Chalkboard Walls

My heart stops anytime I see a sharpie pen unattended at kid level in our home. Why, you ask? I present to you, kid art by sharpie:

On my husband's heirloom china hutch (please let my mother in law not read this! and does anybody know how one goes about getting this out?!?!)

Some wall art...I don't know, that one on the right I sort of see two ballroom dancers - a tango perhaps?

Anyway, it ain't good. So I've been thinking about using some chalkboard paint to designate areas where wall-drawing is encouraged. I read an article over at apartment therapy  which declared this trend to be very five-minutes-ago (in the comments people actually got kind of heated about why anybody would be stupid enough to put this on their walls. Really? Are there not better things to get heated about in this world?). I, however, don't care much for trend-watching, and think that this is just the ticket for us. So much so that I painted the laundry room door in our kitchen with it - a grocery list I can't lose! Awesome. And the kiddos will (hopefully) leave me alone while I cook (ha ha) and draw on the bottom half.

I worried about chalk dust, and yeah, there is some, but so far it's not enough to make me regret my decision. A wet rag and it's all gone. Here are some pics!

The kitchen/laundry room door

The boys' room. Oh by the way, check out my book slings (tutorial here) over on the right. Love these things. I'm at some point going to cut out some trees and waves from some fabric scaps and applique them on....at some point.

So, here's to no more sharpie marks on the walls and furniture!

Quilting As You Go - I found a tutorial!

In my last post I posted a link to Farmama's quilt squares she's working on, and wondered how she was doing them one by one - or rather, how she was going to put them all together. Well, I didn't find out exactly what she is doing, but I did find a beautiful tutorial with drool-worthy pictures here. This tutorial shows you how to truly quilt as you go...by actually sewing your fabrics directing onto batting squares.

Hers turns out GOR-GEOUS, and huge, on just a regular home sewing machine. I'm super excited to try. I might need to work a walking foot into the budget...Enjoy!

I'm Here, Really I Am

I've just been having a wild, crazy, fun, active Summer and blogging just didn't float my boat so I didn't do it. So there. Got some great pictures, though. I'll probably pull them out during the long cold dreary months to come. But I did want to share some things I made this weekend. It was my birthday so I was determined to make stuff and not feel guilty about it. And I did. To make these look cooler I probably should have done some photo editing, but I'm too eager, so here goes:

Camera strap (on the camera, so you just get to see a piece) I found about 2 yards of the turquoise and white Micheal Miller pattern at Goodwill last week for $1.99! The darker fabric is Amy Butler. And the tutorial for the strap is here.

And a log cabin quilt square inspired by my biggest blog crush, Farmama's post here (can somebody look at this link and tell me what she's doing..it looks like she's going ahead and putting the batting on and quilting them one by one? Can you do this? Then sew them together at the end? It would work great for me if this is actually possible! And how insanely beautiful is her fabric stash? I'm telling you, that woman...)

It was great - no measuring, just scraps. Perfect project for me!

And finally, a freezer stencil pillow case for my best friend's little boy..I'll let you guess his name. It's gonna be a christmas gift - the big one will be a pillow case. Then I couldn't let the outline freezer paper go to waste so I made a little patch out of it and will sew it on....something, I don't know tshirt? bag? Any suggestions? The fabric is good old dropcloth, my go to fabric for just about everything lately.

Anyway, it's good to be back and I'll try to post a little more as we move on out of Summer madness!

Even Better Than a Treasury. Even Better Than Etsy's Frontpage.

I missed this when it was posted. But look where my shirt was featured. I'm swooning. I'm so incredibly honored: The Crafty Nest

First Birthday Preview

So sorry I'm not around much. I will be when the weather gets gloomy, that's when I do my best reflecting and post thinking upping. For now I'm not thinking a lot, mostly just feeling the nice warm Summer air - yep, what I'm saying is there isn't a whole lot going on upstairs lately. That's worthy of posting anyway.

But I have some party planning I figured might be fun to share. A year ago Sunday I birthed my beautiful youngest boy into the water at home. THIS Sunday we celebrate it! We're going back to my parent's house, where it all began, and having a little shin dig, and quite out of character for me, I've planned a thing or two.

My wonderful sister in law sent a bulldozer shaped pinata which the boys are abstolutely ga-ga over. Being hesitant to stuff them full of candy in addition to birthday cake I had the brilliant idea of checking etsy for some sort of non sugary stuffing. Here's what I bought:

nwtoycrafters

A pack of 20 from nwtoycrafters and it was just $40 including shipping! I contacted them and insted of the old fashioned car in the upper right the substituted their sportscar model for no extra charge!

I will also include some of these:

HippoInk

Recycled crayons from HippoInk. Then I got to thinking how kiddos will need something cute to take their loot home in, and etsy delivered again with these:

jardinedepapier

Just cute. Too cute to pass up. And everything so dang affordable.

Then I got all Martha Stewart and decided to make cupcakes with some toppers. Don't know what kind of cupcakes, I'll figure that out later. Chocolate - probably. Anyway, so I got these circles:

ieevva

Approximately 2" diameter, and I made a stamp, using this tutorial. It's a hand holding up one finger, not in the bad way. In the "number one" way. So I figure I'll stamp that on the circle then use double sided tape to sandwich a toothpick with circles = cupcake topper for a one year old's birthday. I do have to mention, however, had I more time, I would have ordered these edible cake toppers because they are so insanely cute and pretty - maybe for Willie's birthday.

All of these things are waiting for me at my mom's house, so I'll report on quality when I get back. She did open up the cars, crayons, and bags though and according to my mom they are absolutely precious and she was shocked at the pricetag on the cars, so I'm thinking we're in for a treat!

I also made this birthday banner:

I did not measure a thing, just cut everything out free hand and slapped it on. I made it two sided so it could hang in a doorway. I like that we can reuse it til the cows come home.

So that's that. It's not all very matchy, but I'm not a very matchy kinda mommy. I think the boys and other kiddos will enjoy. I will try to get some fun pics to share when we get back. Til then, enjoy life!

Sunset and Playsilks

Had a beautiful weekend, made some playsilks for Boone's birthday and enjoyed a beautiful Saturday evening sunset:

I used a loose interpretation of this tutorial to make these - I used orange kool-aid, blue food coloring, and coffee. 

I hope your weekend was as lovely.

Wordless Wednesday I Think They Call It?

Haven't been around much lately sorry, been doin' stuff, this sort of stuff (OK almost wordless):

Cute hat: $1 at goodwill!