yahoo beauty tm: maternity leave swap with KoJo Designs

Hi friends - I thought I'd break out of my newborn haze a little this morning and share some pictures of Ruby:

Ruby is about the sweetest baby I've ever known. She is a chubby little thing and happy as can be. We even got a little sleep last night! I love her pretty hands and how often she smiles in her sleep. Oscar loves to lean over her moses basket every morning and shout out a very enthusiastic, "HI! HI! HI!"

Also, I am excited to welcome Kirstin and Jordan of kojo designs to my blog today. Since Kirstin is having a baby in August, she proposed that we do a little maternity leave swap to give us each a bit more time to return to crafting. I've been a long-time fan of kojo's blog and projects, so I was thrilled with the idea! They have a beautiful tutorial prepared for you today.

So without further ado ... here are Kirstin and Jordan:

Hello there. Congratulations to Jill and a big welcome to Miss Ruby (isn't she lovely?)! We love babies... there isn't anything as exciting as bringing a new family member home from the hospital. At the same time, there isn't anything quite as exhausting! Which brings us to this blog swap- hopefully it gives Jill, Jared and Oscar a little more time for newborn baby kisses and snuggles and naps. And hopefully our tutorial today gives you some ideas for nursery decor (well, technically, I made this for my toddler's new "big boy room," so I guess it could be any-room decor) as well.

First things first- we are Kirstin and Jordan, sisters who blog over at kojodesigns. Besides our aforementioned love for babies and making things for our little ones, we have slight addictions to pretty paper and fabric, love nothing more than putting together a kickin' party or shower, and both still subscribe to Martha Stewart Weddings (even though we've each been married for 7+ years- haha!). We LOVE Jill's blog (the maternity pencil skirt I made using her tutorial wins the award for most worn maternity item during my pregnancy) and are thrilled to be here today.

Let's get started on a pom pom name pennant, shall we?

To make this string-of-goodness, you'll need:
-yarn in your palette
-Goodwill-bound tshirts in your palette (optional)
-a pom pom maker
-floral wire or craft wire
-coordinating felt (a few 9x12 sheets), cut into dime sized circles
-coordinating grosgrain ribbon (I used 3 yards)
-a hot glue gun and hot glue

1. Make a whole pile of pom poms using a medium sized pom pom maker. Each letter takes about twenty pom poms. Here are a couple tutorials for using a pom pom maker to make yarn pom poms and jersey pom poms.

2. Print full page sized outlines of letters that spell your name (or word of choice). I used Powerpoint. Use a fairly basic font- since you'll be bending wire to match your printouts and don't want a ton of loops or serifs. Then, bend floral wire or craft wire in place to match each letter outline. Doubling up the craft wire will give you a solid base for your pom poms.

3. Begin tying pom poms onto your wire letters all in a row. Switch up the colors so you have an even mix of your color palette. The pom poms will be a little wiggle-y at this point, don't worry about that.

4. If you haven't already, cut out a stack of dime sized felt circles that match your palette. You'll need one circle for each pom pom.

5. Once your entire letter is covered in pom poms, secure the pom pom in place by hot gluing a felt circle to the back of the pom pom. This will glue it in place on the wire. When you're finished, the back of your letter will be lines of felt circles (my pom poms were close enough together that the felt circles touched each other) in the shape of your letter. Repeat until you have a whole name (or word) of pom poms.