Fabric Tray + Lego Base = A Christmas Present

So guess what?  My laundry is mostly caught up—just a couple loads from yesterday to do.  Yay!  My house is clean besides the bathrooms, which are on my list today, and I have about 10 more presents for my extended family to wrap and I then I will be all ready for Christmas! 

Today we are making gingerbread men with some friends and my kids and I will have a little movie night tonight and they will be sleeping under the Christmas tree.  I love when they don’t have school and how much more laid-back and fun it is around the house without homework and all the busy-ness that comes along with school.

My handmade gift for the boys this Christmas is a fabric tray using Anna of Noodlehead’s tutorial HERE and…

I bought a blue lego base on Amazon to fit inside.

Now my kids can transport their legos around and those pesky tiny pieces are less likely to be lost in the process.  I’m especially excited for them to use them in the car because that seems to be the place legos are lost most often!

The trays were extremely quick and easy to make as well.  Great beginner project! 

I hope your Christmas plans are coming together and you are enjoying these last few days before Christmas!

Great Idea for a Neighbor Gift

You’ve seen the glass etching you can do with etching cream and vinyl. You’ve seen how people label their dishes with it.  But what if you don’t have the supplies and it’s really not practical to buy those supplies only to do a couple projects with them?  What if you have the supplies and know a lot of people who don’t, but you can’t spend a lot of money on dishes to etch for them? 

My brilliant friend Michelle gave us the cutest gift this year!  I asked if I could share because I knew you guys would appreciate it.  I sure do! 

She made glass etching DIY “kits”.  See that grid on the right?  That’s our last name in vinyl.  The glass etching cream is in a little bead jar she found at Joann.  Type up the instructions, bag it all up, and ta-da!  A great gift for pretty inexpensive.  I’m not sure where she got her etching cream, but I bought mine at Michael’s—just be sure to bring a coupon!

Anyway, I just thought it was such a great gift and especially for those people you know who would love to do this, but have no use for a lot of vinyl or etching cream!

P.S.  I’ve been so lucky to get to know the women married to the band members of my hubby’s band.  They are all great and I’m so happy to know them all!  Michelle is the wife of one of the band members and a friend I hope to have forever!

Easter Sunday Best

Oh man, I took a TON of pictures of my sweet kids in their Easter clothes!

I totally had to bribe them with a McDonald’s ice cream sundae so they would get all dressed up in church clothes on a Wednesday!

I wanted to take their pics before Sunday because our church starts at 9:00 and it’s a bit difficult getting out the door all ready and presentable as it is.  And I really dislike taking pictures in stressful situations!

Besides our Christmas pictures last year, this is the only time I’ve coordinated my boys and little girl, and I love it!

Ok, let’s break down the clothes for you:  B’s dress is made from New Look pattern #6688.  I liked the pattern—you could probably easily figure it out yourself. 

The fabric is vintage fabric and I LOVE it.  My mother-in-law gave it to me, so according to her, it is fabric from the 60’s or 70’s.  It’s very high quality as well—nice, thick and soft.  It maybe has a little polyester in it, as it doesn’t wrinkle very easily either.

As soon as I put it on her, she started to spin and spin, without a word of prompting.  She calls it her Princess.  (not princess dress, but just Princess). 

The tulle sewed onto the lining of the skirt portion really helps it poof out, which is part of what she loves so much.  The other part that she loves is how far it twirls out, since it is a circle shape on the bottom and perfect for twirling.  Reminds me of many cute pictures people post of Dana’s circle skirt!



Originally, the dress didn’t have that extra portion in the front.  But when I first tried it on B, it was way too low cut on her.

So I added a triangle and a snap so we could still get it on her.  It does have a zipper on the side under the arm hole:

    

For my handsome boys I made them a tie using Purl Bee’s tutorial HERE.  The Moda fabric is great because the dots look like Easter eggs.  And I lucked out finding some shirts to match B’s dress because the ties wouldn’t have looked all that great with a white shirt.

It’s been raining here like crazy and the sun came out during the pictures, and my oldest said, “Mom, it’s ALWAYS too bright when you take pictures!”  He really has some sensitive eyes.  Because that statement would be true.  It always seems to be too bright for him to smile at me for pictures ;).  

D said it was bright to him as well, but he still could smile at me. 

And B was just hamming it up the whole time.  She loves to get dressed up!  Despite how much she follows in her brothers’ footsteps, she is very much a girly girl at times.

Now they are all matchy matchy (however, not green squared) for Easter!  Oh, how I love these sweet kids!

Lam-Bees

Can you tell what these are?

Those are cute little lamb bums!

This is part of what my kids will be receiving in their Easter baskets this Sunday. They call them Lam-Bees—they had some lamb stuffed animals that we lost (well, one was lost, the other one I gave to the thrift store) and my son D came up to me crying and said, “Lam-Bee was my most favorite toy ever.”   So I thought Easter was a good time to make one for them all.

I forgot I had bookmarked them last year when the Purl Bee posted them HERE:

I think I have over 200 items bookmarked in my “crafts to make” folder!  It feels good to cross one off the list!  

Mine are not perfect, but my kids will love them.

I just used fleece like Dana did in her version HERE:

I also wish I had remembered about Homemade by Jill’s version HERE:

I wish I would have remembered to embroider my kids’ names on them!  It’s such a cute touch!

Are you ready for Easter?  I’ve finished B’s dress and will post that later this week.  I feel like I have a million things going on, but not much to show just yet:). 

St. Patrick’s Day Decorations

Last year I got really gung-ho for St. Patrick’s Day and went from zero decorations, to a few fun ones that I need to pull out…yesterday :).

So since most of you probably weren’t reading my blog at the time, I thought I’d share them with you today.

Luck burlap banner:

Thrift store tray using Tatertots and Jello tutorial here.

And then just an Irish quote I searched online for…

and a door hanger using burlap and the freezer paper method to paint.

Freezer paper shirts are a great project to do with your kids.  There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to use freezer paper for stencils, so just do a search online and you’ll find it! 

And don’t forget, it’s getting closer to Easter, so you might want to plan ahead and plant some Wheat Grass soon!

Hello Again!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s!  I just wanted to share some of my favorite memories of the Season!

My sweet boys sleeping under the Christmas Tree.  (Not on Christmas night, of course!)

 

Building a snowman with my kids:

 

Going to an Ugly Sweater party surrounded by wonderful friends:

 

My kids trying to eat the gingerbread house:

 

Going downtown SLC to see the lights at Temple Square:

 

Acting out the Nativity with the cutest Wise Man, Shepherd and Angel around:

 

Staying up way too late on New Year’s Eve:

 

Sledding on  New Year’s Day:

Rarely is B excited to be in pictures with me since she’s such a Daddy’s girl.  She was super tired, but she really isn’t asleep in this picture…just blinking :). 

What were the highlights or your Christmas Season and New Year Celebrations?