A Special Gift

Looking at the blog it doesn't look like there has been much in the way of crafting going on but that is because I have been sewing presents and couldn't show you until they had been received.

This one, has to be one of my favourite projects yet! As soon as I found out my best friend was going to have a baby I have ben planning this one but I had to wait until Baby Coke was born before I could actually get cracking on it.

I wanted it to be practical but also a keepsake and so it needed to be personalised, I wanted it to be something he could use as a baby and then something he could use as he got older and I also wanted it to be practical and useful for mom and dad too. They are both designers so it had to be cool too! So, as you can imagine, it too a while to figure out exactly what it was going to be.

For the practical aspect, I made it so it would fold up and fit easily into this rather stylish, yet casual bag, easy to throw in the car when going visiting.

The play rug has batting inside to make it padded and comfy for baby Coke to lie on. The blue square is a pocket with an eye-spy toy inside and it has all his birth details printed on it, the round one is a taggy, one is sewn to the mat the other is a toy and the triangle is a flap to do peek-a-boo with and also has a matching toy with a string of elephants inside. The fabric I used for the mat is SO soft, it is like velvet, you might recognise it from this.
Then, when he gets a bit bigger, flip the mat over and you have a play scene, I personalised the road signs for a bit of fun and I had Ebi-kun test it out.
Ebi-kun loves it and wants one for himself! I designed the mat on photoshop which is a royal pain in the ... but is the only software I have and then printed it all out at Spoonflower. It all turned out far better than I expected and I hope baby Coke loves it just as much as I do :o)
If you would like to make your own, I have changed the names and the mat is available to buy now, directly from Spoonflower. If you would like a personalised mat, cross my palm with silver and I will happily do it for you.