Re-Post of 2 really fun projects

This is a re-post from my family blog.  These are two projects that I had a ton of fun making.  I am actually planning on doing name letters for my other little boy once we move!

Wall Hangings

I cut up scrapbook paper and taped the pieces together. I then grabbed my stencil and wrote words on them. The paper matches the colors in my living room! I also have two other frames to fill in to make a "box" of the 4 pictures.

I have always wanted to make hanging letters of Devlin's name for over his bed. I found the letters at Joann Fabrics for $1 each and I bought the paint at Walmart for about $1 each.

Next I painted a base color on each of the letters.

Last, I taped off different patterns and shapes with masking tape and painted different colors for each. I took off the tape and was left with pretty cool name letters!

Transportation Birthday Cake

My kids just turned 3 and 1 in June.  They are 2 years and 6 days apart and it's a ton of fun having them close in age.

My 3 year-old LOVES trains.  Anything to do with trains, he wants it.  My 1 year-old likes all sorts of transportation and is just starting to attach himself to cars.  So I decided to do a transportation birthday party for them.  It was a lot of fun, and my favorite part was the cake.

Here it is:

Here is the overall picture I took.  It's just really too bad that I didn't think more about the background when I took the pictures.  I'm really bad at that...

Here is a close up (and over-flashed) picture of the train I made out of Rice Krispies and fondant.  I also bought eyes for the train and car to make them a bit more cute.  I used Chocolate sprinkles for the coal in the back and I cut little circles out of oreo-type cookies for the wheels.

Here is the car that I made.  I used Rice Krispies and fondant, along with the eyes and cookie wheels. 

The road with the car led to Kade's tunnel with his 1 birthday candle.

The Chocolate flavored licorice train tracks led to Devlin's tunnel with his 3 candle.

Here's another look at it.  I almost forgot to mention the lake in the back with a licorice boat.  Wish I had gotten a close up of it! 

Here's a better picture that my sister-in-law took when the cake had been brought outside for the party.  Way better background and overall picture!!

Well, I think I learned a lot from doing this cake.  Mainly, I learned that I need to learn how to take better pictures :)  I also learned that I need a better platter to put my cakes on.  Also, I learned that I still really love creating cakes.  It's been way too long since my last cake! 

DIY Felt & Wooden Dowel Flowers

My kids love doing crafty things.  I love crafty things.  Sometimes we actually love doing them on the same day too! 

I always seem to have ideas floating around in my head for what to do with the kids each day, craft specific mainly.  Either I don't find/make the time, or the kids are not interested or in the mood for crafts. 

One day though, everything worked out perfectly and we all crafted together :)  I had been wanting flowers for our yard and garden for quite some time, and back in May I decided just to make some fake flowers to bring color into our yard without spending the big bucks.

Here is what we came up with:

Here's Devlin showing off his work :)

We did several variations of flowers.  I really liked how the yellow ones turned out.

Here's a pretty purple flower; different angle.

Devlin playing with his new creation :)  He loved the whole project!

I cut out all of the felt to make several different flower variations, then I cut out yellow pieces for the middle parts, and then green for the leaves. 

Hot glue was our friend in putting these together on the wooden dowels.  They have held up pretty well in our yard, through all sorts of weather (for about 3 months now). 

Master Bedroom Organization

A while back I realized that I had a lot of necklaces that did not fit in my jewelry box.  I also realized that I wanted something to hold all of my lotions, and other miscellaneous things that were just sitting on our dresser.

For the lotions and things, I took an old shower caddy, cut fleece to fit in and lined the bottoms with cardboard to give it more stability.

Here it is:

I did it in blue to match our room decor.  It hangs in our room on a nail to match my necklace holder.

I love my necklace holder!  I took an old piece of wood, stapled the fabric onto it, and then my husband put nails in it to hang the necklaces on.  It hangs up and the necklaces stay neat and organized!

These little things that we made have added a lot to our room and I find that I will actually wear my necklaces now that I can easily get them (without taking time to untangle everything). 

How to wrap a present with pizazz!

This post is going way back to Christmas of 2012.  In my husband's family, we pick names for Christmas and we got my sister-in-law's name!  She loves movies, but I didn't want to just plainly give her movies; so a plan began to brew in my head...

I decided to do a movie package, with candy and popcorn and fun things.  That was good, but I wanted it to be better still; the wrapping had to be exciting!

Here is what I came up with:

Here's the whole thing with a tray.  It looked great!

 

Here is the "drink" filled with candy, and a candy cane for the straw!

Here are the "film reels" made from an old can, with cardboard, tape, and paper!  We filled them with candy.

Another view.

 

My wonderful husband created the logo for her present!  It looked so cool!

A side view of the popcorn box.

I printed out pictures of popcorn on yellow paper and then I cut them out and glued them on yellow paper for the "popcorn"!  We wrapped the movies in this paper.  Underneath the popcorn, we put real bags of popcorn!

 

Here's the top view!  I was really happy with how it turned out :)

My sister-in-law loved it so much and she still has it, which makes me incredibly happy.  I loved being able to put so much love, time, and effort into an awesome present for an awesome sister-in-law!

What to do on a sick day?

Both of my kids are sick with colds.  Devlin has a bronchial infection as well.  Both kids then started throwing up today.  I was up to my head in puke and frustration!  Anyway, I got Kade to sleep and pulled out the yarn and cardboard for Dev and I.

Here is what we came up with:

I drew out several whimsical-type hearts on cardboard that I had laying around.  I used a box cutter, because that was the easiest.  I at first was going to do 'traditional' style hearts, but I really liked the whimsical ones.

Here is Devlin 'modeling' the heart.  Can you tell that he doesn't feel well?

He was having fun dancing around with them :)

Here is the main heart that I did.  I really liked using the different fun types of yarn that I had to make it even more non-traditional.   I just wrapped yarn around the cardboard and tied it off.  I did have to use tape on the points so that things would stay in place. 

I think this is my favorite heart of all.  The fluffy yarn was so much fun!

I then laid everything out to see how I wanted to put it all together.  And then I started tying it together with red ribbon, you know for Valentine's day.  

 

Here is the completed project hanging on our front door.  It's fun to come up to the house and be greeted with it!  

Happy (early) Valentine's Day!

Don't forget September!

I was browsing through Pinterest and I found this pin.  I decided that I wanted to do a bench and so I ran over to the thrift store and found two old chairs that had the seats falling apart.  I brought them home and we took the seats off.

After the seats were off, we placed them side by side and then tied them together at the bottom and top. 

Here are our pieces!

My wonderful husband then cut all of the boards and we used cardboard to space out the wood seat.

Here is the final product!

The bench now has a happy home in our backyard and we love it!

Fast forward to October!

During the beginning of October I was in and out of the Hospital twice in two weeks and lots of doctors visits in between - it was not fun at all. 

Halloween slacked in the costume department unfortunately.  But here goes sharing what we created a day before Halloween!

Here is my little make-shift lion.  I had wanted to use felt strips to make his mane, but time ran short

Our little elephant didn't want to put his nose on.

Finally, everyone is happy after going trick-or-treating at Grandpa's work.  We have our lion and elephant and the two Zoo Keepers!

It was really cute and we got a lot of compliments.  I think they were fun to make from things we found at the thrift store and around home.

It's amazing what you can do with things laying around ;)

Back in June/July...

Our first son turned 2 in the middle of June and then I had my second baby boy 6 days after!  We had Dev's birthday party the first weekend of July and it was a train birthday!

I researched on Pinterest for ideas of what to do since mommy brain was prohibiting me from thinking even the most basic thoughts, let alone plan a toddler party.

I found several ideas for birthday banners.  Here is the Pin.

Here is what I came up with:

I cut out all of the trains and wheels and then my awesome sister-in-law wrote out the letters on it.  I was very happy with how it turned out.

Next I wanted to do something like this.

Here is part of what my brother-in-law created:

He was ridiculously amazing and made an entire train, but I had to feed the baby and didn't get more pictures.

I also really wanted to make an awesome train cake, with fondant and everything.  I had it all planned out, yet it did not work out for me.  I guess I underestimated how busy I would be with a toddler and a 2 week old (HA!)

Even though I am not entirely proud of my work, I will share what I did here:

I think what I was most disappointed with was the color.  If I had had more time, I could have perfected it, but I did not.

So there it is, the highlights of my 2 year old's train birthday party!