baby gifts

head over to my other blog for tutorials on these recent baby gifts

Halloween/Thanksgiving Blocks

I saw these blocks somewhere a few years ago and promptly ordered the vinyl to make them. 1 set of blocks for 2 holidays sounds perfect. I have quiet a few fall decorations and minimal places to put them so Celsey and I decided to make/give them for a gift.

The hardest part was figuring out what colors to paint the blocks. Making sure we didn't have the same color 2 letters in a row was hard. In case you decide to make them, here are the details.

You need 11 blocks total that are 3" wide if you want them the same size as these
-4 blocks that are 4.5" tall
-4 blocks that are 3.5 "tall
-3 blocks that are 3" tall

This is how the blocks are paired up

G I V E (heart) T H A N K S
T I R C  or       T R K A T E

you can obviously see the colors in the pictures, but just in case...
G-red
I-orange
V-yellow
E-Green
(heart)-orange

T-yellow
H-green
A-red
N-orange
K-yellow
S-red

This turned out to be a really fun gift. I ended up really loving the packaging.

bandana apron

i saw this online a while ago and immediately pinned it. the tutorial is no sew, but i worried it would fall apart easily. so, i did a little sewing. i'm loving these. if you have a special occasion coming up, you just might be getting one of these.

Source: go.tipjunkie.com via Aubrey on Pinterest

wall art

chelsea usually puts the kids' names on the wall in the nursery. she kind of wanted something a little different for kyler's room but needed something big enough to cover the holes from karson's name. usually i would look around pinterest or blogs or something, but this time i used my very own creative brain. we're from the south so we like monograms. we put kyler's initials on fabric. here's what we did.

1. one giant canvas can get pricey so i bought 3 small canvases at big lots (side note..buy canvas at big lots...it's cheap). jeff attached them together with a staple gun.

2. cover canvas with fabric and staple to the back of canvas with staple gun

3. paint letters with craft paint

4. hot glue letters to canvas

this project was cheap...like less than $20 cheap, and it turned out really cute. it didn't make it to the wall before i left town, but i'll try to get a picture of it hanging on the wall.

jewelry holder

chelsea wanted to make something to hold ALL of karlee's necklaces. she is really getting into jewelry these days which i totally love.

my roommate jess had something similar to hang necklaces, and i have wanted to make one ever since. since i already have a giant jewelry, i've never made one. i was really excited to make it for karlee (but mostly chelsea and jeff did the whole thing)

supplies

block of wood (sometimes you can get lucky and find scrap wood)

paint (we used a cotton candy pink) and paintbrush

tools (drill, wrench, tape measure, pencil)

sandpaper

drawer pulls

paint block of wood. you'll probably need 2 coats. sand edges if you want to distress. (we meant to do that but kind of forgot)

measure where you want the holes and drill holes. grab edges with wrench and slowly twist into block of wood

hang on the wall 

voila. so cute for a little girl's room. would also be so cute for a grown up room.

freezer paper stencil apron

celsey's husband shawn had a birthday a couple weeks ago. because he has such an awesome wife, he got a present every hour of his birthday. we got together one day when he was gone hunting to craft an apron for grilling.

it was fairly easy and pretty quick. grab some freezer paper, pencil, print out of what you want to stencil, exacto knife, and paint and paintbrush.

1. iron whatever you are going to stencil on

2. print out a stencil, put under freezer paper and trace

3. cut out stencil with exacto. be very careful in your cutting

4. iron stencil onto fabric. make sure to iron really well. any spots not ironed well will cause paint to bleed.

5. paint over stencil. may require a couple of coats of paint. make sure to let thoroughly dry in between.

6. remove freezer paper and voila

outdoor wreath

i love having a wreath on the door, but basically everything i put on my door gets ruined. even though the little porch is covered it's bad news. i have been meaning to make a wreath that can stand the weather for a while and it never happens. i finally did it this past weekend. the super talented brynn has a wreath kind of like this and mentioned painting it. i ran with the idea and love it.

i had a slight blogger fail and didn't take pictures along the way, but I did use my new fancy pants camera instead of my crappy cell phone. hopefully they at least cancel each other out.

i bought the wreath at hobby lobby. i bought what i thought was gold even though it was called satin spray paint at joann. i sprayed at least 2 coats on the wreath before realizing i still had gold spray paint leftover from last year. i did another couple of coats of paint. i sprayed mod podge adhesive and sprinkled gold glitter. i used some green ribbon i already had and voila...a wreath for the door that might actually survive the weather.

sweater----->cardigan

i have seen a lot of pins on pinterest about turning a sweater or old shirt into a cardigan. i've even pinned a few. some of them are just pictures and not tutorials. i have had this sweater sitting on a shelf in my room for months. i finally decided to just do it. i am sure others are using fancier methods, but i just did what made sense.

1. lay sweater on cutting board. make sure you only cut through top side of sweater.                                

2. use a ruler and rotary cutter and cut straight down the center of the sweater.                                                                 

3. pin a hem. i did about  1/4". if you really want to be perfectionist, measure the hem so it's perfect.                                             

4. sew the hem. make sure you sew it so the hem is on the inside. i turned my sleeves inside out to help me visualize but it's so not necessary

5. voila you have a cardigan. this really is the same sweater even though the color looks completely different.

i basically wear a cardigan every single day of my life. this was so easy. i'm on the search for more clothes to re-purpose into cardigans

homemade matching toy

I absolutely 100% did not come up with this idea on my own. Brianna told me she saw it on pinterest. I meant to look it up but never did. I just figured out my own easy way of doing it, and it was pretty simple.

disclaimer...this was going to be a really good tutorial. i took step by step pictures with my camera even, BUT the first several saved on the internal memory of my camera. how does that even happen? i don't have one clue where the cord is so i'll try to be descriptive.

supplies

pringles can

hot glue

butcher paper (or some other paper to cover the can)

tape (i used washi tape)

hole puncher

reinforcement labels (ya know...the kind you used in 6th grade when you tore the holes in your papers)

markers

pipe cleaners

steps 1-3  not pictured..so sorry

1. cut paper to cover pringles can

2. cover can completely

3. use a little hot glue (or glue stick if you like that stuff) on the inside paper to glue it to the can and also glue the paper to the paper so it stays in place

4. secure the paper with some tape. i like this fun washi tape found at wal mart of all places

5. punch holes in the lid of the pringles can. i did 3.

6. color reinforcements with marker

7.  put reinforcements around holes in lid

8. match pipe cleaners to the holes

finished product

if you want pipe cleaners to go all the way in the can, trim the tops off. they cut easily with regular scissors

this was so easy to make. i might add a kid's name to the other side of the can to make it more personalized. i can't wait to add this to some kid's church bag or use for home visits for my job.

Girl Baby Gift

church friend paige had a baby shower back in april. since i couldn't make it to the shower i never finished the baby gift. i found these itty bitty flip flops at old navy and sincerely just about died. i made this birdie onesie a while ago and decided to make a matchy matchy skirt. i already made the itty bitty felt bow that is barely showing in the corner. i sewed this and a few other itty bitties tonight. i just finished cleaning it all up, when i got a text from paige saying baby aspen is here. talk about perfect timing. can't wait to see her in this little number. all this girl baby stuff nearly kills me it's so cute.

Itty Bitty Baby Skirts

The last time I made these skirts I never got around to posting a link to the tutorial. I searched online and found this tutorial. I actually liked it better than what I did last time. This time I gathered the top by pinning like crazy...more pinning than I have done in any other project. ever, but it worked. Last time I gathered by doing a basting stitch and pulling. I kept breaking the thread. This was was much easier. It definitely helped that these are the itty bittiest things I have ever seen. Someone have a girl baby fast.

Spring Wreaths

whenever i go to chelsea's house lately, the craft of choice seems to be a wreath. we've made
heart wreath for valentine's day
4th of july wreath
i made her a burlap wreath for christmas a couple years ago
we're starting to get a lot of the holidays/seasons covered
this time we wanted a spring wreath
i got on pinterest and started with this as our inspiration

Source: paulakathlyn.com via Aubrey on Pinterest

we went with spring colored yarn to start

we used a straw wreath (they're the cheapest) from michaels with a 50% off coupon

the yarn is also from michaels and was on sale

wrap the wreath in yarn. i started measuring to make the stripes but ended up kind of eye balling it. it's not perfect, but it worked out ok

i used the same technique as the heart wreath to make the white flowers. i bought 1/8 yd of white felt and used almost all of it, but now i can see my flowers are much closer together than the above wreath

chelsea did multi-colored flowers. she bought the sheets of felt for $0.33 cents each

she used this tutorial for the spiral flowers

i love that they are both so different but but both so cute

we spent around $6-8 per wreath. definitely better to make than buy.

pendant banner

i made this pendant banner months ago for a going away party and never used and never took a picture. i was in a mega rush when i put it together so i didn't take pictures along the way. it was pretty simple to put together but a little time consuming. due to the set up of the party, we couldn't even use it. i was a little bitter for a while, but i was so excited when it matched the color scheme for nettie's bridal shower. i made it to say congrats or good luck by changing out the letters.

you might think this picture is about the people, but it's actually about the banner above their heads

here's the gist of how i did it

cut triangles out of coordinating fabric

sew a gathering stitch along the top edge of the triangles

gather each triangle separately

pin triangles together 

sew a straight line attaching each triangle to the next

velcro letters to center so they can be changed out for different occasions

hang with tacks

Not Tonight Pillow

I saw something similar to this pillow online somewhere and unfortunately couldn't find it again. I wish I could credit the place I got the idea, but I seriously can't find it. As soon as Nettie got engaged, I HAD to make it. I think it's so funny.

I took crappy phone pictures of the process. Side not...I just realized my phone pictures are so crappy because my camera lens has a few cracks in it. It might be time for a new phone soon. Until then, here is the crappy picture step by step of the Not Tonight Pillow.

trace stencil (printed from word with a font i liked) onto freezer paper (i got mine from a co-worker but apparently it can be found by the wax paper at the grocery store) shiny side down.

cut out stenciled letters with an exacto knife

iron on stencil to the fabric. make sure it's a good seal so paint doesn't seap through.

paint. a few tutorials used different types of paint and mixed paint types. i used regular acrylic craft paint, and it worked fine. i did 3-4 coats to make sure it was dark/heavy enough to show up

after the paint dries, peel off the stencil.

cover with light material and iron over the words to seal

now it's time to sew. i'm not even going to pretend to know the best way to sew a pillow. these were my first pillows ever, and i'm sure i could use a few tips myself.

finished product

i made 2 pillows because i couldn't decide which one i liked better. the writing doesn't show up quite as well on this one, but i still love it.
co-worker michelle made one out of burlap this week, and it turned out so very cute.