Easter Wreath

This of course was not my original idea.  I stole it off Pintrest.  But I still can't believe I did it because there is a part of me that really rebels against how crazy everyone is about wreaths.  Plus, where am I suppose to store these things that very conveniently do NOT fit in a nice little box with all my other decor!  But, this one was cute enough that I talked myself into doing it.   And I love it of course, very spring-y!

Bathroom storage shelf

You know how these things can cost upwards of $25 even for a cheapo super small particle board one at Walmart?  This is under $20 dollars and twice the size of the one I purchased last year with said characteristics.  And this one is solid wood.  Check it out over at Ana's site.

Audrey's birthday present

I sent Ana 4 different ideas that are at the top of my list. I have to work very hard to keep myself down to only thinking about 3 projects or I will get so overwhelmed I get anxiety. The one I am currently working on, the one I am currently designing (on computer) and the next one on the lineup.

I had already planned on building Ana's play kitchen set for Audrey for her birthday. I told Ana this and she sent me a plan she had actually already designed. So that ended up being my first project for her. Awesome, Ana paid for my daughters birthday! :) Check out the full posting of the One Piece Play Kitchen on her site for plans as well. This is also Part 2 of the Playroom project.

Exciting News

If you have been reading me a while then you know I am obsessed with Ana White and what she does and the amazing service she provides to all of us starter DIYers. In my case, my new found passion of building comes from a combination of cheapskate, owning a new home that needs lots of things I can't afford, loving to build, and a very stubborn attitude that leads me to say, "I could do that for cheaper" even when walking through Ikea! Shh don't tell anyone!

Well Ana and her family are building a home for their mothers in Alaska. This has left them VERY busy and she is unable to keep up with actually building all the projects she can design. This is fine except that you really need to be able to build it to make sure it is totally doable for those beginners that don't have the know how of adjusting. So, her exciting solution: She contacted some of the most active contributors to her blog- I being one of them. She has asked if we would be willing to give her a list of some of the things we want to build around our own homes. Send her the ideas, she will design and create a plan, she pays for the building costs, we build it, we photograph it, we blog it, and we keep it. UH! I get how this is still profitable for her, but come on? Is there even a question in there? Of course I am up for that? Awesome.

My Queen Farmhouse Bed

Here is my adventure into another bed. We got a queen sized mattress from a family member and didn't have anywhere to put it yet. Eventually I wanted to build a murphy bed for our playroom but knew that wouldn't happen till next year (er, later this year) so I built this in the meantime. I had been wanting to build one for a while but knew Charles wouldn't like the style for our room, so this was the perfect solution. The entire project cost me about $70 to build. Right now m little toddler sleeps on this and it is so cute to see him only taking up the tiniest little bit of bed. Good news, he has only fallen off like twice seeing as it is so big!






HERE are the plans over at Ana White if you want different sizes or to see her plans.

And

Here are my plans if you want to build your own like mine (which has some modifications).

Pantry Fix

I totally hated having things in my pantry that are so annoyingly small taking up nice space on my shelves and getting pushed to the back. I needed this! Find the plans over on Ana's site

Ikea Trofast Toy Storage

I am turning my Den into a playroom and here is

Playroom Part 1

I loved this idea of easy storage for a kids playroom. I was just going to buy them from Ikea because they are not a bad price. However, I drew up the plans and found that I could build three of them out of one sheet of plywood!!! SOLD. So I hacked the design and it took me only a day to build them. Love it. Cost me $30 (just for the wood that is). I built them to exact Ikea specs so I could buy their bins also. They are a good size and they are pretty sturdy and super cheap. Love it.

I used a router to cut into the plywood about a half inch. You could also use a dado blade on a table saw, which would probably actually be better. You could also totally build them an inch wider and just screw slides into the sides. But this measurement was the only way to actually get three of these out of one sheet of plywood.

When I get them situated exactly where I want in the room, I will probably put a little "mantle" on them as a finishing look.


And here are the plans

Kids TAble and Chairs 2

Kids Picnic Table

Outdoor Lounge Chair

Outdoor Raised Raised Planter Bench

Captain's Storage Bed

Platform Bed

Kids perfect little bench

Kids Adirondack Chairs

Kids Table and Chairs

House Projects: Livingroom Clock

I mentioned how in love with a square clocks I am on my craft blog here. And had it in my mind forever that I wanted to make a really cute big one for my living room to add another element of green to the mix. I need it wherever I can get it! As usual with me I labored over what I wanted it to look like. Here are the results! I love it!

Pillows I love

My Quiet Book

In true motherhood obsession, I took on the mother load of all projects. A year ago some friends and I were all talking about getting together to make our kids quiet books for church. We came up with some fun ideas but alas, new babies came and life got pretty busy for all of us.

So for some reason the time had come and I decided to tackle it. I agonized for weeks and weeks about the style of how I wanted it to look. Do I do everything out of felt, do I draw on fabric with fabric markers, do I design each page myself? Then I searched and searches everywhere online that I could to find some ideas, and came up with a few of my own. I will admit that Audrey (at 2.5 years old) is too old for some of the cute ideas out there. I wanted her book to be a little more interactive and challenging in her though process than pages with buttons and lift tabs. She has regular books that do that. Anyway, there is nothing worse than when a project turns out less than mediocre when you put so much effort into it.

So here is how it turned out. I can't believe it turned out so amazingly awesome I must say so myself. I better get a comment from EVERYONE that reads this, to tell me how AMAZING I am for doing this for my daughter and how stinking cute it turned out! HAHAHAHA

My final book pages measure 10 x 11 inches and the cover is 11.5 x 12.5. The pages in these pics are all unfinished but if you see in the final book pages I sewed them inside out and then flipped them and finished them like you would a pillow case.



I used a combination of hand drawn things ( the kites on this page, and clip art with iron on transfer paper) That way I didn't take quite as long as it might have if i had had to cut all those shapes out, and heaven forbid come up with decent art work. The point of this page is matching patterns. I didn't actually do a match for each kite because I like that she has to "search" through some extras to find the matching pattern.

Iron on for the face, and I ended up using tacky glue to put the pieces of yarn in place. Worked like a charm.

I wanted something to help her count. She already knows how to count but this page helps with the added bonus of learning to count one thing at a time. funny how you don't ever think about the "stages" of learning to count.

This is a page she can grow in to. The hands spin

The ark opens like a drawbridge with the animals inside.

Once again a page where her being older and already knowing her animals and sounds attributed to this outcome, Finger puppets. This is probably her favorite page. She loves to have me stick all of these on her tiny little fingers.

Learns to set the table and how to open a belt buckle.

I have seen an apple tree in almost every book out there, but I didn't think there was actually much point to just learning to stick them on! This is a great way to learn your family history early. Unfortunately with 7 kids on the Charles's side, I don't think she will be getting a Graf family tree.

Once again the wonder of iron on made this page so easy and so much better.

So simple but this one turned out super cute. Fun little game thrown in the mix.

Right now I only have the one set of coins to explain the concept of tithing, but later you can add lots more to help learn to count the worth of money.

Pretty self explanatory. I just traced my own shoe.

Pockets for the letters of the alphabet and then an entire page with rows of velcro where for now she can practice her ABC's and eventually spell words of sentences.

Cute page where she can write letters and put them in the mailbox, eventually teaching how to address letters and put a stamp on it

Printed out a wintry scene on iron on and then built all the snowman pieces out of felt, each piece comes off.

I decided to make kind of a zipper folder cover for the whole thing to stay in so that if any of the little pieces fall out, hopefully they don't get lost. Plus I used pretty sturdy iron on interfacing to make it lots more sturdy but still have a pretty soft appeal to be tossed around and things. I was so excited at how cute this cover turned out. I didn't have a pattern, I just kind of dreamed it up in my head. I cut out two layers of fabric about an inch and a half larger than my pages ended up being. I might actually do it more if anyone cares to follow my technique. Then ironed one piece to sturdy interfacing, and then heat bond onto the other piece so that the finished two pieces could eventually be bonded together. I added all the front page accessories and then bonded the front and back of the "folder" together. Then I ran a zipper all the way around the inside of the folder. Then I decided to use bias tape to cover the unfinished edges.

I ended up punching the brad holes into each page to turn it into a "three ring binder". this way you can take each page out or add more pages if you want.

I want to advise also, a SUPER easy way to do some of this stuff is with the heaven sent machine called a CRICUT. My sister in law has one and I knocked out the titles for each page in like a half hour. It was awesome! Saved me lots of cutting. Sanks Cassidy.

NOTES:
-If you are making things that come off the pages strictly out of felt ( like in the tic tac toe game) I would recommend using a thicker interfacing to keep them sturdy. Felt stretches in the hands of curious two years old's.

- I used a thicker interfacing on each page to help it hold it's own and then when sewn together each page (which is actually two thick) is quite sustainable. Some people just use felt alone as the page, or I have seen muslin or straight pellon used. Pretty much up to you and how you want it to feel.

- I spent very little on this project, I only had to buy some interfacing, the cute cover fabric, the zipper (need at least a 36 in) and the iron on paper (which is actually kind of expensive so do a test print, and remember to change your paper setting in your printer or reverse your image.) All other fabric and felt was stuff I had.

- DO NOT re-iron anything with the iron on transfer paper on it. It will stick to whatever is against it. I did that on the clock and the felt from the hands got stuck in the clock face. URG!!