DIY {Comfy Cozy Blanket}

 

Taylor’s birthday is right around the corner.  When I asked her what she wanted, she quickly answered, “A Snow White blanket!!”   So, naturally, I had to find a way to make this happen for her….

I found this super comfy fabric that had all her favorite princesses on it, including Snow – so I knew that was the one!  To top it off, I got the comfy dot fabric for the other side.  I bought 1 yard of each, so when complete, this blanket will be about 3 x 5 feet! 

Here’s what you need:

1 yard of fleece

1 yard of dot fabric

thread, scissors, needle, and a sewing machine

This really is an easy project!  I have not broken out my sewing machine in probably 5 years, before today, but I was reminded how fun and rewarding it can be!  I first made her new smocked dress, then begun on the blanket.

First, lay out your fabrics, so the pretty sides are facing each other.  Line them up and cut any access.  You may need to use a yard stick if you have one to make sure the sides are straight and square.  I didn’t have one, so I just eye balled it. 

Begin pinning the sides together. 

Sew the 4 sides of the blanket together inside out, but be sure to leave a few inch opening on one side so you can pull the blanket right side out.  Leave a part of one side open, but not a corner. 

Now, with the small opening you left, pull the blanket right-side out.  Then, hand stitch the opening together.

 

Iron your blanket, and then pick a few areas throughout the blanket to put a few hand stitches in.  This will keep the two layers of fabric from shifting and keep it lined up nicely.

I have a feeling this will be one of her favorite things she gets for her birthday!  Funny how the littlest, most simple gifts can make them the happiest.  I can just picture her now, all curled up with her “princess cozy” watching a movie :)

Super Easy Sewing Project {Smocked Dress}

Want a SUPER easy sewing project that literally takes 2 minutes, and will make you feel proud at your “crafty” accomplishments?!?!  Well, do this!! 

I picked up this fabric that was a pre-smocked at Joanne’s.  It’s got Disney Princesses on it, so I knew Tay would love it.  It’s sold by the inch, so I eyeballed how much I think I needed and bought it! 

Here’s all you need…

Dust the cobwebs off your sewing machine, load it up with thread, and make ONE stitch down the size of the fabric. 

Make sure you turn the fabric inside out and sew!

Two minutes later, you will have a cute sundress/or beach cover up for your little princess and you’ll feel oh so crafty!  

Happy Sewing! :)

Taylor’s Room Re-do {Chevron Wall}

I stumbled across this DIY tutorial on how to do an “easy” Chevron accent wall here.  I was a little nervous how it would turn out because I am not the best at attention to detail when it comes to projects.  I don’t have a lot of patience, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  It’s just paint, so worst case, I would paint over it and pretend it never happened… right?!

So here was the inspiration for Tay’s accent wall:

Here was her room BEFORE

The bed was against the wall and the room had 3 lighter walls and one darker, accent wall.

You may recall, I made Taylor’s headboard shown above.  Instructions for that here.

The Chevron Wall instructions were really simple and easy to follow.  The part that takes the most time is measuring out the wall.  This has to be precise and down to the inch or else your lines will be off.  The tutorial explains how to measure it out.  Then you connect your measurements with painters tape.  One challenge I had that was not covered in the instructions is what to do if you have a window on the wall you’re painting.  This made measuring a little more difficult, so keep that in mind if the wall you have has a window or door.

Now for the fun part… painting!  The first step of painting is to re-paint the base color in the sections you plan to paint the accent color.  You only need to paint over the painters tape and this seals it so your accent paint does not bleed under the tape. 

Paint colors I used:

Alpine Valley 355-4 by Porter Paint (base color)

Turquoise Mist 355-3 by Porter Paint (accent color)

I lucked out because I had both colors left over from when I originally painted her room.  I had about half a can each and that was plenty. 

I applied this coat, then took a nice long nap while we had a huge rain storm.  It was glorious!  When I woke up, it was time to apply the accent color!

 

While the paint was still wet-ish, I carefully pealed off the tape to reveal perfect painted lines!  I was thrilled to see it turn out so well. 

Sure, there are a few little imperfections, but that was due to taping issues.  If I do this again, I will be even more meticulous with the measuring and taping, but overall I am still really pleased how it turned out!

When I put the room back together, I decided to rearrange the furniture a little too.  I found a great mirror at Home Goods that I think looks great over her bed.  I definitely recommend using the DIY instructions that I followed.  It was fairly easy and makes a huge impact!  I can’t wait to see the look on Taylor’s face when she sees her updated room for the first time this afternoon! 

I am already thinking of what other accent walls I can paint in my house!  Happy decorating!

 

She’s Crafty!

Devon recently posted how she made the Pom Pom Necklace that was featured on this blog.  I read how easy and simple it was, so I decided to try too!

It turns out it was super easy!  I only needed $6.75 of supplies, that I got a Wal-Mart, and made this necklace!  I haven’t worn it yet, but I look forward to dressing up a t-shirt or something with it.

 

Beware of the hot glue gun though!  Three of my finger tips have no feeling right now!

The necklace turned out so cute, that I decided to use the felt scraps I had from the necklace to make the headbands also featured on the blog.  I had some scrap fabric laying around so I used whatever I had.  I picked up some plain black headbands and put it all together!  Cute, huh?

I can see myself making baby sized headbands for Taylor soon!

My niece's birthday is coming up in 2 weeks, so I am going to send a few to her with her gift.  I hope she’ll wear them!  If not, she can share with her sisters and Mom :)

Holly’s Shower Favors

My good friend, Holly, is having a baby shower this weekend!  I’m so excited to go and celebrate her healthy pregnancy and her soon-to-be-born baby Jackson!

I wanted to help out with her shower, so I took care of the favors.  I think they came out so cute, so I just had to share them with you…

      

Holly’s  shower is at a Tea Room, so I made up favors that would go with the theme.  First, I ordered custom tea bags that say, “A Baby is Brewing”.  Then, I got mugs, ribbon, and cellophane for wrapping everything up.

Step 1 – Cut the cellophane to size.

Step 2 – Place the mug and tea bag in the center of the cellophane for wrapping.

The back of the tea bags... 

Step 3 - Wrap it all up with a twist tie. 

Step 4 – Add a bow and voila!  The finished product!

      

My Dream Came True?

I’ve been having some crazy pregnancy dreams lately.  Just another “fun” side effect of being pregnant.  The other morning I woke up and told Josh that I dreamt that I had been plotting my water intake on a chart, noting the date and amount of water consumed that day. He said, “You know, that wouldn’t be too difficult to make for you…”  A couple hours later I wake up from a nap, and Josh yells from the other room, “Check your email”.  I checked my email and found a link to an app that he had created for me to log my water intake!

I logged in, set a bookmark so it saved an icon on my phone, and started recording my water intake for the day!  Isn’t he funny and SMART?  Who just whips up an app in a matter of hours??

Just one of the perks of being married to a geek :)

Thanks Babe!  Love my app!

Project!

I wanted to do something special with some of the pictures I took at our family vacation this summer.  I decided to do an assortment of framed pictures over the TV in the Living Room.

Old wooden shelves that I picked up at a garage sale…. $3

Supplies to refinish the shelves and make them look like new again…. $5

An assortment of matching picture frames from Ikea… $65

Prints made for each frame… $10

Memories on the wall of our family vacation…. Priceless!

The Lanai Project

It recently dawned on me that our lanai was in need of a little revamping. We spend so much of our time out there, and eat the majority of our meals there.  It’s right off our Living Room, so even when we aren’t outside, we can see it through the sliding glass doors, so it is really important to me to make it look nice and finished.

I started off by getting new plants.  I neglected to water the plants I had out there before, so they were all dead or dying.  It was really pathetic, but I left it like that for months.  The single stick of a palm tree had to go!  I also planets one pot with herbs that I often use when cooking.  Here’s the pot with Parsley, Mint, and Basil.

This centerpiece isn’t new at all, but it’s something I put together with random odds and ends.  It’s just one of those pot bases with candles and rocks.  It’s super simple and makes for a great patio centerpiece.

We finished off the room with a new outdoor rug that I got from Ikea.  Adding the rug made such a difference.

Here’s a nice shot I got of the last of the Easter Lily blooms from this season.

I Saw Potential…

There once was a unwanted, ugly, ORANGE basket that sat at Goodwill… 

But I saw its potential, so I brought it home and gave it a makeover.

Now, the basket has new lease on life and it’s sitting, happily in the corner of the living room!

The End.

Blogger vs. Windows Live Writer

A couple of months ago, I started using Windows Live Writer (WLW) for creating blog posts instead of the default blog editor in Blogger. I’ve been meaning to get back to you on what I thought about it.  Many of you have asked about it, so here are the highlights (and one low light) in my opinion:

1. It’s Free.  You can download it here and start blogging!  It downloads to your PC and you don’t have to be connected to the internet to write a post.   It’s totally integrated with Blogger, and publishes your posts to your Blogger blog.

2. Photo uploads.  Uploading photos to Blogger can be a daunting task.  It takes awhile to upload multiple photos, and it’s clunky to move them around once they are uploaded.  In WLW, the upload is much faster AND you can apply effects to your pictures.  Instead of tweaking your photos in Picasa or Photoshop prior to uploading, you can now apply some fun effects to your pictures right in the post editor.

Chose from many photo borders:

The advanced settings include rotate, add a watermark, and crop:

Adding a watermark to my picture:

And, add effects like B&W, color pop, and emboss on the fly!

 

3.  Preview.  You can preview what your post looks like as if it was live on your blog before you actually post it.  Your blog formatting comes over to WLW, so it looks exactly the same!

4.  Formatting.  Do you ever have problems formatting your posts in Blogger?  I do!  If you ever mess with the fonts and upload pictures, then you’ve probably had this problem too.  In Blogger, I’d go to preview my post and find my fonts were really huge and/or spaced out weird.  This doesn’t seem to happen in WLW.  It’s as easy as formatting in Word.  There are more fonts to chose from too!

5. Plug-ins.  WLW offers hundreds of additional plug-ins so you can customize what you’d like it to do.  It’s kind of like downloading apps for your smart phone.  For example, there is a Twitter plug-in that automatically tweets when ever you publish a blog post.   I don’t use this, but I’ve thought about trying it out.

6. Signature.  The lack of auto-signature functionality is a huge complaint of mine.  I cannot find a way to save my signature to the post template!  It’s really weird to me that WLW doesn’t offer a quick and easy way to do this, so if you know of a way, please share!  What I have to do to get around this is copy and paste my signature code to each post.  So annoying!

Overall, compared to the Blogger post editor, it’s way easier and more customizable!

Ok that’s all for now.  There is a lot more to WLW, but when you download it and try it out, you’ll see.  Let me know what you think!