Making Baby Clothes

When preparing for our new baby, I was, as most mothers are, diligently looking for clothes. Not knowing if it was a boy or girl, I was in search of some cute gender neutral stuff. I quickly found out that if you want anything other than ducks and turtles (or sheep) you are going to pay premium for it. 

This led me to pursue DIY avenues. Not surprisingly, I found many options on our good ol' Pinterest.

First off, I decided to dye my own onesies.

Yep.

Let me say now, I would not do it again, unless I only chose two to three colors total. I made the silly decision to make each onesie a different color. Ha! What ignorance! Basically, it was a lot of work for imperfect results. I still got cute onesies out of the deal, but pretty much every color that I got was not the color I was going for.

Here are my results after dyeing and laundering per the dye bottle's instructions. Still quite vibrant, and at this point, ready for my next step.

I used a combination of this tutorial and the instructions from the RIT dye studio website. I got the onesies from Walmart for an amazing deal of $1 per onesie. Actually the most expensive part of this project was the dye itself, costing almost $4 a bottle. The liquid dye is definitely preferred, I had problems with the powder dye washing out more and leaving speckles behind.

Okay, now that I have some bold colored onesies, time to personalize. Enter freezer paper stencils!

This is an awesome concept. Get freezer paper. Print designs. Trace, cut. Iron on. Color. Remove. Love.

Love being able to make my own designs!!

A note: fabric paint only looks good on white fabric. I could not get it to show up well on my beautifully dyed onesies. Thankfully, my mom had a plethora of fabric markers, which were soooo much easier to use than the paint. They showed up well, they dried instantly, total awesomeness. Here is where I got my info and some of my stencil designs for this particular project. 

Also, this picture was taken well after I had Crosby, so many of these had already been washed a few times. The colors do fade, but thankfully it works well with this look.

So that was my onesie project. A lot of work but they turned out great. Now for the pants.

I love these baby harem pants!

They look immensely cuter on a baby diaper butt than on a grown up. I made all of these out of shirts I found at a thrift shop. My favorites are the ones made out of the thermal fabric, they are super stretchy and look way cute. Plus they come with free cuff fabric. Excellent upycling. I made a few white ones and dyed them to go with the onesies. I got this awesome pattern here.

Hats.

These are THE best hats. They stay on their heads sooo much better than any store bought hat I ever used. Again, made out of thrift shop shirts. Pattern here.

Bandana bibs.

Cute and easy to make. Who doesn't love a little hipster thrown in? Made from men's shirts from the thrift shop. Except the middle one; that was leftover fabric. Pattern here. Note: I used velcro instead of snaps. Also I have since seen others use terry cloth fabric for the underside. Possibly a good idea. The best way to get cheap terry cloth is to buy a $2 towel from Walmart. That is if you don't already own a towel you're willing to part with.

Shoes!

I've shown the little shoes on here before, but here is the pattern for it. The boots were really easy too and they stay on pretty well. Here is that pattern.

So that's a bit of what I was up to the months leading up to my little man's arrival. Here he is field testing everything.

Aww, loves his sister.

Okay I didn't make this onesie, but are the pants and hat not the cutest thing? (I'm a sucker for mustard yellow.)

I don't know why he would have this uncertain look on his face...

That's right.

Showing off the bib.

Texas born.

I love stripes.

Anyway, these are great patterns and tutorials if you want to make some things for your own little one or for someone else who is expecting. Remember to check those thrift shops!