Pottery Barn Noel Sign

So while flipping thru the Pottery Barn magazine the other week I saw this Noel wall art. Swoon ... but the $150 price tag is sooooooo far beyond my budget right now! And the fact that it was already sold out of course didn't help much either.
So, I had some random wood laying around. Literally ... I got two pieces of particle board 4'x8' at the auction for $5 (!!!) total and so there is a lot of random wood laying around the garage waiting to be used up from other projects.
So, I used the Arial Narrow font in bold and just enlarged it in photoshop until it was the size of the wood piece I had, traced it on & Ryan cut it out with the jigsaw for me. I decided that I liked a dark red better than the dark brown ... 3M Velcro on the wall and voila!

Isn't it AWESOME??? Love the way it fits perfectly on the side of the wall next to the rustic Christmas trees, it's perfect ... and it only cost me the $2.47 for a HUGE (still half un-used) tube of red paint. :) :) :)And now that little table right at the top of the stairs looks nice & festive ... and I love it! Now if I could just stop getting the kids to steal the little nativity pieces we'd be set.

I'm linking up to the Shabby Nest Frugal Friday (how do you put those fun little buttons on a blog post???) and 30 days pity party , Funky Junk Interiors and a Little Lovely's Saturday Soiree! :)

Matching Bedding

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :) None of my pictures really turned out, but we did craft paper on the table w/ crayons on each seat for the kids ... it worked so well! And they all STAYED at the dinner table for longer than 5 minutes, that alone was nice. :) Then we made little Mayflower ship nametags for each seat (which I was surprised how much the kids liked that, we'll have to do it again at Christmas!), here's the tutorial I used. The kids just couldn't be bothered with looking at the camera, they were busy sneaking food & coloring, lol. But you get the idea. Then the rest of the weekend was spent finishing more projects! :)
Project #2 for the boys room ended up costing me NOTHING out of pocket. So nice! :) I wanted matching bedding. But ... I have no budget for that ... honestly ... I have no real budget to decorate, lol. So ... how to get matching bedding???
Well, Hunter already had a jean blanket, and we had a full/queen jean blanket that we put on the bottom bunk for Colton. As soon as I can get to a Jo-Ann's (the closest one is 45 minutes away ... ugh), I'm going to buy enough jean material to quickly whip up a little toddler bed one too. Then I was trying to think of matching pillowcases and I remembered the yards of cute, "I am a child of God" flannel that I had bought a couple years ago (planning on using it as a backing for a blanket). And I had just enough random scraps of red flannel to put as the top part of the pillowcase! :) YEAH! :) I read a lot of random craft tutorials and just winged it from there on the pattern I did. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! :) I know it may sound dorky, but it's fun watching the room come together from nothing ... and for practically free! :)

Our newest nativity

Since it's after Thanksgiving, I can start talking about Christmas now, right? ;) I won't mention that Christmas has been up for almost a month at our home ...

I wanted a fun little nativity for our home that would be okay for the kids to touch, and if we lost a piece, no big deal it could be easily replaced. So, when I saw Under My Umbrella's Nativity pattern I knew it was perfect! :) BUT ... I would like to give one word to the wise ... I enlarged mine to 125% thinking it would be easier for my husband to cut out ... big mistake. Some of the pieces become too top heavy when they are larger than her original pattern & we had to put nails into the backs to help them become more steady. It's a cute/adorable/fun/free nativity pattern ... make it this year ... just don't enlarge it. LOL.

Ryan cut it out on the jigsaw for me one night & the kids helped me paint it ... which they loved & keep begging me to come up with another art project for them now. LOL. And doesn't it look PERFECT right next to my rustic Christmas trees in the front room??? Love it! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving ... already! Where did the year go? Yes ... I know that makes me sound old ... I'm allowed to say that at this point though, right? :)

So, I have some cute aprons I made the kids and we are busily prepping food and getting ready for tomorrow (pics on Monday ... as soon as Ryan takes them) ...

Do you remember the story ... "It looked like spilt milk" ??? I'm realizing, re-decorating the boys room is becoming more & more like that ... lol.

I had a piece of wood that I had framed to be one of my "Be True" artworks. But ... the framing on the back was HORRIBLE (I did it myself ... and I'm not known for my patience or skill in cutting wood), and so Ryan made a new frame for me, and the old frame and wood sat in the garage for the last umpteen months. I didn't want to throw away the wood, but I didn't know what to do with it ... so it looked like a piece of "be true" artwork, but it was really meant to be ...

Chalkboard speech bubbles for the kids doors! :) I've seen this around ohdeedoh's website and a few other spots, and it's perfect! 3M velcro tape to put it up on the door and now both the kids rooms have one on their doors. Savannah loves to write messages, Hunter keeps writing math problems for Daddy when he gets home from work, and Ryan has been known to write an "I love you kids" for them when he has to leave uber early for work. I love it ... and it was free & used up some random piece of wood out of the garage! :)

Crib Bed Transformation

I mentioned how we got two cribs (one without all the parts) and a mattress for $2.50 at a local estate auction ... but I didn't want to just throw the crib bed away & KNEW there must be something to do with it ... then it hit me!
I thought about this cute pottery barn idea. We were putting these in the boys room (which now holds a almost 8 year old, 3 year old & will soon hold Jax who's 19 month), and I've had to come to the unfortunate realization that a cute little schoolhouse was NOT going to be an appealing idea to my oldest son, I realized we could still make the art section of each square with the two sides of the crib! :)

**He was so sweet to pose for that picture for me ... in the snowy/windy garage ... after spending all day under our van trying to get it fixed. Thanks honey!**

After cutting off the spindles & filling in the gaps they left on the top & bottom, we primed & painted all around the molding section that was left.

Then Ryan was sweet enough to do the three coats of spray paint all around & I cut some galvanized sheet metal (it was about $16.50 for a HUGE 3 x 4 sheet at Home Depot), and painted the sheet metal with some chalkboard paint we already had. We used liquid nails to glue it on & left it weighed down (with the laundry detergent ... lol) for 24 hours. It's awesome now that it's up on the wall!

I wanted to do both panels as magnetic chalkboards, but the sheet metal was FOUR inches too short on one side, we didn't like the idea of sharp edges ... so I'm trying to find some large sheet of cork board to fill in the other ... the boys LOVE it and are always playing "school" on it, and coloring pictures for me to see ... perfect! :)

Hey everybody!

I'm finding my mojo again ... it's been a long time since I crafted, sewed or did anything crafty and I've realized how much I've missed it. So, I've been hanging up picture frames and finishing projects that I started and for the first time since the move, I feel more like me, more like things are okay & even though my house is getting messier in the process ... I'm also de-junking and getting that slowly under control, yeah! :)

So, here's the first thing I've started on ...

There is a fun little estate auction here in town. I have been able to score some GREAT deals before and this last week was no exception. I was able to pick up two cribs (with no guarantee that all the parts were there mind you) and a crib mattress for $2.50!!! While we had all the pieces for one crib, the pieces for the other were missing. So, I racked my brain for a few days on how we could utilize the crib walls and then I saw this, and this on the pottery barn kids website.

So, we are in the process of chopping off the tops & legs, filling in the holes with putty & getting ready to spray paint! Hopefully, I'll have a finished project to show you on Monday! :)