Birth Announcements in my hat!!

This little beauty is Leighton.  She is adorable isn't she!?  Her mommy and I are friends and I made this hat for one of her baby shower gifts.  Her mommy did her birth announcements with this photo! I am so honored to have my hat featured! :) Thank you Tori! :)

Help please! I need a Name!

I'm in need of some help coming up with a name for my knitting shop. I am going to make it a little fun for you guys too. I'm doing a contest, if you think of a cute name and I choose that one I will give you a free hat of your choice! I am trying to do a play on words or something clever and witty. Contest ends Weds 5/25 so submit as many names as you like by adding a comment :)

Crabby Hat

I made this little guy for my friend Tori's son Rylan.  He and his mommy love it! 

Close up photo:

You can now order this hat in my shop in your own choice of colors :)

As you can imagine being that Rylan is 2 years old he is hard to get a photo of sitting still! ;) lol  He looks so handsome in his new crabby hat!

Chocolate and White Striped Birdie Beanie

My hat of the day:

You can find it in my Etsy shop.  I would love to hear any ideas you have for a cute hat! I love custom orders! :)

Football Beanie

I just created a new hat today for my pregnant friend Jessica.  

She is pregnant with her 2nd son Lukas and I can't wait to see it on him! :)

You can buy one like it in my shop and pick your own colors and sport!  I want to make one for me in pink and white with a baseball to wear at the Padres games my hubby keeps getting us tickets to ;)

Something Frugal and Healthy

We are one of those type of families that loves broccoli.  Even my 2 year old screams "more broccoli pleeeeease" at dinner :) However we really only like to eat the broccoli florets and usually discard the stems.  This got me thinking...how could I use the stems too to eliminate waste?

I use Ziploc steam bags on the regular (pretty much because they are fool proof).  So I just reuse the same bag I used for our dinner and steam up the stems.

Throw them into the food processor with a little bit of water just to help it blend together (I'm sure you can also use the blender if you don't have a food processor).

And then you have yourself a puree.

I put mine in a plastic bag so it will freeze flat and store easily in the freezer.  You can add this into any red sauce (spaghetti, lasagna, marinara, etc).  Great since I found out that broccoli has more Vitamin C than an orange and almost as much Calcium as milk!  How awesome to add so many vitamins into your food! :) ENJOY!

DIY T-Shirt Skirt

If I told you that this skirt was free would you believe me?  Well it was free because it came from our "donate to Goodwill" pile!  An upcycled skirt! This adorable skirt used to look like this...

And then I came across an amazing idea! I sat in front of my computer and looked at my husband and said out loud "I've found the solution to all my problems!" He looked at me rolled his eyes and said "what now, honey" and I said "a t-shirt!".  Can you imagine the look I got after that statement!? ha!  Over at Sew Like My Mom she shows all the great skirts she has made!  I loved the blue and white striped one!

Here are the basic instructions

1. Find an old XL or larger t-shirt or polo from your husband's "donate" pile or thrift store

2. Cut across right under the arm pits

3. HAND WIND elastic thread into your bobbin.  (If you let your machine wind it in there it will be too tight!) Use coordinating thread in the top threader.

4. Line up your presser foot along the cut end of the t-shirt and use that as your guide to keep your lines straight.  Backstitch a couple times first to keep your stitches from coming out and backstitch again once you make your way around.   

5. Line your presser foot up to the line of stitches you just made to keep your next stitches straight and sew across again making sure to backstitch both in the beginning and when you make your way back around.  Do this as many times as you like (I did 4 lines of stitches for mine).

6. Take your steamy iron to the stitches to make them shrink up a bit for extra stretchiness.  

7. Take a step back and look at what you have made! :) A "new" spring skirt! ADORABLE!  

This blue skirt was actually my first attempt.  It was an XL mens t-shirt from Dollar Tree!  :)  Pretty much anyone that has a sewing machine and knows how to use it can make one! So get to it! And let me know how they turn out!

Happy Mother's Day

 

My mom and me circa 1986.  Such a sweet picture! :)

 

My youngest sister Amanda (Jenn had work), mom, me and Hayden in downtown San Diego for Mother's Day Brunch.  It was really nice to spend time with the family :)  My mom goes in today for neck surgery so keep her in your prayers please! I'm really nervous about it!  

Circo Love N Nature Bedroom

You can read my last post on how I did the wall art seen here.

Here is the finished product! :)

Hung up the valance, made the wall art and hung up a wind chime that was given to her for her 2nd Birthday from her Papa.  

Here is a close up on the bedding.

Once I get some paint on the wall you will be able to see it says "Hayden" above her bed in white letters. 

Here is a close up on the beautiful wind chime

I am especially fond of the Circo rug I got to go with it! Really adds color to the room (since there is no paint on the walls...)

Speaking of paint... look what I found at Home Depot this morning!!  Perfect neutral color (in case some day Monkey's room becomes a nursery and she moves to the spare room)

Oh and did I mention it was on clearance!?  Only $5 for $33 paint! I am stoked about this!

DIY Love N Nature Wall Art

We finally decided on a theme for Monkey's new bedroom.  I have a ton of pictures to post but first I will start off with my art project/wall art.  Target has an adorable canvas photo of two owls on a branch but they wanted $39.99 for it!  And it wasn't exactly what I was looking for anyway.  So I decided to do something myself! (of course, right!)

First we bought wall decals from Target.  The theme is "Love N Nature" by Circo.  Somewhere around $15 for the roll of decals.  Then I went to Michael's who happens to have canvas on sale 2 packs are B1G1 Free! How much better luck could I get?  So I bought 4 canvas size 11" x 14" for only $7.99 (plus tax).  I have some acrylic paint in my stash of art supplies for reasons I'm not really sure of since I don't have much artistic ability.  I painted two canvas pink and two green and then cut out the decals so I could arrange them how I wanted before they stuck.  My wonderful hubby helped me decide on the arrangement and...drumroll please....

Ta-da!  Wall art for around $23!

Here come some close ups:

Have to give credit to my hubby for this one of the birdies kissing.  I wouldn't have thought of it and I think it might be my favorite one!

Lamp Re-do

When starting our bedroom revamp the first thing I thought of were these lamps.  I got them from my mom when we first moved in to our place and let's just say they weren't exactly my taste but we needed light and they were free :)  Plus I saw potential. 

Here is the lamp without the shade.  I just taped the top with box tape to keep it from getting paint in the electrical parts. 

Placed the lamp inside a diaper box and went to town on it with spray paint.

I bought some cute lamp shades from Target for around $17 a piece.  

Total cost for lamp re-do under $20 each!

I think they look so much better! What do you think?

Here they are in the bedroom.