Mailbox Revamp

Josh and I have been working to tackle the outside of the house this spring/summer. There definitely is plenty to keep us busy.

Josh is currently redoing our front deck: 

I In the other hand opted for a smaller project. I tire easily and like quick results! :) I still need to paint numbers on the mailbox, but I'm going to use the same paint color as another (yet to be announced) project, so I'm waiting on that color to be final. 

DIY serving trays

Earlier this year we threw a shower for my sister-in-law, Danielle, and her sweet baby, McKenzie. We wanted some cute serving trays to to help make the food table really pop.

The good news - making your own serving trays to match any decor is a breeze!

What you will need:
- any type of plate. (I bought $1 plastic ones)
- Some sorta of stand. You could use candle sticks, glasses, I used a mixture of candle sticks and beer mugs. Check out your local thrift shop - you are sure to find something that will work.
- Heavy duty glass glue
- spray paint to make your stand match your plate.

1. Spray paint your stands. I'd do 2 coats just to make sure it will look good.
2. Place your plate face down a flat surface.
3. Using a pencil, trace the top of your stand on the back side of your plate. This is going to give you a line to trace with your glue.
3.5 (optional) - If you think your base won't be sturdy enough - you can fill with sand before gluing. 
4. Trace a thick line of the glue on the plate as well as on the top of your stand. You want a generous amount of glue to ensure your plate will stick to your stand and be sturdy.
5. Press your stand onto your plate.
6. Leave to dry for 12 hours.

Turkey Onesie

As our little one will arrive (HOPEFULLY) right before Thanksgiving - I wanted to make a special outfit to celebrate her first holiday.

This was very similar to tie onesies I made for my nephews, so I just followed the same basic steps.

What you will need: 

- 1 brown onesie of your size choice (dyed, pre-washed, and dried)

- Fabric scraps- you will want them to be fall colors

- Heat'n Bond Ultra Hold Iron-On Adhesive

- Thread to match your fabric

- Sewing Machine

- Iron and Ironing board

- Fray Check (optional) 

- An hour of time

Instructions: 

1. You need to make your pattern for your feathers, beak, eyes, pupils, and "gobble".
2. Pin your patterns over your fabric.
3. Cut a square of fabric around the pattern - you do NOT want to cut right along your final edges at this point.
4. Remove your pattern from the fabric and cut identical sized squares from your Heat'n Bond.
5. Iron on the Heat'n Bond to the back of your fabric (You want to lay your fabric face down - and place the Heat'n Bond so the paper backing is facing up at you).
6. Once the Heat'n Bond is secure - pin back on your pattern.
7. Cut around the pattern. (We waited to do this because your fabric will fray less if the Heat'n Bond is attached when you make the final cut).
8. OPTIONAL - I added Fray Check along the edges to ensure I didn't get fraying - you do have to let your project sit for about 30 minutes if you include this step.
9. Remove the paper backing from your pieces (pulling the paper from the fabric - not the fabric from the paper).
10. Place each individual piece on onesie and iron on - holding to get a good adhesive to the onesie
11. Unsnap onesie and sew border inside of each piece of fabric to ensure it holds to the onesie. You will want to use thread that matches your fabric as closely as possible. (You will want to do each piece individually - even where the feathers are layered - still stitch around the outside of each individual piece.)

Once everything is sewn on - your onesie is ready to be worn!

What are some of your favorite holiday traditions you did with your family?

Easy Pennant Banner

I wanted a pennant banner in Ella's room to add some color. You can look online for any number of tutorials, but the gist of it is really easy.

Most importantly, you need to determine how long you want your banner to be - and how large you want your individual pennant. Once you figure out how large you want your pennants, create a template from paper (remember you will loose some of your size to seams.)

You will need to cut double the number of triangles than pennants you want. Pin your triangles right side together and sew them together, using a 1/4 inch seam. You will then want to cut off the excess on the tip of the pennant (this is going to make it easier to turn them right side out.

You will want to even off the top of all your pennant. Line them up on your cutting board, use the point as a guide and lay it out so your top cut is going to make your triangle straight.  Turn all pennants right side out and iron.

Once you have all of your pennants together, space them accordingly on your ribbon. (You could use pipping as well and then just sew the pennants inside your pipping). Sew all of your pennants on to your ribbon, leaving extra space to have tassel hang down.

Dresser Redo

When I started to make plans for setting up Ella's nursery, I was set on painting her dresser (and Josh was gracious enough to humor me). I did a lot of research online and Pinterest, but was unsuccessful in finding direction for painting an IKEA dresser - so hopefully this helps others.

We painted a white dresser, but I believe this would work with any color.

The biggest issue I faced in redoing the dresser was the glossy paint that IKEA uses to finish their furniture. I couldn't get any paint to stick to the finished dresser front. I tried primers, sealants, and various different paint types. Ultimately, the only thing that worked was lightly sanding the dresser where we wanted to paint. I then added my painted design and used a sealant to get the glossy look back over the entire dresser. I ended up using Martha Stewart's paint line for the dresser.

Thanks to my Uncle Chuck, we were able to add a bright finishing touch to Ella's dresser. We used glass paint to add bright yellow glass drawer knobs - I think it makes the whole piece come together. Thanks Uncle Chuck! 

Note - when you do sand the front of your drawers, do so lightly.  You do not want to remove the color, so in my case - I brushed off the gloss, but the entire drawers remained white.

I suggest painting the drawer fronts before assembling the dresser, however, if you already have your dresser set up, you should still be able to complete your furniture revamp.

Little Man Onesies

My Pinterest "Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails" Board is overflowing with ideas for crafts, if we were to have a boy. In this 2-month long period of waiting since we were supposed to find out the baby's gender - I found myself dreaming about being able to start on some of my projects, someday.

To busy myself and easy my crafting cravings - I decided to make onesies for my nephews for Christmas. (Another wonderful benefit of being an Aunt!) I was going to just do the tie onesies that you see everywhere - but after making one, I got up the confidence to go for the vest as well!

What you will need: 

- 1 white onesie of your size choice (pre-washed and dried)

- Fabric scraps

- Heat'n Bond Ultra Hold Iron-On Adhesive

- Thread to match your fabric

- Sewing Machine

- Iron and Ironing board

- Fray Check (optional) 

- Less than an hour of time

Instructions: 

1. You need to make your pattern for your tie (and other elements).
2. Lay out your pattern over your fabric to make sure you like the part you are cutting out.
3. I chose to make the tie and knot 2 different pieces - in the future, I'm going to make these one piece as it will just give me 2 fewer edges and remove the necessity to match up the pieces exactly. I did like making the knot from a different section of the fabric so it looked more realistic.
4. Pin down your pattern.
5. Cut a square of fabric around the pattern - you do NOT want to cut right along your final edges at this point.
6. Remove your pattern from the fabric and cut an identical size square from your Heat'n Bond.
7. Iron on the Heat'n Bond to the back of your fabric (You want to lay your fabric face down - and place the Heat'n Bond so the paper backing is facing up at you).
8. Once the Heat'n Bond is secure - pin back on your pattern.
9. Cut around the pattern. (We waited to do this because your fabric will fray less if the Heat'n Bond is attached when you make the final cut).
10. OPTIONAL - I added Fray Check along the edges to ensure I didn't get fraying - you do have to let your project sit for about 30 minutes if you include this step.
11. Remove the paper backing from your pieces (pulling the paper from the fabric - not the fabric from the paper).
12. Place on onesie and iron on - holding to get a good adhesive to the onesie
13. Unsnap onesie and sew border inside of tie fabric to ensure it holds to the onesie. (Another thing I like about doing the knot and the tie separately is that you get the definitely from stitching between the two pieces - but you could still sew here even if it was only one fabric piece.) You will want to use thread that matches your fabric as closely as possible.

If you are going to add the vest - do the same process - cutting out two pieces - the reverse of each other. One for each size of the vest.

The trickiest part of this whole project is maneuvering your fabric so you can sew on the applications - I made a different pattern on a newborn onesie (whereas these are 18 month size) and the newborn was much more challenging just to move around the sewing machine. 

Have you done a custom onesie? What did you do?

DIY Frame Chalkboard

This Pinterest inspired project has been one of my favorites! (and easiest!)

I wanted to make a chalkboard to take my "weekly bump pictures" as well as for the nursery. I went to Goodwill and bought a cool old-looking frame and painted the frame with simple wood paint. You could do this to give it texture or a pattern, but I wanted something simply. For the chalkboard, I actually just covered the painting that was already inside the frame, but you could paint the backing to the frame, or a piece of wood you adapt to be the back.

I've actually had to repaint the chalkboard portion once already. I first painted it with the generic brand paint - but each time I used it, it didn't really erase and after a while it was looking really dingy. So I recently just repainted the chalkboard with Martha Steward's chalkboard paint - and I'm much happier with the result - so I recommend purchasing nicer paint.