I am a Child of God

My friend Amanda gave me the vinyl saying for Josie's babyshower WAY back in September and I made the sign sometime in January or February and I finally hung the sign a few days ago. I'm such a slacker! You can't really tell in this picture (because it was taken with my phone) but the vinyl is a fun magenta color, just like the frames and clock and various other things I bought to decorate Josie's room with. So far this and the clock are the only things that I've hung up. But soon I will finish. I also had Amanda cut one in blue for Peter's room and the sign is chilling in my office/craft room. 

For both Peter's and Josie's signs I found the already cut MDF boards in the $0.51 bin at the Home Depot. All I needed to do was sand, clean then paint them. I painted 2 or 3 coats of the white paint on each side of the board because MDF soaks the paint right up. I used a low nap roller and satin latex paint. Then I used my laser level as a guide to get the letters on straight and just stuck it on. There are two sawtooth hangers on the back to hang it up. SO easy! SO happy to finally have at least one of them hung up.

Picture Frames

I went to the Goodwill today and found a bunch of fun picture frames for a picture gallery wall. I've been wanting to do one of these for a while but there weren't any publicly available walls in my house other than my hallway and I didn't want to put it there. I did find two empty walls perfect for pictures when I painted and rearranged my office. Anyway, I was really excited to find so many nice frames for so cheap, most of the frames were either $2.99 or $1.99 and a couple were the tag color of the week so they were half price. They all need to be cleaned up and I'm going to spray paint them all a nice brown color. I haven't decided what pictures I want to put in the frames yet but I am going to include some other decor items as well. As nice as some of the artwork is in the frames it's all going to go away. I do want to find a few larger frames too, I may have to thrift shopping again soon to find more frames. We'll see how it goes.

Bookcases All Done!

So we finally finished the bookcases and brought them into our room. They look so good. Andrew did a really good job making them. We were originally going to put them into our office but decided to put them in our master bedroom instead. It's almost like we designed them to go in our bedroom. It goes bookcase, nightstand, bed (not pictured because it wasn't made), nightstand, bookcase. I'm so happy I don't have baskets of books all over the floor in our room anymore. There's plenty of room for more books now too. I also have a lot more room on my side of the bed now. Our room wasn't designed to be centered on that wall though we can tell because the door to the bathroom and closet isn't centered on the opposite wall. It's much more obvious now that everything is centered on the wall.

My bookcase

Andrew's bookcase

Comfy Baby

Almost every time we go for a car ride that's a decent length, longer than 20 minutes or if Peter is really tired he will fall asleep in the car. He always looks SO uncomfortable so I've been thinking and wanting to make one of those neck pillows for him and today I finally did! I used the super soft fleece on one side and the bumpy fleece on the other. I had just enough polyfil to stuff it full. Peter was playing with it for a bit and I think he will really like using it in the car. 

The bumps filled in when stuffed

Leftover monkey fabric

He's so stylin'

I also saw an idea to make reversible soft car seat strap covers that I've been wanting to make for a while. I actually made not one set but two sets one for each kid. They were super easy and didn't take a long time at all and I think they turned out really nice and I can't wait to use them. I let Peter play with them when I was done with them. I connected them together and he thought they were the greatest arm band. 

Flower Pens

I got the supplies to make my craft night flower pot pens WAY back in January and I finally got around to making them Friday night. I got red, blue and black ink pens and made each pen match a flower. So all the yellow flowers are blue, the pink flowers are black and the green flowers are red. I still need to get some glass beads to go in the bottom of the vase but for now it's just fine. I think it really helped that I have a newly rearranged and organized office/craft room because I've been inspired/motivated to get previously started projects done. :)

I used a clear square vase instead of a clay pot

All the pretty flowers

Baby Daisy's Blanket

My friend Amanda had her baby shower today and I made her one of those cool fleece tie blankets, my first ever, and I think it turned out really nice albeit smaller than I anticipated. I used fleece that I had in my stash, which contributed to the small size. I saw this fabric and knew it was the one for her blanket. The green fleece is leftover fabric from Peter's dragon costume. :) I love how the back of the blanket looks like it's lined with the front fabric. We were joking that when Daisy is older she can cut a slit in the back of the blanket and turn it into a pillow sham.

 Blanket Front

Blanket Back

Bookcase Update

We've been slow with our projects lately. Oh well. We finally got our bookcases painted. We're letting them sit for a while in the garage to cure and then I think we'll put a clear coat of poly finish on them. Originally they were going to go in our office but after talking with a friend and thinking about it for a while they are going to go in our bedroom which will then give us more space in our office. I'm excited to finally bring them inside and get things organized. The pictures make the brown look funny, it's a much nicer darker shade of brown in person.

Car Seat Canopy Blanket

I have been wanting to make one of these for some time now. I discovered with Peter that I really didn't like the built in canopy of my infant car seat. It never stayed up and was just all around annoying. I have just been using a blanket which works but is also annoying it never stays on and if the wind is particularly windy it blows all over the place. So a few months ago my friend Carolyn gave me some super cute fabric that was perfect for a canopy blanket. I found a tutorial and cut out the fabric back in January. My mother-in-law helped me make my own bias tape, which I had never done before, and I quickly sewed it on. It sat until yesterday because I've been so busy and we've all taken our turns being sick. I took off the bias tape and refolded it and got to work. It looks SO much better and I actually finished what I started. :) Here are my pictures. It's reversible and that didn't take too much extra effort but is a nice perk. 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Bookcase

Today Andrew and I went to Home Depot and bought enough MDF and backer board to build these bookcases. We kept them the same width but made them a few inches taller so they are an even 7' tall. They are going to replace the current bookcases in our office. I'm so excited because I will finally have enough shelf space for all my books and Andrew's excited because he gets to use one of his Christmas presents (it makes the grooves in the boards to make stronger joints) and his power tools. When they are all done and painted and we're ready to put them in the office we will paint the office. We didn't paint it when we did the rest of the front rooms because we really didn't want to move desks and books. Now we will have to move everything anyway. 

So, funny story: the original plan was to buy 1"x12"x8' boards but they were $13 a pop and we needed 10 so Andrew suggested using MDF instead which comes in 4'x8' sheets which were $30 each but we only needed 3. I was pretty sure they weren't going to fit in our van and Andrew thought they would. So we get out to our car and we had to push the driver's seat all the way forward with the back fully upright and I had to take the head rest off so I could have a little room just to find out that the door won't close. So Andrew had to go back into the store and have them rip the sheets into 12" boards for us. After that I was able to put my seat back to normal.

I bought some brown paint with the intention of painting my Ikea chairs brown... I'm still going to that someday... But I think that the brown will go nicely with the yellow color in office (the same yellow that my living room is painted). I'm also going to make an apron rack to hang in my dining room and it's going to be that brown and I think I'm finally going to paint my spice rack too. AND I think we will have enough scraps and paint leftover to make one of these.

1st bookcase with no top

The rest of the MDF & backer board for the bookcases

The work station

2011 Sewing/Crafting Goals/Projects

• Finish Peter’s fitted sheets
• Finish Grandma Lercher’s t-shirt quilt
• Make Peter’s bedroll
• Make a car seat cover blanket (or two)
• Make the diaper inserts
• Refresh the diapers
• Do the hemming and mending
• Make my t-shirt quilt
• Make fleece blankets
• Make front room curtains
• Make Halloween costumes
• Make Christmas pajama pants
• Paint the spice rack
• Finish painting Josie’s letters
• Hang Josie’s letters
• Hang the I am a Child of God signs
• Fix the “Be” tile
• Build and paint shelves
• Plan the next craft night
• Refinish and sell dining sets
• Paint the step stool
• Make an apron holder
• Make Josie’s first year frame
• Make birthday cards
• Make toddler kitchen tower
• Paint the office
• Paint the laundry room
• Touch up paint in the kitchen
• Make a chore chart
• Make a menu board
• Make 2 growth charts
• Hang the Family board