nursery update

So, remember those birds? And all that frustration? Yeah, it never really ended. I made all the felt birds, but then started to assemble the branches into a mobile and it ended up just looking lame. Also, it was really hard to screw the little screws into the branches, so I could do one, maybe two at a time before I had sore fingers and gave up for the day.
Several times throughout the process I said "This looks stupid. I'm not wasting any more time on it." But then I'd always think "Nah, it probably only looks stupid compared to the platonic ideal I have created in my head. The one that doesn't actually exist, that I can't even envision, but is far superior to the one that does exist here in the workshop."
So yeah, several times I gave up on the project. Which is why it's just now (sort of) finished. I say sort of because I think it needs more birds. Maybe just one more bird. And maybe more flowers. I like the flowers, which is surprising because I thought maybe they'd look stupid but I had them laying around and thought I'd see how it worked out. Anyway, it's hard to photograph, but I think you can get the idea.
I made the flowers on the wall, too. I might make another post showing the process of creating that... I'm proud of the way it came out, and it was way less frustrating than these silly birds.

last-minute gifts

A couple weeks ago I had a moment of panic: friends were throwing a dual baby shower for myself and another friend, and I'd completely spaced on getting my friend a shower gift! This shows you just how self-absorbed I've been lately. But yeah, I have two weeks left (more or less) of being pregnant, and I haven't had much room left in my brain for thinking of anything else.
So yeah.
I had this shower coming up, actually I thought it was the very next day, and I hadn't purchased a gift. I drove into Morro Bay thinking that there were a couple baby shops in town, and I could find some special, adorable baby boy outfit. And I did. Only, it was $75, and the idea of spending that much on something that will be worn once (probably) made me ill. But they did have some cute handmade "snuggly" type toys. I guess babies like little pieces of fabric, like blankies only smaller, that they can carry around, and that have lots of textures and colors and shapes to mess with. Personally, I don't really get it, but apparently they're all the rage in the baby world. I mean, I sort of get it... it's something they can grab and wave around and it makes noise and feels interesting and they can suck on it or what not. So I saw these things and thought "I could make that!" So I rushed home and I did.
Here it is, nearly complete.

The back side was the same polkadot fabric, with the colors reversed. So, after pinning everything down, I sewed the right sides together, flipped it right-side out and HOORAY... all the little pieces of ribbon and stuff stuck out the sides like spikes. In addition to the ribbons, the big blue triangle stuck out and it was filled with a piece of plastic bag so it crinkled. And there was a velcro strap too, so you could attach it to things. Or just play with the velcro. Also, the elephant ended up with a flappy ear out of the polkadot fabric.
So anyway, the really funny thing about this was that the shower turned out to be the FOLLOWING week, so I didn't need to rush at all. Sigh. And that's good because the gift was pretty lame on its own and I was happily able to go to San Luis Obispo and purchase some Burt's Bees baby lotions which are the bomb. And made me look like less of a slacker.