Baby Gift For 1 Year Old Beauty.

I had a very busy marathon of a weekend yet again. Dance class for Dolly, grocery shopping done, laundry nearly up to date, moonlighting job attended to, playgrounds played in and a crafting project finished.

The birthday party is over, the gift is given - so I can at last... show you what I made for Ms Elegant K's, 1 year old. 

Cushion & Cover

I made a cushion and cushion cover! Yeah.. all by my little self... well kind of... Dolly helped too :-) She sat between my legs and pushed her little foot down hard on that pedal, nearly stitching up my fingers.

I am tired of trying to purchase birthday gifts that have very little sentiment and even less eco kudos. So I decided to take action instead of whinging on and on. 

This gift was eco-frugalistic in the materials used but due to lack of know how... this project took me over 5 hours to complete.

I used:

• 1$ Women's shirt from the op-shop.
• Piece of fabric from early 1980's trousers (sat at my mums all these years in my fabric stash!!!)
• .50 Cent vintage doily from op-shop.
• 6 buttons from $1 Op-shop mixed button jar given as gift by a Helpx.
• 1/4 of good quality cotton cot sheet purchased at op-shop for $2, Dolly has out grown it... (she's never slept in a cot!).
• Pillow stuffing from a good quality pillow we no longer needed. 
• Threads of various colours.

Total monetary cost roughly = $2.50

Luckily I don't charge myself for my time because $20 x 5 hours would make an very expensive cushion indeed. LOL.  

Everything was washed carefully and dried in sunshine. Dolly and I measured and cut fabric for the cushion cover. The Rambling Expat got busy with his iron and gave it all a good going over. Dolly and I then sewed the panels together. By now she was ready for an outing. So off we went to the playground, she played for ages and I hand sewed on the buttons and doily with different coloured threads whilst siting on the bench.

Home again, I made a simple white cushion. It was the wrong size :-(

Everything came out again and I made another! This time it was perfect :-)

Finished Front!

Finished back!
I removed a button and replaced with a different one for a bit of interest.

Dolly was very proud to give a gift that she helped make. The Rambling Expat gave a CD of Photo's he took at the Baby's baptism 2 weeks earlier (he's very skilled in this area). It's a really nice feeling to give from our hearts and hands instead of something from the shopping centre. It's eco and frugal too! Happy Days.

Have you made anything eco-frugal lately? Comment and let me know.