window clings

We had a few more birds left over from the Ikea placemat-turned mobile, so my 3 yo son and I discovered while I was washing windows that they stick onto the glass! How cool!

Just add a bit of water to the back of the bird and stick it on the window!

upgraded craft nest...now...nursery

My craft nest, as you may know is in our guest room closet (which is to the left of the door where I am standing when I took the below photo). The room  is now playing triple duty as guest room, craft nest and now nursery. I've slowly been making it into a nursery for our now 5 week old. He still sleeps in our bedroom in a co-sleeper, and will remain there for some time, but it is nice to have a place for his clothes, changing pad and other baby accouterments.

I emptied out my refinished mirrored dresser from all it's craft supplies with the help of my sister-in-law and moved it over to the far wall. We moved the bed to the left corner so there would be more floor space in which to add a mini-crib that I got on Craig's list.

There were several projects in this room. The biggest was making the roman shades from the existing blinds. Now THAT was a project! My mom helped me (thank God for her!) make them from a combination of these tutorials (here and here). I won't bore or confuse you with another tutorial since there are so many readily available, however, one major tip is: just BREAK or CUT off the unused slats. DO NOT try to take them off by taking them all off the cord via the bottom of the blind by taking it all apart. If this does not make sense, it will once you start the process. After making the first large shade, I found another tutorial that said to break them and the next two smaller shades took way less time and it was way less frustrating!

The fabric is made of curtains we cut up from Ikea. My mom helped me by sewing on a black out shade the exact size of the shades before we started. One thing to mention: the needle makes holes in the blackout shade and the sun can shine through. It's not a big deal, but you want to make sure you sew a very straight line and do not back up because you can see any mistakes. Again, thank God my mom did this step!

My little turqouise needle felted bird hangs from the ceiling fan.

The other project was a simple one. I cut up a placemat also from Ikea and made a bird mobile. I used fishing line and sticks for the mobile.  This room is getting birdied-out!

So there you have it. Our triple-duty room! Not sure how it will function once the baby uses it to sleep, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

p.s. The Ikea site is not working right now, so I was unable to link to the fabric and placemats, but once it's up you can just search them.

thrift store finds 2

Wow! I scored some amazing stuff at the thrift store today.  I am so excited to share them with you!

I went in looking for frames for our gallery-wall-in-progress and came out with toys galore! And not a single frame.

Look at these finds! I walked out less than $30 later with all this stuff and a few other things as well.

 Mega Blocks to add to our boy's collection for $6!!!  And a working "computer" which has several spelling and alphabet functions for $2.

A full size brand new UCLA basketball for $1 and a brand new in the box mini basketball for $5. I guess they felt the package warranted it being $4 more dollars than the big one. Hmmm.

 A bowling ball set for $2.50 and a connector set for $3 for my boy who loves to build things.

A set of letter rings which both my baby and 3 year old will love. For some reason he loves to play with those baby rings and these are in the shape of letters, so he'll really love them.

And finally my favorite find! LINCOLN LOGS! Do you know how expensive they are in the stores (When you can even find them)??? Really! This set was $5.00 and worth every penny!

Looks like I am set for Easter and Birthday for my 3 year old!

I am so stoked!

looking at the sky while bathing

While "pinterest-ing" one day I came across this and knew I had to incorperate them into my house somehow.

Well this is how:

View from inside the tub looking up:

Now I have something for my little sweeties to look up at when they bathe. Fun! I bet your kiddos would like some clouds too! They are super easy to make. I found that it was easier for me to use the fishing line "sewn" through the batting instead of using the wire called for in the directions. I just used the fishing line as a needle and tied a few knots in the batting to hold it in place.

And maybe your sweeties would like some felted birdes too? ( I have made many of these, which you can see here, here, here, and here.) I explain what you need to need to needle felt here. I'd love to see what you make if you try it!