DIY- Dock-a-tot

We recently went camping with our little man. Ours is not a co- sleeping family, but at some point all three nights our 8 month old ended up in bed with us where he stayed until morning, which was great for him but not so great for this paranoid Momma. I hardly slept for worrying that I was going to smother my baby while trying to keep all of us warm. We are going camping again this weekend and in my search for a solution to our sleeping problem I started a Google search. I found a ton of co-sleeping "helps" but seeing that co-sleeping was only a camping thing I wasn't anxious to drop a lot of money for just a few nights. Then I found it, the mother of all co-sleeping helps, the $165 Dock-a-tot! Holy Moley! Who has that kind of money to spend on what basically looked like a glorified dog bed. Interested in why this thing was so expensive I kept on searching and ran across several "cheep" DIY versions of this miraculous pillow. However, "cheep" for some is not "cheep" for the rest of us. I wanted a DIY that was free. I don't know what it is about nursing my baby, but for some reason that is when I get all of my best ideas lately. With all that said, may I present my take on the Dock-a-tot:

Materials needed:
Sewing machine (or you could sew it by hand... what ever floats your boat.)
A long sleeve dress shirt (mine is a men's size large)
Two old pillows
A piece of ribbon

Now, I'm sure someone out there will look at this tutorial and improve upon it greatly but I am more of a function over fashion kind of girl, especially with my very active 8 month old crawling all over the place and with our next camping trip just 2 days away I didn't really care to make it fancy, I just wanted something to keep my baby in his own space if he ended up in our bed again.

Sew up the opening of the collar, the bottom of each sleeve, and the bottom of the shirt.
Then sew the seam of each sleeve to the seam of the shirt.
Sew a piece of ribbon to the bottom of each sleeve.
Sew an arch from one armpit to the other leaving roughly the same amount of space at the top as the width of your sleeves.

Congratulations. The sewing is done. Now bust open your pillows. Unbutton the sleeves at the wrist and stuff your sleeves and neckline with your desired amount of fluff. I used about 1 and 3/4 of my two pillows.
At this point it'll look something like this.

Now, simply tie the sleeves together with the ribbon, like so...

Boom! Done! If you want to add a little extra padding to the center you could get some batting from the craft store, I  opted for a folded up receiving blanket. The buttons on the front of the shirt make for a great access point to insert as much padding as you want.
We have yet to use it but I'll add an update after our camping trip.
Happy sleeping!

FYI- 4 AM DIY Lip Stain...yeah... that didn't work.

So, I've been bombarded lately in Facebook by invites to these "Lipsense" parties. Now, I love makeup and lipstick as much as the next girl but the thought if spending $55 for one lipstick is crazy!
Last night while I was awake nursing my son, I had an idea. You know those water flavor concentrate things? Every time I drink one of those my lips get stained whatever color I was just drinking. So what if I just applied it directly to my lips, let it dry then licked it off? That should work right? So the next morning I pulled out the Hawaiian punch concentrate and with a lip brush I applied it to my lips. The color was awesome. The taste was delicious but the end result... well... my bottom lip stayed nice and red for a good few hours but my top lip really only stained the bottom soft part that is just inside my mouth. Bummer. I had such high hopes.
I'm not defeated yet though. I have plans to experiment with a homemade lip balm made with the same stuff, maybe it'll stain if it's in a carrier. But! That's a project for another day.