Crafts

Yes, I am aware that I posted Valentine's Day photos without any text in my last post. That was actually my intention, though it apparently threw some of you for a loop! Sorry to confuse you!

I wanted to write more about the chair backers I made for the kids when I had some time to get better pictures.  So here it goes...

A couple of years ago Pottery Barn Kids had really adorable bags hanging from the backs of chairs, and I was in love.  But they were expensive and impractical, and now they are no longer available.  A few weeks ago I came across this great tutorial on how to make your own chair backers, and, in the spirit of all things Valentine, I decided to give it a whirl.  Snow days, sick kids, and other unpredictable events made it take a little longer than I had hoped, but in the end it was worth it. 

This was my first ever attempt at making a buttonhole.  I don't know why I thought it would be so hard.  It was easy peasy!

I have to give huge kudos to my friend, Gaylene, who made these with me.  It was her first ever sewing project since home ec. in junior high!  I was so impressed that she was willing to tackle something harder than a pillow as her first project!

All in all, I think they came out pretty darned cute.  Now, if only I had a sewing machine that did monogramming!

Months ago (seven months ago to be exact) I suggested that our hideous, beat-up stage at church needed some help. We meet in a rec center and got the stage for free, so we lived with it, but every week I would stare at the rust, the cords, and the abyss underneath, thinking it was so distracting! After months of morning sickness, months of sewing, and months of waiting for the stage to be painted and prepped for a skirt, the job is finally done!

I so wish I had a before picture to show off how awful this stage was before, but you'll just have to trust me.  It is a huge improvement.  I'm so happy I (ahem, WE... thanks, Gina, Jim, and Jesse!) took the time to do this, even though it was a big pain in the neck.  It wasn't that it was hard, it's just that I kept running into stupid issues with the sewing and wasn't used to working with that much fabric!!  Anyway, I'm so happy it is done.  It feels good to check it off the list officially!  And I'm happy that our fabulous worship band has a nice place to stand so we can focus on something much more important than an ugly stage.

Brennan has been really into Little Einsteins lately (such a cute show!), and he loves at the end when they say, "Mission Completion!" Well, I have some mission completion in my own life this week, and it feels great!

First, I am officially calling Brennan's room done for now. I never think of a room as "done," because life and needs are always changing, but for now, I am ready to move on. I didn't do the bulletin board like Sara suggested, but I may do that sometime. I've just decided to take it off my priority list and focus more on starting the nursery.

Here are completed shots of the room.  Some of them you've seen before, but I thought I would try to give an overall impression of the final space.

My rocking horse from when I was a child, that I repainted and fixed up: 

The canvases I painted for the walls:

The awesome Pottery Barn quilt, along with the bedskirt I made and the curtains I doctored:

The new canvases I covered with fabric (that Brennan selected!), and used to feature transportation photos of Brennan himself:

And some shots of the wall with the canvas photos, the newly painted barn star, a new lamp, and the transportation accessories I bought months ago:

I could list all of the things I still want to do - and may do after we move - but I won't.  Right now I am going to revel in the "completed" room and start planning for the nursery, which I will start in a few weeks!  (I sure hope my kids know how much love goes into their rooms!) 

Yee-haw! Remember Brennan's farm party from several months ago? It was featured today on Everyday Celebrating. Check it out and leave her some love!!

Talk about a lot of impact for very little money!  Brennan's room is coming along, and I made three significant additions this week for less than $75!  

First, I bought the plain navy blue curtain panels at Wal-Mart, on sale for $16 (for the set, not each panel).  Then, I bought some cool plaid fabric to jazz them up and coordinate them with the bedding.  The plaid fabric plus the rod and hardware all came to $27 at JoAnn Fabrics, thanks to their crazy Fourth of July sale and some coupons. The strip of red fabric is the same fabric I used to make the bed skirt.  The best part of these curtains?  They're dark and cause Brennan to sleep almost an hour later every morning! I may still line them someday so they look less cheap, but for now they are doing the job, and all to the tune of about $45.

For the bed skirt, I decided to cut up some red twill curtains I had made for our family room in Dallas.  When I had made them as curtains, the rod pocket was too small and it was impossible to move the curtains across the rod.  So, I didn't feel bad repurposing them. They were just in a storage box, since I only had two panels and our living room here has six windows.  Total cost for the bed skirt? Free!

The barn star was so lucky.  A good barn star isn't usually cheap and can be hard to find on sale, so I was pretty ecstatic when I found one at Cracker Barrel in their country store for $19.99.  It was really ugly - painted red, silver, and blue for the Fourth of July, but I knew that a can of spray paint could do wonders.  I wanted to wait and see if the star would go on sale after the holiday, so I went in on the 5th and hit pay dirt.  $11.99 plus tax!!  I headed straight to Michael's where I used a 40% off coupon on a can of red spray paint, making the whole barn star about $18 including tax!

So there you have it. I now need to finish the photo art (I took Sheli's suggestion...stay tuned!), purchase a new lamp, and possibly hang a bulletin board (Great idea, Sara!).  I also want to get extra clutter out of the room, like the big red car that Brennan doesn't use anymore, and I want to raise the red airplane.  The view of that right corner of the room annoys me because it's too busy. My goal is still to finish this room before August 1st so I can work on the nursery. (I am in major "nesting mode" and time is ticking!)  However, the fact that the room isn't done doesn't seem to bother Brennan. He loves playing in there now!

This morning was Kylie's baby shower, and it was so much fun! It was so girly, even though she is having a boy! (Baby showers are for girly moms, no matter what gender child they're having, right?) Honestly, it was one of the most elegant showers I have ever attended. Christy, Tricia and I worked together to host. Christy and Tricia teamed up on food while I took on the decor. We were a fierce trio, mostly because we each truly enjoyed the roles we chose.

As an inspiration for the shower, we used Kylie's nursery decor of brown, green, and polka dots. We chose to do a "sweet baby" shower, with lots of delectable treats for the guests.

It all started with the invitations, which set the tone for the whole affair.  The top part of the cupcakes were made with color copies of one of Kylie's nursery fabrics.  The text was printed with chocolate brown ink on green vellum, the cupcakes were made 3-D, and they were all finished with chocolate brown ribbon.

The sweets table was the hit of the party.  It was filled with delicious green and brown treats for guests to bag up and take home as favors at the end of the morning.  The treat bags were made to match the nursery fabric, too.

It is hard to see in the photo (you can click to enlarge it), but Christy made the most adorable (and tasty) cake pops that looked like mini cupcakes, and we bagged them and attached a tag that said, "So sweet of you to come!"  

Some of the other decor included the banner on the mantel (shown at the top of the post), and several fun hanging elements above the tables.

We did a word search made just for Kylie, and when everyone was finished, we drew one for a door prize.  We also asked people to write notes to Kylie and the baby.

The food was incredible.  We had chicken salad croissants, banana bread fingers (with a cream cheese filling), fruit salad, and three different kinds of muffins.  Everything was made completely from scratch!  It was all incredibly delicious.  For drinks we had homemade lemonade, sweet tea, fruit tea, regular and decaf coffee, and, of course, there were a few flavored creamers.  They thought of every detail.

After the food, it was time for gifts.  One of my favorites was this bib that was bought on Etsy.  Kylie's husband is our worship leader at church and plays both guitar and drums.  There was a drum set onesie to go with the bib, which was just perfect.  Too cute!

It is hard to believe that our own baby is scheduled to come just eight weeks after Kylie's (twelve weeks from now).  I so don't feel ready.  Someone asked me today to share a photo of the nursery, and it nearly gave me a heart attack.  I have got my work cut out for me.  But for tonight, I need to put my feet up and relax...  I loved every minute of helping with this shower, but I am one tired momma tonight.  Happy shower day, Kylie!

In this post, you can see the start of a canvas for Brennan's room.  It was the first of three canvases and some letters that ended up taking over a month to produce (I always have too many projects going at once!).  I am happy to report that they are now done and hanging in his transportation-themed bedroom!

I used a Pottery Barn train quilt and sham as a starting point for choosing colors, and I used two of Brennan's tee-shirts and a picture off the internet to help with the design.  I photocopied Brennan's shirts that had a boat and an airplane, blew up the copies until they were the size I wanted, and used carbon paper to trace them onto the canvases.  Then I just got creative with color and had some fun!

At first I was going to wrap the solid paint colors around the canvases, but I ended up deciding that patterns and alternate colors on the sides would have a much greater impact.  I am so glad I made that decision.  It was a lot of extra work, but it was totally worth it.

Here is what the room looked like without any artwork:

... and here is what it looks like now:

(Apparently I need to move the red airplane up a bit since I always bang my head on it and I can't see the artwork behind it!)

Here is what the boat and airplane look like closer up:

So, here is where I need some design help.  When I look into Brennan's room and see this...

... it makes me happy.  But when I turn my head and see this...

or this...

... I'm not so thrilled.  Why? 

1.) The furniture colors are not my favorite.  I hope to someday paint all of the furniture, but I am not allowed to paint while I'm pregnant, and it's just as well because I don't have time or energy to tackle something that big at the present time.

2.) The bare walls are driving me crazy, and I'm sure if they weren't so white it wouldn't be so bad, but since we're renting, I'm kinda stuck.  I do plan to infuse some color into the room by hanging (still unmade or unpurchased) panel curtains and a (half-finished) red bed skirt, but I really need to figure out what else to put on the walls.  I have some ideas, but I'm stuck on implementation.  I would love to get a big red barn star to put someplace, and I was thinking of incorporating these photos somehow:

I could do them framed in color, black & white, or sepia and use all of them or just one, but I'm not sure how to arrange them.  I thought about a floating shelf, but I'm just so unsure of what I want or where to put it where it wouldn't look like an island on a big white wall. 

I need some design help...  I really want to get the room done by the end of July so I can focus on the nursery in August.  I only have fourteen more weeks until baby girl gets here, and there is a ton to do!

It has been forever since I really pursued my craft business.  Major life changes will do that, I guess.  But now that I am experiencing a few months of productivity, I thought I would go back to what I enjoy!  This month several of our friends have had babies, and in an attempt to personalize some gifts, I came up with a personalized onesie / tee-shirt that I plan to sell in my Lissalaneous shop later this month.  I think these make perfect sibling gifts.  How fun to give one to each child and get some group pics in the hospital or during those first few weeks at home! 

Making these shirts has turned out to be a minor chore because the transfer paper is for ink jet printers only, and we have a laser printer.  (Yes, I tried the paper in the laser printer, and it melted, leaving our next hundred printed sheets of paper with funky black stuff on them!)  After trips to Kinkos, the UPS store, and Office Depot, I discovered that no one has ink jets available to customers anymore!  One of Jim's co-workers has an ink jet at work and kindly helped me out, but borrowing a printer every time I get an order is not ideal.  Luckily, Jim found some iron-on transfer paper for laser printers online, so I guess I will special order some before I start taking orders!

I made a shirt for Brennan yesterday, and he got to model for some of my listings.  All it took was a trip outside and a few sticks, and he was happy to oblige.  

Another project I've been working on is the invitations for my friend Kylie's baby shower.  The shower is in two weeks, and I'm in charge of the decorations, favors, etc.  The theme is a "sweet" baby shower, and we'll be using lots of sweets with green and brown, since those are her nursery colors.  Here's a peek at the invitations.  I made the cupcakes using color-copied fabric from her nursery, so it adds a personal touch!

So, back to the personalized shirts.  I'd love your input.  If you were to order one, would you be inclined to order one for older kids and adults too, or just little kids? Also, and you can be honest, how much would you expect to pay for one? Thanks for your help!

I have to shamelessly admit to copying Kimba again. She posted about a not-so-exciting wreath that she made into something beautiful, and I was so inspired that when I passed through JoAnn Fabrics last week and found this boring yellow wreath on sale for half price, I snatched it up.

I am admittedly poor at floral arranging.  I've only tried arranging dried and fake flowers a few times, and they have never turned out well... until now!  I think the wreath looks so much better with some added greenery and dried foliage! 

I was initially intimidated, but last night I just sat in front of the television watching Dancing with the Stars and sticking branches in here and there until I was satisfied.  If I can do it, I think anyone can!

Hooray for a spring, and hooray for a beautiful spring door!  Thanks, Kimba!