Family Brag Book - Take One

Financial Investment:   $$ ($6 - $20)

Psychological Investment:    L  (call the mental hospital, I'm on my way)

Worth the Investment?:   -  (don't bother)

Good God.  I believe that I actually said that Martha Stewart should be shot.  This craft was not easy at all.  Has anyone out there ever tried to frickin’ sew plastic?  Are you kidding me?  And the directions… WTH?

Luckily, I was at my Aunt Penny’s house who is a master crafter extraordinaire because if I wouldn't have been, I may have given up completely.  She was gracious enough to watch Little Milla while I tried to complete the project (I've included some pictures of them since Milla loves her so much), and it still took me more than FIVE HOURS to produce a product that I’m less than thrilled with.

I was so traumatized by the experience that when Miss. Milla woke up at 3 AM the night after for a feeding, I couldn’t go back to sleep because I was trying to figure out better ways of doing it. 

On to my experience…

The directions mention using wool felt, or a heavy fabric, so I chose to use some nice place mats that I bought from Big Lots several years ago that wound up costing less than a dollar a piece. 

I cut it down to size, hemmed it and then used pinking shears to trim it so that it looked like Martha Stewart’s…

Aunt Penny taking GOOD care of my baby while I tore my hair out

Then I used heavyweight plastic sheets…

First I had to cut them and realized that you need a SUPER sharp rotary cutter and a heavy hand to stabilize the plastic.  If you don’t, you wind up swearing profusely and throwing things.  Below is what I used (courtesy of Aunt Penny)

I also quickly learned that you CANNOT sew them (at least in a straight line or anything that a perfectionist could live with).  Just one example is shown below (and I have many more if you’d like to see them):

All of the drama was too taxing on Milla, so she fell asleep in Aunt Penny's arms :)



  

Then I tried double wide bias tape, which worked, but WAS NOT easy, still slipped and I think it looks hideous.

Oh, and the directions on how to attach the plastic sheeting to the book?  @#$%$#.  

Fast forward to attaching eyelets (not hard to do), and then using ribbon and attaching some tassels that I made several years ago, and this is what it looks like:



Front



Open (see the hideous bias tape job?)





Back





Five hours and I detest the end product...