I'm not the most organized type A person so usually when tasked with hosting a baby shower I grin and bear it.  But everything changed when asked to help with my friend Samantha's shower.  The mom to be was hoping to have a onesie decorating station where guests could craft and create tiny clothes for the newborn.  I've seen this before with stencils and puffy paint and have always thought the results were less than desirable. There might be a few really cute ones but they'd be mixed in with a bunch of mess.  I decided to do a few things differently for this gender neutral shower activity.

Samantha is a pretty holistic, all natural person.  I thought it would look cute to have the clothes be different colors but I didn't want to use any harsh chemical dyes.  I decided to try dyeing with natural ingredients like vegetables, fruits, and flowers.  This site was a great resource.  I basically turned our kitchen into a science lab and created dye after dye 24/7.  I couldn't think of anything else and we ate really healthily that week so that I had a ton of onion skins and avocado pits to boil.  The bright yellow - turmeric!  How cool is that?

After the dyeing, I created a bunch of fabric applique shapes that people could adhere to the clothes.  I also lined  a bunch of fabric with adhesive paper so guests could create their own designs, which they did!  This activity, both the prep, and the day of, was so much fun. Samantha is thrilled that her babe will be outfitted for his/her first year and now I don't have to cringe when asked to host a shower.  

Some of my favorite quilts to make are quilts that will be gifted as a surprise.  This giant, queen sized, quilt was just given as a college graduation present.  It has approximately 50  (YES, 50!) t-shirts representing a ton of activities their son participated in since childhood.  My client was hoping for the main colors to be red, white, and blue.  Since so many of the shirts were white, I added red sashing, and blue binding.  It's quilted with a flame pattern to represent his current passion, race car driving.  I'm really pleased with the manly look we accomplished on this.  

Thanks to the family for sharing this awesome photo of the big reveal.