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!

valentines for our preschooler

source

Mer Mag came up with this awesome Valentine last year and I've been thinking about it ever since and am excited to be able to have our 3 year old pass them out at preschool this year. I started making them in stages a few weeks ago since I have much more limited time now with an 3 yo and a newborn. I still need to sew on the heart eye patches and candy (need to buy the candy first though!)

I'm keeping all the pieces in this jar because a certain 3 yo likes to play with them!

photos taken my my phone, hence the poor(er than usual) quality

heart garland

Heart garland for Valentine's Day

This is a gift for a friend of mine who's birthday is in January.

 It is made from pre-strung pearl beads with felt hearts hot glued on each side of the beaded string. Simple and fun to make and it makes quite a colorful statement. I added a loop on each end for ease of hanging (which you can see below).

And YES, our baby is here! He was born last week and is such a wonderful addition to our family! Love him!!!

Re-do of fox wreath for Valentine's Day



One last post before I head off to meet our son for the first time. I'm having a c-section early tomorrow morning. I had to get this Valentine's Day wreath done before the big day though since who knows what life will have in store for me once I have 2 little boys to care for. eeks!

 I made a little heart pillow for Mr. Fox to hold as well. It fit just perfectly in his little paws so I did not have to pin or glue it on so that for the next holiday (St. Patty's Day?) the wreath can transform once again.

I had to take the photo with the door open at night because when I went to turn on our porch light I discovered it was burned out and of course when I had time to finish it and take a photo of it, it was dark. Of course.

Anyhow, I ran around today doing errands because I knew I would not be up to leaving the house for a while and when I got home I plunked down for a few minutes and redid my fox Thanksgiving turned Christmas, now turned Valentine's Day wreath. I first saw it one pinterest which led me to this site, which did not have a source linked to it.

What clever person made this (below)?

I want to know.

little love birds on a wire

This is a Christmas gift I made for my brother and sister in law commemorating their anniversary. I made it from cutting out little pieces of paper in the shapes of birds and their winter wear and a piece of embroidery floss for the telephone wire.

I hope they liked it. It was find to make.

Merry CHRISTmas!

This is a letter our 3 year old son "wrote" to Santa at preschool. (Note about the green bananas: We bought a few days before and apparently they were taking too long to turn yellow so he could eat them.)

Play nativity from last year.

Our pup.

Wishing you and your family a

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Our Savior is born!

little felt reindeer

I first saw this little reindeer on the Martha Stewart Crafts Department blog and thought it was so cute. When I went to Cynthia Treen's esty shop and saw she was selling the pattern for $2.00 I quickly placed my order. (It is now $5)

I must admit, this was not the easiest project I have done, but it is worth it, as this little guy will be given shelter in a very special person's home (who will not be named here in case she sees it!).

I had to start over after I had cut out all the felt pieces and started stitching them together because I did not realize I needed to cut out tan legs as well as the white legs (if you look at the pattern you'll see what I mean). This was my fault, as it is obvious you need two sides of each of the 4 legs! I was out of tan felt so when I went to Michael's on my lunch break they only had patterned tan felt. I realized though that it may make the reindeer have even more personality, so I went with it. Glad I did! I like the way he turned out.

I substituted some colors and used ric-rac instead of pinked edges of felt because I had it and it looked cleaner. I like the little tassels on the saddles. I would have never thought to add those!

My son says he needs eyes, but I decided to stick with the pattern and not add them. Still not confident in that decision, but I need to get it wrapped!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!