30 Minute Mini-Notebook

The motivation for this project came from an upcoming parenting conference. I was really looking forward to it. I wanted to mini-notebook to take notes in that would be set apart from all my other journals. I knew that the info I would receive I would be coming back to over and over again through the years and didn't want to lose it. So I got to work and it really took me about 30 minutes.

So here we go:

I grabbed 3 sheets of plain computer paper and cut it in half. The number of sheets and type of paper is very flexible here.
Then, I found some nice card stock scrapbook paper and cut it to the same measurement of my white paper. Fold both of those in half.
Next, poke your holes. I used one of those tiny screwdrivers and it worked great for me. They do have a tool out there that is specifically for this purpose. This may work better if you decide to have more paper. Oh yeah, use some paper clips to make sure your paper stays aligned as you poke through. I made three little holes.
I decided to use some thin twine that I've had in my craft box for years to string my notrebook together. Now stick with me as I describe the threading process. Take the end and thread it through the outer hole from the outside of the book in. Do the same with the other end. Make sure after you thread them through that they are the same length. Then take the two ends and thread them both through the middle hole (one at a time may be easier). I hope this picture helps.
Then tie a cute little bow and double knot it really tightly
And you're done! So easy and quick.

Sunday Hymn Sing

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.

My Fall Tablescape

Here's the table that I decorated. I decided on a fall table. Here's a place setting. I found these great plates at Target and made a little rosette pin as gifts for the ladies.
For the centerpiece, I used the wreath off my door that I made. On a cake stand (under the tablecloth) I placed these pillar candles. I glued those leaves on using tacky glue.And my favorite part, using old glass jars as candle holders. I used a variety of apple sauce jars, spaghetti sauce jars , jelly jars, and others and cleaned them out. I took some fake leaves and taped them to the jars and wrapped a piece of twine around it. After the candles were lit, they looked really cute.
Here's a tip that I just learned. Use different Tupperware under your table cloth to give the table differing heights. LOVE IT!

Holiday Table Decor!

I love this time of year, as I'm sure all of you do. Our churches annual ladies event, Holidays Fit for the King, was amazing once again. My favorite part is always the table decorations. They are done by volunteers. It's amazing to see what these women come up with. Here are a few that highlight some new ideas:

How about using a cupcake stand with fruit? I know, amazing! She had apples with green leaves here, and oranges with fall leaves at another table.
This table uses cute scrapbook paper as place mats. Those coasters are also scrapbook paper glues to some foam.
And then there are the non-traditional holiday tables. Check out stunning table, very classy.
How about Turquoise as a new Christmas color. This table was decorated by Sarah over at Create Studio.
I thought this pink themed table was also great.
Here's a slide show of the other tables.

Stay tuned for pictures of the table I decorated!

I'm Back in Time for Fall!

Wow, I've been gone a pretty long time. And I'm sure most of you are gone as well. But I hope not. Being a mom of two is tricky. I still haven't figured out how to go grocery shopping with two so if any of you have any tips, I'll gladly take them. Here are some pictures of my little mohawk, as I like to call him. And yes, that's a natural mohawk; no styling required!!

Also with two, crafting time is down to a minimum. But that doesn't mean I haven't been doing it. It just means it takes three times as long to finish a project.

I'm so glad fall is here, even though the weather isn't cooperating. Here's a wreath I made for the back door. I loved the idea of a square wreath and I loved the way this turned out. I didn't take step by pictures but it's really easy to make. I got most of the materials at the Dollar Tree. Take a foam board and cut it into a square with rounded edges. Also cut the square out in the middle. I painted the outer edges brown since they would be showing. Then, take some fake leaves and start hot gluing them around the wreath. There's no system here. Just make it look full and luscious. I used 1 and 1/2 bags of leaves, each having 150 leaves. So easy!

Next project: Fall Leaf Banner. I actually got this idea over at Make It and Love It.
This project was also really easy to make. And had very minimal sewing involved.

This next one is one I did with little Isaac.

Every time we go outside, the proclamation is LEAVES!!! He's my little collector. I swear it takes forever just to get in the car. Here's how. Collect leaves different shapes and colors. One one piece of was paper, spread out glue. You gave have your little one help squeeze the glue out. Then have him put leaves on the glue and "pat pat leaves". After you've put your leaves, squeeze on more glue and put another piece of wax paper on that and "pat pat glue". Make sure you (parents) really smooth it out to make the to pieces of wax paper stick together. After it dried, I cut it out for nicer looking edges. It looks really great when the sun passes through the window.

I've got one more project but haven't taken picture yet.

Thanks for sticking with me. I hope to get rolling on my blog again. Check out my other Fall projects:

Fall Ribbon Wreath

Fall Plaque

Fall Window Treatments

Fall Candles

He's Here!

Meet Simon! He made his entrance into the world on September 10 at 10:48 pm. We can't stop singing God's praises for this little guy. The whole experience was amazing and completely different than my first birth. Here he is fresh out of the oven and a very happy mommy.
Isaac loves him already. And check out the matching shirts I made for my boys.
And our first family portrait.We are so overjoyed at God's goodness to us.

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-

who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Thanks for praising God with us!

A Quick Update

When I posted on August 25th, I never thought I'd be where I am right now. Thanks everyone for being patient with my lack of posts.

Here's a quick update.

I'm 5 days past my due date and still no baby. I've gone into labor twice only to have it die down after about 8 hrs. each time. This morning I was sure it was time but got sent home from the hospital.

It's hard to believe that I've been in labor for 2 days now. Feeling really tired and my body is sore from all the work it's doing.

It's also been a faith journey. I'm trusting God's perfect timing and His perfect plan though it's been hard at times. Mostly I'm trusting that He'll help me to physically endure and that He'll get my body doing what it's supposed to to get this baby out.

I hope I have some great news soon.

Thanks for sticking with me.

A Work in Progress

My biggest project in the making right now is this baby boy. Here I am at 38 Weeks (I'm 39 today). So, until this project gets finished, I won't be doing much crafting or posting.

I hope you all will stick with me for the few weeks I'll be out of commission. If even just to see pics of our sweet boy #2.

And please join me in praying that he will come quickly! Thanks!

Flower Rosette Corsage

A few weekends ago, hubby wanted to take my "nice" belly pictures. This is me at 36 weeks (I'm 38 now!)Well, I wanted some casual pictures, but also some nice ones. This black dress is about the nicest preggy dress I have but I wanted to spruce it up some how. So I decided to make this red rosette corsage. I used the same tutorial that I used when I made them with Sarah. Except this time, I made 6 of them, all red. They really are so easy to make.

Then I just strategically placed them on the dress. It looked great. And that red just pops against the green ivy in the back. Here's a close-up. We are very close now. Any wisdom on the transition from 1 to 2???

Monkey Mobile

Continuing on the monkey theme in our nursery, I needed to revamp our mobile to match the theme. This was a little hard because, as you can see, the mobile was quite cute. I just loved the cutie little farm animals, but you just can't make farm animals and monkeys go together. So here's the make-over: I almost didn't tackle this project becuase it seemed way to daunting to cut and sew little monkeys. But a trip to Target and the $1 section reinvigorated me. Here's what I found:

One monkey paci holder:
And two pairs of monkey baby booties.
Total cost $3!!

Step one, remove monkey heads from the booties: SNIP SNIP
As you can see, the back is not too pretty. So I took some brown fabric and hand sewed in around the opening. Very easy but also time consuming. Here's a close-up.
I did the same thing with the Paci holder.

Next, I attatched them to the mobile. Please forgive me for not taking pictures during this time.

First I cut the farm animals off at the top that connects with the mobile. I really had to take a deep breath so as not to feel deep feeling of regret.

Next, I hot glued a thin piece of green ribbon, one end to the middle of the monkey head, and the other to the mobile
And that's it. I got it done in one nap time! I hope baby boy likes it. Only about 19 days to go!

Quilted Duvet and Pillowcase Pattern

Remember my Quilted Duvet? And the matching Pillowcases?Well, I thought it would be a good idea to post pictures of the patterns I made for each of these projects, in case anyone is interested in making their own someday.

Here is the pattern for the pillowcases:

And the pattern for the duvet:
Some notes about this pattern:

1. The striped or dotted sections represent the patterned fabric (in my case, the jungle fabric)
2. The white sections are actually white fabric.
3. The measurements on the pattern are exact. I added 1/2" to each number (1/4" seam allowance for each side) before cutting.

One tip that made is easier for me was to cut out all my the panels on newspaper first. Then i could just pin the right size newspaper to each color fabric I needed. I saved a lot of time this way rather than measuring out each different fabric.

I hope this is all helpful.

Tea Cup Bird Feeder

I saw this idea at the flea market and couldn't wait to try it out myself. Can you believe they were charging $10 each for these? Wow! First, collect your supplies. I got the poles at the neighborhood Habitat for Humanity ReStore. They were $1 each. WooHoo! I tried to find some that were square on one end and pointy on the other end and also were varying heights. By the way, these are stair railings, or spokes, or whatever you call them:)

Next, the tea cups. Where can you get all different and super cheap tea cups and saucers? Well Goodwill of course! I didn't pay more than $1 for any of these. My Goodwill didn't have a super great selection but hauling around a 2 year old to different stores just wasn't "my cup of tea"!

For the adhesive, I picked up a tube of caulking while I was at the ReStore. This, too, was only $1. First, I glued the cup to the saucer using the caulking. After those were dry, I glued the saucer to the pole. Not too hard, huh?!

I had also planned to drill a hole at the bottom to drain the water. This turned out not to be so great an idea. My drill didn't penetrate the cup AT ALL! So if some rain gets in, the cup becomes a bird bath instead of a bird feeder: both very functional.

Check out my very own National Geographic Live!
Now, I know some people do everything they can to keep squirrels out of the bird feeders but I don't mind so much. Plus, I can't really help it. But, the birds are coming to visit too!!! These photos are little fuzzy because they're super zoomed in. I'm very happy with how they turned out. Total cost: $7. Awesome!

Fabric Rosette Pins and a Visit with a Friend

My dear friend Sarah has been having some complications with her pregnancy and has been hospital bound for a little bit now. She was in major craft withdrawal so I went for a visit to give her a quick fix :) I needed a project that was fairly easy, didn't take too long, and didn't require a sewing machine. This is hard because Sarah and I both are very attached to our machines! So I searched and searched and found this tutorial at Little Lizard King. We had both been looking for how to make these rosettes so I was really excited to find the tutorial.

It was so much fun just talking and crafting away. Here's how her flower turned out. I took these pics with my phone because I forgot the camera, which is why they're not that great. Sorry about that. Let's all keep Sarah and little baby boy in our thoughts and prayers.

These rosettes are so super easy that I just couldn't stop. We had a friend over for dinner that night and I thought, why not have craft time with her as well?!?! So we did.
She's actually pregnant (due next week) as well so the most comfortable place for us both was on the floor! So, in 2 days, I made three rosettes! That's how easy and quick they are to make. I have currently "misplaced" the one I made in the hospital with Sarah so here are some pics of the other two I made. They are so cute and so versatile. I'm so glad I found this tutorial!!! I'm off to make another one!