Since the Christmas decorations came down our living room has looked a little naked. There’s one frame on our shelf that I’ve been filling with subway art for each holiday and thought I’d keep it going with a winter theme. And then what’s the point in making subway art if you don’t share it? I picked the perfect day to share- it’s currently 12 degrees in downtown Minneapolis. Hello winter!

Click the image to download or use the link below the image. It’s 8×10 to be printed on 8.5×11 paper. File is PDF.

Download – Winter Subway Art from embeshop

It was so hard to choose but this has to be my favorite taken just a few weeks ago… my little guy at 7 months.

PS. hope to get back to the weekly entries!

I’m a sucker for free downloads, but I especially love the calendars below. They’re fun and modern and a little bit of style to my otherwise boring office. Hard to believe I’ve been at my job for a year and the only decor I have is a few pics of the kids!

They are all free downloads (yay!) and while you’re visiting the sites check out all their other printables. So cute! So here we go…

Creative Mama Kokeshi Doll Calendar

*image from Creative Mama

These are so cute I squealed when I saw them. Which one is your favorite? I think I like July the best. All the pig tailed ones are adorable too though!

505 design monthly calendar with editable text

This calendar rocks because you can open it in Adobe Reader and add your own events… like birthdays and anniversaries.

Redstamp yearly calendar

The big “2012″ got me on this one.

Every year growing up our neighbor across the street would bring us a big box of homemade goodies. It was something we looked forward to and always remember when Christmas rolls around. My favorites were the gingerbread cookies.

While I never asked I always pictured her with her kids and grand kids baking away all day in the kitchen. Kids running around on a sugar high from eating too much frosting and sprinkles and flour strewn about. A tradition she’s been doing for at least 20 years. (That’s how long my parents have been in their home).

It’s those kind of memories that I want my kids (and the neighbor kids!) to have. So this morning we’ve been baking and just finished these little guys, Peanut Butter Reindeer!

Recipe from Bakergirl. They are delish and the only thing I had trouble with is the cracking in the tops of the cookies.

Up next are some Red Velvet Cake Balls and chocolate dipped candy canes. Hope to post more photos as we finish!

Cooking. Sometimes I love it sometimes I hate it. I’m more of a cook out of necessity person but I do enjoy a good cooking session now and then. Our old house had a great built in spice rack. Our new house… not so much. See..

I stuck them all in the cabinet and could never find anything. Plus look at all that wasted space at the top! A search for just the right one became futile and eventually I stopped looking. Little did I know all I had to do was look in the cabinet NEXT to the spices!

Add in a little tape, glue and cardstock and voila — spice rack.

Here’s how you can make your own.

Gather your materials:

-Tape (I used blue painters tape because that’s all we had)

-Glue (I used spray adhesive because again, that’s all I had)

- 12×12 cardstock. At least 2 pieces depending on the finished size of your rack.

-empty boxes (I found the ones with about a 2″ depth worked best for the sizes of the spice bottles)

-scissors

Determine how to stack the boxes to fit your spices.

I had a few of the shorter (2 inch?) spices so I laid one flat and stacked one on top to form an L shape. The red box goes under the blue one. It’s a little hard to see since I taped it up already in this picture.

Cut and tape the boxes together

Once you found the right combo, cut the boxes if needed and tape together. My boxes weren’t the same height so I had to cut one down. I taped a stabilizing piece to the open end so it wouldn’t collapse.

I also taped over the open end so nothing would accidentally slip in.

Unless you plan on moving the shelf around a little tape around the bottom will do.

Cover with cardstock

Measure the front and top sides of the shelf and fold your paper to size. Cut the width if needed. Sorry no photos of this step but here’s how it will look after.

I had to use two sheets. One to cover the top “shelf” and one to cover the front of the bottom “shelf.” You can see in the photo it wasn’t long enough. Oops! What’s the saying? Measure twice cut once? Once you get everything cut to size spray the underside of the cardstock with spray adhesive and stuck it on.

Tada! I didn’t do the sides because honestly who’s going to know besides me?

Here’s a close up. There is also a rack on the left but there was still pasta in the box so I didn’t want to cover it just yet.

Now cooking is a little bit less stressful!

Our new home has these great built in shelves that surround the fireplace in our living room. Coming from a tiny one bedroom condo we have few decorative items to display. I’ve been on the hunt for unique looking vases, pots, statues… not exactly sure what but I keep telling my husband I’ll know it when I see it! The problem is there are 6 selves. Only two of which are filled (one with photo books and the other is a charging station for our i-devices). Four of them have been sitting empty just waiting for the right item – which I’m reluctant to admit may never come.

Then last week it hit me. I can dress them up for the current season/holiday! We won’t be looking at the same items year round, it will keep my creative juices flowing and give me a great place to use all these free printables I keep downloading (is there a “download anonymous” group? I think I have a problem!)

It’s still a work in progress but I’m so proud I had to share what I’ve gotten done so far.

Shelf 1:

I’m in love with Oohmoon’s “One illustration a day, free for one day each day of the year” project and knew I had to incorporate one of the Fall Foliage illustrations. We had just done some pumpkin painting at Mary’s house so it was an obvious choice and a favorite of the Little Peanuts. The left side are scrapbook printables from Canon’s Creative Park site. The right side is  a cutout pumpkin with a 3-d paper twig. I think the brown backing on the pumpkin weighs that side down a little but I had already glued it on and was committed!

Shelf 2:

Can’t forget about the spooky side of Halloween so this shelf has a mini haunted house – another Canon Creative Park printout. The printable includes a cat, witch, zombie and ghost too but all the little pieces seemed so daunting!

The spider in the frame is made from some foam stickers I had picked up last year. You can’t tell but it’s sorta 3D-ish with the spider popping out. Hmm some real web action in the corners of the shelf would probably finish the look really well. I’m putting that on the list for next year!

The three mini vases were an impulse buy from the dollar bin at Micheals. With 3 for a dollar who could resist? They were a frosty yellow color, but I’ve jumped on the chalkboard paint bandwagon and gave them a good spray. It may look like a little alien on the first one but it’s really a skeleton. I’m not the best artist… I may have to get my nephew to do them for me next time. He’s a wonderful artist and he’s only 9! Anyway, I’m thinking of making some black roses to place in them.

So that’s two shelves down and two more to go! Do you decorate for Autumn/Halloween? I’d love to hear about them!

Apparently I have a thing for red and tops with hoods. One of our best sellers is the Little Red Riding Hood Poncho. I made the first one when my girl was only 2 weeks old! Grandma had come over for the day and spent most of it cuddling with her on the couch while I got to rest and knit. Fast forward three years [sidebar: oh wow 3 years already! how did she get so old?!] and with a need for some new fall outerwear I made her a new Little Red Riding Hood-esq jacket.

Oh how she’s grown!

In true “Cathy” fashion I completely winged it using only a old hoodie of hers as a template. It seemed daunting at first and I cut the pieces way to large fearing it would be too small. I now have tons of strips of fleece in my scrap box! There was a mis-cut for the length of the jacket but it turned out for the better. I added an extra 4 inches or so by making a bottom “trim” that goes around the whole jacket. I think it gives it a nice finishing touch. Yay for unintentional mistakes!

She was super excited to model it for me (or maybe just excited to be outside!?) and was a total ham for the camera.

Here’s a close up where you can see the ribbon trim around the front edge… that was added to cover up my wobbly seam. I may add the ribbon around the sleeve/cuff too but those seemed pretty straight.

The extra large buttons are great too. Within a few days of wearing the jacket she figured out how to unbutton it. Using fleece was a good choice because I didn’t have to worry about sewing button holes or how to manage the inside seams. Pinking sheers did the trick. I’m already planning the next one… this time in green. Her favorite color.

This idea was actually inspired by a trip to the doctor’s office. My son went in for his 3-year check up and one of the questions that was asked on the child development guide was something like “Can your child use scissors?” It had never dawned on me to let him try. So what a better way to start than with a craft day!

Knowing my son would have little patience, I prepped EVERYTHING ahead of time. I laid all of our crafting materials on the table and made sure to line with with a table cloth that I could wipe down later. We had everything from stickers, shape punch-outs to markers, glue and of course scissors! The first project was paper cutting. I drew out shapes for him to cut. This project not only got him using scissors but also learning the names of the shapes too.

For our photo album project, I picked up two albums (one for his little sister) and pre-cut design paper that would slide into the sleeve. I also picked out the pictures ahead of time and pre-cut the borders (it is a little time-consuming but SO worth it in the end or else we would have never finished the project ). What my son basically did was choose which picture he wanted on what paper and glued it on.

We then moved on to painting where I set up his easel and let him go to town with washable paint.

My son really enjoyed this experience! Not only did he get to play with new materials, he also learned new skills. The best part of it was that I got to spend some quality one-on-one time with him. Now that he’s started pre-school, these activities aren’t so foreign to him anymore.

We recently did some pumpkin decorating…now I can’t wait to plan a Christmas Craft Day!

Last month our boy was Baptized. My mom being the sentimental type saved my younger brothers baptismal outfit and has passed it down to us kids. I had intended on having our little guy wear it but when I tried on the onesie was way too large which kind of makes sense because my brother towers over the rest of our family. (We don’t know where he got it from! We’re all shorties.) It also only came with a vest, bonnet and shoes – no pants or some lost pants?!

Luckily I’m armed with a sewing machine and a few great online tutorials to whip up some last minute pants and bow-tie.

Initially I wanted to find fabric to match the vest but was unable to find the right shade and texture fabric and went with a cotton bottom-weight fabric in cream. I think it made a nice contrast to the white onesie and vest.

For the pants I turned to one of my favorite bloggers Prudent Baby who has a great tutorial for sewing pants (when are the tutorials not great?!). But because it’s been a steamy summer I made them shorts instead of pants. I also went with an elastic waist instead of drawstring.

Since this was a big occasion I added a cuff to the bottom of the shorts to make them a little “fancy.” I had to do quite a bit of seam ripping for the cuff because I made the legs too tapered, but love how it turned out.

I also had this bow-tie tutorial from Shwin&Shwin bookmarked in my “for the boy” folder and thought it would add a cute touch to the outfit. It was pretty quick to put together. Hubby thought it was a little big but I think it looks darling with the vest. For everyday wear I do agree that it’s a little big and would probably go smaller on the next ones.

So there he is our handsome little guy on his big day. We went without the bonnet because he kinda has an oily head and I didn’t want him to be smelly with all our family there!

My sister in Texas has this toy playhouse that her kids have outgrown. It would be perfect for my kids right now but the cost to ship it up here would have been way too much. After she mentioned it again during one of our phone conversations, it got me thinking about making a playhouse for my kids. It just so happened that I had a large box from an elliptical machine in the basement. I never got around to tearing it down to recycle and good thing I didn’t!

And so my creative juices immediately started flowing. I turned into “architect” and started the blueprint for the house: roof (if you look carefully you’ll see  a “skylight” – compliments of the box manufacturer), windows, garage and door.

Using a box cutter, I trimmed the side flaps of the box and taped them together to form the roof. I then outlined where the door and windows would be and cut them out. TIP: Use your tallest child to measure the height! Next, I used leftover paint from my son’s room and painted the house outside to minimize the mess and to allow for proper ventilation. It didn’t take too long for the paint to dry before I started “laying brick”. Here, I just cut design paper into brick sizes and adhered them to the house using spray adhesive. I also used spray adhesive to glue on fabric for the roof.

After the brick laying/spraying, the really creative projects began! I used fabric strips to line the edges of the doors and windows so that it wouldn’t be too rough for the kids. I used two large Lego pieces (with my son’s permission) for the door knobs. For the garage door, instead of making it function like a traditional door where it would open from the bottom, I decided to make it open and close from the top. That way I wouldn’t have to figure out a way to keep the large flap open and also avoid the chance that it could fall down suddenly altogether. I actually thought my son would take issue with the inaccuracy of it, but he seemed just fine. The flap being at the bottom actually allows for another area for them to spread out and play. I also “planted” some flowers, hung a paper wreath and added the U.S. flag in front for some curb appeal!

For some final touches, I hotglued buttons to the corners of the windows (I was going for that craftsman window trim look), framed some of the kids’ pictures and glued it to the interior for some added decoration. I decided to keep the walls blank so that the kids could draw on it…finally some walls they’re allowed to draw on

There are quite a few more ideas that I haven’t gotten around to yet like making a ceiling fan (made from cardboard – my kids LOVE fans), adding a carpet piece inside and hanging window curtains. One addition my son requested were electrical outlets so that he could “plug” in his vacuum (talk about creative!). So I drew it right on the house and poked a hole in the cardboard with a pencil. It worked out marvelously!

All and all, I was very pleased with the way it turned out. My son saw the initial frame but didn’t see it again until I was finished. Seeing the look on his and my daughter’s face when I revealed it was priceless and made the project totally worth it. The best thing was that I only spent $15 on the entire project. The only items I purchased were spray adhesive, the fake flowers and a paintbrush.

As with any house, be prepared for some home improvements. My little girl is quite a destroyer but I found that kids stickers are great for patch up work! So, it may not be the state-of-the-art playhouse with all the bells and whistles, but it is one-of-a-kind and certainly has more character than I’d ever be able to buy off the shelf.