Playroom/Girls Room In The Works Part #3

Last night he worked on adding trees and flower bushes :)

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Thanksgiving Cornucopia #3

Finally all mod-podged! I love the way it turned out! I could call it finished now but i do agree with Hubs that the strawberries would look way better with some green leaves on top. If i figure out how to do it (and if i have the right material) then i will attempt it. If now... well i think it's good enough how it is!

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Playroom/Girls Room In The Works Part #2

Now that football season is over Hubby is able to get back working in the girls room. He finished the the hills and added clouds. Next will be going over it again and adding details like flowers and toadstools and the big tree :)

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Thanksgiving Cornucopia #2

So once i took the aluminum foil and plastic out of the middle the edge of the cornucopia was very thin. I did want to put on layer after layer to make it thicker but i wanted it to look more basket or bread looking. I took more newspaper and rolled it into a thin roll, wet it and morphed it to the shape of the edge of the cornucopia. I then took strips of newspaper and used my flour paste and basically taped the rolled newspaper to the edge of the cornucopia. This is what it looked like when i was done. See that the edge look thicker now? The illusion that the whole thing is thicker. Just what i wanted!

Here is a picture of where i stopped at right now. The inside is covered but the edges and the outside is 1/2 finished. I'm letting it dry and giving myself a rest before i finish it.

There are the finished fruit. Although my artsy Hubby said i should somehow with fabric add tops to the strawberries. (we will see if i get to that!) The Orange and banana had to be covered twice because the material was thin and you still could see some of the newspaper color coming through. I'm glad i got them all done!

I'm cutting it close to Thanksgiving! I hope to have it all done tonight (crossing my fingers). Tomorrow starts the cooking :)

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Thanksgiving Cornucopia #1

This is a very cheap craft project for Thanksgiving. I had everything i needed.

So far i have used:

• Newspaper
• Yarn
• Scissors
• Water
• Aluminium Foil
• A Store Plastic Bag
• Tape
• Flour

Wet newspaper and shape into desired shape. Tie on a piece of yarn.

Wrap yarn around and mold into desired shape. Leave to dry completely

These were my little helpers, with their goofy smiles :)

My helpers told me what shapes to make.

So far here we have an apple, orange, two strawberries, pear and banana.

These we will layer with mod podge and fabric to give it that rustic look.

Next we make the cornucopia. Mix flour and water together till your get a soupy texture. This is our homemade glue. Take aluminium foil and form into desired cornucopia shape. Then wrap the cornucopia shape with grocery store plastic bag. Tape bag snugly to shape. This will hopefully allow the newspaper not to stick and where you can pull out the aluminium foil once dry.

Cut newspaper into strips. Paint flour paste on one side of the strip of paper and wrap onto cornucopia shape. I used a basting brush.

Keep layering newspaper strips on, the more layers the stronger the cornucopia will be.

Once enough layers are applied you could either mod podge with fabric like the fruit/vegetables or you could paint.

Next steps soon to follow!

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Christmas Houses In Progress

Inspiration:

(How to's to this haunted house here)

I took this ladies idea and since i'm not a Halloween person, i decided to switch it to a Christmas house. I ordered most of my supplies from Hobby Lobby's online store on Monday and today I got my package. It was only like $3.95 shipping and i still got to use the 40% off coupon, so i think it was worth it if i calculated what i would have spent in gas!

Here is what i got:

The three houses came in a set, then i got two sizes of miniature Christmas trees, some miniature wreaths for over the doors, some miniature Christmas lights and then some glitter glue sticks :)

First step is to pain them a base color. The tutorial has you use spray paint and in black. I didn't want to spend more money on spray paint so i used a foam brush and my acrylic white paint.

So i have them all painted on the outside and i painted the inside of the big house, thinking about the light reflection of the candle inside... but i didn't on the other two.... i may go back and paint the inside of those to for safe measure.

See the popsicle sticks on my paper? I cut the bottoms to be flat and i'm thinking of painting them white and using them as a white picket fence for the big house. We will see how that works. The way i am thinking of doing it sounds like a big headache to me... we shall see!

Had to stop for now because it's dinner time. I'll do more later!

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Playroom In The Works

Our inspiration is going to be Thumbelina and fairies. Where we will add toadstools and cottage

Cottage section:

The inspiration

So the wall and the playhouse will be painted like the inspiration cottage picture as in it will have the planks painted. I will be making curtains for the many windows.
Hopefully i can get Bob to cut and arched door for the play house and make it and a working door.

The mural section:

The inspiration

So Bob plans on painting a mural complete with a tree that ends up spreading over the tops of both of the closets, toadstools, flowers and fairies. In that tree he's going to try and add shelving that is camouflaged into the branches. The shelves could store books, or little fair figurines if i have my way. LOL

In that closet you see there in the left corner, i would really like to make a little performing stage. A curtain would hang there and all there dress up cloths would be stored back there, where they could change and pretend all they want.

That's the plan at the moment anyways. I'm just hoping we can get it painted and the kitchen set built before school starts up again... i might be dreaming

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Travel Drawing Pad #1 Finished

I wrapped the elastic thread near the cap with material and sewing the heck out of them. Then did the same thing when connecting it to the clips. Then i krazy glued the caps to the ends of the pencils.

I then sewed a little case for the pencils and an elastic strap with a snap to go around the bundle.

That way maybe it won't go everywhere once in my bag.

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Quick Dress

So i found this material on clearance for $7 a yard and i thought the colors went great for my daughters birthday in less then half a week. So i bought a yard even though 3/4 a yard probably would have been plenty.

So in a very short time i had this dress:
You simply sew up one seam which becomes the back and add the straps, done! Hopefully this looks really cute on her!

Mess up and corrections:
I cut the seam 1/4 from where i wanted my seam. I did serge the seam first then sew a regular stitch down it for a better hold. Well since i cut it so close to my seam, the elastic thread in the material didn't all get caught in the seam. So i had to go back and catch the elastic threads by hand and secure them so they wouldn't continue to ravel. It was doable and not to hard, just took more time then the dress should have taken. If you do this i would suggest cutting the material wider then you need it so all the threads will be caught when you sew and you don't have to go back over it by hand. Plus you can always serge or cut off the extra afterwards.

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Making Travel Activities For My Girl

So i woke up after a nap the other day with lots of different ideas. It was weird cause i wasn't even thinking about this before i went to sleep.

See my husband is a football coach and football season is just around the corner... that means me lugging my girls to as many games as i can. When you have a 2 and 3 year old girls it's kinda stressful to take them to games and not have them go crazy sitting for so long.

Last year i made two of these: 

Added the child straps to the travel seats. This helped a ton! But my next issue was entertaining them and also my diaper bag. See after shoving all the snacks and cups and toys to try and keep them occupied in my bag, it was crazy full and would get jumbled as soon as i would have to pull something out.

My goal is to try and keep things as simple as possible. See it's just me lugging a double stroller, three stadium seats a big stuffed diaper bag, and later in the season blankets. Yeah i look pretty pitiful and sad looking lol. I'm sure i cause some to laugh. This year i'm kinda dreading it cause i'm trying to potty train my oldest and i don't even want to think about lugging her, my youngest and my diaper bag into the bathroom. Haaaa.

Anyways here are some of my ideas i'm trying to make reality.

• So this was my supplies:

And this is what i did with them. I used the marker lids and attached the elastic thread through the holes in the caps.

The caps will be krazy glued to the colored pencils (hope it holds up) Then i will wrap the elastic ends in fabric and sew the heck out of them to keep the elastic in place.

Then the other end of the elastic on the colored pencils will be attached to the clip.

This way the girls will be able to color and the colored pencils will not me able to drop (or be thrown like they like to do at the games) I'm hoping this works good and entertains them for at least a little while.

• Then i looked on Amazon for an 'I Spy' book but was having a hard time. I could find lots of i spy games but i wasn't finding just the books which i found to be very odd. I adore I Spy books. Heck me and husband love to sit and try and figure them out together to this day!.

So instead i decided to make my own. I purchased these:

 (100G. Lot Assorted Resin Flatback Scrapbooking Buttons Cabochon Craft Supplies)

and...

(100g. Mix Assorted Food Cup Cake Fruit Candy Resin Flatback Scrapbooking Buttons)

That's about 150 little trinkets. I bought this little glittery photo book:

So i figured the one page can be the i spy page and the opposite page can be the page showing you which items you are looking for.

Also while looking for my daughters birthday gift i came across this and ordered it.

It was described as "Choose from among fourteen fun themes, slide a card into the gameboard and start looking for matches. This handy memory game includes one game board, seven double-sided game cards and a two-player scoreboard. There are no loose pieces and everything conveniently stores in the board."

Next will be figuring out a better travel bag/diaper bag and i think i already have the idea for it!

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Some Thrift Store Finds

We used last weekend to celebrate are 5th year of marriage a week early because that is when our schedule permitted. Well the kids were shipped off to the grandparents and we did the things we love doing which were flea markets, thrift store and antique store shopping.

The whole time my girls were on the brain and good thing too cause i found some great stuff for them.

See our plan is to build them an adorable retro kitchen set for their play room and our inspiration was this set here:

We have already purchased the hardware to make it and even this awesome retro clock to be put into the stove. (or frig, not sure yet)

So while we were out i snatched up these items as well:

 This will be awesome to use for the sink and we already have a real faucet we will be using.

 I was so tickled to find these matching red dishes for them! Two mixing bowls and a canister.

 Then some mini pots

 Some plates and a mini bread dish. I'm going to try and make a cloth loaf of bread that will fit in the pan and it would be extra sweet if i could figure out how make the bread be in slices held by velcro so they could cut slices of bread off too.

 And this... well i couldn't resist! This was new, i saw it at the World Market while we were there and i am in love with miniature things and if we are doing retro here we have to have one of these colanders! And the mini wisk, well why not right?

This was one of the first things i found. It was on clearance at Hobby Lobby, clearly missing the top tray but i figured since it was a steal, and uber cool that maybe Hubby could cut a piece of wood for the top and we could paint it and try to make it look like it was suppose to be there. To fun to pass up!

Now several years ago... where this whole thing started was from some after Christmas shopping i was doing. We came across these:

They were a couple bucks each and all cloth! I was sooo excited but i knew our girls were to young for them. Since my Hubby is so nice, he let me buy them for the future. I am so happy i bought these! I love the cloth food those and wood are the best.

So that is our collection so far.

I plan on sewing them place mats for their table, maybe a runner... we will need some dish towels and other fun things. I get so excited when i think about it! LOL

Confession: 
I have always been addicted to miniature things. They are amazing! I get so tickled when i see them! My poor Hubby had to withstand me acting like a little kid and doing funny dances when i would come across anything mini. 

Go even smaller though, i love barbie or doll things... or i was am a huge fan of the barrower movies... haaa anything small, i go crazy over. As a kid i would take my brothers old computer motherboards that he was throwing away and clip off the little pieces that stood up from the board (have no clue what they are called) but they looked just like cans or jars and the perfect size for barbies! I loved them.

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