Becoming Crafty: No-Sew Crib Rail Guards

Ok, I have a confession to make. I am not crafty. At all. Some people like to D-I-Y. I like to B-U-Y. It's just my style. So when Kate learned how to pull herself up and chew on the rails of her crib, the first thing I did was go shopping. And I was shocked. It was going to cost between $40 and $60 to put on crib rail guards. Not to mention that most of these products are 1) ugly and 2) don't get very good reviews. Clearly even shopaholics such as myself have a breaking point. So I decided I would sew my own. Then I remembered that I can't even thread my sewing machine. Or sew (minor problem).

But I was determined, and that's when I came up with what I think was a brilliant idea. You know those no-sew fleece blankets people make? I decided to take the same basic idea to make Kate's crib rail guards. And you know what? IT WORKED!

Here's how I did it:
(Please remember that since I am not a crafty person, these instructions may not be the best. Bear with me and please excuse any blunders, because I'm really quite proud of myself.)

To start, I bought two yards of fleece fabric and cut three rectangles in the following sizes:

Front Rail Guard: 53'' x 12''
Side Rail Guards: 33'' x 15''

Kate has a Graco Lauren Crib. You'll need to take your own measurements for your crib, but maybe this can help give you an idea of where to start. When measuring the length the rail guards needed to be, I added about an inch to make sure the guards would be long enough. For the width, I measured the area I needed covered, and then added 4 inches on either side for the fringe (so 8 total).

For the front rail guard:

Fold the piece of fabric in half length-wise. Then cut your fringe about 4 inches in length and about 1 inch apart. Don't worry about cutting straight. I used a pair of kitchen shears for this project since I didn't have sewing scissors, and not a single cut I made was straight. You can't even tell on the finished product.

Then unfold the fabric and place it over the crib rail, tying the fringe together underneath. When you get to a bar of the crib, tie two pieces together on the same side, instead of tying them with their pair on the opposite side.

Continue this until you have tied all the fringe. I would highly recommend tying them loosely at first, then going back and tying them in a knot. That way if you need to change anything, it will be a lot easier (I learned this from experience).

And that's it! How easy was that? If you want you can do the same thing for the side rail guards, but that will leave the corners of the crib uncovered. While Kate can't reach the corners of her crib to bite, I think it looks a little neater to have the corners covered as well, so...

For the side rail guards:

Do the same thing you did for the front rail guard, but when cutting the fringe leave about the last 6 inches uncut (again, these measurements will vary depending on your crib).

Cut the corner away by cutting perpendicular to the fringe.

Cut a piece of fringe that runs perpendicular to the others.

Cut another fringe, but make it about half as long as the one you just cut.

Now cut the other corner away.

 

When unfolded, the fabric should look like this.

Drape the fabric over the crib rail and tie the fringe the same way you did for the front rail guard. To cover the corners, take the long pieces of fringe and tie them together around the the corner.

 

Then take the short pieces of fringe and tie them together.

 

And ta-da!

 

Note: I ended up taking the ends of the knot from the short fringe and tucking them under the tie I made with the long fringe, just to make sure the corner would stay put. If you are a crafty person maybe you can think of a better way to do the corners, but this worked well for me.

And that's it! This was seriously such an easy project. And now I have crib rail guards that not only saved me money, but are cute! The total cost for this project was $14.09, which was what I spent on the fabric. Since I never buy fabric, I have no idea if this is a good price, so maybe this project could cost even less.

Here are the before and after shots:

These are Kate's bite marks, which prompted the project

Finished!

Battle Creek Hike

So yesterday afternoon Brett and I decided we would take a little family outing. After doing some research online Brett informed me that we were going to hike to Battle Creek Falls. Let me just clarify that when we typically use the word "hike" in this household it means we are going to walk somewhere outdoors and see some nature stuff, but not really anything that takes more physical effort than a walk around the block. I guess I should have asked him to clarify. When we got there I put Kate in the Ergo on my back, we got our stuff out of the car, and a little Cocker Spaniel puppy appeared out of nowhere. We assumed he belonged to someone around and so we just left him and started our hike. As it turns out, when Brett said hike he actually meant that we were going to hike. Don't get me wrong, the hike was only about a mile and it was considered easy, but I had an extra 22 pounds on my back and we were going uphill!

But it was so worth it! Not only did I get an awesome work-out, the hike was beautiful. It was such a fun way to spend time as a family. I felt an awesome sense of accomplishment once we got to the top. There was hardly anyone else on the trail and the solitude was very peaceful. Kate chattered a lot of the time and loved watching and listening to the falls.

The hike down was much easier. I told Brett that if the dog was still there by the time we got back down we would take him home with us. I think we were both a bit surprised when we got to the parking lot and he was still there, though now he was muddy from taking a swim. When we saw him again Kate yelled "duh" and squealed with joy. After we looked around to make sure he had no owners, he got into the car with us and we brought him home. Kate continued to squeal "duh" several times on the way home, and once we got home she even added a "guh" sound to the end of the word.

Wait, was that her first word?!?!

Unfortunately we had to drop the puppy off at the police station later that night, because we had no crate for him to stay in and didn't feel comfortable leaving him out in the house. But I plan on checking with the shelter Monday morning to see what their policy is. If his owners don't claim him and no one will adopt him, he will be coming back to our house until we can find him a more permanent home. Unfortunately we didn't really get any pictures of him, but suffice it to say he was really cute, and I wanted to name him Achilles (because I've always wanted to name a dog after some great work of literature, and because his long golden locks reminded me of Brad Pitt's hair from the movie Troy). Brett wasn't super found of this and was calling him Little Buddy.

So then this morning Kate is playing with Deacon and it sounded like she said "dog" again. What a fun milestone to add onto an already exciting (though somewhat surprising) adventure. I'm so proud of her!

Hiking up the trail

View from the top

At the top of the falls

At the bottom of the falls

Taking a short break

We love our Ergo!

Stuck

Oh, the places you'll go!

It runs in the family

I don't know what it is about my shoes. Two of my nieces, Isabella and Gemma, have both spent a fair amount of time playing with my shoes. It looks like Kate will be following in their footsteps (haha, I can make puns). Today while I was trying to put away the laundry, Kate decided she would get into the closet and play with my shoes.

These were her favorite - a pair of Report flats

Having a blast

Yes, the container she is sitting on also contains shoes. Please don't judge me.

Taking the shoes in and out of the closet kept her occupied for a long time!

11 Months Old

Yesterday Kate turned 11 months old. As she gets closer and closer to 1 year, the entire experience seems somewhat surreal. But maybe that's only because I'm so exhausted I can't think straight. As it turns out, month 10 has not exactly been Kate's easiest month. The past few days I have found myself wondering where my happy little baby went. I think she was eaten by a pre-toddler.

Frustration. That has been a big emotion for Kate lately (and for me). She has also expanded her emotional horizons to include anger. Pinching is her method of choice to express this anger. She has been having a lot of tantrums lately. Tantrums because I take something away from her. Tantrums because I don't bring her food fast enough. Tantrums because I don't bring her the right kind of food. Tantrums because she doesn't know what she wants. Tantrums because she doesn't have any other way to express the fact that she doesn't know what she wants. I have been working harder to help her learn some baby signs so that she can start to communicate better. I'm hoping that once she learns to communicate a little it will lessen her frustration. Some signs we use everyday are nurse, more, all done, and eat. She is beginning to make the sign for "nurse" sometimes.

I think part of this frustration also might be that she is about to reach a big milestone. It wouldn't surprise me if she starts to say a word or two sometime soon. It really wouldn't surprise me if her first word is "dog". She loves to point out Deacon and say "duh" as loud as she can. It's super cute. She would also do this with Grandma's dog Kira when we were in California.

Side-note: We're back in Utah now. It's good to be home. When we first arrived home and I took Kate into her room her face lit up and she smiled so big. It was adorable to see her actually remember her room. But I think she is missing all the family she got to hang out with in California, especially her cousin Gemma.

I think another part of all Kate's frustration may be teething. She recently cut her top left tooth (that makes 3 total right now), and the top right tooth looks like it will come through any day now. There also might be some teeth coming in further back, but I can't tell.

Aside from all this frustration, Kate has really been blowing my mind with how fast she is learning things. She can crawl super fast now. Having me chase her is one of her favorite games. She loves to pull herself up to a standing position on just about anything she can. She never stops moving. From the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep, she has an extreme case of the wiggles. She likes to experiment by putting her toys inside of things, on top of things, etc. to see what happens. She will sometimes put shapes into a shape sorter if you show her which holes they go in. Her fine motor skills amaze me. But she seems to get bored of this game fast because it requires a lot of effort on her part.

And really, despite all of the frustration on both her part and mine, her smile and laugh still melt my heart every single day.

So on days where the only picture I can snap of her looks like this...

...I try to remember moments like this. It helps...a little :)

Cutest. Thing. Ever.

Kate in pigtails. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

Spray Park

Today we went to a local spray park with Sean, Kristen, Gemma, and Marek. At first Kate was really unsure about the water, but as soon as she watched cousin Gemma having fun she perked up and decided to have a little bit of fun herself. She really enjoyed watching all the big kids go crazy. Her new thing is that she likes to dance whenever she gets excited, and so she was totally rocking out while watching all the other kids. She had a great time, but was really tired afterwards.

This is when she discovered that the spray park was fun

Playing with cousin Gemma

The back of her bathing suit was just too cute not to take a picture

Dancing

I love her serious face

So tired

Weekend at the Bay

Well, I am super behind on blogging, as always. But, I am going to try to be better at keeping up! So about two weeks ago Kate, Carolyn (Grandma), and I went to the bay area to visit Brett instead of having him come to visit us. We really had a blast. We drove up Friday and picked up Brett at his office in San Francisco. From there we went to Ghirardelli Square and had icecream sundaes. They were delicious! Kate thought so, too. Even though we tried to keep them from her, her little hands are quick and she managed to swipe a bite. Then we went and walked around fisherman's wharf for a while before having dinner at Boudin's (yes, that's right, we had dessert before dinner). We had a view of the bay while we dined and it was fabulous! Kate even made friends with the people at the next table.

On Saturday we got up and drove to Los Altos for a work BBQ with Ernst & Young. It was good to meet some of the other interns and employees; I really felt like our family would fit in if Brett ends up working there full time. After the BBQ we drove to Pescadero. We went to a little shop that sold this amazing garlic artichoke bread. That's what we had for lunch. And dinner. Then we took Kate for her first trip to the beach! It was a little pebble beach, and it was very cloudy so it wasn't your typical "beach" experience, but Kate was just all smiles the whole time. Of course, when is she not all smiles?

After the beach we left Kate with Grandma to babysit and Brett and I saw the last Harry Potter movie. It was a perfect weekend. Unfortunately, it ended with Kate getting a little fever, but she recovered quickly and is back to being her happy self.