Baby Mobile tutorial

 

I have been quite stressed lately…and  nothing works better for me to relax than to begin a DIY project! I was thinking about doing another baby mobile for a while ...! 

 I never mentioned this before but I am about to become an aunt, and I wanted to offer my little nephew (yes, it’s a baby boy!) something more personal, and as I love to offer handcrafted gifts (especially if I am the one crafting), I thought about making a felt mobile.

I knew that the parents decided to use grey and yellow as main nursery colors so I used similar colors on this mobile. I had a little Pinspiration when deciding what the general look of the mobile would be…

For this project I used felt sheets, fishing line and cotton threads. I hand drew the patterns for the moon, cloud and stars…

 After the patterns were created, I cut the felt sheets.

Then, I hand stitched the felt stars, moon and cloud with blanket stitch.  I hand stitched the moon to the cloud using a simple running stitch. After all was stitched, I attached the stars first to each other in columns and then to the moon and cloud, using fishing line.

And here it is the mobile!

The stars look amazing when hanging from the ceiling; they look like little felt constellations of light yellow and grey…

I hope my nephew enjoys his little moon and stars mobile!

What about you? Did you finish any DIY project lately?

 

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My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

 

  I am linking up with these amazing bloggers:

Friday´s Thoughts: The divide between bus drivers and mums

 

I am a daily user of buses and I have to say that I feel that I am treated differently when I board the bus only by myself or with a pram. And this difference, unfortunately, rarely is meant in a positive way. I feel discriminated.  And last Tuesday particularly, as I was denied entrance on a bus practically empty and the destined space for wheelchairs or prams was occupied by a single able-bodied person.

But let’s describe what happened to me fully…. In a freezing afternoon, I was waiting for the bus with my little one so that we could attend a GP appointment. The bus approached the stop, I signaled it, the bus stopped the door opens and the bus driver claims “We are full, there’s no more room for a pram”. The door closes immediately. There’s not even time for me to see by myself or even ask around if there was a possibility to create some space for the pram! As the bus leaves, I was able to see clearly that the destined space for a wheelchair or pushchair was occupied by a middle aged woman, without any disability whatsoever! And the other spots for disabled persons where even vacant… Without mentioning the rest of the bus that was practically empty.

Firstly, let me clarified that I understand the buses policies to denied access to mothers with prams when such access may jeopardize the safety of others passengers, as may happen when the bus is completely packed. I also believe that priority spaces should be occupied primarily by a wheelchair user, and if that situation arises I would vacate it for the wheelchair user. This has already happened and I vacated the space on spot (may I add without the bus driver needing to say a word).   Let me also state that I disagree with the courts last ruling  where wheelchair users lost their claim to their designated spaces. But today I will only be focusing on my situation as a mum boarding, or better not boarding the bus while carrying a pushchair.

What I clearly don’t comprehend is why I wasn’t even given the chance to see if she would mind to free the space so that I could board. It was my understanding that the common policy is for the users to arrange space and vacate space accordingly, that the matters should be left to the good sense and conscience of the passengers. But this rarely happens, at least when it is me as a mother with a pram who has to board the bus. Which is why I feel extremely discriminated. I feel that when “there´s no room for a pram” (albeit there is), the bus driver simply takes action and denies me access to the bus. Which begs the question: why wouldn’t the bus driver take any action in helping me? Why not allow me to board and see if it was possible to arrange some proper space? Because I feel that so often the bus driver usually lets a normal user board the bus even when it is over packed and I mean more than over packed!

Innumerous times mothers were painted and vilified in social media as unreasonable individuals who don’t vacate the spot for the rightful user. This clearly, in my experience, rarely happens. A mother with a pram is more likely a victim. Take a look at this case, where a mother was left in the cold or this other case, where a mother  had to sit on the floor with her disabled son!

Undoubtedly is the opposite that happens. But who is the villain here? Is it the bus driver? Ultimately the bus driver only has the power to deny access and  act as a mediator when conflicts arise by merely preventing someone else from boarding. And clearly when the bus driver most chooses to act, he rarely does it in a sensible matter. In all cases presented, the bus driver acted in the most unreasonable matter! And why is this allowed to happen?

I believe one problem here is the unclear policy firstly, as the policies change greatly from public transportation Companies, which have different conditions of carriage. Most companies, as First group, do not give the driver power to require (as opposing to request) a passenger to move out of the wheelchair or other priority spaces, or to leave the bus if he or she refuses to do so. Not allowed to be an enforcer, the bus driver leaves to the conscience of the passenger the willingness to move. Clearly this will not be resolved anytime soon, as the last court ruling showed, where companies are not obliged to enforce any sort of policy at their passengers. The problem however is that not every passenger might be a sensible one, which would force the driver to be, let’s say persuasive. That said, and since that the driver cannot enforce anyone to be sensible and move only leaves him the easy way out, which is deny the entrance to anyone who might cause any disturbance. 

However, that’s not the only issue here. I also believe that the main problem is a cultural one. Unfortunately society in general is selfish. How many times in bus rides we see passengers occupying special designated spaces while the rightful passenger is forced to stand? Or denied entrance? And no-one cared about this. Even if it is unlawful. If everyone would show some consideration, common sense, sensibility and manifest disapproval when such things happen, may be  wouldn´t even be necessary for the bus driver to act... But the main thing is, we do not want to cause any sort of havoc do we? Particularly if that would get us comfortably earlier at home.

 

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Baby and me: 10 Things that babies love that would surprise you!

 I am always amazed at the things my baby finds funny. He remembers to do stuff that I would never ever imagined that he would ever think about doing....

1. The Unbearable Lightness of Barefeetness

No matter how cold the floor is, the first thing my baby does when he has some socks on...
                                        Do his best to take those off!

I feel that I am always putting his socks back on...

2. Dirt!

He is surrounded by cute toys, but the thing that catches his full attention is...

The tiniest scrap paper on the carpet.

If I knew this, I would have spared a lot of money on toys...

3. Technology!
Again, he is surrounded by toys. But the fascinating thing is:

  .....your remote. Your mobile... your laptop.
   Every single piece of technology, fully functional of course, he is not interested in any remote without batteries, or your laptop turned off.

4. Take stuff out of drawers...
           .....and shelves...
                          ......and boxes...
                                   ........mummy´s bag.......

Just take stuff out of somewhere.

I spend the day tiding up after him....

5. Unroll the toilet paper.
 How fun!

Particularly the aftermath, when mummy is re-rolling it all over again!

6. Pull mummy´s earrings.
    He loves this particularly my earrings are shiny! Don´t ask me how my ear lobes survive, but yes, they are still intact. There must be something genetic passing through each generation of mothers to increase earlobe surviving skills, because I have no idea how mine are surviving motherhood...

7. Pull mummy´s hair.

  Also, he smiles a lot and laughs  at mummy's painful expression when pulling her hair!

8.Doors!
   How fun they are! They have thingies on it, you can move it, and open it and close it...! Oh adventure! And what about closing and open doors!? A M A Z I N G

9. Glasses!

 Retrieved on Picjumbo

Oh the fascination with sunglasses.... My baby always tries to remove my sunglasses, and he just laughs when I put my glasses on him!

10. Look up!

  Retrieved on Life of Pix

My Baby loves to see things in the sky, as birds or ceiling as his mobile and lights... See whatever is above him...!

What about you? What does your baby love to do?

 

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Survival kit for a mummy with a sick baby

These past two week have been just ... simply terrible.

It first began with a sick baby, with a case of ear infection, continued with my other half catching some man-flu, and me just having to survive all that.

And did I survive it? Well, I am still alive, barely, but still hanging in there.

I thought I had managed to escape the whole sickness as this past Wednesday when we attended the GP appointment we were given thumbs up, and my baby was ok. Yaeyh! That would mean that my little one could attend the nursery and I would only have my other half to attend to... 

Too soon, no such luck. After just two days of attending the nursery, my liyttle one must have caught a new bug, as this past night he vomited, and had a temperature. Oh well, I should be expecting that as the weekend was approaching and we had plans of going out to do something fun. That should teach us, there is no such thing as planning ahead when you have a baby, you jinx it!

After such a bad week I have to praise several things, as they are helping me in surviving this and keeping me sane. Or not. I am not sure at the moment I am sleep deprived after all!

That said here are my top five items of my survival kit:

1. Caffeine

  Photo by Carli Jean

Retrieved on Unsplash

     

Oh yes. Without this one I would not be functional! Yes, I know this is vital once you have a baby. But when you have a sick one, its importance reaches a whole new level. There’s no such thing as sleep!

And a note, have it on a lid mug. You don´t want to spill it at any time.

2. Muslins.

Have muslins everywhere and I mean everywhere in the house! You never know when vomit will make its appearance!

3. Comfy pajamas

   

Photo by Ryan Macguire

Retrieved on Gratisography

 Make yourself as comfortable as possible... you are not going anywhere anytime soon anyways.... You will become your baby´s bed, his comforter, ... and whatever you little one needs. So dress as comfortably as possible, because surely you will find yourself in the weirdest and uncomfortable positions…. You know what I mean….

4. Frozen food

    

Photo by Ryan Macguire

Retrieved on Gratisography

No, you will not have time to bake any pancakes... I am craving these at the moment,so even if I am not eating any of these at the moment, at least I will have a pretty picture of pancakes in my post...

You will barely have time to eat, let alone have time to prepare any sort of food... So stack up frozen food! Even if you don´t actually eat it, you know its there in the freezer, to have when you have ...er... time.

5. Glider

    I don’t have words to describe how much I love my glider, and how thankful I am to my parents who decided to offer me this despite it not being in my priority list… I guess thats experience….But at the moment I am not sure who loves it the most, if me or my baby.... I find myself using the glider lately even if he is (for some short moments) sleeping by himself, and not needing any rocking….

Really if you have this, you can survive everything! These are keeping me sane. Or not. You are to judge... I am sleep deprived after all, so I am not sure at the time!

What about you? Do you have special items that I should know about that could help me continue surviving ?

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