Christmas DIY

For holiday gifts this year, Natalie and I made a few different things.  Last year I did a lot of baking, this year, very little baking, more use of the hot glue gun.  

First up is the Tea Wreath.  I cut circles out of cardboard and Natalie and I covered them with scrapbook paper.  Then we covered clothes pins with more craft paper and glued them to the circles then added little holiday-ish decals and added tea to every clothes pin and a bow.  

Tea Wreath

Next up was vanilla cranberry vodka.  I took a big bottle of vodka and split it between three smaller ones.  I decided to add a little sweetness to the vodka, so I made a simple syrup, and added the cranberries and vanilla beans to that to soak up the sweet.  Next I put the cranberries and vanilla into the vodka and shook it up.  Put the label on it and tied a bow - bam, gift.  Oh, and it is yummy.  Christmas morning my brother made a delicious drink by adding some of this vodka to crushed ice, orange juice and a peach from some home-canned peaches and stirred it around.  So good!

Vanilla Cranberry Vodka

I also decided to make S'more's kits too.  I put a can of sterno, a bag of marshmallows, bag of graham crackers, two bars of chocolate and a few skewers into a box and wrapped it up and added the tag to "enjoy S'more holiday time together".

Lastly, Natalie and I mixed up a few packages of reindeer food that we gave to a few friends, and forgot to give to a few others...Natalie enjoyed sprinkling it around our yard on Christmas eve to lure the reindeer to our house, and it worked!

**Side note - the vodka and wreath photos were taken with Phil's iPhone...the others? our camera.  Remember when photos taken with a phone were deemed "crappy phone photos"?  no longer

Walls

Over the weekend I took on two projects - hanging family photos and putting the yarn letters I made for Philip's room on his wall.  

In the main living room, I took down the painting that was up and tried a few other things on the wall...finally settled on family photos.  

To make sure I liked where they were hung, I cut out frame sized pieces of paper and hung them on the wall

I forgot to take a final photo - hopefully that will happen soon

Next was hanging up the letters I made for Philip's room.  I cut out letters and then wrapped them in yarn.  Figured out where to hang them and slapped them on the wall.

DIY Spice Jar

I was scrolling through a bunch of DIY websites and mommy blogs the other day and came across a mom who made a bunch of spice jars for her daughters play kitchen. This mom bought cute little jars and printed cute little labels and filled each jar with beads that matched the color of the spice. Well, I knew I could do something just as cute and special for Natalie all while helping the environment. Yep, I was going to make "green" spice jars.

While we were at the fabric store buying the headboard fabric, I picked up some little fake pearls that would act as the "spice" in the jars. Next was to figure out what jars to use, which is when the green idea hit me. Whenever I use the last of a specific spice in my spice cupboard I put it to the side of the cupboard to remind myself to buy another bottle of it. I took these empty spice jars, filled them with some fake pearls and then used my hot glue gun to glue them shut.

We now have fake Cloves, Garlic Powder, Cinnamon, Oregano, and Cinnamon Sticks in our play kitchen. And I have enough pearls left over for a few more bottles once we use up the existing real spice.

DIY Headboard

After we got our new bed we needed a headboard and I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new one, so I decided to DIY one. I found a few online guides and decided that for this first project I would just make a basic rectangle headboard, easy peasy.

Here is what I did:

1. Taped out the outline on my wall so I knew about how big it would be, then put the pillows on the bed and sat back, was it tall enough? YES. My headboard measures 2 inches wider than the actual bed and is 36 inches tall.

2. Bought the supplies: 1/2 inch plywood (which my dad bought, cut to size and sanded), fabric and batting (which was wide enough & on sale), D hooks, nails & screws . I decided to do two rolls of batting and no foam, only because the store didn't have the foam they had advertised and I wanted to get it done that day. The batting was thick enough so I was happy with it.

3. Lay out the fabric on a big surface - I used my kitchen island, but you could use the floor or a table. Also, iron the fabric if it isn't ironed already. Then lay the batting/foam on top of that and then the plywood on top of that. Here is where I made a slight mistake. I forgot to make sure I had enough fabric on all sides to wrap around the batting and to the other side of the fabric - don't make that mistake.

4. Now, get the staple gun out. Or in my case be glad your dad brought his because you can't figure out how to put staples in your gun. We stretched the fabric around all sides and started to staple every few inches. We stapled the sides first, then the top and then the bottom.

5. After we got all the fabric stapled in place, we placed the "D" hooks onto the back of the headboard. My dad then measured where, based on the "D" hooks we should place the nails for the hooks to hang on. He hammered the nails into the wall, we took a deep breath that the measurements were right and lifted the headboard towards the wall. We hung the headboard on the first try!

6. Take a step back and admire your work; or lay down and rest your head on your wonderful headboard.

So there you have it, a great looking (if I do say so myself) headboard, all made in a few hours.

Hanging Lantern

Back in August I hosted a shower for my friend, Julie. Well fast forward about a month and I'm just getting around to recapping on of the coolest things we had at the shower. As any good party designer would tell you, lighting is important. Well, I had seen in a magazine how pretty hanging a candle from the umbrellas could be. So, I described to my dad what I was looking for, and like the wizard he is, he whipped up this:

My mom donated very cute old mason jars and he affixed wire to each of them so I could hang them from the umbrellas. They were VERY cute and I can't wait to use them again!

Handy Woman

Give me an "N"

Give me an "A"

Give me a "T"

Give me an "A"

Give me a "L"

Give me an "I"

Give me an "E"

Give me a wall, a hammer, some nails, and a tape measure.

What does that spell?

Back in (early) March I started a project to get these letters painted, decorated, and hung on Natalie's wall. They sat on her floor for a while, then I painted them and they continued to sit on the floor. Then I bought the flower decals to "dress them up" and then they sat painted and decorated on her floor. Then two days ago, I decided to stop waiting and I got out the hammer and nails. Measured the wall and hung the letters!

I have a list of things I want to get done before Phil gets home. This was on the top of the list...CHECK

Catch-up

Hello blog world...let me update you on what has been happening since my last post.

Last week my mom and I went to Roberts craft store. I was feeling crafty and had some decorating ideas for Natalie’s room. To get started I was going to need mod podge, which is this great glue-like substance which allows you to stick paper objects on other objects (I’m sure a word wizard).
Then I went in search of die-cut letters. To my surprise, Roberts doesn’t sell die-cut letters, they only sell the machine that cuts out the letters. The nice lady at Roberts suggested we head to the near by scrapbook store, because they would have the letters already cut out. BUT, they didn’t. Lucky for us, they did sell pretty pink paper and if you buy the paper, you get to use the die-cut machine to cut out letters. However, this is where the trouble begins. I bought some cute paper, and set off to start the die-cutting process.
The “T” was easy, “I’ no problem…The “E”, “N”, “A” & “L” were another story. My mom watched me try to cut out the “E” five times before successfully cutting it out facing the right way and not upside down. My mom found it so funny, that she almost peed her pants because she was laughing so hard. I finally cut out every letter so they were all facing the right way and we spelled Natalie’s name correctly!

I took this basic step stool from Ikea, spray painted it chocolate brown, added a little mod podge, and those die cut letters and poof, custom made step stool:
While at Roberts, I found these cute, cute, cute wooden letters that I plan to paint dark brown and hang on one of the walls in Natalie’s room. The letters were on sale and my mom had a coupon, so they were only $2 a piece! Take that Babies R Us and your $8 letters!
I plan on painting them this weekend and hopefully I’ll get them hung too! I’ll keep you posted on the progress. Right now they are on the floor to remind me to paint and hang them.

Last night Natalie and I met Auntie Fran for appetizers at Mazza on 9th & 9th. Parking was horrible and I was stopped at every red light on my way there – so we were a little late. Lucky for us Frances waited for us. We split an appetizer sampler, with hummus, baba ganooj, veggie grape leaves, lamb sfiha, and fries. All delicious!
Natalie woke up after we ordered and Frances gave me a break by holding and playing with her the entire time. And being the good girl that Natalie is, she waited until the end of the evening to have a dirty diaper – especially lucky for me because I realized that I forgot to bring diapers in the diaper bag – I only brought wipes, not so helpful.

We are keeping busy this month. Stay tuned for updates on Natalie’s four month check up (seriously, where did the last four months go), our 2nd Vegas Vacation – which will include Natalie’s first plane ride!, and Grandma’s birthday to mention just a few things.