Happy Heart Day!

Tonight I made Valentines for Manhattan to take to school. Very simple, but cute. And, as a bonus, even Manhattan herself liked them! "Wow, Mom, that's cool you made them look like they really came from the store!" I don't generally get that kind of comment from her, so she must've really meant it.

I usually have her make something herself, but the last week has been so incredibly busy with cousins in town and wedding prep and party for the sister in law, that we didn't have time to do much. She did, however, write her classmates' names on them and help me count out the candy.

Shower

Be prepared for lots of photos!Like I said yesterday, I had a lot of fun planning Abby's family bridal shower with Aunt Debbie. And the fun resulted in a great party! We had the placed all decked out with birds, had lots of food, and a variety of teas, not to mention lots of great people.

The chalkboard sign was very easy to make. I simply place a piece of my chalkboard vinyl over the glass of a frame and used a chalk marker to doodle their names on it. Easy and cute! Because the theme was birds, I used a grapevine wreath to look like a nest and left notecards for everyone to write advice and wishes for the couple-to-be. I forgot to take a photo after the cards were in it,

but it was very cute! I also made the bunting banner with their names on it. I think it all came together quite well.

We set up a cute kids table with a plastic tea set, pink birds, and valentine suckers. The girls loved it. Their great grandma changed the words to a couple old songs and taught them the words so they could sing to Abby. It was great that they had a moment in the spotlight (all kids love that, don't they?) and everyone thought the songs were so cute. No, the dog didn't join in the singing, she just love attention too.

Because everyone brought their handwritten recipes (see yesterday's post), I found a pretty wooden recipe box that I engraved with Abby's new last name to match the recipe cards. I would have LOVE a recipe box full of everyone's favorite recipes!

Did I mention we had food? Oh my goodness. We had lots of it! Heart shaped egg salad and artichoke/spinach sandwiches, mini quiches from Costco, pudding cups with raspberries a la Debbie, Oreo truffles (sooo easy!), chocolate covered nests, sugar cookies a la Betty Crocker mix, crackers and dip, biscotti from Costco dipped in chocolate, and lots of tea.

Overall, it was great. Yes, there were adults present, but kids are so much cuter, aren't they? Congrats Abby! Glad we could have a shower for you :)

Bridal Shower Invites

My cute sister in law is getting married in just over a week, and I've had fun helping her get ready. First off, I'll share the invitations for the bridal shower her aunt and I threw for her. Lots of pictures of the party to follow tomorrow :)

The theme of her wedding is birds, so we used it for the shower as well. I had so much fun designing these! The third piece is a recipe card, and each person was asked to handwrite a recipe for the new couple. I designed, printed, and laser cut them all here in my studio. I feel like I have my own little print shop! Amazing feeling.

Reindeer Pops

It's late, but I've been meaning to post this for a week now, so i thought I'd get it up, even if it's too late for my brain to function! It's crazy how much there is to do this time of year! Anyway, Manhattan, Mia, and I made these cute little Reindeer out of this:

It was simple enough for a two year old to help! The girls brought them to all the kids in their classes as a cute holiday treat. Here is where I got the idea, via Pinterist! As an added tasty bonus, I dipped some of the pretzels in the extra melted chocolate. Yum!

It's that time of year again...

It seems that as the weather gets cooler I always tend to get into more of a crafty spirit. I'm not really sure if it's the fact that it's cooler and less time is spent outside or that the holiday season is coming, but either way, I've been up to a bunch of things and I really need to start posting!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since my last post! A lot has happened since then, including an addition to the family, little Rosie. Now that she's getting a bit bigger, I might have a bit more time on my hands, so hopefully that means I can get back to occasionally posting on this here blog.

I've also added a new "toy" to my toolbox, although it's more of a large piece of equipment than a toy. But, to me, strange things are toys! If you want to see the first couple things I've made with it, check out my Etsy shop. Or, just wait for me to post on here. Either way, it's lots of fun!

There's been lots of changes around the house, including work on my studio. I'm SO excited for it to be finished, which should be in the next couple of weeks. Pictures to come!

And now, I'm off to get the Christmas cards in the mail.

Swap Time!

And the partners are in...

I'm SOOO excited to do the ornament swap again, hosted by Freshly Blended, whose blog, I will add, I absolutely LOVE. This is my third year now, and I can easily say it has become one of my favorite holiday tradition. Last year I never posted pictures of the ornaments I made or the ornaments I received, I'm very sad to admit. This year I promise to do better. I will say that I hid my post from two years ago with my ornaments, because my ornaments this year will be similar in style, but slightly different in design, and I don't want to ruin the wonderful surprise for my wonderful swap partners.

I'm also going to wait until after I have sent them all out to add them to my Etsy store. I've been doing a lot of product development the last little while, and have something very exciting to share. I'll hopefully add the new products in the next day or two. Wish me luck!

$25 Chair

Today I put together a chair for Duppy's desk for a grand total of...you guessed it, about $25.00. I didn't plan on it costing quite that much, but when I took the seat of my $5.00 DI find, I discovered mold. So, I had to buy new padding and cut a new seat. Luckily I already had wood in the garage, or it would've been a bit more. This poor chair was a mess when I bought it, but I didn't take a before picture. To give you an idea (even before I spotted the mold), it was black/bronze metal with a few rust spots, the rubber feet were cracked and one was missing, the top sides were open tubes, and the seat had more stains than I think I've ever seen on a chair. But to look at it now, you'd never know!
My purchased supplies included two cans of white spray paint ($5.00), plastic feet caps ($1.00), crystal knob things for the top back ($6.00 for 2), yellow canvas to cover the seat ($4.00 @ 50% off), cushion padding for the seat ($4.00), and of course the $5.00 chair. I used some other things from around the house, of course, like hardware, a staple gun, ribbon for the back, etc.

Anyway, I think this chair is one of the happiest looking I've ever seen. The crystal knobs sure add a nice sparkle too. Notice how from the side they look clear and from above they are yellow in the picture below. I sure love adding personal touches to things for our home!

Growth Chart

Well, well. I've been working on all sorts of projects the last couple weeks, so I thought I should start posting some of them. This was one that I did the other night. I've been wanting a growth chart, so I designed one and cut it on my plotter. It is now hanging in the playroom, waiting for me to find a Sharpie. I don't know about your house, but scissors and Sharpies are two of the things that I know we have a million of, but I can't ever find them when I need them. And exacto knives. Anyway, I love the way it turned out, all graphic and such. I might just start selling them in my Etsy shop, along with a few other things I've been working on.

Birthday Cake

For Mia's first birthday, we had some family over. The most important part, of course, was the cake. Because, what do you want from a first birthday party? Pictures of the little one making a mess with the cake, of course! So, I went about making a cake, but not just an ordinary cake. I went for something different, and used banana bread for two of the three layers, with one chocolate round in the middle. Add some cream cheese frosting, fondant, and icing, and voila, I had me a tasty cake! I was quite proud of myself. I also made Mia a little cake of her own, with just a mound of banana bread. I guess that's the new thing; a cake for everyone to eat, and a "smash cake" for the kid. Great idea in my book, and Mia loved it too!

Baby's Wall Decor

This week I've been working on decorating Mia's room. I will have it decorated before she turns one. That's my goal at least. A bit pathetic, but hey, she's too little to care! Here are two of the projects, and I have a couple more I'll post about, hopefully soon.First, I've finally gotten around to hanging her name on the wall. I bought various letter from eBay and Etsy, a couple from old theater sign boards (A & I), a letterpress wood block (M), one from a '70s interstate sign that used to hold reflective "coins" (E), and a couple old wall hangings (L & A).I've also hung artwork above the changing table. I love how this turned out as well. I bought different frames from the D.I., prints and artwork from different sellers on Etsy (some cards, some prints, and one or two originals), and there fun little flowers from Target. A couple of my favorite prints are the drawing of the girl with a city in her hair from Paula Zakimi's shop (bottom left), The Neighborhood print from meArtDesign (bottom left of bottom right photo), and Give from ErinJaneShop (top right of bottom right photo). The flowers from Target look as though they are being blown out of their frame towards and out the window on the adjacent wall. Did I mention I love how this looks?

City View

Manhattan, now 4, has become obsessed with the city for which she was named in the last few months. So, I decided to bring the city to her room! She loves it, and is getting more and more excited to take a trip there, hopefully sometime this year. Can I tell you how simple this was? I love my plotter and all the many fun things I can do with it!

Blue Birdies

Most of my recent projects have been decorating our house in one way or another. Plenty to keep me busy for quite a while! In our room I decided to go with a birds and trees theme, using a robin's egg blue and dark brown. On Etsy I found EarthArt, an artist who paints on wood leaving a lot of texture. She is very willing to do custom orders, so I told her I wanted two birds on a branch using browns and the particular blue-green for the sky and this is what I received. I LOVE it and it fits perfectly in our room!

I also created these three images to hang just by our door. My three birdies greeting us as we enter and bidding farewell as we leave the room.

One of my recent projects...

So, yeah, it's been a while again. Lame excuse (but true): we couldn't find the charger for our camera and didn't want to buy a new one because we knew the old one would turn up as soon as we did. After a few months we bought one and as soon as it arrived, I found the old one. Anyway, now we have two. I've done a few little projects in the last 6 months (I sure would hope so), and this is one.

It seems as though most kids these days have their names displayed in there room in one way or another, and this is one of the more generic. I bought some pre-cut letters from Michael's and glued scrap book paper to the fronts using colors that coordinate with her room, of course. This is the result. after I've finished all of my planned projects in the room I'll post some shots of the "finished" product. Even though I don't really think a room is ever finished and they just continue to evolve.

Onesies

I'm still alive! Well, barely. It's been an interesting last couple of months. We moved, and the baby came a month early. Needless to say, the house is a disaster and everything I've been working on has been left unfinished. Someday I'll get back around to it though...eventually.
So, with babies come baby showers, which usually mean games that no one (at least not many of us) wants to play. For the shower my sister-in-law Laura threw me, I found a great alternative. Jordan, from the blog Oh Happy Day which I read just about daily, posted this great idea on the Cookie Magazine blog. Read all about it here. Basically we bought Onsies in different sizes, some really cute fabric quarters, and some iron-on fabric adhesive. The outcome was great, and my little Amelia has about 20 onesies with cute animals on them! Gotta love it.

Custom Keds

I know, I've promised to show you something I've been working on for a while now, and hoped to have done a couple weeks ago. But, of course, that's not done yet. I HAVE found something super cool today, though. Did you know you can customize Keds shoes? I don't mean just pic the color of the panels and the trim. You can upload images to be printed on the fabric. It's quite cool. I have friends who like to have little get togethers where they decorate Keds. But this....just imagine the possibilities. I really like something along the lines of the red ones in the picture. Someday, I'll get around to designing myself some shoes...

(Image from HabitForming on Flickr)

28 Weeks

It's true. I'm 28 weeks as of today. That's like 6 months and something. Wow. Time flies! So, this isn't the most flattering pic...it's hard to get one of those taking pics of yourself with a camera on a tri-pod in a semi-dark room against a dirty wall wearing a color that just makes you look bigger. Oh, and the shaddow. Didn't want to bother making myself a decent light source....but it really accentuates the belly, no? But hey. When you're pregnant, you get to look big, and you have a reason. And don't ask what I'm looking at. No idea. I probably just didn't get my head turned all the way before the timer ran out. So, because of requests, here's a pic for those of you who are too far away to see the belly.