Building, organizing and fingerpainting

I've been trying to organize/structure/vary Elle's toys and activities a bit more lately - now that Wesley isn't nursing 24/7 (you know, more like 20/7), I try to spend as much one-on-one time with Elle when he's napping. And since I've spent a lot of time at home in the last few weeks and we just got an influx of new toys for Elle's birthday, the overflowing mounds of toys were on my last nerve.

I knew that a lot of the toys she had weren't being played with often because the pieces were scattered or she'd forgotten she had them, so I set out to purge, regroup and make sense of what we have. I've also been enforcing a "put it back before you get something else out" rule so things stay a bit tidier, but I am not delusional - I know that the toys will be all over the place at times. But still, it brought me some calm and satisfaction, so I'll take it. I totally rocked the toy reorganization - she "helped" me build the bookshelf that we used to house most of the toys:

She's big on Handy Manny right now. Her attention span isn't so hot, though, so she frequently left our project and came back to it as she deemed appropriate. Wesley hung out in a wrap on my chest as I assembled it, so technically he helped more than her ...

But as part of my quest to break out new, fun things, I brought out some finger paints for her to play with, and they were a hit. At first she was a bit timid, but soon she was a color-mixing fool. She had a blast - the more color, the better. She's always loved coloring and chalk, but the paint is definitely a new favorite as well. 

Busy busy

If I had all the time in the world (as well as more money and space), I would most certainly craft more. But I do not, so I do what I can, and in the last few months I've wrapped up a few projects, including:

Blocks, so we can take weekly and monthly photos like I did for Elle (bwah hahahahaha!)

Burp cloths ... we don't really need any new ones for Wesley, because most of Elle's were gender-neutral, but I had purchased a lot of fabric and just needed to take the time to cut and sew them. Now we're ready to use them or give them as gifts, and I've decluttered, too!

 

And name letters, because I did them for Elle (with a much longer name) and didn't want Wesley to feel left out: 

I'm hoping to put together a new crib skirt using some super cute green polka-dot fabric before Wesley arrives but don't think it's going to happen ... and since he'll be in our room for the first few months, anyway, it's not a huge priority, just something I'd like to get checked off my to-do list!

My new plan to get Wesley to come out is to start a bunch of new projects - I figured if I book myself up and have lots of stuff in the mix, he's bound to make his arrival in the middle of it all. 

Wire photo frame

I've got a weird relationship with Pinterest. I don't go on often, but when I do, I pin, pin, pin. I feel like I'm a Pinterest binger, and it's frustrating because I feel like I never make any progress with the things that I've pinned (although some of my pins, like on my "For the home" board, are for a home in the future and I can't actually act on those yet - but still). I've made a conscious effort to make more of the recipes I've pinned and have had success with several.

A few months ago, I decided that I'd kill two birds with one stone - I needed a different way to display some photos, and I wanted to create from one of my crafty pins. The thing about the photos, though, is that I have plenty of frames, but I wanted something that would give me an easy way to switch things up and display multiple photos without putting more holes in the walls.

I kept putting this project off because I was worried that I wouldn't find a frame that would work. I knew I wanted something sturdy and large, but I wasn't sure exactly what shape or size I wanted. I finally just set out on a frame-finding mission, and on our first stop Elle and I had success.

We were at a Goodwill outlet store, so the frame, which was marked $9.95 and actually housed a nice, matted print, cost me $4.97.

We had just enough time before Elle's nap to hit up Michael's and buy white spray paint and mini-clothes pins. I bought the multi-colored ones because I thought they'd be cute and less work than painting them all one color.

Then it took me a year to blog about it.

As Hurricane Isaac made its presence known in the Tampa Bay area, I started in on the project. Which was stupid because I needed to go outside to spray paint the frame, and the wind and rain were kicking up.

I measured the inside of the frame to figure out the spacing of my three wires - the height was 21" inches, which was perfect for three rows with spacing between to house 4" x 6" photos. I had screws on-hand that worked perfectly, and when I was done with the screws I decided to take a chance and brave the elements.

Luckily, I caught a break in the rain, so I spray painted the frame, and it was dry when I had a chance to finish the project off later that night. I had bought wire at Michael's that I ended up not using because it was too thin, but I had some wire from a picture-hanging endeavor earlier this year, and it worked perfectly. I wrapped the wire tightly around the screws, trimmed the edges, and ta-da! Finished product.

The next night I hung it up and put some photos on it, and Elle loves looking at them and has even noticed when I add or move some of them (like to accommodate photos of Wesley, too!). Overall, a Pinterest win.

Cloud dough

A few months ago I came across Ashley's post about Cloud Dough. A few days later, Cloud Dough made an appearance on another favorite blog of mine. I bookmarked it and was saving it for a rainy or hot day, because I thought it looked easy, fun and cheap.

Saturday was warm, and while I wanted to hit the pool with Elle, we ended up stuck inside because of scattered showers. I decided to break out my dollar store baby oil and an extra bag of flour, and we went to town.

Cloud Dough basics: Eight cups flour, one cup baby oil, one container, mix. 

I spread out an old plastic tablecloth to contain the potential mess. Elle thought it was a magical square and probably would have been happy to just run around it sans Cloud Dough.

Then she had fun running around with the lid to the container I was using to hold the Cloud Dough.

Then she enjoyed playing with the dough. We buried toys, we dug, we sculpted, we used cookie cutters to make shapes, we flung (I wasn't so happy about that one), etc.

Everything was going well until someone very uncharacteristically tried to put the Cloud Dough in her mouth. I shut down the shop at that point and we cleaned up. The cool thing is that shutting down the shop entailed putting the lid on the container, so we could pull out the Cloud Dough again some other day soon.

Tim and Elle played with the Cloud Dough the next two days, too. Tim likes to call it Cookie Dough, and Elle just looks at him until he corrects himself. (Or I correct him. You know.) Simple, fun activity that I can guarantee we'll be doing again.

Hair bow holder

As Elle's hair has been getting longer/we've been receiving hair bows as presents, I realized it would help to have a place to organize them all. I had seen hair bow organizers on various blogs, but I turned to my good friend Pinterest to find one to recreate.

I ended up kind of morphing three different crafts and tutorials together to create my hair bow organizer. (This one, this one and this one.) And mine isn't all that fancy or well-put together, but it's cute, functional and completed, so I don't care :) It cost about $12 total and took less than an hour to put together (aside from spray painting the frame).

And tada! Functional art :)

More details: I used fabric I had leftover from the crib skirt I made last year to help tie the room together a bit. I had to buy entire spools of the ribbons, but I figure I'll be sure to use pink and green ribbon again at some point in Elle's life :) The ric rak was super cheap because I just bought 18 inches of each piece (at the time, I didn't know what size frame I'd get but was hoping for something 12-14 inches wide or tall). I got the frame at Goodwill and painted it white to match the rest of the frames in Elle's room. I stapled the fabric to the cardboard backing (I was all about the less stress the better!), and stapled the ribbon to it, too. The only issue I had with this was keep the staples super close to the edge so they wouldn't show up from the front.

Father's Day

For Tim's first Father's Day, I wanted to give him something special. I was struck with inspiration while looking at photos that a friend had had taken at a portrait studio for her son's first birthday. I started brainstorming and *thought* I had an original idea, but apparently I am not as original as first thought because I've seen it done several times now :)

But! I've intended from the start to make this a yearly gift - subbing out the photos from year to year until Elle is 18. And if there are more baby sea cows in the future, they'll be included in the photos.

Elle hates grass, so she doesn't exactly look happy/comfortable/pleased in these photos :) We went with basic white letters this year but can paint or decorate them in the future to mix things up.

I guest-blogged this week over at amykolz.com, and I wrote about how grateful I am that Tim is my other half in this crazy adventure that is parenthood, and how the bond that he shares with Elle melts my heart.

He wants such big things for her -

for her to have opportunities,

happiness and more hair.

Elle is so much like her father -

from her looks to her personality -

and she is so in love with him.

Absolutely adores him.

I see her turn toward his voice

any time he walks in the room -

no matter what she is doing -

or watch her face light up

when he comes to get her after a nap.

And I see he feels the same way -

even after a long work week

and little sleep,

he greets her with enthusiasm

matched only by the Cincinnati Reds

winning a big game in the final at-bat.

The first time Tim held Elle.

For the rest of my post (with more photos!), please visit Amy's blog.

Today, I'm wishing all father's a happy Father's Day - a day that honors men who play such an important role in the lives of so many. I've been fortunate enough to have been blessed with some pretty great dads in my life, from the father of my precious daughter to my own father.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Love you!

A special bouquet

A few years ago, I saw a really cool product in a SkyMall magazine. (Yes, seriously. SkyMall.) It was one of those things that I thought was cute, but I also couldn't see paying so much for it ... when I could probably make it myself.

I also knew that this was a project I wouldn't do very often because it would be tricky and time-consuming. When my friend Meghan found out she was expecting a baby boy, I started assembling a collection of boy-ish onesies, hats and shirts. As she decided on a theme for the nursery (primary colors), I pondered a "bouquet" container and ultimately went with a blue fabric box that could be used in the nursery.

I tried a few trial runs of making "blooms" out of the baby items, and to tell the truth, the only thing that I've found to make a cute "bud" so far are baby socks. Nevertheless, I decided to make larger blooms out of the onesies, hats and shirts - it is still the same basic idea.

I Googled several "Make a baby bouquet" sites and finally just set to rolling the clothes as tightly as I could with little flower-ish ends. Then I wrapped floral wire tightly around the top of the "stem" and incorporated some green ribbon (to give it a little more of a greenery feel). Many of the sites recommended using floral tape to simulate the bottom of the flower/top of the stem, but since these clothes were traveling from humid Florida to hot Arizona, I didn't want to take the chance that the tape would melt or gum up the clothes. Therefore, I stuck with the wire and ribbon.

"Blooms" wrapped in wire and ribbon.

And because the "blossoms" weren't the prettiest, and because it *is* a bouquet, after all, I sprinkled some artificial flowers in there, too, to fill the spaces between baby clothes and to reinforce the bouquet theme.

"Blooms" among the blooms.

Burp cloths

Right around the time I went crazy and decided to make a crib skirt, I found a tutorial for burp cloths. (You know, because I was hurting for yet another craft to try.) And of course, since I was heading to the fabric store to buy materials for the crib skirt and my own Moby wrap, I figured it wouldn't hurt to look at the flannel fabrics, too ...

And now I'm kind of hooked.

The tutorial is super easy, and since the cloths are going to be covered in spit up, I'm not especially concerned with how perfect they look. The edges are supposed to be frayed, and I've read that they fray a lot more with subsequent washings, but again, I have no expectations that these will become treasured family heirlooms - they're burp cloths, people. (I do warn anyone who receives these from me or makes them on their own, though - so far, they've filled my dryer's lint trap and I've been using the lint roller on other items in that load. I'm hoping that part of the fraying ends at some point soon, but I've only washed them once so far.)

I bought all of the fabric on sale and used coupons to get the quilt batting 50% off. I've been having a blast mixing fabrics and making something cute and useful that isn't terribly complex or time-consuming. The first few fabrics I bought were fairly gender neutral (or hey, they *will* be used by moms!), and I've purchased enough fabric to make one more pink, girly set of burp cloths.

I plan on making more of these - I think a set of them would make a really cute, functional and personal gift. But for now, I think I've made more than a dozen and will take a break from the devilishly affordable sale prices.

Another wall hanging

I knew for sure that I wanted to do the 3D butterfly wall hanging, but I also knew I wanted to create some other abstract art to tie in the paper colors and butterfly theme and reinforce it.

I used a butterfly cookie cutter, tore paper using a paper-tearing tool (yes, I, too, laughed at the thought of a *tool* to tear paper), the butterfly punches and used the 3D adhesives again to vary the look of the hangings and give them some dimension.

Since the frames were smaller (I think 8x10) than the 3D butterfly hanging (11x14), I didn't want to waste any of the space with a mat.


They did not take long to make, and while I'm not 100% thrilled with them, I love the fact that they are easy to change and for now, tie in the scrapbook paper and general colors on another wall. In six months, if I find perfect brown/pink/green butterfly prints, or in a year, if I decide to redecorate Elle's room, I can just use the existing frames and trash the art.

And soon, I'll do a video tour/comprehensive "final" nursery photo post ... :)

3D Butterfly wall hanging

When we started talking about decorating the nursery, I knew that I wanted to make some of the decorations and wall hangings myself. We picked the colors - brown, pink and green - and I liked the idea of sprinkling butterflies and circles throughout the room.

Enter my favorite 3D butterfly wall hanging. I created my first one in February 2009 at one of our monthly craft gatherings. I still have it ... and easily could have used it for the nursery ... but I'm insane and wanted to use the same scrapbook paper I used for the wooden name letters.

Finished product.

I got the papers on sale, already had the butterfly punch, used a coupon to buy the double mat and saved 65% off the frame, using a coupon on an item that was already on sale. Not too shabby :)

I punch out the butterflies and mount them on a solid piece of cardstock using 3D dots/adhesive.

Sidney tries to "help."

Hanging over the crib.

Crib skirt

I have approximately one bazillion projects that in a perfect world I'd have completed by the time the baby arrives. I've already lowered the bar on "Crafts I'd like to have done by August" and eliminated some gifts and projects I thought for sure I'd have time and energy to do.

So WHY ON EARTH did I find myself adding completely new crafts to my list last week? I have no answer.

When my mom and brother were visiting, my mom pulled out my sewing machine to work on the lanai curtains. Around the same time, I decided that a crib skirt wouldn't be a terrible thing to have in the nursery, but I didn't want to buy one.

Enter my remedial 8th-grade home economics sewing skills.

The sewing machine is a great machine, but it is older, has no manual and I am not the best seamstress. I sew things by hand, but I'm not a great sewing machine problem-solver. Since my mom already had things set up from the curtains, I convinced myself that I could handle this extremely basic project - as long as nothing came unthreaded or got stuck. Worst-case scenario, I wouldn't have a crib skirt. Or I'd have to wait for my mom to come down after the baby is born to help me fix whatever problem I'd managed to create.

I did some searching online and found a few basic crib skirt tutorials. I modified the easiest one a bit and set out to find fabric. It was on sale (SCORE!), so I felt even better about my possible colossal disaster.

The fabric and the unhelpful cat who was intent on batting at pins while I worked.

I bought a basic light-pink-with-white-dots fabric for the skirt part. Then I essentially followed this tutorial, and after working on it in bits and pieces for a few nights, the crib skirt was complete! It isn't the best piece of craftsmanship to ever exist, but it was easy, it isn't a disaster and I'm especially proud that I made it, remedial home economic skills and all :)

Wooden name letters

Long before I knew we were pregnant, I was in love with the idea of putting our future child's name on their wall with wooden letters.

But then we fell in love with the name Elizabeth. And then we found out we were having a girl. (Our boy name? Waaayyyyy shorter.) And I started to think that putting nine holes in the wall for big wooden letters wasn't exactly my idea of fun. Even mounting them to a strip of wood wasn't what I was envisioning. I threw out the idea of putting "Elle" or "Beth" or "Liz" on the wall, but that meant we had to definitely pre-determine her nickname. And while Tim and I call her Elle most of the time, I liked the idea of her having her complete name to keep in her room for as long as she wants it.

So I decided to get smaller wooden letters that could be displayed on a shelf or the dresser. I got the letters with my employee discount when I was working my part-time job. I bought the scrapbook paper on sale and used a coupon to buy the foam brushes, spray paint and Modge Podge, so the total cost of the craft was low.

Allllll of the letters.

I spray painted all of the letters with a light, glossy pink color. I did two coats and got the front and back of the letters. I traced the letters on to the scrapbook paper and used an X-acto knife to cut the letters out.

Then I spread Modge Podge on to the letters with a foam brush.

I pressed the cut-out letters on to the wooden letters.

Then I spread several layers of Modge Podge
over the scrapbook paper to seal it and give it a shine.

The scrapbook papers have hints of pink, green and brown in them.

We hung up a shelf, which will hold some of the meaningful trinkets that we want to display and keep out of her reach, and put the letters up there, too.

Craft party

Last fall, a group of girls at work decided we should all get together and share our quirky hobbies. At first, it started as a sewing group - many of us sewed, others were interested, others could care less but were interested in any kind of social gathering. We decided to meet the third Saturday of every month for a few hours before some of us went to work and others went about their weekends. At the first meeting, a lot of people suggested other crafts they like or were interested in - beading, knitting, scrapbooking, etc. We take turns hosting the gathering, and the food is usually just as anticipated as the craft. Lisa, one of the craftiest people I know, and I basically organize where and when each meeting will be held. After that, the group members take turns suggesting and leading crafts. We've had great success when there is no designated craft and the meeting is just a laidback afternoon to catch up on a current craft and silly stories. I love to just catch up on cross-stitching or watch other people knit. Yes, I am cool like that.

In November, we missed a meeting because the third Saturday of the month was our wedding and no one else really organized the gathering. In December, we canceled the meeting because Lisa's father unexpectedly passed away days before the meeting. But in January, we were back, and we had started to get members from outside of the paper. I tried a new paper craft (above) and LOVE it - I just used a butterfly paper punch, scrapbooking paper I had already and some three-dimensional doublesided dots. I finished what could easily be a nursery decoration (not for me yet, sillies!) or just unique hanging in less than three hours. And it was easy and fairly cheap (total cost of supplies was around $12, including the frame).

In February, we tried a baking craft. Mallary, one of our newest members, suggested these
and hosted. They. Are. So. Good. Essentially, you take a baked cake, mix it with a tub of frosting, roll that in to a ball and dip the ball in to melted chocolate. Then, to ensure a diabetic coma, you dip the ball in sprinkles. Here are some of the finished cakeballs (they did NOT last long).

At this month's gathering - I call them "parties" - we're going to discuss entering a few craft fairs around the holidays - we figure if we start now, we can make enough stuff to sell by November or December. And if we all chip in to reserve a booth or table, we won't lose a bunch of money, and we'll have company.

And we'll probably HAVE to eat cakeballs.