Easter Party Invitation

Just spent a wonderful spring weekend in Eastern Washington with family.  I guess you know you live on the West side of WA when your son gets ultra excited that the sunshine was out! Several times we heard, "Mom! Dad! Look! The sunshine is out!"  I think we've adjusted pretty well to the weather of the Pacific Northwest, but boy do I see why my family eventually left Western Washington and moved to the sunny side! But no complaints here- I love trees! 

With all that said, I am now officially feeling spring! Yay!

Here's a little Spring project I put together for our church's Easter activity.  Spring colors are so fun to work with!

The first font I used is Sunshine Poppy found on Dafont and click here to see more from this generous and talented artist! She's got some very cute goodies!

The second font is Smiley Monster from Kevin & Amanda.  LOVE their site!








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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! 

Treasury Fun

Trying to figure out how I've missed out on this fun for so long! Creating a treasury is SO fun, but very time consuming- probably why I've stayed away for this long. Here's what I came up with...



You can see the real thing here.

And by the way thanks for all your input on the Sunshine Print! I'm leaning towards 2 or 5.  I've printed them both on the home computer and am headed to the store to try them each out in a frame.  We'll go from there. :)  Can't wait to show you what I pull together for the rest of her room- fun fun fun!

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.

Can I get a witness!?

I just got an enthusiastic, "ok" from the hubster when I told him I would like to build a table like this. 

It makes my heart flutter! Now off to find some salvaged 2x6's...

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!

3-D Photo Cards

What?! You've already moved on to St. Patty's day? Easter? Well I'm still stuck on Valentine's Day. :)

I discovered the brilliance of 3-D cards at Craft-O-Maniac which she found here.  And the "snickers" idea Jen shared at Craft-O-Maniac was brilliant as well.  And since we needed fun easy Valentine's we decided to do some of our own.  Here's our versions...

The kids had a great time posing for the pictures and they were seriously SO easy! Took pictures, edited on picnik, sent to Costco, picked up 2 hours later, candy bought, candy glued and tucked.  So simple!