Mickey color wheel

We are in the middle of working of Miss A's big girl room, therefore we are making lots and lots of trips to Home Depot. Each and every time we go, Miss A grabs a handful of 'Mickey colors.' Disney has a line of Behr paint at Home Depot and some of the color chips have brightly colored Mickey faces on them. They are pretty cute and they definitely get me to stop and look at the Disney paint whereas I would normally completely bypass these colors and head directly to the Martha Stewart colors.


I decided to make some cute color flash cards out of these chips, versus having them scattered all over the house. Miss A knows almost all of her colors, but a little extra practice never hurt anyone.

I wrote the color of Mickey's face on the back of the color chip using that color Sharpie.

And then punched a hole in the corner and placed all of them on a metal ring.

Now, Miss A can play with her Mickey colors while working on her colors!

Nap Time, Craft Time - Bench Cushion Cover

When Miss A takes her afternoon nap I normally tide up the house, check email/blog and then sometimes work on a project. You all know I love a good project! I constantly have something going on. And since I have learned how to sew, a while new realm of crafting has opened up.


I am starting a new blog feature titled Nap Time, Craft Time.


Today I made a new cover for our front porch bench. (I found this bench months ago on the side of the street in our neighborhood... I sanded it down and gave it a couple coats of glossy black paint and it looks good as new!)


When I found the bench, the cushion was nasty. It was a faded green fabric and I knew I had to change it. I had envisioned a yellow and white stripe, but when I found this budget friendly Ikea fabric, I snatched it up.

Measure and pin the fabric, based on the size of the cushion.

Double check your measurements.

Sew the short end of the fabric.

Sew the long end of the fabric.

Now you have a long rectangular pillowcase.

Trim excess fabric. Up until now, the fabric has been turned inside out. Turn the fabric right side out.

Pray that your measurements were accurate and everything fits.

Put the old cushion inside the new cover.

Admire your new cover!

Now, our front bench has a new waterproof cushion and as soon as Spring arrives, those dead mums will be replaced with bright, new flowers!

Love Bug

I love any excuse to get crafty. Stickers, stamps, glitter, paper, ribbon.... I love it all.



Therefore, I knew I had to make Miss A's valentines for her class party.



I saw the basic idea in a blog or magazine a while back and thought they would be perfect for Miss A to give her friends. But, I knew I wanted to spruce it up, so I added stickers, ribbon and polka dot paper.

Aren't they cute?

Here is the front....

And the back...

Supplies:

paint chip samples

rubber stamps

ink pad

stickers

ribbon

scrap book paper

As with any project, there is some trial and error involved. I went through about 4 ink pads before I found one that would not bleed. I finally ended up with a permanent ink pad, so if you decide to do a project like this, save time (and money) and just buy the most permanent ink pad possible.

If you have an older kid, I think these would also be cute as bookmarks.

Just like Momma

When I was younger, I can remember always wanting to play with my mom's jewelery. (Heck, I still try to wear some of her stuff...) I loved to put her stuff on and wear it around the house and admire the lovely baubles I was wearing. To this day, I still love jewelery. Ever have a question about what I want for my birthday or holiday - jewelery. Can't go wrong.


Well, it looks like Miss A has inherited a love of jewelery from her Momma. She has seen where I keep my jewelery and now she tries to help herself to it. She loves to wear my stuff around the house and I love it! She looks like a miniature version of me, so when she dresses up in my jewelery, it is adorable.


Adorable until I see her try to give Jake one of my earrings or a ring.


I am thinking that if she has her own jewelery box, then she will love to play in that, versus get into my stuff.

I made her her very own jewelery box and even filled with some of momma's jewelery! She loves it and carries it all over the house with her.

I love doing little projects like this... pretty soon the folks at Michael's and Hobby Lobby are going to know me by name.

**pictures of Miss A wearing my jewelery over on Baby M**

One Little Candle and a Cupcake...

We celebrated Miss A's 1st birthday over the weekend and we all had a wonderful time! I feel like I have been planning this party for months - so to see everything come together was a great feeling.

The day was perfect in every possible way -- great weather, a fun party to celebrate our little one and we were surrounded by our closest friends and family. What more could you ask for?

The inspiration for the party was based on 2 things - bright colors and a tablet of Martha Stewart scrapbook paper I had. The colors were fun and vibrant - perfect for a spring party. The invitations were designed by Rice Designs and I loved them! I emailed her pictures of the paper and she was able to incorporate that into the invitation. She did such a great job - it was playful and fun without being too 'babyish.' As you will see in the rest of the pictures, I was able to use the cupcake with the #1 candle in lots of other ways.

My mom/personal seamstress made this jumper and bib for Miss A. I love it! She wore the dress to church yesterday and I think she needs to wear it to all of her spring birthday parties. The coordinating bib was so Miss A would not be topless in her birthday cake video/pictures. I want her to be able to look at these pictures when she is 16 and not get annoyed with me.

Cupcakes galore! I made batch after batch of vanilla cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese icing. I loved how they turned out. I made little toppers for all of the cupcakes using the polka dot Martha Stewart paper and the cupcake with #1 candle from her invitation. Each cupcake was then topped with little round sprinkles. The small cake on the silver pedestal was her personal smash cake. And boy did she smash it!

For the beverages I made adult pink lemonade and regular lemonade. This picture was taken at the end of the party, but each pitcher had strawberry lemonade ice cubes. I made ice using lemonade with sliced strawberries in each cube. The adult lemonade was spiked with strawberry vodka. We also had bright colored swirly straws for the kids (or adults.)

We also had bottled water, a variety of juice boxes for the kids and birthday beer.

The rest of the food included: animal crackers, gold fish, string cheese, mini muffins, chicken salad, and cucumber yogurt dip. I wanted everything to be kid friendly, plus some good food for the adults -- plus, I did not want to mess with cutlery so everything had to be finger foods. I also did not want anything that required me to cook during the party. What fun is a party when you are constantly in the kitchen making sure the food is not burning?

For the decor, we had lots of birthday banners. The Happy Birthday A banner (against the navy wall) was made using the tablet of Martha Stewart paper and the cupcake from the invitation. I also made a banner with pictures of Miss A from the past year. It was fun to look at the monthly pictures and see how much she has changed. I think these pictures will be fun to keep in her baby book. I also made the bright, hanging pom poms. These were fun and easy to make.... they are actually still hanging up. They are so fun to look at, I hate to throw them away.

I blew up her invitation to 8*10 and had all of the party guests sign it. I think this will also be a fun addition to her baby book.

As much as I love fresh flowers, I also love bringing the outside inside. My parents have a great ornamental pear tree in their backyard, so I used some of those branches for arrangements.

All of the flower pots on the front porch had pink and white flowers in them.... and I threw in some bright orange marigolds in the backyard. I also put some of the cupcake toppers in the flower pots. We had bubbles and sidewalk chalk in the backyard for the kids to play with.

And that was Miss A's first birthday party!

Want to know what she got for her birthday? Or want to see her after eating that smash cake? Head over to Baby M for more pictures... ones that include people!

Blueprint Crafts

I was browsing through the new issue of Blueprint last night to find these really neat (and easy) craft projects.









I love this business card holder template, but I also think it would be really neat to hold photos. The site says it can be blown up, depending on what you are going to use it for. I am not sure if craft stores carry the leather and metal brad piece... I will report back on how these turn out.









This is also a neat calendar. I am not a fan of the big wall calendar for the office, but this one would look sleek on a desk without looking too over the top.