DIY Rocking Baby Scooter

Matt has gotten handy with wood projects in the last few years (did I ever show you the cute and study bench he built for our porch?) and we couldn't think of anything store bought to get Piper for Christmas that the grandparents weren't already buying.  So when I found these adorable rocking scooter plans on ana-white.com, I pretty much told him he was making it for her.  I helped with the painting, though.

It turned out so well and she likes it!  It was pretty affordable since Matt just had to buy some wood and screws, I think.  Oh, and I bought silver acrylic paint to do the headlamp and the side detail.  The blue paint on the body is the same color as the walls in her room, the off-white on the seat was a free sample and the black we had from painting some stools years ago.

Here she is riding on Christmas day.  She looks very serious, doesn't she?

Linking up to: Tatertots and Jello, Ladybug Blessings

Advent Activity Calendar, pt. 2

It was fun, and also harder than I thought, to come up with activities for our advent calendar.  I started by looking at our calendar and filling in the events we already have on the schedule and I also filled in a few days with "read a Christmas book".  Here's the rest of the list:

• Set up manger scene
• Make a pom-pom pinecone tree, similar to these
• Have a "Jingle Bells" parade
• Make salt dough hand print ornaments
• Have lunch or a snack next to the Christmas tree
• Make gingerbread waffles or pancakes
• Go see Christmas lights on our road
• Make a Christmas tree hairbow, inspired by this one
• Go to kids' Christmas party with friends from Daddy's school
• Go to the big kids' Christmas performance
• Make time capsule ornaments, inspired by this one
• Call grandparents to sing a Christmas song
• Make white chocolate peppermint bark
• Watch the Charlie Brown Christmas show
• Make and decorate cookies
• Take cookies to women's shelter
• Make a Christmas song video (Cadence loves to star in her own videos)
• Do some of the Christmas activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler
• Do Christmas pattern block mats

I haven't included our family advent time, which will be on each Sunday and Christmas Eve.  We light the advent candles and have a short Bible reading, activity, and prayer time.  I think this year we'll focus on some of the players in the Christmas story - Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, and Jesus.

Advent Activity Calendar

I just finished up an advent activity calendar for us!  It's important to me that the whole presents/Santa/stuff part of the holidays be very minimal in our house, so I try to put a lot of emphasis on the really important (for us, the story of Christ's birth and serving each other) and the fun (making cookies, decorating, etc.)  I thought it would be fun if we had an advent calendar with an activity for each day.  

I pretty much worked with what I had on hand.  My supplies were: a piece of scrap wood from the garage, white spray paint, cup hooks, and a cute paper tag pad from Target (I found these near the scrapbook paper - I was pleased that there were exactly 24 sheets in the pad).

cup hooks and tag pad

I screwed 24 cup hooks in the wood in a staggered pattern  - that got a lot easier when I started using Matt's drill to start the holes.   I screwed two more cup hooks in the top (I pinched the hook closed with pliers) so I could hang it on the wall.  Then I spray painted the whole deal. 

Conveniently, the tag pad has cute little cut-outs so I could just pop 'em up on the hooks.  I still have to write numbers on the front.  Our activities will be on the back on little post-it notes so I can move the activities around if I need to.  I got the post-it note idea from Simple Mom.

I hung it in our dining room so it will be convenient to check the activities everyday. Here's the list of our activities.

Linking up to: Sundae Scoop at I heart Naptime, Think Pink Sunday at Flamingo Toes, Made by You Monday at Skip to my lou, Take a Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee Crafts

Fabric on Canvas Bird Art

So, I've been working on this project in little bits for months.  Months.  Because in the evenings I'm either too tired to work on things or I'm trying to spend time with Matt.  So this was completed in 5-15 minute increments. 

The wall behind Piper's crib was totally blank.  I wanted something there because it's exactly where the glider faces, so I was staring at a blank wall a lot.  I also wanted something very affordable, and matching with the other fabrics and colors in her room.  Here's what I came up with:

Little birds on tree branches.  Decoupaged on canvas.  They were simple and affordable. I got the two pack of canvases at Wal-mart for $8 or $10. I had the fabric and the decoupage medium on hand, as well as the foam brush I used to apply it. I simply cut everything out of fabric, placed it on the canvas and brushed the decoupage stuff over it.  I freehanded the branches and leaves, but for the birds I found templates online.  The flowers are my beloved yo-yos.  I could make yo-yos all day long.  Well, maybe not, but I do enjoy them. 

The canvases had visible staples all around the edges so I hot glued bias binding around, and it looks a little wonky. I'm telling myself it adds to the homemade charm. (But I may rip it off and fix it later if it's driving me nuts.)

They are kind of intended to represent our family.  Matt and I are the larger blue birds, and the girls are the pink and purple birds.  These pictures are not great, but they are cute. 

You can also see the ribbon mobile I made and the framed scripture (Isaiah 30:29) above her crib.  The rain forest crib soother is not that cute, but handy.  Some sunny day soon I'll take pictures of all of her room and give a tour.

 

I'm linking this project up to:

Easy t-shirt headband

Piper can totally rock a headband. She got a set of cute clippy hairbows for Christmas, but she obviously doesn't have enough hair for them yet, so I made a little t-shirt headband to clip them to.  (I sort of mashed-up directions from here and here.)

It was easy and quick but still took me about a week to finish because it's hard to find a decent chunk of time (like oh, 5 minutes!) to work on something that's not essential to our household functioning. 
The steps:
*cut a 2 inch by 16 inch piece from an old white tee
*sew up the long side, turn inside out to make a tube
*insert one end inside the other and zig zag over to make headband
* cut a small rectangle and hold around headband, sew together then turn inside out to make the little loop to clip the bow on
*position that little loop over the seam on the headband so it looks nice and pretty!

Serious baby.

Scrap Fabric Wreath

I made this pretty little scrap fabric wreath for the door to Piper's room.  I was inspired by ones here and here.  (I love Pinterest!)  It was an easy project - I selected fabric scraps that coordinated with the colors in her room and cut them into 1.5 inch by 7 or 8 inch lengths.  I pinked some of the ends, but not all.  Oh, and I didn't have a wire hanger for the frame so I just twisted together some floral wire. 

Even though this was super easy - cut fabric, tie a knot - it took me several weeks to finish and then several more weeks to get it hung.  Because I have two little kids and difficulty managing my time.  Speaking of which, there's a baby crying so I gotta scoot!

Turkey Hair Bow Tutorial

Cadence and I made this adorable turkey hair bow during Piper's afternoon nap on Tuesday.  It's really cute with a ponytail.  Want to make one?  Here's how:

We started with a small brown yo-yo.  Here's a great tutorial for yo-yos.  Normally a yo-yo would be more circular, I smushed two sides together and sewed up the middle to make more of an oval shape.

We added two googly eyes.  And from felt scraps I cut two feet, a triangle beak and a waddle.  I used plain old white school glue to attach these to the yo-yo turkey body.

I traced an oval a little smaller than our yo-yo on brown felt.  This is the backing and where you glue the ribbons.  To be able to put in a barrette (as shown) or alligator clip, fold the oval in half longways and make two little snips with your scissors.  That makes the slit for the barrette or clip to slide through.

Cadence dug through the ribbon box and picked out some ribbons I cut into 2.5 to 3 inch lengths. 

Then Cadence occupied herself elsewhere while I hot glued the ribbon ends together.  Then I just arranged the ribbons around the edge of the brown felt and glued them down.

Finally, I glued the yo-yo turkey body on top.  A cute turkey clip done in about half an hour!

I'm linking up with project with A Glimpse Inside's Catch a Glimpse Party, Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap-Up Party, Ladybird Ln's Turkey Show Off Party and A Little Knick Knack's Everything but the Kitchen Sink Party.

Butterfly Crayons

Someone has a birthday coming up in this house real soon and it's not the baby girl who will actually be birthed from my belly.  Cadie has been talking about how she's going to have a butterfly birthday party for months.  Realizing I will have a newborn quite literally on my hands when party day comes, I'm trying to do some planning now.  So, on Wednesday, we made butterfly crayons to give to her friends as party favors.  Super easy - peel and break crayons (we started off using the broken ones we found), arrange in molds, bake at 300-ish for 10-15 minutes-ish.

I did most of the peeling and breaking of the crayons, she arranged them (with my guidance).  We have way more crayons than a household our size could ever need, and I always take them from any restaurant that gives them to us with the kids' menu.

I was inspired by this post from twelve crafts till christmas.  Plus, I remember doing something similar in muffin tins with my mom when I was kid.  I ordered a little silicone butterfly ice cube tray from Amazon about a month ago.  It was $5, I think.

We did two batches, so now we have 20 crayons to give away and we might do more, because it was fun!  In this picture, I think Cadie had already absconded with 2.

Ribbon Mobile - Crafting for Baby Girl #2, pt. 3

Baby Sister is due on the 31st, which leaves not many days left before our lives change completely!  Matt goes back to work later this week.  And, I've decided I want to make something every day until the end of this month.  I have a list.  That may be crazy. 

Step 1 was creating this ribbon mobile that hangs over the crib.  It's cuter in real life. 

We always meant to get a mobile for Cadence and never did.  I was inspired by this ribbon chandelier.

I bought a 10 inch embroidery hoop and some ribbon, but I also used some from the box of ribbon I save from gift wrap and packaging.  Once I figured out my method of looping it around the hoop and then doing a knot it went pretty quickly.  We'll see if I can get any of the other projects I've planned done quickly at all.

P.S. We've moved the furniture around in this room like 6 times.  We're finally done.  Mainly because Matt may give up on me if I make him remove and hang shelves any more.

Yo-Yo Flag Art

I like decorating for holidays.  We have bins of Christmas decorations and lots for fall and Easter and even Valentine's Day.  Not much for Independence Day though.  I've had this idea for years to make a fabric yo-yo flag and for some reason, this year of all years, when we are getting ready to go to the beach and then move to a new house, I decided to do it.

Making yo-yos is super easy.  I learned from Heather Bailey's tutorial.

I used fabric from my stash - vintage blue flowers on a cream background, red and cream houndstooth, and red flowers on a cream background.

My parents had given me a frame that was missing the glass, so I covered the backing with cream fabric and then just arranged the yo-yos.  You could sew them on; glue was my preferred method.

The sad part is I don't think it's going on display this year.  Matt packed up all our wall decor yesterday and took the nails out of the walls.  Still, it feels nice to have a finished project.

I'm linking up to the Weekend Wrap-Up Party at Tatertots and Jello.

Crafting for Baby Girl #2, pt. 1

Baby girl #2's due date is 10 weeks from today.  During those 10 weeks, we are going out of town some and, oh yeah, moving to the house next door once renovations are complete.  We probably should be packing more than we are.  I know that the unpacking is really the time consuming part of a move though, so I feel like I need to complete some projects for baby girl NOW.

I took a few hours on Monday and Tuesday to make a nursing cover.  (I used one borrowed from a friend in High Point with Cadence, so we needed one, and they cost like $25!  Crazy!)  I used this tutorial from Sew Much Ado.

I had this fabric in my stash.  When we first moved to NC I worked in downtown Greensboro and happened upon a vintage store that was closing or moving and got a big grocery sack of vintage fabric for only $5.  This was one of the pieces and it was the perfect size for this project.  I had the d-rings on hand too, so all I had to buy was boning for the neck area, which was all of $.62 and the blue thread, which was less than $2 at Wal-Mart.

I am pleased with the result and now need to get going with some knitting!

A Toddler Friendly Thanksgiving Art Project

When we moved here, and I knew I was going to become a stay-at-home mom, I made a weekly schedule for myself with different things to do each day in different areas of my life. I knew I needed some structure to add variety to our days and make sure things got done. We've loosely followed the schedule for the past few weeks, but I started really trying to achieve everything on the schedule this week. It hasn't totally happened (surprise for all you moms out there - the area that keeps getting left out is me time), but I did pretty good.

Anyway, on Fridays, my "special" activity with Cadie is arts/crafts. Last week, we painted, but I wanted something a little more interesting this week. Of course, I didn't think about this until yesterday morning. I've also been wanting to help her understand Thanksgiving. So, I grabbed a bunch of my magazine from October and November (I get a lot of magazines - Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens, Woman's Day, Ladies' Home Journal, and Parents - they were all gifts or free, and I love them)and started cutting out pictures that have to do with Thanksgiving/Fall, hoping she would be into making a collage.

She loved it! I let her pick which pictures she wanted to glue.
She really did it all herself. She was very methodical. She would pick a picture, put it in the top left corner of her desk, apply the glue, put the lid back on the glue stick, then stick the picture down.
We got to talk about some Thanksgiving things - most of my pictures were of food, but that was okay.

She was very proud of the finished product - we put it on the fridge right away.

Halloween decorating

These were projects I finished last week. Somehow this week zoomed by in a blur - I'm not sure why. Anyway, we are blessed with a big front porch that I haven't done much with - YET. I have some great ideas for turning it into a really nice spot for our family and friends. Right now, it's jazzed up a bit for Halloween.My parents brought us this old rocker and the table is from ikea. We used to have it in our family room, but there's not a place for it inside our house here. I sprayed it with a clearcoat sealant before we moved it outside.
The chair needs to be painted or something too, but I haven't figured that out yet.
I made a cover for an old pillow form we had. Matt's mom brought me several yards of this orange home dec weight fabric, and Halloween is the perfect use for it. A plain orange cover was not enough, so I did some quick zigzags across, then sewed on a fabric yo-yo in dark grey corduroy, topped with a fabric flower made of scraps from that orange fabric.
I had a dollar store wreath form too - I have no idea how some of this stuff has ended up in my craft supplies! Anyway, I sewed a black line through the middle of a strip of the orange fabric and wrapped it around. Topped off with more fabric yo-yos and some buttons!

This morning we take Cadie trick-or-treating, and possibly on a hayride! Pictures to come!

Edited to add: I linked these projects up to the weekend wrap-up party at Tatertots and Jello.