The Handmade Mama: Simple Crafts, Healthy Recipes, and Natural Bath + Body Products for Mama and Baby

by Mary Helen Leonard

Many of the everyday products we rely on through pregnancy and baby’s first year are actually quite simple to make at home with safe and natural ingredients.

Making your own food, homemade skin care products, and everyday objects allows you to choose exactly what you put on and into your body. With help from Mary Helen Leonard, natural lifestyle writer of the blog Mary Makes Good, you’ll create handmade items for mama and baby using sustainable materials. You pick the color. You choose the ingredients. You make adjustments to suit your own tastes and needs. There’s nothing better than custom-made, and when you do it yourself it can actually be affordable! The techniques you’ll discover in The Handmade Mama will make cooking, sewing, and planning your own healthy baby projects a breeze. From ginger syrup for upset stomachs to baby powder, changing mats, food purees, teethers, and simple toys, this book is stuffed with useful projects, tips, and sidebars for a natural pregnancy and baby’s first year that you’ll cherish.

200 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2018

Reviews

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is pretty and some of the projects look nice but it felt all over the place and poorly organized. Just okay.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ideas

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful book has five chapters: "materials & techniques", "recipes & projects for mama", "baby bath & body", "feeding baby", and "playtime". These are all simple projects and ideas, which makes it perfect for all skill-levels. There is a wealth of resources in this book and thankfully, the author has enlisted the expertise of several contributors (lactation consultant, pediatrician, yoga instructor, registered dietician, etc.). The attention to safety is much-appreciated, as well.

What I love most about this book are the personal stories and encouraging words from the author. Being a mom is the most, challenging, amazing, rewarding, and often lonely thing I've ever done. The last thing any mom needs is another person to tell her what to do or judge her for doing something different. This book is completely judgement-free and I couldn't be happier about it.

This book would make an amazing baby shower gift. Don't gift it to a mom who never makes anything by hand. Give it to the mama who you just know made a smoothie from scratch this morning or the mama who went fabric shopping the day she found out she was pregnant. And if you want to make the gift even better, give it with something homemade (a baby blanket, a batch of her favorite cookies, etc.).