Pushing My Boundaries

I am not a "crafty" person. Not in the least. Sometimes, with the help of Pinterest and very detailed step-by-step instructions I like to attempt crafty things, but not often. And craft projects with the boys? Ha. Even the "super easy and kid-friendly" crafts would take me longer to set up (and clean up) than I could expect the craft to keep my boys' attentions. Not to mention the fact that I'd probably have to go to the store to get any supplies (my craft supplies are pretty much limited to paper, crayons, a few paints, and adult scissors). However, I know the value of a good craft project for building creativity, and I know craft projects tend to develop lots of good fine motor skills, so I'm trying to make a conscious effort to do them more often--no matter how much "work" it may be for me.

Since my car was still in the shop and we were stuck in the house for the second day in a row, I decided to flex my craft muscles yesterday and let the boys have some fun with paint. In the bathtub. And it was actually pretty awesome. They were entertained for almost a solid thirty minutes, and other than the fact that Garrett tried to eat some paint, there weren't really any snafus. This definitely has "rainy day" activity written all over it--and who knows, may I'll get really wild next time and give them some paper to decorate as well!

In other news, my car is fixed and ready to be picked up. I'm glad to have a vehicle back, although I was kind of hoping this would be the impetus we needed to actually go out and get the van we've been talking about getting for months. I know it's good that we weren't "forced" into getting the van and now we can take our time shopping around when we do actually start shopping (probably not for a few more months since we just put a couple hundred dollars into repairs for my car), but I'm kind of just ready to be done with the whole thing. Oh well. All in good time.

Easy Valentine's Day Craft

I know, I'm not really giving you a whole lot of time to do this craft before Valentine's Day is actually here, but don't worry. This craft can be pulled off in no time at all. In fact, I actually spent more time prepping for and cleaning up from the craft than it actually took to complete the craft itself. But if you aren't crafting with a ten-month old, then you probably won't have to worry about taking some of the precautions I did (or cleaning up some of the mess I had to deal with).

All we used was some tape, paper, and red paint. If you are feeling really artsy you could easily mimic this concept on any medium (I'm thinking you could make a pretty awesome canvas this way!)  but until I have an artist a little more reliable (and interested in the crafting) I'm going to stick with paper.

The most tedious part of the prep was tearing the tape into pieces and making the design I wanted on the paper. In honor of Valentine's Day, I opted to write "LOVE" and use a heart shape for the "O". (And if you are crafting with a little one like me, I'd also recommend taping the paper onto whatever surface you'll be using--in our case it was William's high chair tray.)

Then cover the paper with paint using hands, feet, brushes--whatever works.

(Don't let his look of concentration fool you. He actually had very little interest in any of this process. I ended up doing most of the painting while he just watched)

Once the paint has dried, peel off the tape (carefully!) and bask in your beautiful masterpiece. Easy peasy!

Birthday Craft

Someone special in William's life celebrated a birthday earlier this month, so we decided to do a little craft in honor of the occasion!

Now, if you are thinking that it's a little bit of a stretch to call that a craft, well, you are probably right. But--it required inspiration from the internet, the use of craft paint, and cleaning up a mess afterwards--so I'm counting it as a craft in my book. Plus it was super cheap--also a win. That being said, I've seen lots of cool artwork ideas using hand/foot prints, but I won't count each of them as individual crafts for my 30 before 30 project. Although I do hope to try a lot of them out, especially as William gets older and a little bit more cooperative.

Baby "Suspenders"

When we got dressed up to go to the Speakeasy last month, we needed a cute mafia-esque costume for William. I started by perusing Amazon, and found some definite winners.

Can anyone say Mafia boss? All he is missing is a semi-automatic rifle

I think this is awesome--mafia party or not!

However, $20+ was a little more than we were looking to pay for something William would pretty much only wear once. And since Darrell wasn't planning to do anything too extreme for his outfit (black pants, white shirt, suspenders, tie, and fedora), we decided we could keep William's outfit simple as well--black pants, white onesie, and suspenders. Rather than buy a pair of suspenders (that again--he'd probably only wear once), I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to do some crafting; it didn't seem like it could be that hard to create a pair of suspenders fit for William. And you know what? It wasn't!

Here are the only supplies I needed:

A yard-ish of strap material from Hobby Lobby, black pants, and my sewing kit (with needle, thread, and hook and eyes)

All I did was sew the strap inside the front of the pants and the eye in the back, and then I put William into the pants and pulled the straps over him to figure out where I should sew the hook. Easy-peasy! And super cute when finished!

Although the suspenders worked plenty well, I would definitely do a few things differently if I were to do something like this again. For starters, I would get straps that had some elasticity to them; it would have been nice to have been able to sew them a little short and then stretch them to fit so that they stayed on his shoulders better through the night. On a similar note, I wish I hadn't bothered with the hook and eye at all; safety pinning the straps to the back of his pants would have guaranteed a much better fit, and I doubt the pins would have been uncomfortable for him. Live and learn, though--I'm still pretty new to this whole crafting business!

Breast Milk Storage

Even though I stay at home with William and don't have a huge need to have a supply of breast milk built up in our freezer, I've still pumped enough to have a small stash so that Darrell and I can get away for an evening if we want to (or if I have to go on some medication that prevents William from nursing). However, since we aren't constantly using it, storing it was a little bit of a pain, especially since whenever we did want to pull some out we wanted to make sure we were using the oldest milk. So, with a little resourcefulness, we built our own storage container/dispenser, which will always ensure that the milk we grab is the oldest, plus it will keep it organized in our freezer. And guess what? I even remembered to take pictures of the process! They're like the crappiest pictures ever because I was too lazy to make sure I had good lighting, but I suppose they are better than nothing.

One of the best parts of this project? I didn't have to buy anything for it and it took me less than thirty minutes to complete. Of course, if you aren't a nursing mother, this craft probably isn't very useful, but maybe you can be creative and find something to do with it besides storing breast milk ;)

Supplies Used:

A shoe box that is the size of your breast milk bags (or slightly larger)
Duct tape
Box cutter or small knives to cut through the cardboard
And obviously frozen breast milk (which I opted not to include in the picture--if you don't know what it looks like then you probably don't care about what it looks like)

Step One:

Cut a piece out of the bottom of the lid. This is where you will dispense the milk from.

Step Two:

Cut off the other end of the box. You will put the milk into the box from this end.

Step Three:

Tape the lid to the rest of the shoe box (you could probably tape the lid on first, but I figured it would be easier to do the cutting without the lid attached).

Step Four:

Fill with milk!

Now, whenever I pump, I can just put the bag in at the top, and whenever we need milk I can just pull it out from the bottom and I know that it will be the oldest stuff. Not too shabby for a mere thirty minute investment of my time!

Homemade Tile Coasters

So far, this whole attempt at being crafty has been pretty successful. Not only are the crafts turning out well, but they are also pretty darn cheap to create, which definitely increases my satisfaction with them.

We made these coasters as favors/prizes for my sister's bridal shower, and they were super easy.

Supplies used (all but the tiles, which we found at a hardware store for twelve cents!):

Cork, Mod Podge, Foam Brushes, and Waterproof  Clear Acrylic Spray. You'll also need scrapbook paper or whatever you plan to decorate the tiles with.

Directions (sorry I don't have pictures to go with the steps; we were a little rushed the day we were making them!):

Glue cork to the back of the tile (I suppose I should have included super glue as one of the supplies. Whoops!). I just glued a small square of cork to each corner, but if you could do as much as you feel is necessary.

Cut your paper to fit the tile--we found that it worked best to cut the paper just slightly smaller than the tile so that we didn't have to deal with excess hanging off the edges.

Apply a thin layer of mod podge to the tile. If you use too much mod podge at this step the paper will curl as it dries (you could also use a spray adhesive for this step, but I opted not to because I didn't feel like buying another item if I didn't need to).

Place your paper on the tile and cover generously with mod podge (don't worry if it makes the paper look a little milky-colored; it will dry clear!).

Allow to dry, then coat with waterproof acrylic spray.

That's it! Super easy, reasonably cheap, and totally customizable! The possibilities are endless; I even had guests at my sister's shower sign extra pieces of paper so I can turn her "guestbook" into coasters. Hopefully I'll get that done before her wedding (which is next week already!), but I'm not making any promises.

Painted Vases

One of the craft projects that I was eager to try for my sister's bridal shower was DIY Painted Vases. It seemed like a really easy concept--cover some vases with painter's tape (in whatever pattern you want), spray the vases with any color paint, peel off the tape, and bam! Done.

And you know what? It was pretty much exactly that easy! Granted, I can't really take much credit for these particular vases because my brother's fiance Macy did all the work on them... But I'm confident I could mimic her efforts and create them myself.

Before...

After!

A few pointers. For one, be careful with curved vases. Macy found that it was difficult to get the tape to lay flat along the concave part of the vase, which left some of the lines not quite as crisp and straight once the tape was removed. Nothing terribly noticeable, but a consideration nonetheless. You may also want to consider doing multiple coats of spray paint, depending on how opaque you want the paint to be. We opted to finish the vases with a coat of waterproof clear acrylic spray just to give them some extra protection, but that step probably isn't necessary if you are going to use the vases strictly for decor and not actually put cut flowers in them. Oh, and the easiest way to spray them so that you don't get paint inside the vase? Turn them upside down. You're probably laughing because that seems like such an easy and obvious solution, but Macy and I both struggled trying to figure out how we would keep paint from getting inside the vase. Thankfully my mom was there to solve our problem.

Best part about this craft (besides how awesome they look)? Dollar store vases, $3 spray paint, and painter's tape that we already had on hand. Boom! Nice and cheap.

30 Before 30: Crafts

So the last of my 30 before 30 lists is the one that is probably going to be the most difficult for me to complete. Mostly because by nature, I am not a creative, do-it-yourself kind of person. Not necessarily because I don't want to be, but because I tend to talk myself out of attempting projects due to a fear of failing (I'm a little bit of a perfectionist). And with the possibility (or likelihood) of the project ending up a disaster, I usually reason that it makes more sense just to go out and buy the product (or pay someone else to do it for me) so I don't have to waste my time making an unsuccessful attempt (plus then I don't feel like a failure).

Darrell, however, is soooo not this way. He's always up for trying some new project (whether it's building bookshelves for the nursery or a patio for our backyard), and he isn't afraid to just dive right in to the task (sometimes I actually wish he'd put a little more research into what he is doing, but he's been successful with all his projects so far, so I suppose I can't complain too much).

I've decided that the attitude I'm going to have to take toward crafting is the same one that I've been working on accepting as a soon-to-be mother: I know that as parents Darrell and I are going to "fail" plenty of times, but that doesn't mean we can throw in the the towel and give up. We have to learn to adjust, maybe redefine our idea of "perfect", and take pride in what we have. Easy enough, right?  :)

Since I'm not very in tune with this whole crafting thing I don't exactly have a laundry list of projects that I'm dying to attempt, but I have stumbled across a few that I think might be fun. Especially as I work on planning a bridal shower for my sister. So we'll see how this goes--here's to hoping I can (successfully!) get through thirty projects in thirty months!

Homemade Tile Coasters
Yarn Eggs
Tiered Snack Stand
Ziploc Bag Book

Nursery Bookshelves

So remember those totally awesome bookshelves I showed you earlier this week? Bragging time--Darrell totally made those. What started as a few pieces of wood and some nails turned into one of my favorite things about the nursery. And although I can't really take any credit for the assembly of the bookshelves, I can say that they were pretty easy--and way cheaper than buying pre-built shelves.

Unfortunately, Darrell took some initiative and built these shelves one morning while I was working so I don't have any pictures of the process, but from what I understand it was pretty simple. Let me refresh for you what they look like before I explain what he did.

The shelf is actually made up of three separate pieces: the base, the lip on the front, and a mounting piece on the back. Since he kept the lip on the front pretty small he was able to split one piece of wood and use it for the lip on both shelves, and then secured it with small finishing nails. He then created the same lip on the back of the base using another piece of wood, but left the extra material hanging below the shelf to serve as the anchor (I apologize that it's really hard to see that, but trust me, there is some material hanging below the shelf which mounts it into the wall). We fully anticipate our child using these shelves to pull himself/herself up, so Darrell made sure to secure the screws into studs (and trust me--those suckers aren't going anywhere).

What I love most about this project is that we were able to customize the depth of the shelves. All the pre-built shelves we found were around three inches deep, and I really didn't want our bookshelves to stick out that far from the wall. Trusty Menards had plenty of small wood pieces (I believe we purchased cedar, but I could be mistaken) of varying widths, so we were able to find one that was closer to an inch--plenty deep for supporting a children's book or two. Plus the wood we bought was already finished so we didn't have to worry about doing any sanding--just slapped a few coats of paint on the shelves after they were built and we were done! Love them!

If you enlarge this image, you can see the anchor piece underneath the top shelf a little more clearly

T-Shirt Headbands

Last week as I was posting about things to make sure to register for, I highlighted my super-handy sewing kit. One of the things I love about is that it came with fabric shears. I believe the reason for having "special" scissors for fabric is that fabric can dull normal scissors quickly--but I'm not entirely sure. I just have a vivid memory of being a kid and using my mom's "normal" scissors to cut a piece of fabric, which resulted in a blow up from my mom and the direction that I was only ever supposed to use the white handled shears in her sewing room for fabric. So clearly it's some sort of a big deal.

Anyway, whether or not have special fabric shears is necessary or not, the ones in this kit certainly know their way through a piece of fabric. Even though I've only used the needle and thread a few times, the shears get used quite frequently--mostly because I have a t-shirt problem. And like all problems, there comes a time when I need to tackle it and get it under control. My favorite way to do that? Make cut-offs (classy, right?). And, as I realized this time around, the arm sleeves make great headbands--perfect for holding back all those crazy short pieces after you cut your hair super short!

I decided (mostly out of boredom) to document the process. Be prepared to be blown away by my craftiness (and no--this won't become a trend on my blog. I am not crafty. This is just me being cheap resourceful).


Step One: Cut off sleeves. I always try to leave the majority of the seam on the shirt so that the ends don't get too frayed

If all you want is a cut-off, then you're done now! If you think you're ready to tackle turning the sleeves into headbands, read on!

Remove the seam--chances are you won't be able to stretch it over you head with this attached



Straighten out the other side of the headband, cutting to the desired thickness. Repeat on other sleeve.



Viola! Two headbands!



Ready for a run! (Don't I make a beautiful model?)