Tissue Paper Tree

Isn't it a beauty? I know I am bad with the camera ... If I could have just gotten a better shot, but you get the concept right? Good :) I got my inspiration from here such a great blog! One day I will come up with a great idea of my own, but for now I will copy others who come up with fantastic ones!

I followed her tutorial mostly, I did change a few things: I did not fold the tissue paper into squares, lets face it people I have an 8 week old who thinks cat naps are enough for her, so I had to do this fast, I'll admit it I just kinda crumbled the bottom of the tissue paper to make it look somewhat like her folded flowers, I tried the folding thing but It just took to long ... as a result of my "crumbling" it is NOT as fluffy as hers, and fluffy is cute!! But It s still great looking! I did use a paper cup and scrapbooking paper to make my "cone"

I think I should jazz it up with some "ornaments" maybe I will .. Hope you all are having a great week!

Cupcake Ornaments

LOOK at these BEAUTIES!!! I just love them!

I helped "host" a baby shower last night, and the theme of the shower were cupcakes.

My job was to make decorations, favors, and help set up.

It took me forever to come up with a favor idea, I had a ton of ideas but nothing seemed quite right.

However when I saw this tutorial I was hooked!

Because the shower is in December and it's Christmas time and it was a cupcake theme what better than a cupcake ornament? PERFECT

On the table I set them all up and wrote a note to all the guest:

Take one and hang it on your tree, and everytime you glance at it, please pray for baby and me!

And of course I snuck about 5 or 6 ... maybe 7 ok you got me, for my tree :)

SO EASY TO MAKE TOO!

Our Advent Calendar

I really like the advent we are doing this year! Its cute, kid friendly, and Lu loves it *thats what matters*

 I made "24" snowmen, completed with fabric scarves (PERFECT for those scraps you dont want to throw out and have on hand!), and a little black hat.

Underneath the hat is where the "activity" for the day is! Lu loves it, she has been going over there to see under the hat all day :) I wish I would have lifted a hat and took a pic but I forgot!

Our Calendar is simple this year mostly because we are still adjusting to out "bigger" family.

• Some of the Activities are:
• Decorate Tree
• Movie night
• Read a Christmas story
• Sing a song together
• Dance around the house
• Go to Steak n Shake for a shake
• make an ornament
• do a craft
• paint
• playdate w/ a friend
• bake
• walk the neighborhood looking for Christmas lights
• Drive around town to see the lights

ect ect ... you get my drift right? Simple yet fun! I love having an advent keeps you busy while waiting for Christmas, and it also keep me accountable to do things everyday with Lu no matter how busy I get! I think I should make one every month :)
Check out our advent from last year here

What does your Advent look like?
Many more Christmas projects coming this week, I've been crafting away during Tierney's naptime :)

Matching Thanksgiving Dresses

This year for Thanksgiving I made the girls matching dresses!

Aren't they too adorable? I followed the tutorial for Tierney's here! Isn't she getting so BIG?! 7 weeks already!

Lu's tutorial was a mixture of a few different ones, there are so many t-shirt turned dress tutorials out there! And I think its looks so cute on her!

This is my neice Lissy with the pillowcase dress, following the tutorial here, originally this was meant for Lu but on Thanksgiving Eve I tried it on her and decided pillowcase dresses look cuter on younger kids, and I needed something more "grown up and sophisticated" for here ... thats when the t-shirt dress came about!

I love how all the dresses are different styles, yet they match and look too cute!

The love of COUSINS!

Hope you all had a joyous Thanksgiving, this year and every year I am blessed with wonderful family and friends!

Thank you all for continuing to read my blog even though its been very sparce lately! Hopefully I will have some Christmas projects to share soon!

Tierney's First Handmade Outfit!

Have you ever noticed there are no Halloween costumes that will fit a 2 week old? HA! Yes it's true. So then what do you do if your sewing skills are not quite good enough to make a costume and your local fabric store had run out of Halloween fabric? *Yes the very small Joann Fabric, only fabric store within a half hours drive is OUT of Halloween fabric*

 Well....you compromise of course, and you make a Florida Gator's outfit, and send her to the Halloween party as a "Gator Fan" and you are sure to have one HAPPY Daddy, because of course he ADORES the gators! *even though they are playing miserably this year*

You can find the skirt tutorial here, I love this blog! Have you ever visited it? Talented girl, that has my style of crafting!
Then of course the onesie, just cut a simple heart and sewed it right on, easy peasy!
The bow tie/hairbow was simple too! I sorta kinda followed this tutorial I basically halfed her measurments, because if I would have made it regular size then you wouldn't be able to see Tierney's head LOL!

PROUD PAPA!!!!

Meet Tierney!

Isn't she precious!!!!

Born on Friday 10/08/10

at 9:06 am

weighing 7 lbs and 4 oz

with a lot of love from big sister!

More pictures to come! I haven't had time to upload many!

I forgot how busy I would be!!

Cookie Jar Re-Do

I threw a baby shower back at the begining of this year, the theme was "cookies & milk"

I picked up four of these goodies at good will for $5 bucks for all of them!

They've just been hanging out in my garage since the shower, getting no good use!

UNTIL...

I had a crafty idea of what to do with them!

yep you guessed it, something for the nursery, making all the bows I've been telling ya'll about, I needed somewhere to store them! So I painted those nasty wood tops in bright colors to match all the rest of the goodness going on in the nursery, had hubby put up a shelf, and VOILA!!! Bow goodness :)! Now go to the thrift store and find these cookie jars and start painting away!

Diaper Clutch and Wipe Case

I am so excited about this project because they both turned out SOO CUTE!!

I know I am gonna have the cutest baby on the block, and she is gonna have the cutest accessories :)

For the wipe case I followed this tutorial exactly, with the exception of adding ribbon and a singed flower to the top.

As for the diaper clutch, I guess I am gonna have to make a tutorial, because I kinda winged that one, and it looks fantastic! I just love it. It fits 6 newborn diapers, but is wide enough to go all the way up to size 4 diapers.
I also added a singed flower to spruce it up a bit, will be posting more on those later because I have been making those up a storm, she is gonna have so many bows for her hair! Can't Wait!!! Just 2 weeks left and we will be adding a new member to our little family!!!

Bird Mobile

One day I will learn to take pictures like the rest of the bloggy world, but for now these will work. However I must say this bird mobile looks SOOOO MUCH cuter in person!!!

I *gasp* when in Babies R Us and I saw the prices of mobiles ... oh my!! So I made my own for about $5 bucks! Getting my inspiration here but making it a tad different!

Don't you just Love it??

Again bear with the pictures, but here is a better close up of one of the tiers. so cute!! I think its fun and whimsicle!

This is what you need to make it:
1 small embriodery hoop
1 large embriodery hoop
paints
scrap book paper
ribbon
fishing wire

I took the hardware off both embriodery hoops (making 4 hoops when taken apart) be careful not to split the wood of the hoops when taking off the har ware, then I painted them several times each and let dry. In the meantime I just free-handed the bird onto scrapbooking paper and cut out, when hoops were dry I hole punched the bird, put a ribbon through, and hung it onto the hoop *I hot glued the ribbon into place* I then tied the hoops together with ribbon, and hung from ceiling with an eye hook and some fishing wire.

Go On Go make your own now! You know its too cute to pass up!

Baby Shower Goodness

Warning: Picture Overload :)

My baby shower was a little over a week ago! It was wonderful and I am so Thankful to all the women who shared in that day with me! Thought I would share some pictures with you all.

I had an "Ice Cream Social"

It was too adorable, with all the toppings in waffle bowls and the table to the right *had ice cream on it, which we put it there last min so it wouldn't melt."

The Centerpieces were absolutley ADORABLE, and all around the room was "ice cream garland" which is pictured around the tables and above her name. Aslo in this picture in the background you can see "Little ice cream cones" They are actually the favors, bath fizzies on top of ice cream cones with a pom pom cherry on top!

We played silly games

giggled ALOT!

And of course we ate some ice cream!

I wish I could have got a picture with everyone but with over 25 wonderful women there it was nearly impossible, but above is my mom, 2 sisters, and of course Little Lu who is wearing her big sister shirt :)

And pictured here are the 4 wonderful women that threw the shower for me (plus myself) but I didnt do a think I just sat back and relaxed they did all the hard work!
Thank you to all the wonderful women that did such a great job and to all the women that supported us in our new adventure!!! Just a little over 5 weeks and we will get to meet the newest member of our family we are soo excited!
Stay tuned later this week I will post nursery pictures and all the goodies I have been making!

I'm Still Here ...

Can you believe that Lu and I still actually do crafts and have fun?? My camera skills are getting weak though and I haven't been taking to many pictures, heck I've been sewing up a storm too for my friends baby shower gifts, I know SHAME on me for not posting, however recently I have gotten a few emails asking how we are ... so heres an update :)

I am 29 weeks pregnant, OH yes and I have the belly to prove it!

And heres all the bellies to prove all the baby showers I've been attending LOL! Lot of bibs, burp cloths, blankets and I have even whipped up a few wrist rattles:)
Lu is enjoying her summer, attending camps, and having fun with good ole' mom! I hope to be posting more soon!

Lots O' Meatballs!

Yesterday we took a trip to visit my sister and after hours of playing together the kids needed a little more hands on interaction so we put them to work rolling meatballs for our speghetti dinner, now neither my sister nor I had ever let our children touch raw meat before, so there was EXTRA handwashing involved!

But they actually loved it!

Lu picked out the meal bc thats her favorite!

Lis made itty-bitty meat balls

while Aidman made giant meat balls and they all enjoyed the fruits of their labor at dinner, Lu and Aidman had 2 giant helpings Yum Yum!
Please link your Kids in the Kitchen post to the comment section!

Kids In The Kitchen 4th Of July Goodie

I found this really great treat here when I was browsing the net the other day!

Looked nice and simple and delish, so Lu and I set out to make it!

We had most of the items on hand, and added a few of our "own" touches

We used pretzels *a couple handfuls*, about 12 oreo cookies, a handful of choco cheerios and a handful of honey nut cheerios, almond bark and M&M's ... YUM!

As pictured above Lu broke all the pretzels in half, and the oreos into small pieces, & threw on the cheerios. The Above picture is what is should look like before the almond bark goes on top!

I melted the almond bark and Lu put some red & blue M&M's over top, she was 3 steps ahead of me :) I wasn't done pouring the almond bark before she was already putting on the M&M's silly girl!

This is what is should look like now, let dry for about 30 mins or more THEN ....

Break into pieces, put in a nice big mug and let your guest have at it!! It was SOOO Yum and alot better than I expected! And to think, you can make so many variations :)
If you have a Kids In The Kitchen post please link up in the comment section!

Better Late Than Never ... Kids In The Kitchen

I know I have been slacking on my Kids In The Kitchen post ... but who would have thought that summer would be just as busy if not busier than the hustle and bustle of school year activities??? We are fortunate to live in a place where everything is just a jump away, into the second week of summer and we've been busy with the beaches, water parks, playdates, vacation bible school and more!
And because of our busy schedule I decided to post something SOO SIMPLE! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Kids In The Kitchen can be fun even with the simplest of things!

For fathers day we made Joshy's favorite foods, Tilapia, green beans, italian bread, and baked potatoes. Lu JUST LOVES "snapping" the beans she did the WHOLE package, was content and joked around the whole time! I love how she took a "manoutnoues" task and make it fun!

Please Link all your kids in the kitchen post to the comment section. If you have things you did while we were on "break" feel free to link those up as well!!

Wordless Wednesday

We did Lu's B-day party at the roller rink!

Lots of kids and good times!

This picture .. I love it! Reminds me of the late 80's early 90's

with the leggins and the roller skates!!

Now all she needs is bigger hair!

Linked up here for Wordless Wednesday!

Big Ol' Dirt Cup

I thought this would be fun to share with you all! I was asked to bring a "kid friendly" dessert at a Memorial Day get together we went to. I decided that it be fun to make a dirt cup, and instead of buying all the small individual cups I found this BIG bucket at the dollar tree. It held 2 large boxes of chocolate pudding, 1 large container of whipping cream (whipped up), 3/4 pack of oreos, and a pkg of worms ... and it was ENTIRLEY GONE! the whole thing! We served it with the shovel too, but we had to switch to a spoon because the handle on the shovel wasn't long enough! The kids had a blast with it!

Happy Birthday Lu!

My baby girl is 7 today!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my little Lu!!! May you always be happy and healthy, you have blessed my life more than words will ever begin to say! We love you!!!

Korker Bows!

Don't you just love that SMILE???  It warms my heart!!

I thought I would make some korker bows! I have always loved the look of them! Found the tutorial here and followed it to a "T" I like the look above .. and I made this one fuller by adding more ribbon.

Then of course you can wear a pony or to the side, these are less full, I just added less ribbon.

And of course ... I had to make some for Baby Tierney. They are smaller in length and nice and full, I cut the ribbon 2" instead of 3" like I did for Lu's bows. Isn't Lu being a lovely model for me? Baby Tierney is gonna be one stylish baby and she's not even here yet! And well we all know little Ms. Lu is stlyish too!

Try making them its FUN!