Rylee's Easter Headband

I found a tutorial for this adorable headband that I really wanted to make for Rylee for Easter. Her Dress we found at DI for $2 (It's originally a shirt for an older girl. But I like it better for a dress)

More crafts

All 'in progress"...will I ever feel anything in this house is done? I kind of hope not, or i'll have to find a new hobby.

{Kitchen ~ Green and Orange}

oh, yeah, I just added some 'embellishment' to the frame. I told Cody if I were a collecting girl I would collect plates! (and apothecary blue and green glass bottles!)

The bottle used to be green (but I am doing the living room in navy blue and yellow)

The Hair-Clip Frame

I know I'm not the first to make this...{nor the last to blog about it}. But it was fun to make it. Ginger HATES headbands {though they look so cute on her} She instantly pulls them off and it drives me crazy to keep putting them on her. Her hair hasn't been very long until just recently when it pretty much exploded everywhere. 

Ryleer's first birthday. {Can you see her hair sticking up everywhere...it's her trademark}

She was given some tiny clips for her birthday and I was finally able to try them out in her hair. Hooray she doesn't pull them out! Although sometimes they still fall out. But I am a happy mommy. Someone left this frame with no glass in our laundry-mat for any free takers. I snatched it up . I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to make with it.

What you need. 

I spray painted it white first to make painting is a WHOLE lot easier.

Painted....

Then I hot glued the ribbons in place {I'm sure a staple gun would work to, i just don't have one}

TaDa! Now I just need to make MORE hair clips!

being crafty

I have been keeping busy with crafts. trying to make our home more pleasant and having fun doing it.

Rylee's hair clip frame

Our door wreath

For etsy ( I still need to add it)

flowery Chinese lanterns

Turned my white 'ruined' cardigan into a yellow elbow length cardigan.

Our microwave stand, And a hand-printed skirt to cover  all our bread,  toaster and slow cooker

I want to change the plaque our family pictures are on.

I'm also in the Process of finishing up our living room curtains. We bought half priced white curtains from Ikea and I printed on them and got a curtain rod from JoAnn's (for 60% off) and we just need a power drill and put it up! I'm really excited.

The Blunder-ific Cardigan

So you've probably learned... My camera sucks. so bare with me while I TRY to show you my projects I'm working on.
I got this white Cardigan for Christmas. I got to wear it once (Christmas Sunday) and then i washed and dried it in a load of Laundry.... along with a RED crayon! I tried almost everything to remove the red stains with no success. So I broke down and bought another white cardigan. Months passed and my birthday rolled around and dear ol'e mom got me a gift card to JoAnn's. What to buy... so many option. Then I remembered my ruined cardigan (which I held onto because I was so distraught when it went through the wash I couldn't let it go in hopes that I could salvage it in some way). I decided to buy Rit color remover and a Rit yellow dye (I've wanted a yellow cardigan for a long time).

White Cardigan

The Rit color remover worked okay. It didn't get rid of everything, but enough that I felt comfortable with dying it. It turned out GREAT. just the color I wanted......

Unfortunately.... Somehow HOLES appeared in one of the arms! I don't know if it was from too much dying or the fact that it went through a full dying cycle by itself. Either way I wasn't happy. But I wasn't going to let that get me down.

Quarter Sleeves would be better anyways, that would make it easier to ware in the summer! So I grabbed another cardigan with quarter sleeves and measured at the top of the cuff of the green cardigan.

I cut the cuff at the bottom and the extra fabric in the middle  (Good-bye holes)

Then I turned the cuff inside out and slipped it onto the sleeve (making sure the raw edges were facing each other) and I sewed around the hole. (Make sure you Slide the Cuff down so the two edges are even)

The End Result... (Navy Blue and Yellow go so good together, don't you think?)

First SaleS

It's a big day! I made my first TWO orders today on my Etsy shop Forty Winkses! To Canada! I'm very excited! I think selling some items has also boosted Cody's desire to start an Etsy shop as well. Made him believe he can sell stuff too. That makes me even more excited!
We're in the middle of preparing for Blarney Kil-Kilarney The Leprechaun. More post on that later....

The Sad Case of the Free Lamp

Something I love about on-campus housing is the drop and swaps they have here all the time! Who can resist free stuff? One time I got a crib mattress which was an answer to prayer. A couple of Saturdays ago they had a drop and swap. I was able to get a new baby bag to replace our horrible church bag we had before and some clothes and a pair of shoes for Ginger (even though she has clothes I still feel the need to get as much clothes for her as possible because we are borrowing these clothes so they don't really feel like hers) I also found a cute lamp. The lamp shade was falling off but that could be easily fixed so I grabbed it. I wan't to take a before picture, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it but I knew I was going to use it in the kids room. As I was setting down the camera I tripped on the cord and.... yeah, it fell and BROKE! Into tiny pieces! Unfix-able. So sad.
But luckily I can still use the cord and actually light bulb for another project, so all is not lost.

Love Journal

I’d read about a ‘love journal’ on a friends blog and thought it sounded really nice. It’s a book (maybe like a journal) that you and your spouse can write Love notes back and forth, write life goals as couples and dreams you have for the future. Hers is super cute, filled with pictures and colors! I made one for Cody and I with a notebook my mom had hanging around that she wasn’t using. In November my good time childhood friend got married in St. Goerge. And just our luck, it was right when we WEREN’T in Utah. I was kind of bummed about that but as a couples present I made her and her husband one. I was pretty proud of the way it turned out. Behold.

And a picture of the card I made her.