormones aren't doing much to help that situation either! I was in the kitchen this morning making myself a cup of red raspberry leaf tea, when Logan came in to say good morning to me. I started crying for no reason and when he asked my what was wrong I had no good answer. The sweet boy just hugged me and said "You're just very pregnant aren't you." Yes, son that is all it is, I am just very pregnant!

*Updated on 11-26-13 to add that I am linking up with Nicole here and be sure to check out this beautiful project of ours that was a very long time in the making! She is practically perfect in every way!