Another Gilded Treasure

Today I would like to share with you a successful project, and a failed one.

First, the successful project:

Last December I picked up three of these crown ornaments thinking I would paint them and make something for my mom and Sister (sorry girls, I never got around to it!). Once I decided to do a castle/princess theme for Muffin and Baby's room, I thought they would be perfect in pink! I started out with the same color as the poodles, but it just wasn't popping, so I went a few shades darker.

From gilded......

To perfectly pink!
I even followed through on the project, and hot glued them to her cubby shelf. I'm hoping the glue will hold. If not, I will call in Daddy Man and his power tools.
Close up:
I took the opportunity to give you a little sneak peak of Muffin's work in progress room. I think I'm pretty much done, it's just that its hard to get photos of the whole room at one time (this would mean the whole room would have to be clean. ;) Asking too much, right?).
I found this cutest-of-all chairs at Ross, and got 25% off for a scuff on the leg! So girly and cute!
On to the failed project:

My third attempt at upcycling a men's shirt into a boy's shirt did not go so well. This time I used this tutorial for making a onesie, and modified it for a shirt. It was looking good until I sewed the ribbing on backward on the front half of the shirt. Arg!! At first glance it looks OK....
but closer inspection reveals a slew of errors. I'm new to sewing knit fabrics, so the neckline is all warbly (yup, made that up). As I said, the front neckline that you see is supposed to be on the inside of the shirt...the other side looks better, but since I used the existing hem of the old shirt, I couldn't turn it around. And, as you can see right by Muffin's fingers, I didn't catch the edge of the ribbing in the sleeve.
Well, I will try again. Hopefully I can get it right before this weekend's birthday party for Baby Keller! As for the fate of this shirt? It's not so bad to be doomed to the dumpster, so I think Mr. Baby will use it for a sleep shirt (just like the first two I tried. UGH!)

Utility Sewing Day

Today I did a couple of projects that have been on the to do list for a while, but were not very exciting. But first, I will share with you a project I finished yesterday.

I have been wanting to make a Waldorf-style doll for a while. While I don't agree with most of the Waldorf philosophies, I do agree with their view toys. Toys should be hand-made, with natural materials, with simple features to allow the child's imagination to be the central ingredient in play, and have no bells and whistles or flashing lights. Waldorf dolls have a very distinct style and are made with natural materials: wool yarn hair, wool stuffing, etc. Daddy Man bought a kit as a surprise gift for me, and I had so much fun creating this doll from fabric and wool fluff.

I don't know what her name is yet. Muffin calls her "Monee" (Mon like Monica), which is what she calls me these days. :) We'll see if it sticks. I was tired of sewing (can you believe it?) so I put a dress and shirt on her that I made for one of Muffin's other dolls a while back. Her 'buns' stick out when she bends over, so I'll have to make a longer one later.

More recently, but less excitingly, I made these flannel baby wipes. I already have lots, but with another baby on the way, my usage of baby wipes will at least double, so I thought I'd make them now. I was so tempted to use one of the cute girly print flannels I have, but I decided to save those for a more exciting project. I LOVE not spending money on wipes (or diapers, for that matter) anymore! And I know exactly what' s in them: water!
Per Daddy Man's request, I made several man-sized snack bags. We never seem to have enough for his lunch, so now we do. I even lined two of them with plastic, so he can put his sandwich in them. He was very pleased. :)

Mr. Baby's Room

Well, Here it is: Mr. Baby's room. As part of Operation Beautify, I decided to move him into his own room, and let the girls have their room together. I think it will work best this way, but a major deciding factor was the decorating factor....much easier to have a girly room and a boyish room, then try to mix them together. As usual, my pictures aren't that great. I don't know how she or she or she does it. How do you take decent photos with kids running around, pulling on you, messing up your staged areas, poking each other, you get the picture. (ha ha) Anyhow, here it is.

I still need to hang the curtain rod higher, but I'm pretty happy with how the curtains turned out. I sewed circles on them to match the bedding.

I painted this bookcase....

...and these shelves.....(thanks Sister for the cute arrangement on them!)

...and this table. I love the Uppercase Living on it!
My Uppercase tree on the wall is a bit lonely....not sure what to do with that yet. Any ideas? That green pony- one of the kids' favorite toys. I highly recommend it. It is called the Rody Horse, and it is a blow up toy to bounce on. You can inflate it to different sizes depending on how big your kid is. Love the fun colors too. If you live in Redding, they can be found at Sugarplumb Cottage.

This fabric is what I based the whole room on...ironically it is the last thing to go on the wall. I'm looking for a large frame from a thrift store to paint orange or green. I found this amazing fabric at a garage sale...score!! I wish I could get more of it.

So there you have it. Mr. Baby's room. It is so nice for him to have a space with all baby-safe toys to play in. I don't have to worry about him choking on a pea-sized strawberry shortcake doll purse, and he seems to enjoy having his own space to play in. It is also perfect for bed times. Girls' room to come soon!

Update: After some searching around I found this lamp that was sold at Urban Outfitters a few years ago. Oh how I want that for his room! I can't find it anywhere, just found this picture on a post where someone was ranting about how Urban Outfitters ripped off the design from the vintage fabric, originally offered in an apron kit. Honestly, is it that big of a deal? Anyway, I think my fabric must be from one of the apron kits. If you ever see this lamp, or even just the shade, send it my way!!!

I love my kids!

I feel like I have a renewed sense of appreciation and love for my Babies. Maybe it is because their cheeks are so kissable.

Maybe it's seeing them enjoy their new turtle pool ($5 at a garage sale!) together on a windy spring day.
Maybe it is seeing them get so excited about each other....
or seeing how their faces light up when they look at me.
Or, it could be that I decided to sit and relax, simply watching them enjoy themselves, instead of trying to get something done while they were occupied.
Whatever it is, I am glad for it. I love feeling that heart-warming, overwhelming joy when I look at them or hold them. It's such a better feeling than stressing about what needs to be done, or why they are cranky or fussy. I think I am going to bottle this feeling in my heart, and pull it out when times are less fun. (see last post)

You can almost see his tooth in this one. :)

I just can't get enough of this sweet face!
Mr. Baby likes to investigate and figure out how things work, much like his Daddy.
Ok, have you had enough of their cheeks? Didn't think so. But I do have other things to talk about. ;) This week my Sister and Mom came to visit me and help me get prepared for new Baby Girl. Can you believe that I am almost 8 months along, and didn't even have anything set up for her? Sister and Mom to the rescue.

Part of the preparation was moving Mr. Baby into his own room, and setting up baby's crib in Muffin's room. The girls will have a castle/princess theme, and Mr. Baby will have a more modern, orange, green and brown room. I will post pictures of each of the rooms once I finish a few projects, like making curtains, painting some of the furniture, etc. Here is the first thing I made for Mr.'s room: his crib blanket.
I modeled it after an Uppercase Living tree that I ordered for his wall. It took quite some time to make, but thanks to sister's expert drawing, it came pretty close to the model. We had so much fun doing all our projects; from changing pads and pillows, to blankets and shirts, we did it all. (Yes, my living room looked like a craft store exploded in it for a few days, but it was worth it! Sorry housemates!)

The back of the blanket is flannel owls. It was my first attempt at a real applique, and I'm pretty happy with it! Can't wait to finish his room and show you how it all looks together!

Operation Beautify, Day One

It's official! Operation beautify (see last post) is under way. I think I finally found a groove, because today I had laundry done, bread made, trip to the play area done, dinner prepped, and two areas of my room beautified, all before the kids took their afternoon nap! Yeah, I'm shocked too. Not sure how that all happened, but I'm definitely going to try to repeat that in days to come!

First of all, I love the play area at our mall. The kids do too. Mr. Baby tried out the race car today.

And Muffin fought some fires with her baby doll.
Don't worry Mom, my hands were at the ready to catch him!
How cool is this? I want a tree slide.
Mr. Baby started crawling yesterday, but he's been climbing up the slide for weeks.
We had the play area all to ourselves this morning- perfect for Muffin. She likes things a bit on the calmer side. She usually finds one friend at the play area and talks with her and follows her around. Usually a girl around 3-4 years old. And she always remembers their names.
Now, down to business. Check out this post for my motivation for Operation Beautify. I decided to post before pictures too, however embarrassing they may be, because I think it will help me to keep things from getting that way again. So here you have it, the top of my cubbie storage, my first before:
And After:
Ok, so the "and they lived..." sign is going to have to wait for Daddy man to come home to be hung. I gave it my best shot, but decided to forgo frustration and leave the retarded double-screw-hole pictures to the professional. And the cubbies themselves will be tackled another day.

And here's the next one, the top shelf of my closet. Before:
And After:
Love those bins! (And I didn't even just pile everything in them!) One holds extra craft stuff like knitting, mohair, and stuffing. The next one has fancy shoes (it's true, I hardly ever wear heals, but I do have a few cute ones) each in their own box, and extra purses and wallets. The last one has winter clothes. Yay! This is so fun! I feel better already!

New Passions

I mentioned before that I had a new project I've been 'poking' away at. Well, I finally finished the little present I was making for Muffin's Easter basket, and thought I'd share. ;) First the explanation of why I made what I did, then we'll get to the how.

Little Muffin is enthralled with eggs. I know, of all the things, right? But she loves to eat them, play with them, crack them, and hold them. (Don't worry, the ones she carries around all day are the play kind, not the ones from my fridge!) Also, when Muffin plays with... well, anything, she does this little narration or story telling thing. You know those bead maze things they have at doctor's offices? We have a small one, and when she plays with it, it goes something like this:

(Imagine a high-pitched little two year old voice)

"Come on Baby Marcus, you need your hat on. We have to go to Nana's house. Let's go to the market. Oh, don't push Paisley. Let's go get Madelynn.....OH! Daddy's home...." and so on. In this scenario, each bead on the maze is a person. She does this with anything she plays with. The other day she had a bendy straw named Uncle Marty. I digress.

So after being inspired by an article in Martha Stewart, and an etsy shop (link to come later, her shop is currently closed due to orders she has to catch up on for easter, so I can't find her) I decided to combine these things and make Muffin a family of egg people! Our family, that is.

The method? Needle felting. It involves poking a barbed needle into wool roving thousands of times, binding the fibers together until it becomes the shape you want.
This is the roving before anything is done to it. That' the needle on the left. The green and yellow tool is 5 of the needles in one, so it makes the process go much faster, but I've found it doesn't work well until you have at least some structure to the roving. The roving and needles can be found online, or possibly in your local quilting fabric store.
I house our family in a six pack egg carton. I know she will love putting them into the carton.
This one is the Mommy egg, of course. I gave myself a bun after several very strange attempts at a pony tail.

New baby girl, Mr. Baby, and Muffin. The lady who sells these on etsy has you send her a family picture, and she will make them for you. She sells a set of six for $70.00!! I can understand, since it is very labor intensive, but what else do I have to do while watching Dora and Wonder Pets? Side note: you know your child watches too much Dora when she can count from one to eight in spanish and you didn't teach her. ;) She actually does that better than counting in english! Should I be worried?

I will admit, I think they are pretty cute!

Daddy Man and doggie Bee. Daddy has a gotee, not giant lips. The little pink lips are hard to see in this picture. I am hooked on needle felting! It is repetitive and pretty therapeutic, until I jab the needle into my finger. Must get some gloves or something.

I tried a new bread recipe this week- no starter needed! I know, the starter is probably really good for you, but I can't even remember to water house plants....how am I supposed to remember to feed the starter? I got this recipe from one of my favorite blogs (can you tell? I've mentioned her like 4 times) called MADE. For the recipe, go to her tutorials section. I did half wheat flour, instead of all white like the recipe calls for. Isn't it beautiful? And soooo yummy! We couldn't help but dig into it before I had a chance to get a picture.

This week Daddy Man turned 26, and Muffin gave him some special cars for his birthday present.

He liked them a lot. (Bit of an understatement) I came home from garage saleing Saturday morning to this:
The goal was to launch the car off the coffee table and get it to land on the cereal box. And, of course, to slide down Daddy Man's ramp. I love watching Daddy Man and Muffin play together.
One last thing. (I really should post more often to avoid these mega-posts.) I made Dana's 90 minute shirt for Mr. Baby. It turned out pretty good.
Transform a men's shirt into a kid's shirt, with added contrast ribbing on the neckline. I need to make the neck smaller next time, but it worked out. I LOVE making clothes for my kids. Not only is it inexpensive, it is sentimental. It reminds me of the outfits my mom used to make my sister and I as kids. Mind you, they were not quite as cool ;) (It's ok Mom, it was the 80's. It's not your fault) but I love those outfits! I think the one with the crayola fabric, with the crayon buttons was my favorite. I am happy to make a little piece of history for my kids.