silhouettes

As you probably know by now I am a fan of all things handmade and my children most of the time. So of course when I saw this idea a while back I had to try it. I don't remember where I got the idea as it was years ago.

Nevermind the leaves I added to the middle frame. It has all of our names on that frame and I like to keep some things private.

These silhouettes also make great gifts for family members.

Oh, and yes these photos were taken around Halloween.

  Here's what you'll need.

1. a camera
2. white cardstock
3. black acrylic paint
4. a sponge or paint brush
5. scissors
6. printer
7. frame (5x7 or larger)
8. scrapbook paper is optional to use as a background

Ok here are your directions...

1. take a side profile photo of your child.  Having the background a solid light color (like a white wall) will help and upload it to your computer
2. open your photo in microsoft word and resize it so that your child's head fits in a 5 in by 7 in. frame
3. print your picture onto white cardstock
4. now the hard part...cut out your child's head.  Be sure to keep the cute curls and small details
5. paint your child's head (the cut out of course) black.  It will take a few coats.  I like to paint on a paper plate.
6. Once dry...frame your picture OR you can scan it and make make several copies for family.  I would suggest an oval 5x7 frame or a matted 8x10 but it all depends on how big you print your child's silhouette.

I used this fantastic scrapbook paper as a background for my silhouettes.

one year

My precious baby girl recently turned one.  I'm sure every mom says that it's all gone by way too fast now that they are sleeping through most of the night but it's so true.  I have truly been blessed by the Lord with an amazing little girl.  She won our hearts over the first time we laid eyes on her.

She brings so much joy and happiness to our lives.

In just one year we've watched her grow so much.

 from sitting to crawling

 and big smiles

 to running

 and wet kisses.

I look forward to the next year with you my sweet little one.

easy peasy headboard

I'm finally getting back to blogging and have my programs download on my new computer.  I bet you thought I was never gonna post again.

My son's monster room was the first room painted in our home once we moved in.  This was his first time sleeping in his own room (couldn't get the kid out of my bed but I secretly didn't mind all that much) so we wanted it to be something fun and exciting for him to sleep in.  He chose a monster theme with colors that I LOVE.  It's easy to chnage the comforter when he's done with Monsters and still keep the walls and decor the same which was a must. I've shared pictures before here.

Although it was the 1st room painted it still isn't finished like every other room in our home.  We needed shelves, a headboard, and to paint the wood trim white.  Well, all but the wood trim has been done and the latest of these projects is the headboard my husband built. 

I saw some headboard ideas in a magazine and drew up my own version of what I thought would work in my son's room.    I went and had the wood cut at Lowe's and shared my vision with my husband 3 times  so he could build it for me. My husband is so great about helping me build my visions and all my projects I throw at him.  He's cool like that. 

Here's my drawing.  We used 1x8's for it and just cut them to fit his full size bed.  I wanta say 54in. wide but it's been a couple of weeks and I still have my mommy brain (hoping to use that excuse for at least another 4 months).  Our cost was under $20.

We chose orange to match his stripes on the opposite wall.

His room is really coming together nicely and it's a fun room which is important to us.  I love decorating but more importantly I want my home to be a place we want to live in.  My mom had a room when we were growing up that we avoided at all cost and I swear she would know if we even walked through that room.  I never want to have one of those rooms.

I'm linking to:

 My Backyard Eden

Fingerprints on the Fridge

It's fun to Craft

milestones

My sweet little diva (well earned and deserved nickname at this time) is 7 months old and she is crawling.  She has servants us to take her where she wants to go so at this time she just crawls when she really wants something.  I have a feeling that once she understands the whole concept of crawling and the freedom it'll bring her we will be putting up the baby gates.  She still doesn't have any teeth but her gums seem to work just as well at mashing up anything she can put in her mouth.

the gak attack

It's been raining nonstop for too long over a week and so we have gotten creative when it comes to indoor activities.  The other night I made my son some Gak to play with.  Remember that stuff?  My inner child came out as I was playing with making it.  Here's the link to the super easy recipe.  I got the idea from the Make and Love It blog (how does she find the time to be so creative?).  I used her suggestion and got the liquid starch at Wal-Mart in the detergent aisle.  It wasn't the cleanest idea but most fun ideas are messy.

new hair + other things

Well, since my title says it all, I guess that's all for now.

I kid, I kid...but I do like my new do.  Isn't it funny how just geting some highlights or a new haircut can make you feel so great.

I haven't posted in a while because all this snow

has finally melted and the grass is green.   Here is a picture from last year when we bought the house. 

I need to take a new picture soon because in no time our home will once again be covered in snow.  So now that the snow is gone (woo-hoo) we are spending countless hours outdoors getting our garden ready, doing yardwork, and playing.

Aside from playing outside I have started teaching sewing lessons to my 5 year old son who just HAD to sew up a pillow for his zhu zhu pet to sleep on.

Ok, I know I'm his mom and should praise all his many talents daily but I am gonna be completely honest when I say that he picked up sewing faster than some adults I have taught.  More importantly he enjoyed it and was so proud of himself.

Oh, and my sweet baby girl turned 6 months old since my last post.

Isn't she cute?  She's such a handful.  A very happy baby with a very short temper.  Isn't it amazing how God gives us so much patience, love, and endurance to make it through motherhood.  We're still not sleeping through the night but I am hopeful that she will sometime before college.

So that's what I've been up to.  I'm hoping to have some projects to share with you soon but I can't make any promises.

leprechauns beware

My son's kindergarten class is hoping to catch some leprechauns tomorrow by building leprechaun traps.  The kids were instructed to use all their favorite things as bait.  You know, lucky charms, gold, rainbows, and clovers. 

Here's our trap.  We are hoping to lure the little guy in with some gold.

Once he goes up the ladder to get to the gold he will fall through our invisible trap floor and into our jar for safe keeping.  We won't know until tomorrow if the trap works though.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

happy birthday dr. seuss!

If you have school aged children you probably already know that today is Dr. Seuss' birthday.  A good friend of mine called me yesterday asking if we had any Dr. Seuss dress up items because her daughter's preschool class is gonna have a Dr. Seuss dress up day on Thursday.  I didn't but told her if she picked up some felt I would be happy to help her make something great.

She came over today with some red and white felt and in less than 2 hours we had a fabulous hat and bowtie.  My friend also glued on some white felt to a black shirt.  I bet her daughter is gonna look so cute.  My son loved the hat I made her daughter so much that I might be making another one soon.

the monster room

If you have been following my blog for some time you will remember my son's monster room from this previous post.  If not, go check out the before pictures of his room.  It's hard to believe this is the same house we bought sometimes because we have done so much painting and personalizing to it.

So here's a refresher for you.  Here is my 5 year old son's monster themed room.

I tried to focus more on the colors from the comforter than the monsters because as we all know, kids will grow out of themes fast. 

I have been working on his room since we moved in and it's still a work in progress. I recently added these cool star lights up behind his bed.  They are from Ikea and are great night lights.  I put them on a timer so he can read with his flashlight and those star lights at night before he falls asleep.  I have been thinking about making a fabric headboard for his room as well.  They look pretty easy to make but I have to find the perfect fabric.  Navy blue, maybe?  Hmmm...Any suggestions?

I also bought a really cool lamp, some shelves, a mirror, and a magnetic board for his room when we went to Ikea but they are all waiting patiently for my dear husband to put them up.  Our walls are plaster which is a pain to nail/ screw into so my husband asks that he does it so it's done right.  And to be honest I don't want anything falling on my kids' heads so I like my husband to put those things up. 

Once I get that stuff up I'll take some new pictures to share.  I am tempted to paint the trim in his room along with his closet doors white (like we did in our room and the kitchen, what's with all the wood trim?) but that will have to wait until it's warm enough for me to open the windows to paint them.  That should hopefully be in a couple of months.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love North Dakota winters?

Merry CHRISTmas!

I will keep this short since I am typing with one hand and holding baby with the other. Have a safe (especially if you live in my neck of the woods and are getting all this snow) and merry CHRISTmas from my family to yours!

ahead of schedule

I am on a roll this year. Seriously. I have gotten all but 2 or 3 presents ordered and most are already wrapped. I took the kids in to get their Christmas photos a couple of days ago and I ordered greeting cards while I was there so that's done. I can't avoid showing you at least 2 photos. Aren't they cute?

I have even managed to put up most of my Christmas decor. (patting myself on the back) Here are two photos I took with my camera phone as I was putting it all up. It's a work in progress but you get the idea.

featuring yours truly

Chris, over at Just a Girl did me the honor of featuring my blog on her feature friday post today. She featured my son's monster room I posted before and after photos of a couple posts ago. Here it is again if you don't want to scroll down.

If you haven't checked out Just a Girl I suggest you do it asap. She has some fantastic ideas that you will want to try yourself. One of my favorites was the house number in vinyl on the outside of her door. As soon as I paint my front doors I am doing the same thing.

The set was bought from Target and can also be bought online here. I found some accessories for the set like book holders, nightlight, and bean bag in store. I have had a few comments asking what colors I used for my son's room and so I will g ahead and post it here. We went to Lowe's (if you recently moved, use your 10% off coupon you got from the post office) and got all of our colors there. Some colors were color matched but most of them were from their Olympic line. My son's room colors are from the Olympic line but they ran out of the quart sized paints the day we needed them so they color matched all the stripes to make them as close as possible. So these colors aren't the exact colors I was gonna use but the closest Lowe's could get (and I am pretty picky).

top stripe (teal): Just Jazz A57-4
2nd stripe (orange): Field Poppy A24-6
3rd stripe (lime): Lime Green B68-4
bottom stripe (navy): Celestial Blue C54-6

The light blue/ teal color on all the other walls was in stock and so we didn't have to color match it. That color is: Galactica B57-2. The white was the same color we have used for our trim throughout the house and it's also an Olympic color and it's: Delicate White D40-1.

Tips and tricks:

1. I used a satin paint finish cause it's not matte and you can clean it (a must in a kid's room) and it's not too shiny either
2. I painted the darkest color on the bottom to avoid letting the navy darken the room.
3. I painted the stripes on a wall other than the first one you when you walk in to avoid making the room look smaller. I think the stripes actually make the room look longer.
4. I just went with a lighter version of the top stripe for the rest of the walls. I am sure a light green or orange would work as well if you go light enough.
5. I used 1.5 blue painters tape for the stripes and did have to do some touching up but it wasn't too bad cause I really pushed the tape down. If you have textured walls you will probably need to do more touch ups.

before and after

We have finally gotten to the end of the unpacking in one room and it's my 5 year old son's room. He has more toys than a toy store (no joke) and it took a lot of planning, throwing away, and organizing to get it all to fit but we did it. (the closet is housing about half of the toys)

We also had quite a bit of painting to do. My son wanted this monster's theme and so we painted to match it and I am quite pleased so far. The funny thing is that most of his old room decor and keepsakes all matched it perfectly. I must have a thing for these colors. Oh, and we got the comforter set at Target.

Here is a before picture of his room when the previous owners lived in this house. It's a little dark for me.

And here is what it looked like 10 minutes ago (and I hope it looks like this in the next 10 minutes).

My husband might not admit it but he wasn't sure about the stripes but I just knew it would be great and it is. It matches the bottom side of the comforter. Never mind all the junk on the dresser (now I made you look at his dresser).

I still need to add a shelf, put up wall lights, buy a bed skirt (thinking navy blue), and add the window treatment. I am making a cornice for his windows and need to figure out what color fabric I should go with. I was originally thinking navy blue or red but I am just not too sure now. If I had left over sheeting from his bed I would use it but I don't. Any suggestions?

For now I am happy to have so much done and ready to move on to the next room.