This winter has felt exceptionally long and I’ve been in a funk lately (missing the warm breeze and SUN!). Whenever I feel this way I always turn to words. Writing, reading, quotes, poetry… you name it. If you follow me on Pinterest, you probably noticed my quotes board has exploded the last few weeks.

While I was wondering around Michaels doing some happy shopping (hehe!) I came across the display of words for jewelry and got inspired to create. The hard part was deciding how to arrange the straps and getting them to stay in place while I tied the ends up! I think it turned out pretty well. In hindsight I would have added another braided or some single smaller straps below the word to balance out the one on top, but I think it’s not too shabby for my first leather bracelet. I’m hoping it doesn’t fall apart on me!

I love taking photos with Instagram because even blurry ones can be salvaged with a filter applied. Check out my blurry pics:

My mom loves photos of the kids, but normal 4×6 prints weren’t going to cut it for Instagrams and I’m a little too frugal to use the many Instagram photo printers out there. Being the crafty type I wanted to DIY it. I remember seeing How About Orange’s DIY pantone chip magnets and thought a fun twist would be to use photos.

While browsing the craft store for magnetic backing and the paper glaze I came across some wooden squares and added those to my basket thinking they would make a nice sturdy base. Plus I have a bad track record with cutting foam board (which I was going to use instead).

Here’s what I left the store with:

- Adhesive Magnetic Sheet (used for photos)
- Aleene’s Paper Glaze
- Wooden squares (1.25 inches, 3 packs of 5)

Using iPhoto I printed the pictures 6 up. Select your photos, choose print, select the contact sheet theme. Change the number of photos in a column to 6. This size will give an almost perfect fit on the 1.25 wooden squares. Cut the photos to size leaving a small white border around the edge. Following How About Orange’s suggestion I taped them onto the wooden squares using double sided tape. Then spread the Paper Glaze on top. (I’d recommend doing a test to see how much glaze to use. My first attempts were too thick and the glaze was still cloudy on some parts. Oops!)

I noticed little bubbles in the glaze and used a toothpick to smooth them out. You can see the magnet of the stuffed dog has a big air bubble on his head (oops again!) After drying overnight I attached the adhesive magnetic sheets. Cut to size then peel and stick. Here’s the back:

And the fronts:

Because I took the photo straight on you can’t see the glossy surface but it’s there, I swear! It’s not as puffy as I would have liked but another coat probably would do the trick.

They’ve held up pretty well. I made these for Mothers Day and gave each grandma 6 and I kept 3 for us. The kids like to play with them… not sure why, maybe it’s because they like to look at themselves?!

Total the cost wasn’t that bad, I tossed my receipt but think it was under $10 to buy all the supplies. I had a 40% off coupon as well.

I’m sort of a tin can and glass jar horder. One of our laundry room cupboards is filled with em! Last night I finally pulled them out to do some crafting.

My garden is almost blooming and with it being wedding season I got a little romantic with my tin can vases!

Love, cherish, adore, XOXO are stamped onto the fabric. The fabrics are bleached and non-bleached muslin cut with pinking sheers and wrapped around the cans. I went the lazy route and taped the fabric on but I think hot glue would be better for handling.

All that is missing are flowers! Edit to add: No longer missing flowers.

We had a little bridal shower for my co-worker and they really added to the table spread. I especially love the color combo of the flowers (got super lucky that they’re in bloom early this year!)

Little Peanut spent a lot of time in the kitchen at our old house (due to lack of play space) and we invested in quite a few magnetic toys to keep her entertained. The new basement playroom has plenty of room but no magnetic surfaces. Inspired by this popular Pinterest pin I set out to find something similar and came up with this:

With little luck finding the right oil pan I stopped by Home Depot and asked for metal sheets. For some reason I kept thinking they came as large as plywood and wasn’t sure how I’d cut it down (much less bring it home!), but sure enough they come in nice manageable sizes in the plumbing section. I got the largest one I saw – 24×36 inches for $10.

Once home I realized we’d have to cover the edges to prevent little fingers from getting cut. First I thought about duct taping around the edges and then covering with fabric but that idea was scratched when wasn’t sure how to make the fabric taut. Then one day (about a month later!) while browsing Michaels I saw their large poster frames and it hit me- duh, frame it! Of course I had to make an additional trip since I didn’t know the exact dimensions of the metal sheet. There are quite a few styles to choose from but I went with the basic Michaels frame – $15 on sale!

I brought it home and took out the glass. If you’re careful you can remove it with out breaking it. There is a little double sided tape on all 4 sides to hold the glass on. You guessed it, I was not careful, it broke all over and startled both kids and hubby! I had no plans for the glass but it would have been nice to keep for later. The metal sheet turned out to be a wee too big for the frame but a pair of decent scissors fixed that problem. Less then 1/4 inch was cut off the width and height. It is easy to cut, just don’t use the good scissors!

It still needs to be hung but I’m thinking it might survive propped up as long as they don’t get too rough with it. It was also intended for the Little Peanut but the Little Guy seems to be enjoying it more (I guess he is the right age for the toys we have. Oh and don’t mind the little scar on his nose. He’s been feverishly trying to crawl, got a little rambunctious and bumped his nose on the ground. Good news is he is now crawling, bad news is he is now crawling. Hah! )

Hours of fun for under $25!

One more DIY playroom accessory crossed of the list. Infinite amount more to go.

My workplace has had a baby boom lately (and everyone has stopped drinking the water!) A few weeks ago we welcomed three little ones to the world. But before doing so we had to have a little party! The ladies of the Interactive Services department put our heads together for this a spring themed baby shower.

Initially we were going for pink and blue but a few of the baked goods wanted to be green (something about the chemistry of the foods and coloring. I’m sure I’d know more if I had actually paid attention in chem and color theory!) so we went with it. It all ended up matching pretty well with the table cloth and other decorations.

Here’s a look a the full table spread. Being interactive geeks we had to include the <h1> tags. And oops, it’s been a long time since I actually programmed anything and forgot to add the closing slash.

It was a lot of fun to put together. Everything except for the Peeps and fruit were made by us. I made the cake balls/pops and diaper cakes. It was the first time making them into pops and plan on making more in the future. The chocolate covers so much smoother and doesn’t leave the small puddle of chocolate at the bottom.

The diaper cakes were inspired by Pinterest. I love the swirl look and it was an easy last minute diy project. You can learn to make your own at Creative Diaper Cake Ideas!

I used these cupcake toppers to decorate the cakes:

- Baby shower printables by chickabug (via U-Create)

- Baby girl cupcake toppers

- Baby boy toppers were made by me. I hope to post the pdf soon. Download the PDF here!

It was a big hit and I had a lot of fun with the planning, baking and decorations.

Special thanks to one of my co-workers for taking the photos!

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!

Christmas has long been over but I finally got around to snapping some pictures of my 11th hour crafting on Christmas Eve Eve (we open gifts on Christmas Eve after Church and a late late dinner. Some years you could say we open gifts early Christmas morning… say at 1am!)

So there I was trying to think of some stocking stuffers for Little Peanut when I remembered this:

We were at the Doctors office and had an antsy pants on our hands. Luckily there was a notepad and pen on the desk to keep her occupied. I remember thinking at the time, “It would be nice to have some kind of crayon roll for these moments.”

So I pulled out the sewing tools and fabrics, got to work and came up with my “On-the-go Artist” pack.

It holds 5 crayons and a small notepad (that you can find in the dollar section at Target).

It closes with a button and elastic loop.

I designed it so you can leave the notebook tucked in while coloring. There’s a 2 inch slot that you put the back flap into. It’s not quite a pocket but could easily be turned into one by sewing one side down. (Which I would do next time to tuck in some stickers!) Try as I may I couldn’t get Little Peanut to stand still long enough to snap a shot of it in action.

It fits great into my purse and is even useful for my own notes when I’m in a bind! (Shhh don’t tell the kiddo!)

It’s based off of this Crayon Roll tutorial from Prudent Baby.

Little Peanut has a lot of fun play cooking by pulling out all the tupperware and pantry items. Her favorite item to cook is soup for daddy. I always try to get her to wear her Little chef apron but she puts it on for a few seconds and then wants it off. She’s no stranger to watching mom (or grandma) cook but aprons have never been apart of our cooking attire so when I saw this tutorial from Prudent Mama I knew I had to make it so Little Peanut could see mama wearing her apron while cooking and do the same!

The tutorial is great and easy to follow. All you need is a fat quarter and some trim. I didn’t have any cute trim so I tried my hand at making a ribbon ruffle. For the ruffle I did a hand basting stitch about 1/4 down from the top, pinned it onto the apron and then machine sewed it on adjusting the ruffles as I went along.

I hit a few snags (more like user issues, but we won’t talk about that!) along the ruffle but it turned out great.

Here it is in action!

I never realized taking self photos using the camera timer would be so difficult. It took at least a few dozen tries before I got one that was in focus and had all of the apron in it!

These Melissa & Doug magnetic letters were an impulse buy and they’ve turned out to be one of the best. They came with a chalk/whiteboard but I stashed that and put them on the dishwasher for the Little Peanut to play with while I cook. I love them because they’re not the typical plastic letters that you see in most homes. Like all Melissa & Doug products they’re made from wood. They’re also super-sized at 2 inches tall.

If you have kids you know that they would never take the letters off and toss em across the house and become attached to one letter and carry it around with them and make you look for it when they’ve lost it. Nope! What kid does that?! Or maybe you’re like me and a little anal retentive then you would never obsess about finding a missing letter to the point of dumping out every toy bin to find it. Nope! Not me!

Ok so maybe me. We’ll call it the “Great search for the letter H.” It lasted for about 3 weeks and got to a point where the Little Peanut would walk by the dishwasher and yell out “H where?!” and come running over to me wanting to look for it. That’s when I decided I would make a replacement using old calendar magnets that I saved (never know when you’ll need a magnet!), corrugated cardboard box, and color card-stock paper.

Step 1: Make a letter template, cut it out.

Step 2: Trace your template onto the magnent, cardboard box and card stock paper.

Step 3: Cutout the letters

Step 4: Glue (I used Mod Podge) the cardboard box piece to the magnet. Let dry.

Step 5: Glue the cardstock to the cardboard box piece. Let dry.

Step 6 (optional): To add a little water protection to the front of the letter cutout contact paper and place on top.

Step 7: To avoid paper cuts make sure the card-stock isn’t too much larger then the cardboard box by trimming off an excess around the side of the letter. I used an x-acto.

Step 8: Stick on your fridge and enjoy! You can see my letters are the “H” and “I” in the photo at the top since they’re purple.

This would be tedious if you do a whole alphabet since you have 3 layers to cut but it would be fun for a name, shapes, or animals. The added layer of the cardboard box makes it more sturdy for little hands that like to crush and bend everything they can get their hands on.

Fabric flowers have been on my craft list for a long time. With the weather getting cooler I did my seasonal closet clean and came across some jersey knit shirts from my pregnancy days. I put them in and took them out of the donate box a few times before deciding to keep them for crafting.

In an “ah ha” moment I remembered an episode of Martha Stewart where she made fabric necklaces from tee shirts with Queen Latifah and a recent tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets on fabric rosettes. After debating on if a necklace would be a good idea (because if you know me you know I’m not a necklace kind of gal) I decided to go with a headband instead. I’m not much for headbands either but there’s a 99% more chance I would wear a headband over a necklace.

And here she is:

Since I didn’t have any fabric glue I used my new favorite crafting tool- the glue gun. It got a little messy at times and I almost burned my fingers but it turned out great (and with fingers intact!). I didn’t have any matching buttons but I did have a string of metallic pearls that I knotted up and glued to the middle for a little bling bling.

Here are a couple of other flower tutorials I’m hoping to try out soon:

DIY fabric rosettes by Susie Harris

Scrunched rosetta by Simply Modern Mom

Fabric flower from Tea Rose Home