Party Hats

We recently had Joe's First Birthday pictures done and they were absolutely fabulous. The photographer was great and we were very happy. I wanted to share some of the cake smash photos so you could see the party hat and diaper cover that I made. I would like to start making and selling the hats and diaper covers so please let  me know if you like them or would like to order a set.

Cake Smash!

Party Hate and Diaper Cover I made!

If you like the party hat and diaper cover, I would love to hear from you. If anyone would like to purchase a made to order set please leave a comment.

Party's Over!

I wish I could take credit for the excellent photography but it was the work of a professional. If you would like to check out the rest of her photography or see the rest of Joe's pictures check out Simply Twenty-Two Photography on Facebook.

First Birthday Party!

So it has been almost a month since we had Joe's first birthday party, and I am still recovering! His first birthday was such a great time, and I can't believe that big milestone is already over. We decided to have a Noah's Ark themed birthday party. I want to share some of the photos with all of you.

Noah's Ark Cake and Smash Cake

                            I was one of those crazy mothers that decided that I could make my son's first birthday cake. Don't get me wrong I am glad that I gave myself this challenge but I now understand why people pay good money for cakes instead of making and decorating the cake themselves. I posted the photos of the cake and smash cake that I made. Another day I will post some information about how all of this came together. I took some photos of the cake in process, in case anyone else was as crazy as me!     

Noah's Ark Cake

Noah's Ark Smash Cake

Noah's Ark 1st Birthday Cake

After spending hours looking at Pinterest for first birthday ideas I decided to create a treat table to go with the Noah's Ark theme. I got glass jars at Christmas Tree Shoppes and filled them with goodies. I used gummi bears, Swedish fish, goldfish, animal crackers, and chocolate animal crackers. I also made rice krispies  treats with every intention of cutting them into animal shapes but I ran out of time because the cake took my much longer than I expected.

Treat Table

In addition to the treats I picked up plastic boats from Dairy Queen so that each guest could fill a boat with treats to take home with them. My husband helped and made the sign below "Save the Animals Fill your Ark". I thought that turned out cute.

Everyone gets an Ark!

I also found this great fruit bowl idea on Pinterest. I love the Noah's Ark fruit bowl. I can't take credit for this masterpiece my mother made this for the party. I can take credit for the plastic animals I picked them up at Wal- Mart. In addition to the ark she used cookie cutters to cut the pineapple into shapes.

Noah's Ark Fruit Bowl

Finally, I decided to give everyone an animal shaped cookie cutter to remember Joe's first birthday. I had every intention of attaching a cute little tag with a little saying on each cookie cutter but it just never happened. The were put in a basket by the door with a thank you sign. I know that I had weeks to get the tags on the cookie cutters but sometimes life just gets away from you.

Cookie Cutter Party Favors

In a nutshell that was Joe's first birthday party! I hope some of these photos give you some great ideas for your next party!

Trash to Treasure

I remember being in college and grabbing finds out of the trash as people would move in and out of the dorms. I always thought it was a great way to pick a new treasure for my room. I thought I had grown out of that habit as I got older and got a job and had money to buy things. Now, that I am only working part time to stay at home with my son, seeking treasures out of the trash sounds like fun again.

A couple of weeks ago we found these tables sitting along the road waiting for the trash collector to come and take them to the dump. The needed some love but, I thought they had a ton of potential.

Just check out the finished project. I am so glad that I grabbed these tables. I think they turned out great and I have already sold them to a loving home. The person that bought them planned to buy cushions and turn them into stools. I am so excited about this project!

Can't wait to see what else I find in the trash!

Mirror Makeover Update!

SOLD

I was so sad to see this mirror go but it has been sold to a loving home. I am excited about my next makeover project.

Mirror MakeOver

So my husband and I found this old mirror at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. It seemed old and unique with the random handle on the side. So we decided to purchase it with plans to repaint it and give it some new life. 

This is the mirror as we found it at the garage sale.

We decided to paint the mirror white and then give it an antique look but sanding off some of the paint. It is hard to see the antique look in this picture but I think it turned out great!

Finished Project!

This turned out to be fun and easy! I would love to know what you think of the finished project.

Photography

I have always had a love for taking pictures. My love continues to grow as I have an opportunity to take pictures of my son. Last year I had a professional photographer come and take pictures of my belly, I wish I could post them here but I can't because I just got prints from the session. One of the photograph is a shot of my belly with baby Nikes (it is super cute). Then there is another of my belly with my Nikes and the baby Nikes. Those two photographs inspired a photo shoot at our home.

Unfortunately, I had to relinquish my camera to my husband in order to get the images that I thought would be great follow-ups to the maternity session. As luck would have it the baby sneakers fit our little guy on his first birthday, so these photos also mark my baby at one year old.

I would love any and all comments on the photos. Again they are pretty close to what I had imagined but I did have to give up the camera lens!

This was the first time Joe was standing on his own! 

I was considering making these images black and white but I just wanted to post the raw image to get some opinions. I am taking these image with my to a photo class on Thursday but I thought I would get a head start here. 

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I do!

Birthday Outfits

I can't believe that my baby boy is already a year old. This past year has gone bye in the blink of an eye. It is so amazing to me how my little guy has grown and changed over the past year. I wanted to get some really cute pictures of Joseph to mark his first birthday. So I wanted to make sure he had some cute clothes to wear for his pictures.

We are having a photographer take some picture of Joseph to mark his first birthday. We are going to have him do a cake smash! I am super excited about this, so I made him this outfit below. The inspiration for this outfit started with the tie that I found at the Children's Place ( I did not make the tie). I then had my mother make the navy blue diaper cover and I added the skull to the butt. Then I made him the party hat below.

The outfit below I purchased at Carters for Joseph to wear for his first birthday party. We did a Noahs Ark theme so I loved the elephant on the outfit. I then hit the fabric store in search of some great fabric to make a party hat for him to wear during his cake smash. My mother was going to make him a bib to match but then she found one at the store so she bought it instead. I love the party hat but Joe did not want to wear it!

Hat, Cake, and Bib 

Joe unhappy in his hat!

Easter Poinsettia

I know this is crazy but I created an Eater poinsettia. I bought these  poinsettias on Black Friday for $.98 each and have been working to keep them alive until next Christmas. I have heard that you can keep them alive all year, I don't have a green thumb but I want to try it.

  I put them in white baskets added some tissue paper for Spring color and then added a few Easter eggs I got at the Dollar Store. I think they turned out cute but my Mom said I was crazy! As you can see one of my plants is doing better than the other but I have faith they will both be thriving soon.

What do you think?

Easter Projects-Take 3

I know it is hard to believe that I had time to complete other Easter projects but I was really determined to get a couple more projects in! I saw a bunch of awesome Easter centerpieces on Pinterest, and I was really motivated to recreate one. 

I started out with a large glass jar that I had. Then I found a vase that would fit inside with enough room to put the candy around. Then I put the vase inside the jar and began filling the jar with jelly beans. I got these for free at CVS using Extra Care Bucks. Then added the bunny peeps. I did use a coupon to buy the peeps so they were not free. 

 Then I added a beautiful arrangement of flowers I got at Giant for $10.99. In all I created this centerpiece for $15.00 which I thought was great. I am going to be honest I hated to use the candy because it was a waste of food but it really did create a cute centerpiece.

As a final touch I added some Easter eggs that I picked up at the Dollar Store. I just love the colors of the flowers.

Easter Projects- Take 2

Once I had my Easter grass growing I decided to try Silk Dyed Easter Eggs. I am not sure why this seemed like a good idea! I know why, I saw these beautiful eggs on Pinterest and thought I can do this. This project seemed easy enough. I went to the thrift store and bough 6 silk ties and got an old pillow case to cover the eggs.

After I had all of my ties I thought I would hate to have to throw out my beautiful eggs after a week. So I decided to blow out the eggs before decorating. ( I found direction for this online) I will not give any advice on this topic because it was a disaster. I got 7 eggs out of my 12, and it took hours. My best advice is have someone else do this step for you!


The next step was easy or so I thought. I just needed to wrap my eggs with the silk tie ( you do have to take the liner out of the tie) and secure the silk with twisty ties. Then I wrapped each egg with a piece of white fabric. The most important part of this is wrapping the silk as tightly as possible. That will give you a better transfer of the pattern onto your egg.

Finally, you put the eggs in a pot of water with 1/4 cup of vinegar and boil them for 20 minutes. If you choose to blow out your eggs first you will need a metal colander to keep the eggs in the water. Once they are done boiling let them cool and unwrap your masterpiece.

Above you can see  each of the ties and how the egg turned out. I think I should have tied the silk tighter around each egg but I was fearful of breaking my delicate eggs.

Silk Dyed Eggs

Above our my beautiful eggs in a basket of Easter grass that I grew myself.

Easter Projects

This is going to be a couple days late but things were absolutely crazy around this place between Joe's 1st birthday party and Easter. So hopefully some of these ideas will inspire you for next year. I will start with my first project which was growing grass for my son and my two nephews Easter baskets.

This was super easy I just grabbed some of the plastic plant saucers that would fit the bottom of the Easter baskets I had. Then I added soil and quick grow grass seed. Within 7 days I had beautiful grass that did not get stuck to everything like the plastic grass. 

John's Easter Basket

Joe's Easter Basket

Birthday Boy- Then & Now!

April 5, 2011

Happy Birthday Joe! I can't believe it has been a year! You have been such a wonderful blessing. We had a great day playing on our new swing set and eating ice cream cones. I will share photos from today of  soon but I wanted to put a photo of Joe & I a year ago today!

April 5,2012

A Year Ago Today!

April 4, 2011 My last pregnancy photo!

      Last year at this time I was calling my husband to take me to the hospital for the delivery of our son. I would love to tell you a dramatic story about contractions or my water breaking but none of that happened. I guess I should start at the beginning. Two days earlier I woke up and knew that my water had not broken and I had not wet my pants, but I was somewhere in between. So I called the doctor and was told to go to the hospital ( I could not believe this, I was in tears, I was not ready). After about three hours at the hospital it was determined that my water had not broken and I was to go back home!
     Fast forward two days, I was in the kitchen getting ready to go to my non-stress test and my dog was freaking out at me. Keep in mind I had been leaking fluid for two days. So I decided to try the little strip that doctor had given me at the hospital ( the doctor gave me a a little slip to test the fluid to determine if it was amniotic fluid so we didn't have more false alarms), the strip immediately changed color. So off to the hospital! I was excited this time, I had been having a lot of low back pain.
    I had been getting ready to eat breakfast when all of this drama occurred, but I poured it out because our birth class said it was not a good idea to eat during labor, BIG MISTAKE! It is not a good idea to eat during active labor, I was not having any contractions, and once you get to the hospital they only give you ice pops.
   At the hospital I was checked again and again the doctor did not believe my water had broken. Instead they decided that I had a high leak that started on Saturday, so I was staying. I got into bed and the started pitocin. This was fine I was feeling great. To give you a timeline it is a about 9:30 AM on April 4, 2011. I spent the rest of the morning relaxing and wishing I ate breakfast.  Around 1:00 PM they decided to break my water and that was when I thought I would die.
  At that at time I was ready for the room to be empty, I wanted to see no one. I decided it was important for all parties involved that I get my epidural. Once that occurred life was good again. I spent the afternoon and evening in good spirits. I was no longer in pain but I was hungry. I did not start to get grumpy until about 9:00 PM,  I felt like the labor was going no where. I was 3 cm when I got to the hospital and I may have been about 6 cm around this time.

My sister and her husband.

   I believe I finally hit 10 cm around midnight but they wanted to give me another hour so the baby would be lower in the birth canal. Finally, at around 1:30 AM I was allowed to start pushing. It was a miracle or so I thought. After about two hours of pushing I no longer thought the pushing was a miracle. I was just wondering if I would ever see my baby. We had been through several episodes of American Pickers, and there was nothing on TV at this point ( I had a wonderful epidural I was not in pain so we were watching TV in between contractions). I do remember my nurse telling me that if the baby did not come in the next hour, we may have to look at some interventions. It was 3:30 AM, I knew that this baby was not coming through my pushing, so I basically watched time tick away for the last hour. Finally, around 4:20 AM the doctor came in and he was going to try and use the vacuum to help me get the baby out. At 4:39 AM Joseph was born at 7lbs 13.6oz.
     This was the most challenging day of my life and I would not change a minute of it! Check back tomorrow for picture of Joe from then and now!

Chalkboard Wine Glasses

Well, it has been almost a month since I created these glasses but I am still excited to share them with all of my fans! Wait, I don't have a single fan! It doesn't matter I am still gonna share. I decided to create a chalkboard tray and set of wine glasses for my sister-in-law, for her 30th b-day! She loves to entertain and I love giving gifts from the heart.

The first step was  finding the tray and glasses. I found the tray and glasses at Target. My Sis-in-law has a beautiful white kitchen so I searched high and low for this tray! In addition I bought a can of chalkboard spray paint, set of stencils, and painters tape.

For the tray I used the painters tape and old newspaper to cover the areas that I did not want to paint. This was easy.

 The glasses on the other hand were not nearly as easy. The first time I taped the stencil to the glass and covered everything I did not want to paint with newspaper. I thought this was brilliant, but the squares did not turn out exactly how I wanted them to. If you don't mind fuzzy lines or wanted to add a border to your glass I would recommend this way of doing it. It was quick and easy to complete.

 Take 2, I was determined to get the straight lines that i had imagined (lucky I bought extra glasses in the event I made a mistake). This time I cut the pattern out of painters tape and stuck it to the glass, then I covered everything else with old newspaper. This approach was  more time consuming but I do believe the final product was worth the time.

 I think the tray turned out great! This was easy and a great way to tell guests what you are serving.

 Below are some of the final shots of the glasses. I did have my husband use a razor to help create some super straight lines.

 This is the final product gift wrapped and ready for the party. I added a bottle of wine to finish the gift and I wanted to get chalk and write Happy 30th Birthday on the tray but I forgot to get the chalk! I least I remembered the wine!