A Little Lovie to Lift the Spirits: DIY Stuffed Friend

At 32.2 weeks, I was hospitalized for high blood pressure, which has since then turned into preeclampsia which means the hospital is my "home" until we deliver our sweet little blessing, Jacob Thomas.  Our goal is to get to 37 weeks and I have 2 1/2 more weeks to go.  The biggest hurdle is missing my children... my 6, 4, and 2 year old are pulling my heart strings.  I have many special people praying for me, so the majority of the time I am here, a blanket of peace has covered me which lead me to the idea of making some little loves for my kiddos with recorded messages in them.  I started to search Pinterest for some inspiration.  This link was the inspiration for my daughter's doll.

Pink and Purple are my dd's favorite colors, so Jennifer Paganelli's vibrant fabrics were the perfect fit .

My sewing nook. Thank goodness my hubby is so good to me.  A few trips to my room and I have a good selection of fun fabrics to light my sewing fire.

My Home away from Home.

This is how we personalize the lovie.  I recorded a special message for each of my children into these voice recorders.  You have 10 seconds of recording time.  My mom drove to the mall and picked them up for me... we get ours from Build a Bear (BAB) and they are the best.  $8.00 a piece, but priceless in terms of the peace of mind and smile they can bring to my sweets.  We use these for Christmas ornaments too, and putting up ornaments is a ball when listening to them.  

These are the main pieces that I have... I added a pocket to the back so that these can double as tooth fairy pillows.  Hoping those toddler teeth stay put, they are special pockets for now.

I embellished it a bit with some quilting, handout felt flowers and a scrap of lace from my Baptismal dress that I couldn't throw away, and now I am happy that I didn't.

I am happy with how she turned out.  I love the colors, and she is so soft.

She loves it! Yay!!! My husband says she listened to it in the car on the way home giggling away and that is how I want to think of her and my boys while I spend a month in the hospital awaiting their baby brother.  A few weeks here in terms of a lifetime for the baby should be a piece of cake and it is when I have peace of mind.