Old School Silhouettes

In my many adventures getting lost in blog land I've seen the classic silhouette pictures (that admittedly sometimes look creepy) come back around again. The girls are growing so fast, I'm always interested in ways to preserve their cute tiny little girlness while we can! So I thought this would be a fun rainy day project to try this weekend. (ended up being the only area in SoCal to have clear sunny skies this weekend!)

This was so super easy. I took pictures of the girl's profiles, and printed them out on cardstock. I carefully cut them out with an exacto knife, and painted the paper black. I found some cute scrapbook paper at Michael's to use as a background, and framed the whole thing. I had the oval frames already.

Whatdya' think?? The girls loved it!

P.S. Thats Kali up at the top, and Kenzie down here below.

Linking to Christina's Adventures

Cost break down:  Frames, already had but saw at Walmart for $4 each

Carstock at Michaels:  $1.50

Scrapbook paper for background:  $2

Paint: on hand

St Patty's Day Burlap Decoration

I have seen different variations of these burlap signs for a while and have been wanting to try one.  When I happened to see a frame I knew would be a perfect size, I finally went for it. 

I don't have any St. Patrick's Day decorations really so I thought this was a good holiday to start with.  I found a font I liked and printed out the word "lucky".  Then I sat for what felt like an eternity and painstakingly used an exacto knife to cut out a stencil.  You can be pretty certain a few muttered comments about how a Cricut (or as Josh calls it, a Grasshopper) would have made this MUCH easier, and nicer!

After I (finally) cut it all out, I just used it as a stencil and painted away.  It's not perfect, but I like it that way.  Once it was dry, I used some dark green cardstock for the back, secured it with some brads, and there you have it!

Necklace Holder

So… Ok. I really need to get better about taking pictures. Phew. We got that out of the way.


A few weeks (ok like several) ago Katie (sister) challenged me with a craft project. She needed a necklace holder. I immediately had a few ideas.I ended up going with a necklace/earring combo. I started with a 12 inch square frame I had for a project that never happened, and painted that brown.

 Next I went to Joanns and got this fabric… I looooove this fabric and can’t wait to find an excuse to use it somewhere in my house. The only downside was choosing a fabric with a symmetric pattern kinda backfired. I can tell it’s not lined up just right. Anyway, I lined it with some quilters batting, then hot glued it all to the back of the cardboard that came in the frame.

The last thing I did was drill have Josh drill holes so I could screw in some hooks, and I was good to go!

Yep. That’s a pic in my bathroom. Sigh.  Katie swears she loves it!  Kali already asked if we could make ehr one, too. :) 

Cute or have I been window shopping for too long?

Our kitchen is about to get some much needed TLC in the form of paint, and TONS of it.  More on that to come.  But like any normal chick, I am already thinking curtains and accessories.  The main color scheme will be white and yellow.  But the kitchen opens up into the livingroom that is more black, white and brown.  So keep that in mind when you look at this fabric sample.  Is it cute? Or do I need to walk away form fabric swatches for a while and clear my head?! 

More Valentine's Decorations

In my defense, no I did not just do these 2 days before Valentine's Day.  We did these last weekend, I just haven't had a minute to pull pictures off my camera until now!

I have been wanting to make one of these banners since the very first day I discovered craft-blog land and fell in love.   The simpleness and kind of 'eh' -ness (even my sister said she only kinda liked it.. gotta love her honesty!) is another indicator of how not into Valentine's day I am. BUT as I said, it's not for me, its for the girls, and the gasps and awwww's I got made it totally worth doing.  So here is my nothing spectacular, but never-the-less, Valentine's banner. 

(We have the coolest huge fireplace, but I long for a mantle! This looks kinda random! lol)

I should note that the entire time I was slaving over trying to get the letters to look half way decent I was able to list off about 50 reasons to Josh as to why I need a cricut or silhouette.  He matched that with about 50 eye rolls. I'm breaking him down though, I can tell!!

I actually made the next project a few weekends ago.  I've seen different versions of these popping up in blogville... so I copied a few different variations.  I had this super duper cute red fabric on hand, and I got plant foam squares at the dollar store.  Wrap like a present, pin in place and you are good to go.  I don't have any stencils so I decided to just free-hand letters on.  The girls have had fun stacking them in different ways.  I'm tempted to make a bunch for every day decoration so they can spell out different things.  I didn't think they'd have such a good time messing with them! 

Valentine's Day Wreath

If you know me, you know that I'm not a foofoo lovey dovey person. I call Josh by his name 90% of the time, not "babe" or "hun" or "sweetie"... our terms of endearment fall more into the category of "hey stinky" stuff like that.  What can I say, we are weird.  :)   So Valentine's Day decor is not top of my list of things to do.  However, the girls will be with us on Valentines Day, so I'm making an effort. 

I had to go to Costco Sunday night and SCHUCKS... Michael's is right next door.  So after getting the Costco trip done (ugh it was packed) I rewarded myself with a trip into Michaels.  I saw a cute heart wreath and decided to go with it and see what I came up with.

A few fabric flowers later....

The little cardboard cut out of "True Love" was also a great find at Michaels.  They had a few different v-day sayings... $1 each!  I would have probably preferred to attach a pink or red ribbon at the top but alas I didn't have any. So I decided to go with the earthy feel of the wreath and used up some left over jute I had. 

In case you are curious here is the cost breakdown:
Wreath $3.99
True Love Emblem: $1.00
I used left over fabric scraps to make the flowers, and had the jute on hand. 

Total Cost around $4.99!

Dresser Re-Do

Holy Cow... it has been a really long time since I blogged.  I have at least 5 projects to share, I just haven't had a minute to breathe!  Enter new job and a six month old.  Life is super crazy.   Anyway, enough excuses.

If you remember from this post Josh's sister, Jenny is having a baby.  Scratch that, HAD a baby!!  Baby Olivia was born on 1/24/11 at 2am.  She is perfect!  Roll back a few months ago, when I was looking thru Jenny's registry around the time of her shower.  She had a super cute dresser on her registry that unfortunately she didn't get.  I talked her into taking it off the registry, and letting me find one on Craigslist to refinish for her.  She ended up being more involved in that the dresser we found was closer to her (she's about an hour and a half away) so we played musical dressers in family member's cars until the dresser made its way up the coast to me.   As usual I forgot to take a picture before I started, but remembered to stop early enough and take a few shots.  It was actually in good shape except for a nick in the bottom corner, and Jenny wanted it white.  The hearts were metal pull outs that popped right out and were so simple to spray paint.

I must pause to share with you a very valuable lesson I learned about painting in the cold (even modest California cold) weather.  After I sanded the dresser (So excited that Josh decided that week to go use his X-mas Home Depot gift card to buy a sander!) I began to paint.  I knew it would take a while to dry so I would do one coat, and then come back out an hour later.   When I decided it would be the last coat, I was generous and so super careful to not leave streaks.  I practically skipped out to the garage the next morning to check things out.  Well when you put a generous coat of paint on in the winter months, it doesn't have time to dry fast enough and leaves huge nasty drip marks. SIGH.  Sand, paint, repeat. 

Anywhoooo... here is the finished product! I am so pleased with my very first furniture redo! 

This picture is from Josh's mom.  She snuck a picture of the dresser in the nursery when she stayed with Jenny for a few days. :) 

Shared on.. Domestically Speaking!