Introducing Hand Drawn Bibs

I know, I know, the name of the blog is Hand Drawn Baby Onesies, but I decided to expand a little and start drawing bibs too. Here are the first few designs I've done, they all go with existing onesie designs. I love a matching outfit!

All the bandana bibs are 100% cotton and fasten with a long piece of velcro so they don't easily fall off. My son is a serial bib remover, and he hasn't managed it yet.

Of course any letter or colour combination is available.

And if you see a onesie design (or anything really) 

that you would like to see on a dribble bib, just let me know.

Happy New Year

Do you do New Year Resolutions? I am 50/50 about them. I quite like to have a plan for the coming year, although I never go so far as to actually write it down on paper. It's more a New Year Aspiration than a Resolution. My hopes and aims for 2017 are:

I'd like to come up with some new baby onesie designs. Rainbow star was my favourite onesie design of 2016, hopefully I can come up with something just as cute.

Never mind lose weight and get fit and all that usual, non-specific stuff. My aim for 2017 is to do my food prep. I always eat better when I take a couple of hours each week to actually prepare a load of food in advance. And when I eat better, I feel better. I found this post over at Hungry Healthy Happy particularly inspiring, though I've never quite reached such awesome levels of organisation. I can but dream. Dannii also writes about eating well on a budget, which was just as useful.

Dannii's amazing, healthy food prep!

Resist the temptation to cut my hair until it reaches the magic length which means I can donate it to the Little Princess Trust. This charity makes and provides wigs free of charge to children who need them due to cancer treatments and other illnesses. I donated my hair a couple of years ago and think it's a really worthwhile cause that uses a resource that would otherwise just end up in the bin. I've had one hair trim in the past two years to help me get there, and I'm itching to get a major chop, but I will resist for at least another 6 months. I'm too chicken to have my hair less than shoulder length, so I need to crow it pretty long to accomplish a decent length of donation. 7 inches is the minimum requirement but the longer the better!

Slightly odd photo but here's what happened at my last big haircut.
I felt so bald afterwards, even though I still had shoulder length hair.

Merry Christmas

This is our first Christmas as a family of three so it's rather special. When I think how life was this time last year, my mind boggles.

No we don't have a star on our tree,
it's a model of the space craft Philae that landed on a comet.
We are cool that way.

This time last year, I was extremely pregnant, 38 weeks exactly on Christmas Eve. I will never forget that as my husband and I spent most of Christmas Eve in hospital wondering if I was going to need an early induction. I was being tested for a nasty condition which only goes away after birth and was incredibly uncomfortable. Thankfully they all came out negative, and we were able to spend Christmas Day together and at home, and I had to wait out my discomfort for another three weeks before Baby A made his appearance.

This year we have a near one year old tearing up the house. Life is hectic and busy and noisy, but never has it been so fun and loving and exciting. Even though I know Baby A won't remember any of this, I have been super excited for his first Christmas, and so has his daddy.

The tree skirt I sewed by hand back when I had free time!

So Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas Baby Dilemmas

This Christmas will be Baby A's first Christmas, and while that is very exciting, it is throwing up lots of new, little dilemmas that never occurred to me before I had children.


The Tree

Our living room isn't very big - none of our rooms are. Our house is the opposite of open plan. Generally, we quite like it that way since we enjoy not having cooking smells in the living room or hearing the TV while in the dining room. But it's always been a squeeze to fit our not enormous Christmas tree in the living room. And this year we have the added problem of also fitting in a fire guard, a play pen, lots of toys and a very mobile, inquisitive child who does not yet understand the word 'danger'. I am pretty sure he will try to pull himself up on the tree, if not climb it. Tinsel and baubles will be stolen, played with, eaten, hidden. I was pondering not putting one up this year, but I really would like to. I'm just anticipating playing tree police for much of the festive season.

Presents

Call me Scrooge, but I don't see the point in giving loads of presents to an 11 month old. He doesn't know what Christmas is, he won't remember it, and he'll probably be far more interested in the paper and empty boxes than any presents themselves. Plus as mentioned, we don't have an enormous house. I'm very grateful for any gifts he may receive from doting grandparents, but I'm also wondering where on earth we're going to store all this stuff. I've become depressingly practical! So with all that in mind, I haven't actually bought Baby A anything for Christmas. Mean Mummy! He won't be totally ignored on Christmas Day though. I am knitting him a cuddly toy so we have something to give him. Partly because I would like to have something with his name on under our tree and something I can say was his 'first Christmas present', but mostly because I've enjoyed learning to knit it. Everyone is happy!

I might have to make this now.

The Christmas Show

Baby A attends nursery one day a week. It is attached to a primary school and every child, including the ones in nursery, have been invited to participate in the school's Christmas Show. At 11 months old, I'm not quite sure what Baby A would be doing, since he cannot be trusted to even sit in the same spot for more than 2 seconds. But it doesn't matter because the show isn't happening on his nursery day and I don't have any spare holidays left to take an afternoon off work to watch him be held by someone else on stage. I would quite like to, but it seems somewhat ridiculous when he's still so young and oblivious. The only thing that saddens me is he would have been dressed as a Christmas pudding. I'm tempted to make my own Christmas pudding outfit for him, just because it would have been so cute! In fact here is a tutorial for a Christmas pudding hat because why not?


Christmas Cards

I have a relatively short Christmas card list usually. I send them to close family and the odd friend that lives far away but who I correspond with regularly. It hasn't changed in years. I definitely know everyone on my list. But this year, nursery sent home a list of all the children in Baby A's room, as well as all the staff. There's only 15 or so children in his age range as it's a small place, but I think I am supposed to do Christmas cards for them all, even though I don't have a clue who most of them are. And of course neither does Baby A, being 11 months old and all. At the moment he is far more interested in porridge than other children. Does everyone join in with this? Will I be judged for not participating? Will I forever be referred to as the Scrooge mother? I didn't expect all this so soon! I guess this is good practice for when he attends actual school. I will be a Christmas card pro by then (she hopes).

Last Order Dates Before Christmas

Just a reminder that if that special hand drawn baby onesie is needed by Christmas, you'd best hurry up! Here are my last order dates if you want to get your onesie by Christmas.

Western Europe   Wednesday 9th December

USA & Canada    Thursday 10th December

UK                        Thursday 15th December




And if you miss these, I will still try to get your onesie posted as soon as possible, but it might become a New Year present.

Foxes

Apparently foxes are cool. I've always liked fox designs, but looking at what's in the shops, it seems the world has finally come around to my way of thinking. Well for this season at least. It wouldn't matter if foxes were cool or not, it was only a matter of time before I got around to designing a hand drawn foxy onesie for Baby A.

Of course I added some swirls and stars since I think most things in life 

would be improved with added swirls and stars.

Lots of foxy friends with even more on the back. I don't think Baby A much cares just yet,

but looking at them makes me smile.

Get Fruity

Now Baby A is over ten months old, we are well into weaning. It's going pretty well so far. It turns out he is totally NOT an advocate of baby lead weaning, not when there is a mummy present who will spoon feed him with very little effort on his part. And despite putting anything and everything in his mouth when we are not at the dinner table, he seems oddly reluctant to do finger food himself. Strange! But if someone else puts the effort in to feed him, he will attack almost everything with gusto. We've tried fruit and veg, fish and meat, bread, porridge (so much porridge), yogurt, cheese and all sorts of things. So all in all I'm calling it good progress so far.

After porridge, I think Baby A's all time favourite foods are fruit. Fruity porridge is practically Nirvana for him. My latest onesie design is fruit themed inspired by Baby A's love of all things fruity.

I have a craving for pineapples now...