DIY: Freezer Paper Stencil Custom Shirt

Well.  Hey there.

Just popping in to show this cute and easy shirt I made for Gavin last weekend.  (Wish I could stay and chat longer, but my report cards are due.  It's that time of year!)

We had a Sing-a-Long birthday party for the twins on Sunday.  They're going to be five on Thursday.  FIVE!  In my head, I still picture this all of the time, and count my innumerable blessings:

Thankfully, they fattened up pretty fast those first weeks in the NICU, and there's no end in sight.  (For those new to this blog, you can read old posts dating back to the early days to get a glimpse of what life was like with preemie twins.)

Back to the shirt.  Since it was a sing-a-long theme, and since a talented friend of mine was singing her original children's songs to entertain the kids, I wanted Gavin to have a cool shirt to go with the theme of the day.

I started with a cheap navy t-shirt from Old Navy and this free stencil from the Acire Adventures blog.

I photocopied the stencil to scale it down a little and traced it onto the flat (not shiny) side of good ol' freezer paper.  Then I used an exacto knife to cut it out, placed it shiny-side down on the t-shirt, and ironed for about 30 seconds until the paper stuck to the shirt.  Please excuse the iPhone photo.  I was charging my Nikon battery!

Originally, I was just going to use light blue fabric paint to stencil the design, but I went with a bleach pen instead.

I waited about 10 minutes, and then peeled the paper off like a big sticker.  To get the smaller, peskier parts of the stencil off, I had to use the tip of the exacto knife.

I immediately rinsed the bleach off of the shirt, and then washed it in cold water by itself.  I always worry about "stray" bleach getting on other clothes.

I think my birthday boy looked adorable.  And tall.

As always, thanks for reading!

Countdown to Noon NYE Party

My little bonus baby turned three on December 30.

This blog was born back in 2007, when my twins were born prematurely.  (Blog was "born" -- har har! Hilarious!)  Tulip & Turnip was a way of chronicling for friends and family our journey with premature twins, but has grown into so much more than that.  I have been very open about our struggle with infertility.  It took several years, lots of dough, and eventually IVF to conceive Charlotte and Gavin, who are now four and perfectly healthy.

When they were about 13 months old, Michael and I went out for Chinese food.  I saved the fortune from my cookie that night because I was intrigued:  The love of your life will appear unexpectedly.  A week later, we found out that Nathan was on his way, with no intervention at all (other than the divine kind).  One of the FOUR loves of my life.  I'm a lucky lady.

Since his birthday is so close to New Year's Eve, we decided to have a "Countdown to Noon" birthday party.  I knew there was no way that I was staying up until midnight, so the kids weren't either.  This was their chance to experience the festivities.  Here are a few photos of the celebration.

The giant purple monstrosity hanging from my ceiling is a balloon drop, i.e  two Dollar Store tablecloths "sewn" together with yarn.  It worked!

I made the little memo book and crayon favor based on something I found here via Pinterest.

Preemie Twins Dot Com

Look at this!  Preemietwins.com named me one of their Top 10 Blogs about preemies.  You can read the article here.  The list was created about a year ago, but a few people have recently found my blog via this website.

I originally started this blog to describe and journal my triumphs and troubles of parenting premature twins.  It was not an easy road for me.  For those of you who may not know, the twins were born at 31 weeks.  Charlotte weighed in at 3 lbs. 3 ozs., and Gavin at 3 lbs. 11 ozs.  The first few months were a blur of diapering, breastfeeding, very little sleep, and some postpartum depression thrown in for good measure.

Charlotte and Gavin are now perfectly healthy three year olds.  We had a lot of help from family (and we still do), great doctors and nurses at the NICU (I thank my lucky stars for them every day), and a terrific occupational therapist from our county's Intermediate Unit.

This blog has evolved a bit as the twins have grown.  I'm now a mother of three.  But I like to look back at my earliest posts and see how far we've come and how lucky we are.  If you are visiting this blog because you are a mother of multiples, I encourage you to click back on the early links.  I hope you find something helpful!  Feel free to email me with any questions -- I'd be happy to help if I can!

Flashback to March, 2007: