A Fun Baby Shower Gift

I recently attended a baby shower for the sister-in-law of a really good friend.  When I found out that she was going to be having her baby shower the same weekend as a half-marathon I was running, I couldn't wait to make something homemade, for their nursery.  This is their first baby - and a GIRL! (I tend to go a little crazy when I know someone's having a girl...it's pure jealousy.)
So I quickly went online to get some ideas of what would be a cute, homemade gift - an original.  I came across this sign and thought, 'PERFECT!'

Although I couldn't find the exact baby girl image that was in the sign, I improvised and ended up making this:

The fabric and fiberfill you see to the right of the sign was just to show you that I actually added filling under fabric behind the sign so the wood wouldn't make noise if banged against a door or crib...I thought this was a moment of genius.

Here are the materials I used:

• A piece of carved wood from Michael's - it's unpainted and they come in all different sizes
• Wooden embellishment - instead of the baby image on the original sign, I found the little princess crown at Michael's and thought it would be perfect.
• Ribbon for hanging
• Martha Stewart Craft Paints - for any surface - color of your choice
• Pink Sharpie Paint Pen
• Hot Glue Gun
• Scrap of fabric (optional) - I got a quilter's square from Jo-Ann's fabric
• Polyester Fiberfill (optional)

I had my husband drill two holes on the top of the carved wood - with holes large enough to be able to push ribbon through with a toothpick. I don't like excess hole space to exist after the ribbon is in.  After sanding the holes down, I painted the carved wood in the glittery purple. Martha Stewart has so many colors and shades of craft paint, it is just so hard to decide some time!

After drying, I pushed the ribbon through the holes and glued the crown into the corner to give me an idea of how much room I could work with for the words.

After the crown dried, I wrote the words, 'Shhh!  You wake her, you take her!!!'

I let that dry for a spell and then flipped the sign over to start on the padding on the back.

This is where it all becomes optional.  I was in a store, this past weekend, that had similar signs for sale and those had no padding on the back.  I think the padding adds a nice touch so it's not knocking on everything and making noise.  I basically cut an outline of the carved wood with 1/2 inch - 1 inch of margin.  Then I folded three 'sides of the material under the fabric and onto the wood and glued it on with my glue gun.  I stuffed the poly-fill in there until there was a nice cushion and just folded the rest of the fabric (what you see on the right side of the picture) underneath itself and glued it to the back of the wood.  It looked like a nice pin cushion.

Depending on where the Parents-to-be plan to hang the sign will help in deciding whether or not the padding is needed or not.

But the Mom-to-be seemed very pleased with the sign and I was glad I was able to make it for her.

In hindsight, I wish I had asked for their nursery colors - cause I could have made it match that OR just did a classic cream base with pink writing or pink polka dots - all using the Sharpie Paint pen.  I'm sure there will be more babies to do this for in the future.  This was a relatively quick project - the most time consuming part was waiting for the paint to dry!