Baptismal Thanks

The gown is finished and the baby baptized and no thanks to me! I have to say that my entire contribution to this gown was sewing the lace on the yoke. That's it. Oh well.

Thanks to Nana for stepping up to the plate and finishing the gown for little E. Great job on embroidering the little westie as well. Also - great cake! Love it!

Thank you to S & C for being god parents to Little E. You did just fine.

Thanks to Dad for all of the help the night before getting everything ready for the lunch. Peeling potatoes and eggs and carrying things up and down stairs. Thanks to my cousin E for taking great snapshots of all of the action.

Thanks to all of our family and friends for celebrating with us and for the lovely gifts too!

It was a great day!

Baptismal Gown

Little E helps Mommy and Nana with sewing. Not really but he looked so darn cute I had to start off this post with this picture!


I had the wonderful idea that I would sew a baptismal gown for little E for his baptism on Sunday. After looking at the gown my mother sewed for my brother I figured that I could sew one just the same with little or no trouble (and with some coaching from her).


The material we used for the gown was given to my mom by my great-grandmother for her to make my baptismal gown. We used the same pattern that my mom used to make my brother's baptismal gown. His baptismal gown had a little blue teddy bear embroidered on it. My son's god-parents are my sister and brother-in-law and they have a West Highland White Terrier named Wilkie (who is like one of the family). Evan's gown has a little westie on it that my mom embroidered.


I started this project very optimistically. However, life doesn't always go according to plan. I would say that it is mostly due to the fact that I left the sewing of the gown till the week before the baptism. This was mistake #1. No problem for my mom - but I needed to allow room for error. And there were three in the first 30 minutes of sewing.

First thing I did was to pin the yoke to the front of the skirt the wrong way. I had the front of the yoke pinned to the inside of the gown. This had taken 20 minutes of gathering, measuring, careful pinning and matching up which had to be undone. This could have been worse. I could have actually sewed it wrong.


Mistake number two came after I sucessfully sewed the seam after re-pinning it. It was then that my mom and I looked at it and discovered that we hadn't put the lace on. Every thing had to be torn out, gathering stiches put back in, gathers re-done, and measured over again. After an hour of sewing we were back at square one.

I sewed the lace on the yoke and then my mom redid the front seam yet again. This was when little E woke up from his nap and I had to go feed him. At this point, I realized that it could take hours to sew the dress at my speed so I just let my mom have at it.



She is saving a few jobs for me to do on the gown. I will be sewing the side seams, hemming it and adding the final lace trim. I think this still counts as me "sewing" his dress.

Advice on Shopping at London Drugs

I have been asked some questions about how I'm able to get such good deals when shopping at London Drugs. I thought I would write a little tutorial with some advice and tips that might help you in getting the good deals too.

First off you need coupons. Good places to check out are:

www.save.ca
www.brandsaver.ca
www.smartcanucks.ca
www.gocoupons.com

Also you can get coupons from the newspapers. Smart Source, Brandsaver and Red Plum flyers are the ones that I have found. These flyers can be found in the Saturday paper. Coupons can also be found in store and in magazines or sometimes on the product itself.

A good blog to read for tips on coupons and deals is savemoneyinwinnipeg. Search the archives for posts on London Drugs, coupon stacking, and coupon chains. The owner of the blog, Nadine, also organizes coupon chains. Read her blog for more on this.

Once you get your coupons it helps to organize them. The best system to use is the one that will work best for you. I use a small plastic photo album to organize my coupons. Each pocket is labelled with a different category of coupon (i.e. diapers & wipes, cereal, toothpaste, shampoo, cleaners etc). Others use a zippered binder with hockey card inserts and put their coupons in there.

The next step is to make a shopping list. You have to be pretty organized to stack coupons. If you aren't the cashier gets crabby at you and you spend a lot of time at the store!

I read through the flyers and see what is one sale that week. The reason I do this is because London Drugs (LD) allows you to "price match" to other competitor's sale flyers. For example, the regular price of a pack of Pampers Mega diapers is $18.99 at LD. If they are advertised in the flyer for $15.99 at Zellers you would bring your Zellers flyer with you to LD and say that you want to price match to that flyer. Instant savings! They you use your coupons to lower the price even more.

This brings me to coupon stacking. The only store that allows this is LD. Coupon stacking means using more than one coupon on a single item. If you are using multiple coupons on one item they must all have a different UPC code on them. Sometimes you can even get items for free!

You will want to organize your coupons and flyers at home before you go to the store. Make a list of the items you want to purchase and if you are price matching them. Be sure to check your coupons for expiry dates and to make sure you are using the coupon on the correct product (some coupons specify a size ie. 4 pack bar of soap, 500 ml bottle etc). I circle the item that I am price matching in the flyer with a marker so that I can easily find it at the store to show the cashier. Get all of you coupons together and maybe paper clip them to keep them together.

When I pay, I put the item on the counter and the coupons with it (as you go). This works well for me. Make sure to tell the cashier ahead of time if you want to price match (PM). It is a good idea to do all of the items from one flyer at a time. Speeds up the process.

My list might look something like this:

Pampers - mega PM Zellers $15.99 - $10 coupons
Secret Flawless Deo - PM Walmart $2.50 - $2 coupon
Reach Toothbrush - PM Rexall $1 - $1 coupon - Free!

When you want to price match or coupon stack at LD you need to take your purchase to the customer service till. Do not go through the regular check out. Also, make sure not to try to price match too close to closing. It takes some time to do the shopping and check out. Cashiers don't like it if you try to stack too close to closing.

I think that is most of what I do. If I think of anything else I will add it up. Feel free to add your tips in the comments!

Give Away Winners!

Well here are the winners of the first year anniversary give away for craftermeetstamper!

I used a random number generator at random.org to find the winners and here they are:

Patty - winner of the flannel receiving blanket, burp cloth and hankie

Sheri - winner of the reuseable swiffer cover

Ruth - winner of the gift card holder

Congratulations ladies!

Please email me at bencer99@hotmail.com with your address and I'll mail your prize out this weekend!

Thanks for participating and thanks for reading my blog!

Ring Slings

My next project is to sew some ring slings for carrying little E. I've been reading several websites on baby carrying and was thinking that a sling might come in handy for traveling with little E.

I also discovered that there are different options for making slings - different types of fabric and for different purposes. I would like to make three types of slings. One of flannel for daily use, one of mesh to use in the water and one of lightweight fabric to make it cooler and a little more dressy.



I had originally bought craft rings at Michael's but after reading some web pages found out that they are not recommended for use in slings. The information I read said that you cannot be sure of what materials they are made of and whether they are safe for a baby. Also, they have rough edges and can potentially cut the fabric or break which results in a potential safety risk to baby.

I did find some rings at slingrings.com. These are specifically manufactured to be used on slings for carrying babies. I ordered several pairs and now am set to get sewing. You can find lots of patterns online. One site that I found helpful was this one. Just google ring sling patterns and you'll find many variations. Has anyone out there used one? Made one? I'd be interested to hear your suggestions or opinions on the type of baby carrier you used.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway. Contest closes Wednesday, March 3rd at Midnight!