manger

I read this idea a few years ago and thought I'd like to try it when my kids were old enough. I think we've reached it, at 3 and 4 years old, so this year was time to make a manger. I had been making plans that involved cutting up yard sticks for construction, which would have been super cute. But then I was in the shed and noticed the leftover swing set parts. Perfect! Our swing set was supposed to have a small picnic table built underneath it, but I have plans to put a sand box there instead, so I have leftover boards. Here was my pile to work from. You can see the beginning plans starting to form as I played with different combinations. My goal was to do as little sawing as possible.

And it worked! No sawing whatsoever. Boards in their full lengths, wood glue, plus screws=manger!

The goal is to have the kids put "hay" (yellow yarn) in it each day as we prepare for the birth of Jesus. The inspiration post (linked above) suggested having kids put hay in when they did something kind, etc. I don't think we'll do that. We'll let each kid put a piece of hay in every day. I don't like tying "being good" to Christmas (same reason we don't do Elf on the Shelf). Jesus didn't come because we were good boys and girls.

I'm so excited about it! It looks so sweet beside the tree. I'm pretty darn proud of my construction skills, too. ;)

mei tai for a friend

My favorite DIY carrier back when my babies were babywearing age was a mei tai that I made from the Ball Baby pattern. Super easy to sew, super comfortable to wear. I thoroughly enjoyed making this one today. It's for my friend Becca. Hope she likes it!

In case you've never seen a mei tai and don't know what it does, here is a good how-to. The pattern I used is a little different than a Kozy, but same concept, and same usage applies.

milk crates in Expedit

When we got our Ikea Expedit for the playroom, I couldn't decide what sort of bins or baskets I wanted to put in it for toys. I landed on milk crates! Mine are from The Container Store, but I think any standard sized milk crate should fit in the Expedit cubes nicely. I love the cheerful look the bright colors give to the playroom.

renovation station!

I can't take credit for any of this "crafting" since we paid someone else to do it, but I'm so pleased, that I had to blog about it anyway.

First, the MUD ROOM!!

before:

after:

and loaded:

I super duper love it!! I have cubbies at the top to hide whatever I want to (currently empty--still deciding). The baskets on the left hold hats, gloves, and SOCKS. I hate having to send kids to two rooms to get socks and shoes. Socks should live with shoes!

The other three projects were much smaller--some upper cabinets in the laundry room, a repaint in Jono's room, and a new pair of shutters for the front window.

acorn fairies!

Saw this in my morning blog reading and thought it'd be fun on this chilly fall morning. Ours aren't as polished as hers, but they were fun!

the whole collection:

and the process:

superhero capes!

I made my three super kids some capes! I used this tutorial, with one small change. I used youth size XL tshirts instead of the suggested "ginormous" tshirt. That way, the neck was not too big, so I just left it intact for pulling off and on. So easy--just cut from the back of a tshirt a cape shape, and decorate as you please. The kids love them!

the Wallace jazz trio

My son asked to be a jazz trumpet player for Halloween. Knowing that it would create a riot for one of them to get a toy instrument and not all three, and since the other two had not expressed strong costume preferences, we're making it a trio!
I made Hazel's little flapper dress with this tutorial. It was super easy, and I LOVE it!! She likes it too, since it's sparkly and purple. I mean, what's not to like about that when you're three years old?!

The boys have shirts with faux (appliqued) neck ties, and they'll wear black pants. I've been trying to talk myself out of getting them these hats at The Children's Place, to avoid spending more money on these costumes, but I'm pretty sure they need them. :p

The only decision left (besides the yes/no on hats for the boys) is what sort of hair accessory to do for Hazel. I waver between a flapper-ish headband with a feather or crocheting a flapper beanie. Thoughts?

whoooo!

Hazel's hat is finished! She chose the color scheme, and honestly, I'm not a huge fan. The pattern is adorable, though. I used this one, but changed the ears to pom poms. I did the ears the pattern called for at first and thought the owl looked too serious. He needed some levity!

She likes it!

spiky dino

Charlie's winter hat is finished!


Here he is, modeling it as he watches Jono play Angry Birds with Grammy. I found out, after I finished it, that it looks eerily like a character from Yo Gabba Gabba, a preschool show we have never watched. Oh well, I just intended to make a striped dinosaur.

I used this pattern, which worked up beautifully. I made the 3-10 year old size, and it's a little big, but that's perfectly fine with me, since he can wear it for several years.

Thanks for looking!

NICU hats 2011

Here they are!

I almost punted the tradition this year because of the move, but decided about a week ago that I didn't want to, and kicked it into high gear to finish. For those of you who don't know, I crochet 12 preemie hats for NICU every year in honor of the 12 days my kids spent in NICU (10 for Hazel, 2 for Jono). In the past, Hazel and I have taken the hats to her NICU at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, on the anniversary of her discharge and coming home (June 22). This year we are late because of the move, and need to find a new NICU! I assume NOLA has one, so I just need to look it up.

This year's patterns included some newsboy caps,

some football beanies,

some butterfly beanies (my current favorite hat to whip for girls--so easy and adorable!)

and some bear beanies, because every baby looks cute with bear ears. ;)

Thanks for looking!

ABC bean bags

I participated in a swap for 5" "I-spy" fabric squares right before we moved. Yesterday, I got around to doing something with those squares. Bean bags!

Each bean bag has a picture on it from a different letter of the alphabet. The majority of them have a different picture from the same letter on the back. Like, the Ants have Airplanes on the reverse, and Karate has Kangaroos. I just chose my favorite side for the picture. Easy peasy project--the squares were already cut, so I just serged three sides, filled with lentils and then serged them closed. The kids have been having fun with them. They like to toss them around, of course, but they also like discovering the different pictures, and (sometimes) telling me what letter they go with.

arts & crafts storage

I had been wanting to give my kids access to a greater variety of art supplies. I had been keeping everything but crayons in a "no kids allowed" cabinet, requiring them to ask permission. I thought they were mature enough to handle access to more, though, so we're trying this. I put a small cafe curtain rod and hung some tin pails from the Target $1 Spot.

They hold watercolors, markers, scissors, glue sticks, and colored pencils. I want to get something smaller for crayons than the yellow tote since it's only half full. We need as much table space as week can get with three little occupants.

Hopefully by the time Halloween is over and my little tin pails from Target become out of season, I can convince someone who lives near an Ikea to pick me up some of these.

weekend crafting

I did some decorating work in the master over the long weekend and Tropical Storm Lee-enforced indoor hours. I finally sewed the pillowcases for my bed with the fabric I bought forever ago. And I did my first pinterest inspired project--Mr & Mrs letters for above the bed. I started with the big gold letters from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them. Turns out the cream is a little too similar to my wall color, which is apparently not as dark as I thought it was when I chose paint colors. Good enough, though. I'm not repainting them.

hair accessories

This was so simple that it hardly counts as a project, but it solves a problem in my house, so I thought I'd share. Hazel has tons of hair hairbands, clippies, bows, headbands, etc. They had been living in a drawer in the kids' bathroom, but it was really really full and difficult to dig through to find what you were looking for. I wanted to keep her hair stuff in her bedroom. She used to have one of those bow holders with the ribbons to clip the bows to, but it didn't work well with her hair accessory collection, since she has more rubber bands and headbands than she does bows with clips. This was my solution:

I took an empty container (that used to hold dishwasher detergent tabs) and mod podged some scrapbook paper to the outside. I added some felt stars for interest. I think putting her in red, right under the lip of the container to the left of the star would be cute, too. I dumped in her hair accessory collection and it can live on top of her dresser in her room. The yellow and red coordinate well in there, and the pattern is not too girly for a room she shares with her brother. Win-win!

Headbands and necklaces were intended to live on the exterior of the container, but it's pretty wide, and I'm afraid headbands might get too stretched out on there. I'll probably just throw them inside, too. There's plenty of room.

Thanks for looking!

wedding shadowbox

I have been meaning to do this forever, and finally got around to it. I put my wedding momentos (invitation, program, favor, candy, and a few photos) in a shadow box. It's hard to take a picture of a shadow box, so I gave you both the with flash and without versions.

I really, really, really wanted to make the entire background of the shadowbox a single layer of jelly beans and then to mount my photos, etc on top of that. But I couldnt' figure out how to make that work. This was my compromise, and I think it'll be ok. Glue is still drying, so it's not on the wall yet, but it's headed to the master bedroom in the next few days.

dolly carseat

I bought Hazel a dolly car seat at a kids' consignment shop in Sugar Land and promised myself that I would recover it on the other side of the move. The cover it had was old, stained, and sad. The little car seat came up in toy rotation this week, so I got to work making it cute again.


This was a quick and easy project. I took my seam ripper to the old cover so that I could use the pieces as a pattern. I used fusible fleece on the back of the cotton print for some padding. Otherwise, it was just sew parts together, run elastic where the original had elastic, finish with bias tape, and add a harness. Super simple. I tried to figure out how to make it a 5pt harness, but failed. Nan (my Cabbage Patch Kid from childhood) would certainly be safer in a 5 pt harness, but given that she can't suffer internal injuries, I'll try not to worry.

I can't wait to show Hazel when she wakes up in the morning!

One more note: I only endorse recovering dolly car seats. It makes me cringe when people make new covers for their own infant's seats. Not safe, people, not safe! Please only use covers and accessories made for your child's car seat by the manufacturer. Anything else could change the seat's performance in the event of an accident.

Even better with a throw pillow and back in the babies' room! I forgot to mention in my last post that I used this tutorial to make the skirt. Easy to follow, and relatively easy to execute. Still can't decide if the skirt is an inch too long. Should I shorten it?

skirt

My husband has a hand-me-down rocking chair that was his grandmother's (?), and frankly, it's not attractive. It's got a nice shape, and it could be cute, with a full scale refinish and reupholster, but I'm simply not up for such tasks. I decided this week to slipcover it, and failed at the full slip attempt. I downgraded to a skirt for the seat, and I have to admit that it turned out quite cute! It's certainly a TON better than the nasty stained and faded turquoise corduroy seat of old.

before:

after:

The rocking chair skirt was re-fashioned from the white slipcover that I bought dirt cheap on uglysofa.com for my living room. I didn't like stark white in my living room and replaced it with an identical dirt cheap but off-white version. The one that became the skirt looked like this one, except it was couch sized, not love seat sized. The love seat lives in my bedroom.

Woo hoo for being able to recycle a slipcover that the potty trainers got to before I could return it!

I do still plan to have the rocking chair refinished and reupholstered in the near future. But at least I won't have to cringe at that nasty seat fabric every time I walk past it until then.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We love Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar in this house, and I thought the bright primary colors in the book would make an excellent choice for a shared room for my three year old boy/girl twins. With a little bit of help from my sewing machine, and a lot of help from Target and Ikea, I proudly present Hazel and Charlie's new room!

"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf."

"One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and--pop!--out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar."



General info: the leaf, sun, red chairs, and red L-shaped shelf came from Ikea. The red and blue solid quilts, the yellow sheets, and the lime green black-out panels came from Target. I made the valance and the pillowcases, along with the "art" from the hungry caterpillar line of fabric, purchased from fabric.com. I love the rain gutter bookshelves. We had one in the old dining room playroom when they were baby-babies and I've wanted another one ever since. I think all it needs now is a cute plush caterpillar to throw in that rocking chair. Maybe a crocheted one like this would fit the bill (photo from pattern on Ravelry).