Lamppostings

Jude is so excited. He finally has a loose tooth. It’s not very loose, but it’s not in there so solid anymore either.

I’ve been thinking for a while about what we would use for him to put his teeth in when he lost them and wanted to exchange them for cash. I definitely wanted a container or a pillow so that the teeth wouldn’t get lost under the pillow. I remember my own tooth pillow clearly. It was a small, circular pillow – pink gingham on one side and green gingham on the other. It had eyelet lace around the edge and a little pocket for the tooth. I’m pretty sure my Mom or a relative made it for me – I’ll have to check with her. I always got a silver dollar in exchange for my teeth – I actually still have most of those silver dollars. We haven’t decided what the tooth exchange rate will be yet for our kids.

So I had this idea for a little box. I basically knew what I wanted, but wasn’t sure it would work until I just started into it.

I began with a metal mint box, spray painted it red – Jude’s favorite color.

I found a fabric remnant that I had lying around and set out to make a little cushion. I traced the shape of the box onto the back of the fabric and cut it out.

As I was making it, I had the bright idea to add a pocket for the tooth to go in so it won’t rattle around. This will be helpful in the middle of the night I am sure. I simply made one side longer than the other and made a fold in the fabric. I pinned it together with the right side of the fabric facing inward.

I also cut out some batting to make it cushiony.

I stitched around the edges leaving one side unstitched, turned it right side out and stuffed it with the batting. I did a stitch along the open side. I thought about hand stitching this edge and making it super neat, but I wasn’t patient enough and just did a machine stitch.

I wanted a way to keep track of when Jude lost his teeth as well so I made up a sheet that has his name on it and a tooth chart with places to fill in the dates that he loses his teeth. My first thought was to glue the cushion to the bottom of the box, but as I was going along, I liked the idea of the cushion being removable and being able to store the chart underneath.

To personalize it, I used a stencil and put a big “J” on the lid. I just used a Sharpie pen to color it in, but you could use paint, add stickers or embellishments.

I am super excited about this project. I am so happy it came out how I envisioned it.  Jude loves his box and is excited to use it for the first time. I’ll definitely be making one for Zane too, but I thought we’d try Jude’s out for a while first and see if I need to make any changes to the design.