Pinterest Challenge: Aden and Anais Swaddlers

I'm working on a few baby gifts this week. It corresponded perfectly with the Pinterest challenge going on over at Young House Love. I've had some "Pinspirations" in mind.

The Wiegands

I've been drooling over this bold, black and white baby blanket above. It looks like a knit, but I chose woven cotton gauze for my project. Like Aden and Anais swaddling blankets (TUTORIAL HERE).

I also have been loving all the triangle/tribal type prints that are popping up.

See Kate Sew

The Wiegands

Here are my Pinterest inspired, hand stamped, swaddling blankets.

They're cotton gauze, a little stretchy and beautifully breathable...happy baby!  For gifts you can roll them up and tie with cute ribbon and a little tag. I love that the colors and patterns are a bit nontraditional for babies, I get tired of dinosaurs and animals.

For my blankets, I decided to go with potato stamping so that I could have complete freedom on size and shape...not to mention it's cheap.

I cut the potatoes in half then scratch the shape into them with a blunt pencil (if it's something more complicated) then carefully cut around it with a knife. You have to dry it off with paper towels every so often because water leeches out of the potato and can give you some bleeding if you're not careful. They will last a few days if you wrap them up with plastic, and they work best if you stick with a single color per stamp. You could start out stamping with your lightest color, wipe off as much paint as you can, then go darker at the end--dark to light makes a bit of a mess. 

For the color gradient on the black trees blanket, I applied paint to the stamp with a foam brush then stamped three times before reapplying paint. I always use tulip, soft, matte fabric paint and stamped it in a completely random pattern, I like it! 

The other blanket is all triangles of different sizes and colors.

I'm in love with this one.

Hope these gifts will be enjoyed! Visit THIS POST for a complete, step by step tutorial on making knock off Aden and Anais Swaddlers. 

BLOOPER: 

Funny story ...I picked up a 99 cent foam stamp from hobby lobby...here it is:

Hmm, devil face? Perfect for a baby blanket right? 

Heel no! It totally looked like an owl before stamping. I blotted out the scary mouth feathers and it took some of the frightening out of this little blanket. 

I just want to know who is in charge of checking to make sure stamps don't inadvertently look like devil faces. I think Hobby Lobby in particular would be horrified by this.

(owls to the left, devils to the right... hands in the air! sorry, that sounded so much like a line dance that I couldn't resist...)