A walk outside

Today was..well, not what I expected. We went to church, dropped the kids off, then 30 minutes into the service, we got a call that our house alarm went off. We grabbed the kids and rushed home after being assured that the cops were on their way. When we got home do you know what we found?

Nothing. A balloon that we bought the kids had moved when the AC came on and set the motion sensor off. I'm sure we were the least exciting call the cops had gotten all day.

We did enjoy some time outside though. It was one of those overcast, perfect-for-picture-taking kind of days. So Connor and I took a trip outside while Haley was napping.

This guy is busy perfecting his walking. He actually has it down really well, as long as he's not wearing shoes that is.

Shoes on his little chunky feet make him one angry dude. The minute we put them on him, he kicks and whines pitifully until they come off again. It's not comfortable for him, shoes just make his little life more difficult. It made me think of how our relationship with God can be sometimes. When something hard comes along, we kick and scream instead of doing what we should do - just come to Him.

And He picks us up and sets us on our feet again.

That's not to say we won't have other spills later. But He's always there, watching over us like any caring parent does. Ready to wipe away the tears and pick us up again. Because ultimately, we have to go through the hard stuff to make us stronger.

Even though it may be hard to understand at the time, one day we'll look back on all that hard stuff and say, "If I hadn't tried and tripped a little, I wouldn't have learned how to walk."

So thank you God for shoes. And for helping us up when we fall.

Heart doily shirt

I don't really decorate or do much for Valentines Day (aside from going out to dinner with Patrick), but this year I wanted to make something fun for my daughter to wear. I recently picked up a pack of paper heart doilies and immediately remembered a project I saw on Maybe Matilda awhile ago.

Rachel uses doilies and fabric paint to make a cute shirt for herself and, while I've tried several times in the past, I can't ever seem to make anything cute for myself. I get a vision for a cute article of clothing, and then I put all this time and effort into making it only to have it turn into a complete train wreck. Children's clothing is just so much more forgiving. So, until I can teach myself to make decent adult clothing, I've learned to stick with what I know, so I made one of Rachel's painted doily shirts for Haley!

I used pink and red fabric paint and layered the hearts on a plain long-sleeved shirt.

It turned out so cute!

This method of using doilies to paint a shirt would really be great for any holiday. I'll definitely be trying it again. If you're looking for a quick, inexpensive idea for Valentine's Day, grab a pack of doilies and make one of Rachel's painted doily shirts!

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Link love and a portrait of Connor

Back in October, I have the pleasure of winning a giveaway over at one of my regular blog reads, Dee*Construction. Do you have a blog that you love to read because it makes you want to live in that person's living room (in a non-creepy way)? That's Dee's blog. It's the one I like to sit and page through on lazy days in my pj's with a hot cup of coffee. It has a wonderfully vintage, homey-feel that I can't get enough of.

All photos property of Dee*Construction

I'm one of those people who would love to have a house full of vintate-y things, but since it doesn't come naturally to me, my house ends up looking more like a garage sale. That's why I live vicariously through blogs like Dee*Construction, Bleubird Vintage, and Cakies.

Besides peeks into daily life, Dee also has tons of wardrobe refashions and makes the most adorable dolls. Oh, and she's expecting baby #5 soon. I don't know where she finds the time to do it all. If I had 5 kids, I'm pretty sure I'd just hang out in sweats all day watching reruns of What Not to Wear on a pile of laundry. I can barely attempt to craft with 2 children.

Like I was saying, back in October I entered one of Dee's giveaways to win a custom portrait from one of her sponsors, Stella of the blog The Golden Adventures of a Very Dark Horse and the shop Frank and Dean. When I enter giveaways, it's usually something I do without really expecting to win, so I was so thrilled when Dee notified me that I won! The prize was a custom portrait of a person and background of my choice.

After a lot of deliberation, here is the picture I decided on (my Connor boy back when he was little and squishy!):

Here is Stella's portrait based on my photo and background choice:

Isn't it awesome? The likeness and colors are just beautiful, I feel so lucky to have won the giveaway! The portrait is hanging out on my mantel right now, along with my DIY hurricane vases that I worked back into my mantel decor after Christmas.



If you're looking for a custom portrait, shoot Stella an email. She's one talented lady!

BFF Coffee Cozy

I have to have my coffee in the morning. And I mean, a big ol' cup of it. My husband jokingly says I have a bucket of coffee in the morning. A bucket is one of the standard coffee measurements, right? Tall, grande, venti, bucket. Yep.

Maybe "bucket" is comparable to Starbucks' alleged "trenta size" which is apparently larger than the capacity of the human stomach. 31 ounces of coffee. Talk about your coffee buzz. Is it bad that I want to try this? That sounds like the right amount it would take me to start my day off without being a troll.

Since it's beginning to actually feel like winter in Tennessee (and also due to the fact that I've been drinking multiple buckets of coffee thanks to my new Keurig that I got for Christmas), I wanted to share a coffee sleeve that I made for a friend awhile ago.

It's a simple sleeve that I made by tracing a cardboard Starbucks sleeve on 2 layers of felt, adding additional felt coffee and muffin characters, then finishing it off with a blanket stitch around the edges. I also added a few french knots for the blueberries and couple seed beads for the eyes on the coffee cup.

Maybe one of these days I'll actually keep something I make haha.

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And then this happened.

So while we were in Pittsburgh for the holidays, Connor learned a new trick.

Yep, Connor learned how to walk! He had been taking a few steps here and there before the holidays, but he decided he was over the whole crawling thing and just took off during our 10 day vacation. And now, he is into EVERYTHING.

Want to know how to babyproof a house? Let a one-year-old loose and hide anything that they find interesting.

We went to my sister-in-law's house for New Year's, and Connor was thrilled. It was like we had just taken the kid to Disney World. We spent most of the time hiding stone coasters and antique cameras, blowing out candles, and attempting to keep him from leaping off of the stairs (which had no banister) and onto the cat.

I feel like his sole purpose is to break everything. I mean, just look at this face. It's a look that says "I am Connor, Destroyer of All Things."

Needless to say, we are re-babyproofing.

Oh and while we were there, he also decided to get 2 more teeth. I need this kid to stop growing!

Mitten Pocket Shirt

I have a thing for appliqued shirts (if that wasn't abundantly obvious.) Probably because of the instant gratification they give me. I get a cute shirt in half the time without having to make the actual shirt itself, and that leaves me more time for really important things, think like eating bowls of Oh's cereal while catching up on my DVR'd episodes of Chopped (there's just something so intriguing about watching four people frantically attempt to make an appetizer out of stuff like candy canes, lamb chops, and pancake mix.)

I get inspiration from so many different things that I have to keep a running list in my phone. For this project, my inspiration was a mitten. Originally, I had a vision of making a cute ruffled dress for my daughter with striped mitten pockets. The dress became a shirt, then the stripes became hearts but hey, at least my mitten pockets remained unchanged.

Wanna make one too?


Supplies:

• Shirt
• Scraps of knit fabric
• Ric-rac
• 2 buttons
• Sewing machine and basic sewing supplies
• Free mitten template for download HERE

Step 1: Make your mittens.

First, print and cut out my mitten template. Using a disappearing ink marker, trace the template onto your knit fabric. Flip your template and trace a second mitten. Cut out.

Next, fold the bottom of your mitten up 1/4 inch and press. Fold up another 1/4 inch and press. Using a zig-zag stitch and coordinating thread, stitch straight across.

Step 2: Attach your mittens.

Now you need to enclose the raw edges of your mittens. We'll do this with a gathering stitch. Set your stitch width and length to their highest settings and stitch 1/4 inch around the perimeter of your mitten, making sure not to backstitch at the beginning or end. Leave the tails long for gathering.

Tie the tails at one end of your mitten in a knot. At the other end, pull gently on one of your threads and push the fabric away from the thread to form gathers. You'll have to work to distribute the gathers evenly around the mittens, especially around the thumbs. You want to gather just enough to keep the raw edges of your mittens underneath so that they're not exposed when you sew your pockets on.

Place your mitten pockets on the top of your shirt and make sure they're lined up exactly where you want them. Now pin pin pin.

Make sure you're happy with the placement because there's no going back once you stitch everything in place!

Once you have your mittens pinned where you want them, use your coordinating thread to stitch your mitten pocket in place using a 1/4 inch seam allowance (don't sew the top closed :) Add some ric-rac for the string (stitch down with coordinating thread) and a couple buttons for decoration.

Here's a close-up of the pocket detail.

The pockets are a great place for kids to hide their treasures.

The pockets are also really great for blogging mommies to hide the bribes for photo sessions (smile if you want chocolate!)

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Melt & Pour Honey Almond Oatmeal Soap

In my roundup of quick handmade gift ideas for the holidays, one of the projects I listed was the honey almond oatmeal soap over at Just Deanna. I was looking for a quick gift idea for my co-workers, so I decided to try it out! The process was so easy, but it was the name that got me.

Honey? Good. Almond? Good. Oatmeal? Good. All together in a soap? Awesome.

I gathered all my supplies at Hobby Lobby (I just needed some soap and fragrance, I already had the oatmeal at home) and got to work. Let me tell you, this is SO easy to do. Deanna said this project is perfect for a kid to do, and she's so right. All that was involved is melting, mixing, and pouring.

I may have found a new obsession.

I always love getting blocks of yummy smelling soaps that look like they come from fancy boutiques.

I'll let you check out Deanna's post for the actual soap making tutorial, but I did change the quantities around some because I found the amount of oatmeal to be too much, and I substituted shea butter soap for the goat's milk soap. Instead of mixing 6 cubes of soap with 1/2 cup of oatmeal, I actually cut the oatmeal in half and mixed it with 12 cubes of melted soap at a time. This left me with about 2 1/2 batches instead of 5. The oatmeal that you add in makes it great for exfoliation, but if you'd rather have a nice solid bar of soap, you can leave that out.

I wrapped them in freezer paper and used my Silhouette to cut out some cute tags that I attached with embroidery thread.

My co-workers loved them! I only wish I had made more, the soap itself is really creamy and the smell is delicious. The honey almond fragrance is light and not overwhelming at all. Best of all, the whole process to produce a batch of 6 bars took under half an hour. I'll definitely be making more in the future.

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