First Baby Bedding Finished!!

I sent off my first baby bedding today, and I'm so excited! Just wanted to share a few pictures:

I'm super excited about how awesome everything turned out!

Totes!

 So I've decided instead of wasting so much wrapping paper this year, I'm going to try and wrap as many things as I can in reusable tote bags. I had a Joanns 50% off coupon, so buying the blank canvas ones in packs of 3 came out to be about $1.50. About the same as buying a gift bag right?

So for my first attempt, I thought I would be cleaver and use an idea that's been floating around pinterest... Foam Stickers!

Somehow I didn't take into account that the letters would be BACKWARDS! Duh! And to top it all off, DH said "hehe I knew they would be" (then commenced cussing and slapping for the next 5 minutes straight)

My following attempts came out much better:

They were all done with fabric paint (or as we used to call it in the 90's "puffy paint"), or good 'ol sharpie. I used my disappearing fabric pen to outline some of them first, but most of them were done free hand.

Number Two!

I'm super excited about furniture re-do number two! Here's what I found at salvation army for $20:

I sanded the whole thing down (mistake! I should have stripped!), so I could do a paint wash. Even with the orbital sander this took forever, and I ended up buying a $75 Dremel just to get in the grooves of the drawers.

Here's what it looked like after the sanding:

I left some dark spots, and even touched a few places with some dark stain before painting. I didn't paint it with primer this time for two reasons: 1. It's bare wood, so there isn't much reason 2. I wanted to make a thin "wash" out of the paint that I bought so the wood grain would show through.

I wanted to do a pretty bright color this time, so I decided on a limey-green latex. I also bought some floetrol. I ended up mixing the two about half and half and painted the entire dresser. I didn't do any after sanding. The paint was so thin that all the details and wood grain showed though wonderfully. I also found some very reasonably priced copper hardware at Lowe's that looks great!

Here's the final piece:

A close up of the hardware:

The Breakdown:

60 grit sand paper for the orbital sander - $19

Floetrol  - $5

Dremel (this really shouldn't count) -  $75
Glidden Satin Latex  -  $25
8 Brainerd Cabinet Pulls @ $1.70  - $14
4 Brainerd Cabinet Knobs @ $1.20  -  $5

Total $143 (minus the dremel, which will obviously be used again $68)

My first furniture re-do ever!!!

I'm so super excited about this one. I've been wanting to do stuff like this for a while, and what better to start with than a dresser from the FREE section of Craigslist!

Here's the before (sorry my photography isn't that great. They were taken on my phone):

The drawers were a little jankety (that's a word right?), and there were a few places that were separating, but overall not that bad. I fell in love with the shape immediately, so I knew i had to so something with it.

I spent about $70 overall at Home Depot, but some of that was on things that I will re-use (clamps, a gallon of antique white paint, putty, putty knife, etc.), so my budget was actually way under this in the long run.

I ended up having to use ratcheting straps around the legs, and wood glue to get rid of the separation on the left side. Then I puttied (and puttied, and puttied, and probably did more puttying). This part took the longest for sure, and it didn't help that I HATED the kind of putty I bought. I sanded the putty, but left the rest of the dresser, since I was using a good primer. I used kilz oil based primer, which is amazing. It cover's really nice, and made the latex paint I was using go on super nice with no peeling.

The whole dresser was painted with Glidden latex antique white in satin. I don't remember the color name, but it's the darkest white you can get without looking yellow. It turned out really pretty. I sanded a few edges to accent the details and antique it a little, then I touched those places with some dark stain. I wish I had put the stain on first before painting and then sanded through to it because I had to be extra careful to not touch the paint with it, which was hard, but it still worked out okay.

Here's the finished dresser:

Here's the breakdown:

Dresser  -  Free (yay!)
2-4 in. C-Clamps @ $8  -  $16
Plastic wood (please don't use this!)  -  $5
Putty knife  -  $5

1 quart Kilz oil-based primer  -  $7

6 drawer pulls @ $1.20  -  $7
1 gallon Glidden satin latex paint  -  $25
Mahogany Minwax  -  $5

Total of $70 YAY!

Cutie Patooties

Seven has just gotten to the point in her potty training that I thought it was necessary to get her some training undies. She goes commando (actually completely bottomless) around the house, and we were putting diapers on her when we went out. But now that she's starting to have less accidents, I wanted to get her some training pants. 

I don't know if you've ever tried to buy training pants for a very small 18 month old, but I tell you, they don't exist! You can buy very expensive ($15+ a pair!) training pants online that start around 22 lb, but seven is only 20 lb on a good day. No stores carry anything less than 2T, believe me, I looked.

 So instead, I started looking for a sewing pattern, and I luckily came across this. Printable? Yes please! I taped all the pieces together, and actually taped a bit more than she did, but it saved me some sewing in the long run. I printed them out at 100%, but you could scale them up or down if you need to.

I made mine with some flannel I had laying around, with a layer of felt on the inside for extra absorption. I would not recommend it! the flannel doesn't have any give, and they ended up being a bit tight. When I made the third pair,  I swapped the flannel and the fleece. This worked out a bit better. The fourth pair I made out of an old t-shirt, with a layer of flannel inside, and these worked out

perfectly.

I used a zig-zag stitch to attach the two pieces together.  

 (first pair with no give on the sides)

 After making the first pair and them being so loose at the top, I decided to made a band for the waist and legs.

I had some 3/4" elastic that I ran though each one.

 This made them fit much better, and made me feel better about accidents.

The first two pairs are wearable, with no growing room.

The third was better.

After I worked out the kinks, one pair took me about an hour from start to finish. I don't have pictures of the final pair, but they aren't nearly as cute anyway :(

Embrace

I finished a painting yesterday that was a long time in the works. Moving in the middle of a painting means that it's probably not going to get done for a long time. But, here it is!

 

I think it might be my favorite so far!

Homemade Popsicles

Seven loves popsicles, but I hate giving her sugar! I decided to make up my own popsicle recipe...

We had these nifty little popsicle makers when I was a kid. It was kind of like a small rounded container with a lid and stick already built in. I found one of those at Walmart, but they were $7 and only made 4 popsicles. I decided to pick up this tall ice tray instead:

So I used:

Ice Tray

Aluminum Foil

Popsicle Sticks

 Blueberry Greek Yogurt

Frozen Strawberries

You'll have to forgive me because I didn't measure anything, but somehow I ended up with the right amount for the tray. You can see how full the blender is. I would say overestimate it, and if you end up with too much treat yourself to a smoothie. I did not add any sweetener (other than what was already in the yogurt) and they turned out great, but if you want it a bit sweeter I would recommend honey or stevia.

Pour the mixture over the ice tray.

Cover with aluminum foil

And put a Popsicle stick in each one.

Seven ate them just as quickly as she would and dye-filled-corn-syrup-on-a-sick, and they were a bit smaller and more manageable for her small hands, so I say success!

Yay! Door Headboard!!

I finally got the headboard I've always wanted, made from an old door! Adam gets total credit for this one (except for picking out the door of course, which was obviously the hardest part).

I found the door at the habitat for humanity store (great cheap building supplies) for $50, and after it stood in the corner of our living room for about a month... Adam did the rest. I'm thinking about painting it antique white. I love that we left the door knob and number on there. Apparently it was from an old hotel, kind of creepy right?

We already had freestanding bed rails so he just added some legs to the door, painted them black, and attached them to the rails. If you didn't want the doorknob, you can always turn the door the other way. The mattress would hide the hole.

Paper Feather

I followed the tutorial I found here to make paper feathers. All you need is some paper (I used sheet music, but old book pages would look cool too), scissors, glue, and metal wire. My metal wire wasn't very thick so I used two pieces for each feather.

Cutting two identical pieces of paper the shape that you want your feather, glue them together back to back with the wire in between. Then cut a very thin strip of paper and glue as you wrap it around the remaining wire.

The last step is to cut a bazillion tiny diagonal slits up and down both sides of the feather being careful not to cut all the way to the wire.