Make Your Own Baby Mei Tai

I had a friend of mine show me this awesome blog!

http://www.hobomama.com/2009/02/babywearing-heavy-baby-mei-tai.html

I've been looking for an easier way to carry Scout, especially when I'm out mowing the lawn or walking around where I don't need the stroller. I tried putting him on my back with the little carrier we have now but it's really uncomfortable and it's not made for that. So the link ahead actually showed me an easy way of how to make my own Mei Tai! Plus it also helped that my friend simplified the pattern for me since the one the lady has in this blog is a little confusing for me. Especially after looking at all her pictures. They're all of professionally made Mei Tai's so it was touch to see what she was talking about.

It requires 2 yards of fleece. Fleece is going to be your best best if you do not want to use a sewing machine. If you are good at sewing and would like to make yours a little more unique then I believe any material could work, I would just double check how long the material will hold up. I used Fleece for my first one and it's been working great!

This photo above shows the different lengths, now you can be flexible with these measurements. This can be made specifically for you and your comfort. The next one I make I'm going to make the bottom ties a little wider because with fleece it curls up and makes them a little too thin and it cuts into me a little bit. Also I'm going to add padding to the shoulders right now it's not cutting into me but I could see happening after a while. The middle is long so you'll have to roll it up if your baby is still small.

You'll see I used chalk to mark all of the lines to creat the outline. This was good because I got to see what on the outline needed to be changed.


After cutting out all the edges, I was left with my Mei Tai...but I thought this looked a little plain so...

I took an old receiving blanket that my little Guy can't use anymore. I pinned it around the edges of the already cut fleece and sewed them together along the edges.

Here is my finished Mei Tai! Me and my little guy in the front position.

Me and my little guy in the back position! It's taking him a little while to get used to it but I know I sure love it! It was so much easier and less pain to carry him around like that. The other benefit was if I was breastfeeding I could do this without having to stop what I'm doing. I'm excited to make these now as baby gifts for my friends!

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• Baby Carriers (momfriendly.wordpress.com)

Made My Own Hair Clip

I never thought I was talented enough to really make my own hair clip but one thing lead to another and before I knew it I had a new hair clip that wasn't all that shabby looking.

I had bought some hair clips last year and they had some cheesey looking flowers on them but they had these pretty feathers. I started cutting the flower off and separating the feathers. I reused the clip that the flowers came on as my "new" clip. The feathers from the flower clip were a little small so I found some other feathers from a halloween mask I bought at the dollar store a long time ago.

After pulling and getting all the feathers I wanted I lined them up how I wanted to have the hair clip and I superglued them to a small fabric on top of the clip.

Once that was done I was able to wear it in my hair for the entire day. It held up strong and I didn't have to adjust anything or reglue it.


This was so easy I'm thinking I might just have to start making my own more often.

Related articles

• I Did It Myself!...Sorta (weddingbee.com)


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Crafty Week-Wall Decoration

This week I am going to show more of my crafty side. The first project I'd like to show is what I did as a wedding present for a friend of mine.

I was looking on other people's blogs and I found something similar to this but I customized it to what my friend likes and what she wanted for her house. She loves the color red and the Fleur DE Li's. So after showing her what I thought of she was ecstatic about the idea and I was happy that I got to give her something unique and something that she'd actually want to hang in her house.


This was everything I used. I found an old sign at the DI for $2.00 and I also found the picture frames at the DI for .75 each. I found the drawer knobs for $2.50 each at Hobby Lobby. Then I bought the spray paint for $4.00 at Wal-Mart. Then of course the photos were just the cost to print them. Since I took them myself.


I mapped out where I wanted the drawer knobs to be before I painted it with pencil and marked the place where the holes needed to be drilled.

I spray painted the wood and the frames

I added the drawer knobs where I had drilled the holes


Here is the finished product! The pictures I took myself and took them of the temple they got married in. This was it would be of sentimental value as well.

What Do You Want To Be You Grow Up?

I've been asking myself this question a lot in the past year. I have come up with a wide range of possibilities for myself. Literally it went from an Iphone app developer to a web and graphic design to blogging to nursing to midwife and now onto biology and neuroscience.

After spending so much time contemplating what I really want to do with my life I finally learned the questions I had to ask myself.

*How much time am I going to have to spend away from my family?
*Could I work at home or would I have to be gone all the time?
*How long with this career entertain me? (I get bored easily)
*How much schooling will I have to go through?
*How much money can I make, enough to support my family?
*Will I enjoy it? Will this make me happy?
*Will I feel like I have accomplished something with my life?

I noticed that the money question was really steering me in my decision and when I stopped thinking about that and focused mainly on the first and last 2 questions I looked into what I really wanted to do and what truly interests me.

I'm set on getting my associates in Biology and then I hope to move onto a bachelors in Neuroscience so I can get my masters and then my PhD. My goal is to help people through research and hopefully finding ways to help minimize pain involved in neurological disorders, such as MS. Plus I can teach at a university level which is something I have always wanted to do!

I wanted to become a professional blogger but I honestly don't feel like I have anything that really interests people. I'm not crafty all the time and when I do get a chance to blog it's about my life and who's seriously interested in reading about me and my family. I'll continue to blog who knows what will come out of it, maybe I can help just one person and that would be comforting for me.

I've already looked into the schools and the community college here has an associates in biology so I'm hoping I can get some classes transferred and get started on that this Spring semester.