Ruffled Headband

This project has been sitting in my picture folder for ages, mainly because this is the only decent picture I could get of it.  I have a serious goofball for a child. Serious. I loved this headband and need to change up the elastic so she can wear it again!

Free Printables: Home Movie Theatre Night

I put together these fun tickets for an upcoming family movie night.  So grab your cuties, a movie, a blanket and some popcorn and enjoy a fun movie night on me. :) Here is a preview of the tickets...

To print the tickets click on each image below, click on the image with the magnifying glass, and print for your own enjoyment. Please personal use only.  Contact me for commercial use.  Thank you!

Adorable Puppets!

One of these days I will get around to actually posting something that I've crafted, after almost 2 months, I'm finally starting to feel better after a severe (and lame!) back injury. But then again, I hate to make any promises because I'm famous for breaking them! ;) 

Until then I've got another awesome find for you!  I have a friend who just started selling these adorable puppets on ETSY.  She's been making them for quite some time, and I was lucky enough to try one out for a few minutes before shipping it off for a birthday gift.  They are well made, reasonably priced, even cuter (if that's possible!) in person, and Micah and Hallie absolutely LOVED it! I will most definitely be ordering more for our own family.  

In fact, I already have an order in for a couple of these...

And as an extra bonus, she is always looking for more ideas, so if you have something in mind, run it by her and she'll do her best to recreate it! 

So go check out her shop, Hand on Fun and visit her blog for a discount code which makes them an even sweeter deal, but hurry the code may be ending soon!

Happiest Place on Earth...

We went to Disneyland a few weeks ago and no trip to Disneyland for a little girl is complete without some fancy outfits! :)

The first day she sported the full on princess dress my mom made for her and my niece.

This was hilarious, they were comparing their dresses while waiting in line.  The conversation with hysterical!

And note to self- do not wait until the end of the day to take pictures of the princess diva's together. :)

The second day she wore her Minnie Mouse outfit which I made using Dana's Circle Skirt tutorial.  I changed things up a little bit and added a second layer using cotton and tulle on the bottom to make it more Disney-ish.  And seriously did she not get the memo?! It's supposed to be the happiest place on earth! ;)

Tufted Headboard

One minute you find yourself cleaning poop off the wall, a lil' bum, and a lil' hand (TM I? Just another great benefit of being a mom!) the next minute you're knocking off a Ballard Designs headboard! They call me supermom crazy! 

(Woa coloring! I promise it's not neon green!)

I love the result, but think twice about making your own.  I started thinking this would be an easy project... ha! I laugh at myself now.  It's pretty time consuming and my forearms and fingers are killing me today!  Thank goodness the hubby came to the rescue with a 2nd pair of hands or I would still be tufting today.  Maybe I should clarify, upholstering the headboard- pretty easy, tufting the headboard- pretty ridiculous! Would I do it differently next time? No way! Love how it turned out, but it was definitely not the easiest project on the block. 

Sadly, I was not feeling the snapping pictures along the way.  So there's no tutorial, here's a couple others I found online.  Ticking and Toile, Centsational Girl, Green Your Decor.

Here's the break down on my cost and a few extra tips...

• Sheet of plywood cut down to size at Home Depot only $10 because I had to wait a little while and didn't take the whole thing home. LOVE that store- they are so helpful and generous!
• Cheap Mattress pad cut in half and doubled up- $15 (This reduces the cost drastically and worked great!)
• Fabric- $5 (I used a cheap twin sheet from Walmart and just doubled it up. This also lowered cost)
• Package of Batting (which I used for other projects as well)- $5
• Spray glue- $5 (already had on hand, and will use in the future)
• Loooong heavy duty needle- $1
• Upholstery thread- $2 (already had on hand, and again will use in the future)
• Washers/Screws/Nails- $2ish (already had all on hand)

Tools used were...

• Jigsaw- To cut out the design.  I free handed one side, then used a piece of large paper to duplicate on the other side.
• Drill- To drill the holes in the back for tufting.  Make the holes LARGE, it will make finding the hole so much easier when you are coming back through- learned that the hard way. :)
• Staple gun- for attaching the batting and fabric to the plywood.
• Ruler- To mark all of the spots for tufts. I actually found a quilting ruler/guide worked wonders!

Now we just need pillows and wall art! 

You are my sunshine print

On a whim while on our Mommy-daughter "date" this evening at our only local super store, Wal-Mart, (and by local I mean a 20 minute drive- have I mentioned I live in the boonies!?) we bought an adorable new spring quilt for Hallie's bed. Despite all of my attempts at persuasion to get her to pick the one I originally spotted, she insisted on the "girly" quilt which consisted of pink, green, orange, and yellow. Luckily it fit in with the color scheme I was going for. So with another project for her bed in the works, this quilt was the extra push I needed to really get her room done started.

She has no artwork in her room at this point and while sitting here this evening I came up with a fun idea. And now have 6 variations which I can't decide between! So the 2 of you :) who actually read this blog consistently (hi!) any thoughts? Which print is your fav?
1.

 2.

 3.

 4.

 5.

 6.

Spring Tiered Dress... Everything looks better at the beach!

With spring just around the corner, I've been sewing away for the little Halster.  So many fun dresses and skirts!  But sadly since moving to the PNW, it's not so springy out and I haven't been able to get very many photos of her fancy new attire.  Insert vacay to California and hooray! This is just how all of her dresses should be photographed, if only I had known we would have done a little fashion show on the beach.  :)

So done with the rambling, here's the dress...

Made using another dress as a guide and some simple math.  I used great spring fabric from the quilter's showcase line at JoAnn's with the awesome price tag of $2.50 a yard. :)

It's bound to put a bounce in anyone's step!

Perfect for hunting on the beach...

dancing...

following daaad around...

Cuddling with mom...

And all other kinds of beach fun...

So get springy and make your own!

Growth Chart Tutorial

Better late than never! I've had this little idea in my head for 3 whole years! I'm tellin' ya- I'm a world class procrastinator! :) So sad since it was such an easy project to do, but like I said better late than never!

So here we go..

Supplies:
The simplest growth chart vinyl you can find. 
6' 1x6
Paint
Cute paper numbers
Modge Podge or spray adhesive

Start with finding your supplies...
Make yours or the one I ordered was from here, but I don't think she's selling the actual vinyl anymore, you can find more here, here, or here. It can be difficult to find a basic chart since there are so many with cute embellishments, in fact I didn't find any... I had one with just numbers and the ruler and cut the numbers off.  (anyone want my vinyl numbers!?)  With the links I provided, I would try to contact the seller and see if they would do a custom one for you- it may be cheaper that way too. :) Wow... that was a novel on something that was supposedly simple ;) That's probably the hardest part. :)

The rest should be pretty self-explanatory. :)

1.  Paint your board and let it completely dry.  You don't have to wait the 6 months or use your board to help you pick blackberries and then repaint it and wait another month like I did.  :) It will probably dry in a couple hours.

2. Line up your tape measure next to your board.  (Hopefully your carpet isn't as horrible as mine... dis-gust-ing!) Ignore the vinyl on there- we'll get to that part soon.  For now, just put your tape measure next to your board.

You can decide for yourself but I started mine at 1' to allow my board to be tall enough for my bound-to-be tall children.

See... not joking, my board goes up to 7' not that I'm expecting my children to be that tall, but since I measure up at 5'10" and the hubby at 6'5" I figured we'd better leave enough room just in case. :)

3.  Apply the vinyl

Find something within arm reach to make sure the first dash on your vinyl lines up straight.  A ruler would suffice.

Begin applying the vinyl like so...

Peel off the transfer tape which can be a little tricky.  I found the best method was to pull up to the next dash and use my bone folder to press the dash to the board.


Continue until all of your vinyl is applied. 

4.  Add the numbers

I used 7 different coordinating papers from my stash and fed them through the cricut machine.  I used Plantin Schoolbook "Shadow" for my numbers.  They ranged anywhere from 3 1/4" to 5" I wanted them to be odd sizes, just play with it until you think it looks great! If you don't have a fancy die cutting machine you could easily freehand it or print numbers and use them as a stencil.   

Here's a closer look at the numbers...

5.  Glue numbers on. 

I attempted to use spray adhesive, but wasn't a huge fan.  I will most likely used modge podge to fix them. 

And that's it you're done! Stand back and admire your work. :)

Almost forgot logistics...

1.  Hanging the board. 
To hang your board I will attach a ribbon to the back with heavy duty staples and to prevent it from swinging I will use command strips along the board.  Make sure you hang the board at the correct height, the bottom of mine will be 1' off the ground.

2.  Charting Growth
If you use a darker color as I did, I will be using cute circle stickers to mark height.  You could simply change the paint color so you could write directly on the board. 

Enjoy!