Easter Egg Bunting

To quote Heather on Pinterest: "never enough buntings"

(Side note: Anyone else obsessed with this site? Heidi, please join and collect style images for me. Thanks.)

This paint chip garland was way too cute and too easy to pass up.

Trace, cut, hole punch, string, repeat.

I love how it turned out!

A simple, sweet addition to our Spring decor.

We were sitting in the back yard last night enjoying a fire in the fire pit and I was stringing the eggs on to the ribbon. Matt kept snickering, but when I was finished he looked at the garland and commented, "I can't believe you made something so cool out of paint chips."

Awww :)

Crate & Barrel-Inspired DIY Wall Art

Mason's room has been rearranged a few times since his nursery was completed and lately it has felt a bit... disjointed. It was time to get things coordinated once again. Blame it on my OCD. Or my affinity for symmetry. Or having a full day off work.

I'll share some pictures when I have all of the details finished, but here is a little art project I finished this week:

The inspiration? This set of wall tiles I found at Crate & Barrel. It was another case of, "I bet I could make that."

I had some canvases left over from my fabric sign obsession and paint from the trim in Mason's room. First I painted the front and sides of four canvases.

Next, I chose the images I wanted to use for each canvas and traced them onto wax paper. You basically create a reverse stencil by applying overlapping strips of painters tape and then cutting out the design. Just peel off the wax paper and there you have your "stencil".

Stick the tape right on the canvas and paint over it. Let the paint dry and peel off the tape. That's it!

Easy wall art to match Mase's circles and primary colors bedroom. Updated pictures of the rest coming soon.

Easiest (and cheapest) Christmas cards ever

Christmas cards went out last week. It was the first year in a long time that I haven't spent hours and hours trimming cardstock, printing envelopes, tying ribbons and embellishing dozens of cards. With a little person to chase after this year,  "free time" isn't what it used to be. That being said, I didn't want to break down and go the Costco or Walgreens photo card route either (NOT that there's anything wrong with that!)

The compromise? Attempt my own.

I would have loved to have ordered one of MKL Designs' cute holiday cards but doing it myself actually saved money too. Here's how...

1. Dress your baby in a festive holiday onesie and stand him up in a corn field in Iowa to take a few shapshots. Cross your fingers for a good one where he's smiling (a pool of drool on his shirt is okay, that's real life!)

2. Upload your picture to Picnic so you can crop it, add some cute graphics or effects and include your "Happy Holidays" message.

3. Sign up for a Shutterfly account and you'll get 50 free 4x6 prints with your first order. Upload your Picnic'd creation and $3.08 in shipping charges later you'll have 50 ready to mail Christmas cards.

(We decided on the blue and green card with Mason in the corn but I thought the red one was fun.)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Pacifier Clips

It has been a while since I've posted a project and this one has been sitting in my blogger que. Mason likes his pacifier when he's getting sleepy but he won't fall asleep with it in his mouth so we use it most when we're out for our evening walks or in the car. We have one pacifier clip and it works okay. The clip part isn't the greatest.

I saw this stinking cute owl pacifier clip on Give Away Today and it was all I could do not to order one! Okay so it was only $6.75 (around $8 after shipping and a 15% discount) but I was going to wait a day to see if I won the giveaway first. It figures that that evening I went to Joanne's for fabric and happened across some super cute adhesive backed ribbon that looked like the ribbon in that stinking cute owl pacifier clip. Of course my next thought is, "I bet I could make that..."

If Tage had a nickel for every time he has heard me say that he could finally buy the flatscreen TV he has always wanted!

At any rate, here's what I did...

Gathered the ribbon, my sewing kit, some eco-felt and a hot glue gun.

Purchased snaps along with the ribbon at Joanne's to use to secure the clip to the pacifier. The most time comsuming part of this process was sewing the snaps onto the ribbon! Before doing that though, I cut a 16" length of ribbon, peeled off the backing, and folded it in half (so that it adhered to itself.) If I make these again I'm going to use a 20" length of ribbon because the 16" is border-line too short in the end.

At the other end of the ribbon you'll secure whatever you're using as the actual "clip" part of it. I opted for one of these hair clips. I made Mason's first and used hot glue to attach the clip to the ribbon-- failure. He pryed it off after a few uses. When I made the next one I sewed the thing on, which worked much better.

The fun part for most people, cutting out your felt shapes, comes next. This is always the hardest part for me because I do NOT have an eye for stuff like that. Heather, on the other hand... well that's why she has a shop and I do not. :) So if I can manage to fashion a somewhat owl-looking creature out of felt, you can too.

I handstiched some body parts on and added a little detail. If you double up the thread it stands out a bit more.

Then you take that cool fusible material stuff and iron it between your felt creature and another piece of felt cut roughly the same shape. You can tell by my picture above that when I say "roughly" I clearly mean roughly. Not pretty. I'm sure yours will be pretty though. Especially if your name is Heather. Or Julie. Ugh.

Thankfully (for me) when you finish ironing and the felt pieces are happily fused together your mistakes are forgiven and it looks just fine.

Now you hot glue the felt form to the end of the ribbon that has the clip. The hot glue worked well for this function. Mason has yet to pry them apart.

Here is what it looks like when it's finished.

There you have it, the finished pair-- don't make fun of my felt shapes! Someday I'll be good at the whole "creative" side of craftiness. Um, or not. Either way, this pacifier clip cost me less than $1 to make. Think of the possibilities with all the cute felt creatures (monograms? or fruit? vegetables maybe?) you can create to add to the end of the clip! Check out Cranberries and Capers for lots of cute ideas.