Cupcake Crazy!

It's been a busy busy week and weekend around here. Our precious baby girl is turning one on the 6th and we had a little celebration for her yesterday. I was trying to have a cupcake theme, which led to some interesting projects. I didn't have time to go from one second hand store to another to find the dishes I needed to make a cupcake stand out of old china and tea cups, so I ended up going from this:

To this:

Not very sturdy, but perfect for a short time like this!

Just covered with cupcake wrapping paper and taped together with packing tape!

It ended up being topped with the cupcakes below. I'd love to be able to tell you that they were all from scratch, but I have to say, Better Crocker helped us get this done and still have a clean house for our guests without quite as much chaos! There is a time for EVERYTHING! ;)

While looking for cupcake decorating ideas on line, I came across this tutorial on Naptime Crafters, and became obsessed. No matter how little time there was left, I was determined. Thank God, I was able to get it done without loosing too much sleep! These were PERFECT for a 1st birthday...cupcake style!

Here's a bit of the process:

It's supposed to be a color matching game, so later on I'll paint the muffin tin with the corresponding colors! She did exactly what she was supposed to with them...take them out and throw them on the floor!!! :)

Though this morning she did try to eat one!

BumGenius Snap Conversion Tutorial + KAMSnaps $25 Gift Card GIVEAWAY!***CLOSED***

Many Cloth diapering moms like myself have some well loved BumGenius 3.0 diapers on which the aplix is getting worn out. These durable diapers have plenty of wear left otherwise, so what to do?Thanks to KAMSnaps, I have found my answer to that question! Let me just show you what KAMSnaps can help you do! I'd never worked with snaps before in my life, but found out they're actually pretty easy if you have the right tools!

I received the below set of pliers from KAMSnaps with an awl for making the holes that the snaps go into and a screw driver for changing out the die. The metal piece to the right of the awl is an extra top die for larger snaps, and the 3 round black pieces on the far right are the bottom die for different size snaps.


One of the awesome things about KAMSnaps is that they carry snaps in all the BumGenius colors as well as G Diaper colors, and Fabrite PUL! As I mentioned, I'm converting my BumGenius 3.0 in Grasshopper, so KAMSnaps sent me the grasshopper colored snaps!
The snap pieces on the far left and right are caps. The second from the left is the stud (male), and the next to last is the socket (female).

I just love it that KAMSnaps are exclusive sellers of engraved Ooga Booga snaps! They have a bunch of other designs of engraved snaps as well! Here's a close up of the oh so popular Ooga Booga! The size 20 snaps are the ones typically used for diapers. The HG pliers come with a different size bottom die in, so the first thing I had to do was change that out. It's easy to tell which bottom die you need by just placing one of the caps in the die. It should fit perfectly like this:


Following the instructions from KAMSnaps web site, I used the provided screw driver to remove one die and put in the size I needed. It was very simple!


I had never applied snaps before, but I found a link to this video at the bottom of KAMSnaps instructions for snap pliers that shows how to use these HG pliers. Since I'd never done it before, I practiced on an old cloth wipe. It worked well, so I'll show you what I learned as we continue with the conversion of the BumGenius. Here we go...



First you have to remove the aplix. For this you'll need a seam ripper (pictured below), or an exacto knife or something like that.


First I ripped some of the top seams to loosen it up.


Then I could peel back the aplix and see the seams really well to rip them. As a novice sewer, this is something I've had a lot of practice at! :) You have to really take your time and be careful. Never pull hard on the fabric or aplix. You want to leave as little evidence of the former seam as possible.


Once the front strip of aplix is off, it's time to remove the tabs.


I found it helpful to cut the top off to reveal the seam for easy ripping.


Again, rip some top seams first and then start ripping underneath.



Finally, the aplix is all off and we can focus on snaps.


On KAMSnaps blog, you can find a snap placement template compliments of Bella of Musings of an Organic Mama Squirrel. This saved me a lot of trouble as I did not have to make my own template. You don't have to use this one of course. You may want fewer snaps more spaced out.

First, cut out the template.
Then, use the awl to poke holes through the dots.


Decide where to place the snaps. I decided to have the middle of the top row of snaps about an inch from the top of the diaper.


Tape the template down, and use a writing utensil to mark the diaper through the holes in the template.


After removing the template, take the awl, and poke a hole through each dot. Be careful not to puncture the inner liner of the diaper.




Next take one of the un-engraved caps, since it will be on the inside of the diaper and not visible, and poke it up through the first hole.


Next, you will place a socket over the protruding part of the cap.


Take the pliers and make sure the cap is completely centered in the bottom (black) die and press down hard. It's really important that the snap be centered, which is a bit challenging as you'll be feeling through the liner for this part. In the following picture my hand is awkwardly placed for the sake of taking the picture.
To make sure it is sufficiently pressed afterward, you can take a stud and put it into the socket. It should make a snapping noise.


Rinse and repeat for each snap until you're finished!


Next, cut out, hole punch, and tape your template for the tabs. I chose to put 4 snaps to make it toddler proof later on.
Use the awl to punch the holes in the fabric.


This time you will use your engraved caps as this is the part that will show! Place the cap through, top to bottom, and this time place a stud over the protruding part of the cap.


Center the snap between the pliers and press.




Be mindful of how the engraved image will look on baby. I did not think about that and put them upside down. No big deal to me, but I know to look out for that next time!



Conversion complete:
This experience has opened up so many crafting possibilities for me! On KAMSnaps tutorial page, you can see lots of other ideas. I saw there a tutorial for adding snaps to prefold diapers and adapted it a little to make my prefolds easy to snap using the angel wing fold. It gave me even more ideas for a project I'm planning!

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Homemade Reusable Sandwich Bags

*Update: After initially writing this post I started making these with water resistant ripstop nylon on the inside. It is more food safe and much lighter for an all together better result! I currently use ripstop nylon to make super compact travel diaper changing pads for sale in my Etsy shop, Seams to Streams.*



When I learned of the existence of reusable sandwich bags, I went googling to see what it was all about. I found this blog with a very user friendly tutorial on how to make reusable snack bags yourself. I saw elsewhere (can't remember where), that someone had made a sandwich wrap, but lined it material from a vinyl table cloth instead of PUL.

We had a vinyl tablecloth I was getting ready to get rid of! I preferred the sandwich bag idea over a wrap, so I combined the two ideas. I also had a couple of big pretty cloth napkins that had been given to me for sewing, so I used those as the outer fabric.

How to Make Reusable Sandwich Bags

1. First, I cut equal sized rectangles of fabric and tablecloth. I used an actual sandwich bag for sizing, so that folded in half the rectangles were 1 or 2 inches bigger than a sandwich bag:



2. Next, I placed the two rectangles with the pretty sides in and sewed them together at the ends. Just two straight lines! :)



3. Next, I turned the sewn together rectangles so that the fronts were facing out, and put a strip of velcro on the vinyl side, leaving room on the edges for sewing together later. In order to place the velcro accurately without bothering with too much measuring, I went ahead and stuck an equal size piece of velcro right onto the piece I'd already stuck. Than I could fold the material and just unpeel and stick the other side on.


4. I folded the rectangle with the vinyl/velcro side out (inside out), and sewed the two sides together. Just two more straight lines! :)


5. I turned it back, and the job was close to done, but something had to be done about that inner seam if I was going to carry a peanut butter sandwich in this!


6. So finally I sewed just two more straight lines down the sides with the bag turned right side out to enclose those seams. Here is the final product from the outside:

And from the inside:You can see it is the same size between the seams as a regular sandwich bag:





Just wipe and reuse!I've already tried it. It works great! Of course, you cannot put really hot things in there or heat it.

This has inspired quite a few more "reusable" ideas that I CAN'T WAIT to try! I'll keep you posted. I also found some beautiful "vintagey" fabric at a consignment store that I plan to make more of these with.