October spooks

Brady has totally gotten into all things Halloween this year.  It's been fun doing some projects and decorations with him.  Here are some of the fun things we have been up to.

Fun decoration/keepsake of the kids' feet ghosts that has been all
over the internet this year.  On Barney's Halloween they did it too
and I thought that we should do that several years ago but never
got around to it until this year.  Much cuter with 2 little feet!

Cute lanterns-imagine it's night time and they're glowing. 
We made them with glass jars and tissue paper.  I also saw
lots of different variations of these as well.  We also made a
cute felt garland to match the colors too.  Brady helped
me decide what faces to paint on them. 
Bat, little pumpkin, ghost, vampire, pumpkin, little spider and Frankenstein

 This next series of pictures is of a special project that Brady was probably most excited about.  We went to eat at Applebee's a couple weeks ago.  When you open the door there was a skeleton ghost thing that popped up out of a box in the entryway.  Brady must have opened that door 20 times while we were there just to see it come out of the box. 

So we decided to try and make one at home.  Since we can't just have dangling strings and boxes laying around with a very mischievous 1 year old, we decided to put it behind my little entry table and it would be more out of the way and not as easy for Collin to get his hands on (still not an impossible task for him though!).

Entry table all by itself, waiting for an unsuspecting "victim"

And when you open the front door, the ghost pops up from behind the table!

He's made out of a white styrofoam ball, some white pipe cleaners for "arms" and draped in some cheesecloth with some craft foam glued on for the face. I think he turned out adorable!

We strung it on some fishing line through these 2 little hooks attached to the ceiling (I found them in Aaron's tool box) and attached it to the front door. Open the door and it pulls up the ghost!

My little spook waiting for someone to come in the door to be scared!!

 I really wish I had a picture of Brady "scaring" G-ma and Pop Pop when they came to visit this last weekend.  But they got here at like 10 at night, and even though Brady stayed up to greet them, I did not take any pictures.  We was so excited though!

Me and grandma helped him scoop out the seeds and goop from his pumpkin.

He picked out the face he wanted and we carved him up. 
He's saying "Trick or Treat" in the picture

The boys are both going to be superheroes for Halloween so I can't wait to see them both dressed up and get pictures of both my super boys!!

Linking:
Craft-O-Maniac
Embellishing Life
I Heart Naptime

Finished!!

So I am totally caught up on all my blogging for the last 2 months!!  Yay!  I wanted to have it all done before Collin's birthday on Friday and I did it with 2 days to spare!

But that is not the only accomplishment I am proud of this week!  You know how I love my projects....  And the table has been in the works for a long time and it's finally done!

I didn't really take a good before picture but here's one of Brady eating french toast on the table one morning so you can see the color it used to be.  It was also really scratched and the chairs pretty much had no finish left on them.  We received them as a hand me down from my in-laws when we got married.  She had painted the backs and legs green to go with her stuff so I repainted them black gloss when we got married.  But the black gloss paint was majorly chipped from being moved and stored (in our shed in AZ for 5 years!).  So it was definitely time for these to get a little face lift!

BEFORE



Here's the underside of the chair you can also see the color of the
finish and where some of the old green was sprayed on

I stripped off and sanded what was left of the finish and stain on the seats.  I painted the backs and legs a satin finish black before I put the new stain and finish on.



Did I mention how annoying it is to sand completely and
tape around round spindles??  Not my favorite part!



AFTER!

It looks so much better!  The table looks a little lighter than the chairs because the wood on there soaked in the stain a little different than the seats but oh well!  Plus, in this picture the flash is reflecting off the table even more so it makes it look more obvious.  But I am done and it is back in our kitchen!  I started about a month ago and got the table done right away but then I had to stop because of the heat.   I couldn't work out in the garage again until last week.  So we used folding chairs around the table until the chairs were done.

This is the more fun project that I also completed this month. 

Angry birds!!!  Who else is addicted to this game??? 

Anyway, when it got so hot out, I needed an "inside" project.  I found free patterns and a tutorial online, went and got the fleece and got started.

The idea started to formulate in my head that I wanted to make these a while back.  When we first moved here, Brady invented this game he called "Pluckers".  I have no idea where he pulled the name out of but that's what it is.  It consisted of throwing around these soft plush baby blocks with Aaron in the living room.

Then the game Angry Birds became an obsession on my phone-for me and Brady! :)  He he...  He was asking to play it all the time on my phone and I only let him play it for a little while at a time.  Erica gave him a plush red angry bird and he loved it and slept with it at night.  When I saw the tutorial I thought that I could make these and we could play a real-life version of the game Angry Birds and it would be even better than Pluckers and he wouldn't be asking to play it on my phone as much anymore!  Score!  He loves them!

Here he is in the basement playing.  We set up the green pigs all over and throw the birds at them to knock them out-just like the game!

If you look closely enough you can see one baby pig on the top of the TV, one on the chair blocked partially by Brady and the one he is trying to hit on the corner of the white kids table.  You can also see the black bomb bird up in the air right over the shelves. 

Here's a link to where I found the tutorials in case anyone else has some Angry Bird fans in your house!

Angry Birds Link

I loved this tutorial and it was pretty easy to follow, especially for a novice sewer like myself.  I cheated a little-I did not do all the appliques on the face.  After the 2nd one I did, it was taking forever because I wasn't very good at it.  So instead of appliqueing with the fleece, I used felt and hot glued!  Much easier and quicker for me and it looks pretty good. :)  It feels pretty good to get my projects all done.  Now it's on to birthday party planning.  I have already completed a couple things for that but I'll post those pictures when we do Collin's birthday party next week with our families.

Spring is in the air (finally)!

So I have been waiting for the winter to be gone so it would finally be warmer outside. I've also been waiting so I could work on and put up some spring decorations! So I found some cute ideas and came up with some of my own and began to work on them. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had some other plans for our spring weather! I took this picture March 25th! Crazy!

But I kept on working on my spring projects anyway, hoping to convince myself and Mother Nature that spring was around the corner! But until that happened, I have been inside watching seasons 8 & 9 of Friends on DVD as I worked. I'm including links to where I found some of these in case you want to make some fun spring crafts of your very own!

I saw lots of cute spring wreaths and lots of birds and birdhouses. I had some extra hydrangea bushes from another project, got a little birdhouse from the dollar section at Michael's and the wreath from the dollar store. I made myself a fun little spring wreath and I'm happy with the way that it turned out!

Now, since I have my new mantle cover project all done, I could decorate it for spring.

I found a tutorial on how to make a cute little button egg and felt rabbit and did my own variation on it with different color buttons of various sizes that I also found in the dollar section at Michael's. I think I spend more money on dollar sections in stores than I do on everything else sometimes! :)

I am loving all the cute little spring birds I am seeing and wanted some for myself! I do not have a way to cut vinyl (really missing having Alli around-but not only for that reason!), so I found some clip art and printed it out with some letters and traced it on to my painted wood and painted it in. I glued a candlestick to the bottom and screwed in a wood finial on the top and here is my cute little spring sign. I was inspired by this pretty spring pillow I saw.

I wanted to add a little Easter decoration for my dining room table and so I made these cute little eggs by wrapping plastic eggs with some jute and painting them. I put them on a little nest of moss and it is all done! I found a tutorial for the eggs here.

I have really been having fun doing all kinds of projects since moving here. I guess since I have all new places to decorate, that's what I am doing! I have found so many cute ideas online that I want to do all of them. But I think Aaron would think I was crazy and my house would be a little crazy if I did all of them! :)

I guess it is time to get back to my spring cleaning and then get outside with the boys and enjoy the beautiful weather we finally have! :)

I am also linking back to these craft parties.....

Craft-o-maniac

Creative Crate

Embellishing Life

I Heart Naptime

Tatertots and Jello

DIY Mantle Overhaul-Renter's Edition

So as I have posted before, I don't like this weird cave area over the fireplace and mantle. It's triangular shaped and there's an outlet and a cable hookup in there and it's a dark color. So I can't put anything a dark color in there because it gets lost and it's high enough up that you can't see it very well if it's not at the front anyway. I guess it was designed so that you could put your TV up there, but since most TVs are flat now it would sit on the front part and you don't need the big area behind it for that. But it's kinda high up for that in my opinion and I would never use it for that. So instead of just painting it (that would be the easier thing to do I guess!), I decided I was going to cover it up completely. Since we are just renting this house, we can't really do anything permanent. So I thought of a solution that is temporary but still looks good.

BEFORE I bought some bead board, trim and little corner things to frame it out, had them cut it for me right there at Lowe's because I don't do big power tools like that! Then I painted them cream.

Once they were dry I glued them around the edges and corners and let them dry. I don't have any clamps so naturally I used gallons of water! The water jugs were heavy and worked well for getting it nice and flat and glued down. I was thinking of stapling or nailing the pieces on when the glue was dry, but they were staying pretty good with the glue so I skipped that part.

So here's the non-permanent solution....I am using the 3M picture hanging strips that are like velcro. This wasn't too heavy and it is resting on the mantle, so I figured it would hold them up nicely to the wall. I positioned them onto the back and stuck them up to the wall. I followed the directions on the back of the package and took it back down for a day to make sure the sticky parts were stuck to the wall before adding the weight of the wood to it.

After a day, I put it back up on the wall, lining up the "velcro" pieces and here is the finished look!

AFTER:

The best part is, I did most of this without any help!! I'm pretty proud of myself for that fact! I'm not counting the wood cutting man at Lowe's or Aaron for helping me by holding up the piece while I positioned in on the wall. I'm pretty happy with the way that it turned out and we'll see if my "genius" idea actually works well.

Here's another project I did in the family room a while back that I never really took pictures of when I finished, but this is what gave me the idea for doing this. I used the 3M strips to hang these frames so I didn't have to hang all those nails and one day it hit me that I could do the same thing with the strips for the mantle!

Berry Special Birthday Girl!

It is so fun to have nieces! Since I only have boys, I get to live out all my visions of pink and pretty through my nieces! Birthdays are so much more fun to do for girls because you can go as pink and girly as you want. With boys-not so much! :) So I love being able to help my sister plan the girls' birthday parties and help with the decorations! She did a Strawberry Shortcake birthday for Ava, but not with everything in Strawberry Shortcake printed things. We mostly used strawberries, pink, red, a little green and a little Strawberry Shortcake here and there. It turned out so cute! These tissue balls seem pretty popular all over now and pretty simple to make!

Here is a cute little garland/table runner I made using a tutorial I found here. I have been hitting the craft blogs hard recently and finding some really cute things!!! She did it with shamrocks but you can really do it with any shapes so I used the strawberry and flowers from the invitations and decorations to trace. I also had a lot of pink and red things I had made for Valentine's Day that I brought along that went with the theme perfectly!

Here's the cute birthday girl Ava with her cake! 4 years old and getting prettier every day! She must take after her Aunt Jessie- wink wink! ;)

Brady playing the strawberry beanbag toss game. I used a simple strawberry pattern I found online and made some beanbags with the leftover felt I had from the garland.

My mom, me, Ava and Melissa

I love this picture of us girls!! :)

Here's our 4 kiddos-this one is probably better than any we have taken all together recently! :)

Projects I have been working on lately

So as I'm sure you have heard (read about) me saying that it is COLD here! I'm so over it already and it's still January! So I have been devoting my time to staying inside when it is snowing and 20 degrees and doing some crafting and decorating projects. I've been into reading all these craft blogs lately and I have found so many things that I saved under my list of favorites to do someday. I'm getting obsessed!!!

A couple of people have asked me to post pictures of our house and such so here are some pictures!

Here's our downstairs Bathroom/Laundry room. Kinda weird, I know. I don't totally love the color that the previous occupants chose, but it is OK. Since we are just renting, we didn't want to repaint so I made some black and cream decorations for it and it turned out really cute I think. Sorry the pictures aren't better. It's really hard to take pictures in a small space of the whole area!

I found my inspirations here and here

Here are a couple things that I have actually done in the last month.

I really don't like this weird little triangular shaped cubby hole above the fireplace. They painted the inside a dark brown so anyting you put up there has to be a lighter color. Plus, you can't put anything that far back into the cave because when you're sitting on the couch and looking up at it, it's high enough that you can only see the things right up by the edge anyway. There's also a plug and a cable jack (they left that white so it sticks out big time) up in there I guess in case you want your TV up there. Anyway, I have been struggling to figure out how to decorate it and what to put up there to match our family room. At Christmas, I had all kinds of things up there that looked really cool with lights and garland and all that. But once those came down it was an empty cave again. So I decided that it is going to be my little holiday decorations corner.

Valentine's Decorations

I made the topiaries, banner and printed out the print and framed it for my mantle. I added a couple other things and it is finished.

A bigger banner I made to go over the sliding glass doors in the kitchen.

I've been trying to figure out the reason I was so obsessed with everything Valentine's Day while looking at these craft blogs and figuring out what to make, and then making them. But I finally figured it out! I have too many BOYS and boy things in my house. Valentine's Day is the one holiday that I can decorate with lots of pink and red and everything GIRLY! So I can fight against all the sports played and watched, action figures, trucks/cars/trains/planes/boats, blue and green everything....you get the idea! So anyway, here's my girly holiday that I can make everything in one of my favorite colors-PINK!

Ok, so now back to blue and green......Brady's art display.

I made this cute little display for his room to hang his art work from school on. Took some board, painted, added his name and trim with some rope and clothespins and it's all done! It's matches his Buzz and Woody room pefectly!

This one I just finished today. A cute little table for my front entryway.

I found this little table at a thrift store for only $10! It is pretty old and it had like 50 coats of laquer on it! I had to sand it down quite a bit because it was so glossy from the multiple coats before I painted it antique white and then antiqued the edges again. I left the darker stain underneath and it kind of shows through around the corners and edges. It's much cuter now I think. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep those decorations on it or not but I just stuck them on there for now. I think I am going to put a basket or some kind of decoration in the bottom open area too.

I have another project I started on today so I'll post some pics when I'm done with that too. I have a giant blank wall in our family room that needs some attention. This project has been in the works pretty much since we have moved in but I just haven't gotten to do it yet.

Boy's rooms

So I was making it my goal to have all the rooms painted and done before everyone came for Thanksgiving and I did it! :) But since I was so busy doing it, I didn't have time to post pictures so here are some right now!

Collin's Room-

I didn't really want to paint his room a whole new color because I already had to paint a couple other rooms. Since his was still the neutral cream color, I just left it and added some things to the wall. I painted some little planes from his bedding on the canvas instead of on the wall itself. We're renting so I think I would have to repaint over it before we left anyway. Because it is hard to get a picture of a whole bedroom, I am standing next to the wall with the dresser/changing table and closet door on it so you'll have to imagine it there. It turned out really cute and I still have to add a couple more things to make it really look the way I want it to but it's mostly done.

Brady's room-BEFORE

Ok, so you cannot even begin to imagine the brightness of this color unless you are standing in the room with it. It was so bright in there, especially in the morning when the sun was coming through the front window.

AFTER

So it's not that I didn't like neon green-it's fine for a boy but it was way bright and most of the stuff in his room was already a bright green so that would be overload!

I found a cute Buzz border at Wal-Mart for $10 that is easily removed, I chose a really pretty blue color that is in the border but that also matches the dark blue and bright green in his bedding and curtains. I really do love this color and how it turned out with all the colors together. I'm going to put a bulletin board up over his bookshelf to display all of his cute school projects he comes home with. That's also why I didn't put the border up on that wall too-because there's 2 doors on that wall and the bookshelf would cover most of it. It will look better once I find one/make one and hang it! His dresser is on the wall you can't see-actually you can see the corner of it in the picture.

Here's Brady on his bed-and yes, he has no pants on. I swear this kid would never wear pants if we didn't make him!

Here's the cute canvas art I made for his room. I just found some Toy Story pictures on the internet and printed them out, painted the canvas and modge podged them on to the canvas. Don't worry, I was careful with the modge podge-no mishaps this time! ;)

I am still working on more of the house and now with Christmas decorations up, it doesn't look the same anyway! I've redone 2 of the 3 bathrooms so I'll have to post pictures of them next! First I need to get some up from Thanksgiving!