Posts tagged crafts

A more grown-up space

Jude - 28 months

In the past few weeks, I’ve been tweaking Jude’s room a little, helping it to grow from bitty baby nursery to a more grown-up space. It makes my heart twinge just a little bit, taking away his baby bumpers (yes, he was still sleeping with them) and seeing a toddler bed occupy the room now. I loved having a baby baby. Now I’m loving having a big boy, a bonafide toddler.

When I came back from having my first surgery, I wasn’t able to lift Jude in and out of his bed, so my sister and her hubs sweetly donated Luke’s firetruck toddler bed to Jude so he could hop in and out of it without my assistance. And Jude really took to it for the time that I needed him to. After awhile, we put him back in his crib, but the firetruck bed has stayed because sooner or later, he’ll graduate to it completely.  We like sitting in it, reading books together, and he thinks it’s just the coolest thing ever.

I found these awesome vintage cinema marquee letters on Etsy, and the seller, SalvageNation, gladly put together a special listing just for me w/ Jude’s name. It was extremely inexpensive, and I love them. I’m tempted to paint them, but I like their authentic, original black color. They’re lightweight plastic, and SalvageNation has a ton of them.

j u d e

Did I ever show you the final setup of Jude’s play kitchen? I picked up a couple of short shelves from IKEA, and now they display (empty) Sprinkles cupcake containers, as well as all of his play dishes that my mom bought for him. All in all, an inexpensive, and completely fun little setup.

playing in his kitchen

The firetruck bed! I rearranged the furniture the other day and I’m still not totally thrilled with it. Eventually it’ll look less cluttered when I get the crib out (sob!).

the friendly firetruck bed

Oh! I’m also loving vintage felt pennants, and I found these (below) from another Etsy seller. Too cute.

Jude's room

Big kid — getting into everything!

playing in his bigboy bed

I’ve also been on the hunt for cute toddler bed-sized duvets, much to no avail. Jude likes sleeping with a pillow and these small, lightweight down blankets that I’ve had since college, from Target. I thought I might find something else cute, but I hated everything I did find, although for the most part, the genre is nonexistent. So I decided to make my own using one of those Target blankets. Turns out that they’re nearly the same size as a toddler-bed-size comforter, so already, this was looking like a cheap project. I ordered some fabric (Paula Prass chevron stripe) that was very inexpensive, and I backed the duvet with an old white sheet we already owned. So all in all, a very inexpensive and easy project. AND I have enough fabric left over to make a little roman shade for the window in his room.

Here’s what the blanket looked like before. It has seen better days, but is so warm and comfy.

before - the blankie

And here it is after — it was a fairly simple 2-hour project.

new zigzag quilt

Now I need to research how to make a roman shade for that window… hmmmm.

Jude and his new quilt

Or I could just go read books like Jude. 🙂

wait, there's something under the bed

Big kid.  Where’d my baby go?

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More Quilling

After my post the other day on Valentine’s crafts, Ann from All Things Paper commented about quilling, and I took a quick perusal of her site. She has some awesome quilling inspiration, but her post on graphic designer Yulia Brodskaya took my breath away. I wish I had just a smidgen of her tactile creativity. These are stunning. You’ve got to check out her website to see more of her portfolio pieces. They take hands-on graphic design to a whole new dimension.

Gorgeous. And SO inspirational.

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Chez Larsson’s Sugar Cube Building

After last year’s semi-disastrous gingerbread/grahamcracker house fiasco, I have an all new respect for any kind of edible cottage or building. Martha makes it look so easy. I assure you, it is most definitely not.

Today I hopped over to Chez Larsson’s awesome blog to catch up on all of her Christmas happenings and my jaw fell to the floor when I saw what she and her family had created. I swear, if I ever get to Sweden, I’m going to Benita’s house. She is awesome. Traditionally, she says they always make a gingerbread house, but after seeing this little sugar cube lovely from Martha Stewart, Benita decided to try her hand at that.

Cute, non? Of course it’s cute – it’s Martha!

So her family said ok, but then they raised the bar. Substantially. Inspired by all things New York City, they created what may be the most awesome sugar cube creation ever. EVER.

It’s a sugar cube Empire State Building! But wait, WAIT! Look at it all lit up!

I can’t imagine ever trashing this lovely creation. I hope they keep it forever. Do sugar cubes rot? I don’t think they do… hmm.

And you know, I think they also just told Martha to bring it, sistah.

Instructions, more photos, etc. here.

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allsorts: Jolly Dollypops!

While these darling little clothespin elves aren’t available anymore, I did enjoy perusing the Flickr stream and blog of AllSorts. I was trolling Flickr for holiday ideas, and stumbled on these. They look like something cute my Aunt Patsy could make!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

allsorts: Jolly Dollypops!.

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Pumpkin Time!

Ok, I have pulled myself out of my funk. I had my pity party, I blogged about it, and now it’s time to move on and take action. So that’s exactly what I did! Thanks for listening to me the other day – I really appreciate everybody’s comments, bigtime!

I decided on Monday that there was to be no more moping around and that there was no reason I couldn’t accomplish some of the things that I wanted to accomplish. So I put Jude in the car and we made a day of it (er, at least up until naptime, that is). We went all around and got some fun decorations and then we had lunch at my most favorite bagel cafe near our house. And after much building-up to Jude about going to visit the pumpkin patch, we drove up and Jude freaked out. He was really amped about  the pumpkins and went ballistic, running around the tent. It was really fun to see. So we came away with a bunch of gourds and a couple of large pumpkins for the front porch. Simon had also bought some really fun pumpkins as well as some lovely happy mums.

Internet, I can’t help myself. I just love me some glitter. Glitter glitter GLITTER!

I’m in love with our big monogram pumpkin on the front porch. There is glitter EVERYWHERE and I really need to sweep the excess off the front porch.

Then. I took myself to Hobby Lobby and I perused some of the fall offerings. Almost all of the Halloween/Thanksgiving stuff was 50% off, so I was able to get a lot of bang for my buck. I bought these neat little berry things in fall colors and put them in a big vase on the dining room table.

Once again with the glitter. Just a tiny bit of sparkle.

It looks really dramatic under the spotlights in our dining room, especially at night. I need to get a bag of beans or something to weight it all down in the bottom of the vase. All this for, I kid you not, $15.

Some smaller, glittered pie pumpkins. A big white funkin that I haven’t decided what to do with yet. And Jude’s gourds and tiny pumpkins.

Whew. I feel so much better. It’s funny how a little glitter and a few pumpkins raised my spirits.

Oh, did I ever show you what I did with all the photos from the formal (aqua colored) living room? When I repainted, I ended up moving all the wall art into the family room and I’m pretty happy with the result. I still have nothing up on the walls in the formal living room, but I’m just waiting for the right thing.

Finally, my happy little club chair where I do the majority of my blogging from. Comfiest chair in the house!


Bye! Thanks for stopping in!



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Design Mom: Decoupaged Chair

My eyes lit up when I saw this darling chair over at DesignMom. Recognize that print? It’s the San Sebastian art print we have in our master bedroom. I love it on a chair, too!

Link to instructions if you want to decoupage your own at: Design Mom: Decoupaged Chair.

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Oh, Martha, yes please!

ACK! I just saw this over at Decor8 and I almost leapt off my chair in excitement. Isn’t that a gorgeous die cut design? Imagine the invitation possibilities!

decor8 » Blog Archive » New Martha Stewart Punches.

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More Brooklyn Limestone Love

Brooklyn Limestone is my new favorite blog. She posted over here last week and I made my way on over. I think that she and I could be BFFs. You simply MUST see her fantabulous bathroom. It is divine. I want her to adopt me or marry me and let me live with her. It’s that gorgeous. Anyway, look at this totally adorable project that she did – aren’t these silhouettes just too fun and whimsical?

Girlfriend, I am your newest blog stalker. XOXO.

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Christa’s Shower

Hooray for babies — and hooray for baby girl babies! My friend Christa, who I have known since the first grade, is having her first baby in July, a sweet little girl. It was with great pleasure that I and five of her girlfriends got to throw her a fun shower on Saturday. Oh, how I love a party — and even better when we get to have a girly party! 

Christa, we love you and can’t wait to meet your little one! She’s going to have one great momma and daddy!

Yay for pompoms! Aren’t they fun?

Clearly I am obsessed with the pompoms. Please indulge me.

I brought Jude’s bassinet down from the playroom where it was previously holding stuffed animals and it is all ready to hold gifts!  Meanwhile, in the playroom, it looks like a stuffed animal massacre. I really don’t know what to do with all of them.

What’s better than a bassinet full of baby gifts? A bassinet AND a cute red stroller full of gifts! Oh, you should have seen the precious smocked bonnet that the grandmother-to-be handmade for the new baby. Too sweet!

Christa’s pal Sara is such a good friend. She really wanted to help with the shower, but was leaving for vacation the day-of, but she still made (from scratch, mind you) the most amazing, gorgeous cupcakes ever! She brought them over on Friday morning, and it was all Simon I could to do to keep his my hands off of them.


All the hostesses with mama-to-be, sans hostess Erin who had to leave early with her sweet little baby boy. FYI, Erin is one of my new favorite people. I met Erin on the internet(!) three years ago or so — we were both brides over on TheKnot.com’s message boards, and we became online buds. Who knew — the internet! Not just for perverts and weirdos anymore! Anyway, turns out we had some mutual friends, and Christa was one of them! It was great fun to hang out w/ Dr. E and enjoy some time oohing and aahing over her sweet new little bundle of joy. (He definitely has the best hair of any kid I have ever seen).

Sweets and treats to drink.

These little babies just crack me up. I bought a package of them at Michael’s and hid them in various centerpieces. Kinda sad that they’re all naked and sitting on prickly coral. Sorry, little babies.

All in all, a marvelous party for a marvelous mama. Now. The party’s over, and this only means one thing: it’s vacation week! Hooray!

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Arts & Crafts

So I got to thinking, and I figured that I had the perfect little table and chair configuration that would be great up in the bonus room. At Ikea, I had purchased two tiny chairs for Jude to play with, and we had this Lack table (also from Ikea) from years ago. Together, they are mismatched, but serve their purpose.

He felt like such a big kid, sitting in his chair, drawing eating his crayons. He just laughed and laughed. And then he promptly fell out of the chair two seconds later trying to get out of it, poor thing. So I sat him back up and showed him how to climb in and out of the chair. A few minutes later, he walked the furthest he has ever walked before (his previous record was about 3 steps a few days prior). And since this day, he has been walking more and more and more

At Michael’s the other day, I was looking for some kind of cute bucket or something for crayons for the little table & chairs and I saw a super ugly little decoupaged pail. I thought that it was the perfect size and shape for what I wanted, but I hated the design. No bother — it was a good price, and I attached some scrapbooking paper I already had with some spray adhesive, and then Mod Podged it over to seal it. I’m happy with the results, and it’s just the right size for crayons and such. It was a very similar project to this toy bucket I made last spring Plus, Jude can carry it around and is pretty proud of himself for that too.


I’ve left our advent calendar up (a gift from my cousin George and his cutie pie wife Christie)
because Jude loves to open it up all the time and put things into the little cubbies. Sometimes I put pompoms or some of my flickr Moo mini cards in there for him to play with.  At Michael’s, I found a packet of these little fuzzy chicks and so I put all 8 of them into random cubbies for him to find. He thinks this is particularly great fun to discover which door will reveal chicks.

Inevitably, he tries to stick them in his mouth and I hear myself say, “no, no, Jude, we don’t eat chickens.” And then I think, but wait, yes we do.

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