abbey's 1st birthday gift

my niece just had her first birthday! her party was an owl theme and i knew that well ahead of time so i decided to make all her gifts about owls. my first idea was to make a toddler sized backpack (alex always has loved having a backpack) and then to fill it with stuff. i found a pattern for a backpack "made by rae" that was cute. i wanted it to be an owl and be made out of fun fabrics. i actually brought my fabrics and fabric glue to vacation this summer and cut out all the pieces for the backpack and made the owls face. after we got home from vacation i top stitched the owls face and then proceeded to sew the rest of the backpack on the machine. i also made abbey a glow-in-the-dark owl shirt from a linoleum cut. i love doing linoleum cutting, it's so soothing and rustic. you get a different looking print when you do it this way versus the more polished screenprint look. the second print layer of the glow paint looks a little sloppy, but it kind of goes with that folksy look and hey, it glows in the dark, that's pretty awesome. i finished off the owl print with a fabric flower and button. the rest of the gifts were all bought. i found that super cute crocheted owl hat on etsy - i was looking for a pattern to crochet myself but couldn't find one i liked and was very pleased with this hat and i was still supporting handmade. we rounded off the gifts with two owl books, some vinyl owl finger puppets and some stickers. abbey looks super cute in that owl hat too :)