Mar
09

I never thought I’d say that I was happy to see my baby get bigger. But I am (just a little bit). Owen is finally fitting into this adorable personalized appliqué outfit that he was given at birth.
He was given some really sweet handmade gifts that I have to share with you. The first one was made my my sister-in-law, Micah. She is extraordinarily talented with both felt appliqué and chain stitching (among MANY other things). It’s amazing and beautiful and I absolutely ADORE the pieces she has created for my children. (See more here and here.)

Another sister-in-law, Casi, is super talented with needle and thread as well. She made Owen this stripe blanket that I think is extremely sweet. I love the raw edges – I am a sucker for the texture and dimension that they add to a handmade item.



My friend, Mandy, made him an “O is for octopus” onesie that is pretty darn cute as well. Get one (in the letter of your choice) here!

And lastly, below are the other two onesis that Micah made. See what I mean about the chain stitching?!?!? Crazy patience.




I just love all the crafty, inspiring people in my life!
Posted in craft baby craft gifts handmade sewing
Jan
26


When I was pregnant, we had the task of determining where to put our kids with the addition of the new baby. We contemplated putting the baby in with one of the older kids, moving the older kids in together or moving our oldest downstairs to her own room. In the end, we decided to keep them all separate by moving Lilah into what was once our guest/toy room downstairs.
This meant that we moved Graham into Lilah’s old room (keeping the nursery for the pending baby). Not only was it decorated for a girl, it was DISGUSTING. The walls were beyond nasty. The first thing we did was paint it and it immediately felt beautiful. The wall color didn’t change that much, we just painted it a little bit warmer gray.

We didn’t have to buy any furniture, thankfully. We are borrowing the crib from family, and we weren’t moving the dresser and play table to Lilah’s new room. The super cool “G” toy box was built by my incredibly talented brother last year for Graham’s birthday. We love it because there is no hinged lid to come crashing up and down. The two doors slide back and forth perfectly.
The license plates belonged to Brady’s grandfather and had been stashed in our garage for years. I was happy to use them – and surprised to find four that matched the colors in the room!

The growth chart was made by Graham’s aunt Casi – it was also a gift last year for his birthday. Don’t we have the most talented family??

I painted/collaged these canvases a while back for the kids’ toy room. They are modeled after these prints. The two globes were auction finds and just needed a coat of paint – they had gold hardware on them before.



And I made the “Oh, the places you’ll go” sign. I have always loved that Dr. Seuss book and with the globes below, it just made sense. You can’t tell it in these photos, but I used sheets of lined notebook paper to make the letters – they are decoupaged on. We had this huge canvas hanging in our garage that was from Brady’s college days. He and his college roommates had it hanging at their house and whenever they had a party, guest would sign it. See below for the before. You might notice my name in big red marker in the middle – that is from our early dating days 


And the little guy has loved his room. Of course, it is always WAY messier than this. He is really into trains now, so there is constantly a layer of little train cars and tracks covering the floor. It’s a dangerous place to walk.
And we are happy with the way that we separated our kids. Lilah has been sleeping great downstairs and surprisingly, has never once questioned being so far away from us. I guess she’s too little to realize it. I’m just glad that the two older ones are sleeping all night, cause this baby boy is not!
Posted in Uncategorized decor DIY handmade kids
Nov
20

In my family, it’s a tradition that each new baby that comes along receives a handmade quilt. Between my mom, my great-aunt, my SIL and I, we have always gotten it done. When my niece, Ela, was born in July, we hadn’t even STARTED a quilt for her! Since then, my mom and I have pulled it together and taken turns to finally finish her blanket. We’ve had several mishaps along the way, but alas, it is DONE! Just in time for winter!
The quilt pattern is called Argyle Dreams (by Jackie Clark). This is the third time I have made this pattern and I still adore it! I absolutely love the frayed, unfinished edges and big diamond argyle pattern.


Ela Sue is nearly four months old now and getting sweeter by the minute. She loves to smile, but, despite all our silly attempts, is really stingy with her giggles. She is the youngest of three and gets LOTS of attention from her older brother and sister.
This morning, I had the pleasure of babysitting them while their dad worked and their mom ran in the Turkey Trot run. (Way to go, Jenny!) While I was there, I snapped a few pictures of them. I can’t help myself – they have the most beautiful eyes!


Jak changed clothes about six times while I was there. In this photo, he is a cowboy getting ready to go to the farm.

My kids and their dad are out of town this weekend and I am in full-on nesting mode here. I have been cleaning, organizing and sorting since they left yesterday. Which means that this baby can come ANYTIME!
Posted in craft, family craft handmade quilts
Oct
26

My mother’s side of the family has been working to sort thru some of my grandma’s belongings, as she is living in an assisted living home and my uncle and his wife are moving into her old house. Lucky me, I got dibs on an old chest that she had. It is a beautiful piece and still has the 1941 paperwork stapled to the inside of the lid.
As a child, I remember pulling old mementos out of it, such as her 1947 wedding dress, and straining to imagine that era. My mother always had a memory chest too, a “hope chest” as we called it. And as we grew, it was filled with little pieces of our past. Like our first pair of shoes, our baby blankets or my girl scout sash with all my hard-earned badges.
I had already started small “hope chests” for my children. So when I got my grandma’s chest, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. But it didn’t take long to decide that it would be the perfect home for all our photo albums, which were currently stashed here and there. This inspired me to develop some sort of system for organizing all these photo albums.

One night, with the hubby out of town, I went through each book and jotted down what was inside. I used the digital files on my computer to determine the date range of each album. Once I had a rough chronological order of them, I numbered them.


I used metal-rimmed tags and a circle punch to make the number labels. And I stuck them on with hot glue. Here’s to hoping they stay on!


Taking, sorting, printing and organizing pictures is a huge task! Often, I only print photos once or twice a year. Many times I have questioned why I go thru all the trouble of printing and storing them at all.

My mom always kept photo albums and I LOVED looking thru them. Especially as I got older. I can’t imagine not having those albums to share with my husband when we met. Pictures can really share so much about your past and I am hoping my children appreciate it as much as I do. We’ll see if I can maintain my system and not get too far behind with all the pictures we take…
Posted in craft, family, photography DIY family handmade photography
Aug
08

Our world has been revolving around babies lately. With the arrival of our niece, Ela Sue, a couple weeks ago and with the beginning phases of preparation for our newest (due in December). Phase I = name research, moving Lilah to a room downstairs, mental preparation for being outnumbered by children.
Also, I have been making baby gifts out the wazoo lately. Nothing new and different – just more baby books, burp clothes, blankets, etc. But I thought I’d share a couple of my favorites. Both of these were made custom for the colors that the baby’s rooms were going to be decorated in.
The first was for Brady’s cousin’s daughter. Her name is going to be Sylvie (cute, right?) Her room is going to be decorated in turquoise with accents of hot pink. It is actually a vintage bird theme, but I never could find any bird fabric with those colors. 

The second was for an old friend from high school is adopting a baby boy. His room is getting decorated in blues and grays. How cute is that? I LOVED the gray with the blue. Made it so much more modern.


Makes me wanna get to work on our baby’s book. First step – convince Brady to learn the gender at next week’s sono. I won’t hold my breath.
Posted in craft baby handmade
Jun
16

Every other year, our local quilt guild holds a quilt show. Two years ago was my first one ever and I thought it was really cool! If you are even a little interested in sewing, you will appreciate this event – I promise! I have been looking forward to it for quite some time – the quilts on display there are so beautiful and the talent involved is so apparent. I just wanted to pull them down from the display and snuggle up! There are also dozens of classes, tons of shopping and a raffle for an amazing quilt valued at over $3,600!!
**If you go – Be warned, do NOT touch the quilts! I didn’t know last time! However, there are gloves provided – of course, that kind of takes the fun out of touching.
Posted in craft craft handmade quilts sewing
Jun
04

A few weeks ago, my baby turned three. Not so much of a baby anymore. Although you wouldn’t know it by the incessant amount of hardcore whining, fit-throwing, diaper-wearing, milk-drinking that still goes on around here. But she does do her fair amount of “big girl” things as well. Like wearing big girl pants all day. Or sleeping in her big girl bed.
For her birthday, she wanted a little mermaid party. Easy enough. I put on my party-planning shoes and whipped up some super simple invites. They were supposed to look like a mermaid tail, but I’m not so sure that’s obvious.

For the party, we planned a swim at the YMCA, dinner, cake and digging for seashells in the new sandbox she got for her birthday.


And the kids got beta fish as party favors. She named hers Flounder and surprisingly, she is still alive. Even though Lilah wants to feed it about a dozen times a day.
The cake was fairly simple to make. Turned out kinda sloppy, but Lilah never noticed. I bought the topper and the little sugar flowers at Cake Stuff and had no major problems, aside from the incident where Lilah stuck her little fingers into it the first time she saw it.

Her birthday party landed on Mother’s Day, so we were also celebrating that. My SIL, Jenny, and I decided it would be a great idea to have a portrait taken of the four grandchildren and give it to my mom. We took the kids to Portrait Innovations and it was NIGHTMARE. That’s all I will say about that. Any more details, and I’d need to start another post. However, the photo turned out great and Mom loved it – so mostly worth it.

Happy Birthday, Lilah! Here’s to many, many more years of giggles! Love you!

Posted in craft, family baking birthdays cake handmade kids party
Apr
28
I’ve never considered myself much of a seamstress. Sure, I can sew a straight line. But other than that, I get real intimidated behind the wheel of my sewing machine.
One thing that I have always wanted to do, but always was too scared, is to sew clothes for my kids. I’m not sure what it is that makes me nervous – maybe just the really small pattern pieces and curved seams. Just seemed like a project that would keep me and my seam ripper busy for days.
Anyways, I finally got up the courage to try it. I used a new pattern by Jackie Clark and it was super easy. Took me less than an hour and I didn’t even have to use my seam ripper once!
I went digging for fabric and ran across an old hand-embroidered/crocheted linen that I picked up at a yard sale long ago. Pre-embellished and perfect! This happened to be a table runner, but you could also use a table cloth or pillowcase. Seems like I run across lots of those at sales and thrift stores, but always walk away not knowing what to do with them!


This little top is a gift for our neice, Chloe, who is being baptized this weekend. I sure hope it fits!
My favorite part is the crochet edging around the bottom. I am dying to learn how to do this. Hoping to take a class on it or find a tutor someday. Anybody?




Pretty, right? Now, this makes me what to go to yard sales to round up some more vintage linens!
Posted in craft baby craft gifts handmade sewing