Boy Baby Shower Table Decor

These are some of the poorest quality pictures and I'm sorry. ...but at least it's enough for you to get the point. maybe.

I threw a baby shower for a friend and here's a picture of the most important part of any party (besides the food): the table decor...

*I realize it's not the most fabulous party table out there. C'mon, I've seen those amazing, over-the-top tables on pinterest!...but this is good for me. Plus the food and cupcakes are missing in the pic so...  

*Tablecloths: lime green twin flat sheet & light blue plastic rectangle tablecloth from the dollar store. Accessorized with light blue wired ribbon bows hung up with safety pins

*Apothecary drink jar and matching cupcake stand from Pier1 Imports (borrowed from sis)

*glass mason jar with white flowers

*light green vintage wooden organizer thingy. It's meant for pens, paper, etc. but I used it to hold the utensils and napkins

*small chalk board from World Market to display the menu

*small lime green candle just because it matched :)

 

*Hanging from the ceiling on clear thread are tissue paper pom poms. WAY easier than expected to make. Thanks to pinterest and Martha Stewart, I found the tutorial here.

*I typed 'paper owl' in Google images and found this super cute owl:

which belongs to someone selling them on etsy here if you'd rather buy it.

But I'd rather make my own because I can customize it with the mile-high pile of scrapbook paper I have. and love. So I copied the image into a Word doc and made it as large as I could, then printed in black and white. I traced the outside edges with a permanent marker, then used another plain white sheet of printing paper to lay over the top and trace with a pen. (you can see the permanent marker easily through the paper) Then I cut it out. (this is called making your own stencils ;)

Once I made a stencil for each piece, I used them to cut out the pieces from different scrapbook pages. I just laid it on the backside of the scrapbook paper, traced around the edges with a pencil, then cut em' out. Then I put it all together with a glue stick, put a hole in each side with a hole punch, then carefully tied some twine through it. I made 4 owls, so I had to trace and cut extra, then weaved them through the same piece of twine and hung them up with clear tacks.

Easy, but a bit time consuming. If you do it in increments, it's not so bad. And it turns out so cute, so it's totally worth it!

Sorry for the lousy pictures. I promise it looked darling in real life.

PS. I made matching cupcake toppers by printing this image I also found on Google images: Sorry I don't know who it belongs to.

*I just copied the image into a Word doc., pasted it as many times as I could fit on one page, then printed in color. I cut them all out, then drew and cut out circles from matching scrapbook paper and glued it to the back with a glue stick - of course putting a toothpick in the middle! Then stick em in your cupcakes and admire. I wish I had a picture, cuz they really turned out cute.

Baby Nursery Intro

Since my last post, I've made lots of things such as duvet covers, pillows, topiary, etc., including Averi's nursery bedding (bumpers included :) and matching curtains/ruffled valance, but have yet to take pictures. I've just been too busy to post. I'm actually over her nursery decor now, ha (which is white and a light mauve with a ruffley, classy, dainty feel) and want to bring in some bold color. I change my mind a lot. Future plan: take pics and post! I have alot of friends who are preggers right now and searching for the perfect decor. That was me a year and a half ago. I searched and searched and was willing to pay for anything I fell in love with - my first (maybe only) girl HAD to have the perfect nursery. My prob was, I never found anything I liked. Everything was so over-used and over-done. I didn't want butterflies or flowers or winnie the pooh. I didn't want chocolate brown and pink. I wanted something original and special. So I gathered ideas and made my own stuff. I was pleased with how it turned out, but now my baby is getting to be a toddler and I just feel like upscaling. So I'm starting over. Only this time, I'll be sharing it online. Plus I never got to finish ALL the projects I had planned for her so this will be a good excuse to git-er-done.
Upcoming Tutes on Baby Nursery Decor:
-Baby Bumber Cover (easy peasy!)
-Ruffled Valance & Curtains (also surprisingly easy)
-Revamped Dresser (from brown to white)
-Painted Shelf & Decor
-Fitted Crib Sheet
-Crib Dust Ruffle
-Basket Liner (I already have a tute for that, but this one will be a bit diff cuz it has handles)

I already found the perf fabric at Hobby Lobby that brings in the bold color I want and ties in the 'morning mauve' color of her walls so it was a huge plus. I DON'T want to re-paint.
Excited to get started! I have many ideas, I just need to make time for them to come to life.

The walls look pretty light in this pic, but when in the room, you can see the color better

Benefit Concert

The end of 2011 was crazy busy with work, kids, house cleaning, and extended family. I did not make anything crafty. I did zero baking. I wrapped all the presents on Christmas eve. This is where I break out in song with a red curly wig singing, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! There's always tomorrow!" only it would be "Next year! Next year! There's always next year! ..."
I did manage to sing at a benefit concert though :) It was to support Heritage Academy and their performing arts and athletics programs. Got to open for Brooke White (Former American Idle Top 5 contestant in season 7, who also graduated from H.A.) and her new band, Jack and White. I sang 'Leave the Pieces" by the Wreckers and it was a blast. My two sisters, Chandelle & Chalice, sang the harmony beautifully! Of course there were other alumni singers who also performed, including Kristina Foulias. I love her personality. She cracks me up. Thanks to Rick Dalton for putting it all together!

Rockin' out :)

 silly backstage with sis, Chandelle

 with Brooke White

To the New Year!

I don't want to jinx myself like I do every year by saying all the impossible goals I've set, so I'll just name a few easy ones:

Do P90X full out

Never be late to anything

Be the best wife, mom, sister, & friend ever

Make 365 crafts

Mykayla Update- Petite Powerhouse!

Google search Mykayla Skinner. Check out her gymnastics here on youtube. As of late, she's been in the Arizona Republic, front page of Gilbert Republic, LDS Church News, the New Era magazine, interviewed live on Channel 12, and becoming known as the Petite Powerhouse. She made it to the National Team! There are 13 girls on, but only 8 of them will go to the Olympics. We are so proud of her and hope her dream of being an Olympic Champ comes true!

Mother-in-law, Kym, on left and little sis-in-law a.k.a Gollygol. Our oldest son, Brayden, couldn't pronounce Mykayla when he was little, so he called her Gollygol. Not sure why, but we all started calling her that, ha. More Mykayla

Read Full Article

Find her Official Website here.

Oh, the Joy of Paint Colors

We like neutral colors and wanted a subtle color throughout the house. Thought it be easy picking out a simple light tan color, but there are SO many different colors! This was in every room of the house... 

The light grayish looking one is called Balanced Beige, which is just a tad lighter than Tony Taupe by Sherwin Williams (SW). The green one to the left of it is called Victorian Garden by SW also (which we are using in the family room.) The tan one on the far right is Basket Beige by SW. The very first one on the left is Sandy Motif by Behr. I don't remember the other ones.

We paint matched ALL of these at Home Depot (HD) because we wanted primer in the paint and SW doesn't offer that. Plus SW paints are more expensive and we wanted to cut the paint time in half.

We thought we liked Sandy Motif and so we decided to start in the boys room (which was light blue, btw). But a little patch of color on the wall is A LOT different than an entire room. The tan color is nice, but not what we thought it would look like. It's more of a yellowish tan. So it stayed in the boys room and we chose another color for the rest of the house. (I didn't take a pic of the boys room, but I will and post that later)

We decided we wanted more of a taupe tan and were advised by a professional interior designer to go with Tony Taupe, but thought it might be a smidge too dark. So we chose to go with Balanced Beige (one notch up on the color wheel) and started in the master bedroom (which was maroon, yuck). At first, it looked like the perfect color. Then it turned grey. We didn't like it, but didn't want to paint it again, so we left it. I swear over a week, the paint curred and now it is taupe! I think it's pretty, clean, crisp, and I love it. Will look so much better too once we put up crown moulding. There was some up already, but the cut lines were so uneven, we tore it down.

(Balanced Beige by Sherwinn Williams in Satin)

...But what's weird is, the color patch in the hallway still looks grey. And we labeled each color with a pencil on the wall so it for sure is Balanced Beige. The lighting is a little different I guess, but our room never looks grey in any lighting and we have dimmer lights. Hmm.
Since we thought the walls in the master were forever grey, we picked out a different color, and went away from the greyish tans. We chose Basket Beige by SW, but again, matched at HD. I love it. I'm not a very colorful person. I like pops of color, but nothing bold. I wanted something colorfully rich, but subtle at the same time without looking brown. Can't wait to get up the crown moulding, but I'm afraid it won't be til early next year. We've got so many other projects going.

 (Basket Beige by Sherwinn Williams in Satin)

Alas, I got started on Averi's nursery. I went with Mauve Morning by Behr at Home Depot in satin finish. Luckily, there was at least one room in the house without a paint color.

Before...

filthy and missing blinds are coming down. 

And here is...

Mauve Morning by Behr in Satin

I wanted a light lavender something with a greyish tint and this is perfect. It goes great with the new fabric I found for only $1.50/yrd !! I know! You can't even find clearance fabric that cheap. They must have marked it wrong by mistake. ...but finders keepers, hee hee.

Pics of that later.

I looove paint and primer in one. It's de best.

These rollers at Home Depo are WON-DER-FUL. [don't pay any attention to my ugly, kid-friendly carpet] The coverage they give make painting a heckuva lot easier. Spend a little extra and go with better rollers. You'll be painting less coats if you do. You get what you pay for if you choose the crappy cheap ones. They don't paint the same.

Painting Tip:

If you need to take a break on your painting project, put your roller in a large plastic Ziploc bag and put it in the fridge. Squeeze all the air out of the bag and it will keep for a week in there. Plus you're not wasting any expensive paint by cleaning it out. You can also put them in freezer bags and freeze them for 2 months.

Tomorrow's Project-

more painting. surprise surprise.

My Home Tour

Wanna see a tour of my dream home?

Here is my front room...

 Then you waltz into the dining room...

And to your left is the kitchen...

 And to your right is the family room...

 Here is the boy's room...

 Here is Averi's nursery...

And here is my master bedroom...

Well, this is what I want my new house to look like once we fix it up :) I had fun with OlioBoard creating these rooms just the way I want. Still want to create one for Bryce's room, the guest bedroom, and a bathroom. It's nice to have a visual of what I want each room to look like.

This site is addicting.

Exciting News!

We bought our first house! Yay for no more renting!! After 3 months of waiting anxiously, everything went through. The longest and most stressful 3 months of my life. 4 kids: piece of cake. Buying a house: head full of silver!
It all worked out and we are so happy.
We didn't buy a 'fixer-upper' but the place does need some love - all cosmetic. Walls & ceilings are filthy. Non-smoking home, but it seems they had indoor food fights, and possibly shook a soda can and let it explode in one of the bedrooms. Cupboard in the kitchen is missing, cupboard in bathroom is broken, outdated light fixtures, lots of gum underneath counter top bar, kids colored all over walls, all faucets leak, and the WORST paint job ever. BUT...5 bedrooms, 2 bath, 2 living rooms, fire place/wood stove, 2 reg size pantries, 1 lrg walk-in pantry, storage shed, wood shop, chicken coop, large fenced yard, apple & pear trees, grape vines, raspberry & blackberry bushes and super nice neighbors.
We didn't have the luxury of getting the place move-in ready, so we're living there with all our stuff in boxes still. Our plan of action is to tackle one room at a time, making each room sparkle (if we don't do it now, we never will)...but with 4 little constant interruptions, it's going slower than we'd like. Plus, having to use a metal scraper to scrape gum and jolly ranchers off the ceiling may have contributed to the 8 hour-long bedroom scrubbing party. Yes, that is how long it took to clean walls, ceiling, baseboards, doors, and shelves inside closet in just ONE bedroom. Thanks to Emma Age 6. And that does not include the time it took to paint. I wanted to take a before pic of the light blue, dirty walls for proof ;) - but once I get in that 'cleaning mode' I don't want to stop.
So far, the walls, ceiling and doors all have a fresh new coat of paint. I love that new, clean feeling. ah. Once the other half of the closet is painted, we'll put up the boys' bunk beds and move on to room #2 - master bedroom.
Working on matching duvet covers for their beds and accompanying valance for the window. Need to get them a new dresser that matches their bed. The one they currently have is hideous. It was ugly to begin with, then we painted it, and its still ugly. Can you say curbside?
Pics coming soon :)

Nursery Inspiration

I've been trying to decide how I want to decorate my little girl's room once we move. I've searched the Internet for a picture of the perfect nursery that I would want, but I cannot find anything. It's all so themed with flowers and ladybugs and too bright of colors for me. I guess I'm too picky. I know what I want in my mind and so I'll just have to make it myself. I'm on the lookout for the perfect fabric - maybe a damask print in lilac with a coordinating plum print. Throw in some cream colors, off-white, or white. Haven't decided. I did however, find some pictures for the inspiration of Averi Brooke's new nursery. (Yes, Averi is a girl name. Especially when you put a heart instead of a dot over the i )

love the idea/colors of this pillow and would be super easy to make

 cute little table to sit next to the rocking chair. Maybe painted a distressed plum color.

 this nursery is a bit too modern for me, but i like the feeling it gives. it's refreshing.

 white chandelier with white pearls/beads is a must. adds such feminine charm.

 Love the color on the walls- purplish gray. Also love the iron rod crib and all the fabrics.

 Pearls! I have some great ideas for decorating with sweet pearls.

 flowers on the side instead of being the focal point is much more my style



Excited to find the perfect fabrics and get to sewing and creating. Might be a while til it's all finished since I've got a lot going on, but I'll be posting as I go.

Jimmy Rigged Candle Making

So...a blog I read made candle making look super easy. "Oh ya just melt this and pour that, and walla!" Since I had a candle that melted the wax right on top of it's own wick, I thought I'd give it a whirl and try to reuse the wax. Plus it smells amazingly tropical. You can use the microwave, but since mine had that little metal thing at the bottom of the wick somewhere inside the glass, I didn't have that option. So I patiently waited for the wax to melt upon my stove top over medium-low heat for 30 minutes.

 candlewicks and jar...check!

 This blog I read (really don't remember whose) said you simply dip the little metal part in the melted wax...

 ...and stick it down in the bottom center of your new glass. Once it dries, pour in the wax and it will stay.

Simple enough, right?

WRONG!!!

Once the hot wax touches it, it melts again! I should have known.

This is where the jimmy rigged part comes in...

I used bamboo skewers to hold the little metal knobs down on the bottom of the glass while snuggling frozen veggies to the sides to get it to cool faster. The hardest part was trying to get the stupid wicks to stay straight in the wax!

 So once I got the wicks to stay a little straight, I used the skewers to hold the wicks upright while it cooled completely. (I dipped my finger in the hot wax and put a dab on each side of the wick where it meets the skewer so when it dries, it would hold it in place and I could let go.)

Once you get it just right, DON'T BUMP IT! like i did.

 Then I used my new nifty candlewick trimmers (that I pretty much got for free at that sidewalk sale) to trim down both wicks once it dried- which took another 30 minutes

 I had a little wax left over and made a mini one in a tiny ketchup bottle.

Once it all cooled, I was happy.



I'm sure those of you, who actually know how to make candles, have some neat little tricks and/or gadgets to make this easy and are probably laughing at this post, but idc. 

Jimmy rigged or not, it worked out eventually.

:)

Framed Tin Magnet Board

This project cost me under $7- which was just for the sheet of tin (on sale at Home Depot.)

Frame from my mom's garage, already had the ribbon, mod podge, paint,and screws.

If you want to make your own, hit up your mom's garage. or your own. or a thrift store, yard sale, whatev.

 

I'm sure this was nice to someone sometime, but not so much anymore. Outdated to say the least.

(Sorry to whoever painted this. Good things don't last forever, ya know?)

Which is why my mom was excited to get rid of it. Lucky for me.

Paper border? yep.

Most of it peeled right off, but for the stubborn areas, a wet washcloth dipped in fabric softener works miracles. and a butter knife :)

After I got all that fabulous paper off, I painted it white with a foam brush.

(Foam brushes work best if you have to paint over lots of groves.)

While waiting for the paint to dry, cut out strips of ribbon to make a border. You can use fabric, wall paper, scrapbook paper, etc. Using a foam brush, paint a layer of mod podge directly onto the artwork and lay down the ribbon. If your frame came without pretty art (lucky you), cut out a thick piece of cardboard, cork board, or thin plywood. Rub out any wrinkles or air bubbles in your border. Then paint a layer of mod podge right on top to seal it.

 Once it's all painted with mod podge, let it dry. Go back and paint a second coat on your frame, if necessary.

Then make your husband drill a hole in each corner of the tin.

Unless you're one of those cool chics and can do it yourself.

Twist those screws right down into the artwork/cardboard.

Yes, it actually stays. I'm amazed too.

Then have your husband cut off the sharp ends in the back with his Dremmel tool.

Again, unless you're a cool chic.

and make your husband hold it up while you take a picture :)

...and enjoy decorating with these easy and cute magnets you can make yourself.

I'm pretty sure you can also use dry erase markers on tin, but I haven't actually tried it.

You can use for pictures, notes, whatever.

I love how it turned out.

Thanks for your help, babe.