More Pinterest Ideas

I freaking love Pinterest.  I've been busy the past couple of weeks whipping up little crafts here and there for a variety of events.  First, my friend Pat got a great idea to make a "30 Sucks" gift for our buddy Tim's 30th birthday.  Here are the papers I made for it.  Pat stuck all the suckers in a blue vase and a florist block from the dollar store.  He loved it, but unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of it!

Notice the papers are Duck colors!

Since Tim's was such a hit, I went ahead and made another one for one of my very best friend's 30th birthday party the next weekend.  She absolutely loved it!  Sorry about the crazy lighting - this was taken in a basement, surrounded by red table cloths, and on my iPhone.  Recipe for photo disaster.  You get the idea, though.  I used a pink, square vase I already had, bought a rectangle florist block from Fred Meyer and cut it down to size, then stuck in 30 Dum-Dums.  The "30 Sucks" sign is hot glued to a chop stick and the "Happy Birthday" sign is hot glued to ribbon that is hot glued around the vase.  Super cute and cheap!

Idea from this Pinterest link

I then got crafty for myself last week.  I had been staring at all kinds of DIY necklaces on My Style board on Pinterest and knew I could make something cute with these grey seed-bead necklaces I had laying around.  Armed with this "pinspiration" of another necklace, I got to work.  Using two pairs of needle-nosed pliers, I put two jump rings on opposite sides of each necklace (there were three necklaces), then laced one end of each of the necklaces onto one bigger ring.  I braided the necklaces together, then ran the rings at the end onto a bigger ring.  I looked all around my bathroom for an old necklace chain I could take apart, but couldn't find anything.  So, I took "pinspiration" from this ribbon and pearl necklace and used some yellow ribbon.  Yellow and grey are all the rage.  Grellow, anyone?

Here it is! I decided to model as I was stuck in traffic.  Totally acceptable use of time.

It's a little long, but for being free, I love it.

My next project was for 3 baby's birthdays.  We were invited to two different first birthdays and a 2nd birthday.  I knew I couldn't make all of the gifts, but I thought I could make at least part of them.  For the two year old's birthday, we gave her some felt food (orange slices, bendable bacon, and eggs - not pictured) and a little shopping basket full of cut-able food.  She loved it!  For one of the one year old's birthday, we gave her a set of felt food with a really cute baby pot and pan set with mirrors and rattles on it.  She seemed really excited to play with it when she opened it!  The third party was cancelled last minute, but I also made her the felt food and got her a recycled plastic tea set.  It's so adorable, I can't wait to give it to her!

Once I decided to make felt food, I found tutorials for making felt food everywhere!  Even when we went to the Pumpkin Patch, there was a booth selling tons of felt food and other felt toys.  It was awesome!  I'm really excited to make more felt things, since it was so easy!

Here is my last project - Brains in a Jar! I saw this and instantly knew I had to make it for something.  I don't usually like scary things, but this was so cool!  I stayed up a little too late last night baking, making frosting, and putting 6 of these little jars together.  Then, using a round cookie cutter, I cut the rest of the cake I had baked and placed each round inside a cupcake wrapper, smeared a little strawberry jam on the cake, and piped on some squiggles of the greyish-pink frosting.  The website that these were pinned from had a free printable for the jar lids, so I just glued some onto toothpicks and stuck them in the mini cupcakes.  I WISH I would have taken a picture.  They were so cute and so yummy!  Oh well, maybe next year I'll remember to take more pics.  Or maybe not! :)    I brought them to school for a little Halloween celebration in the staff room for the teachers.  We don't celebrate Halloween with the kids, since a large portion of our population doesn't celebrate at home.  But who says the teachers can't have some fun?!

 So, does anyone else love Pinterest as much as I do?  What projects have you been working on?

Wooden Ring Toy

A couple of weeks ago I made a new toy for Audrey, from this tutorial. I love it! I used scrap fabric and scrap ribbon to make a fun, interesting, and colorful toy. Babies love contrasting colors and also bright colors, so Audrey really loves this! I made sure to vary the sizes and textures of the ribbon to make it even more interesting. I bought the wooden rings from this website, sanded them smooth, and coated them in beeswax from the PSU Farmer's Market that I melted it in a double boiler (one from Goodwill, a nice one would be ruined after this project!) and poured into a large mason jar to keep and use again. The wood smells really good and is soft and smooth for her teething gums. I have some extra rings, so let me know if you'd like me to make you one!

On the subject of toys, I LOVE Vulli's Sophie and also Pie.  What other baby toys do you love?

Another diaper cake

Baby Shower #2 for this spring at Mill Park was for my friend and colleague, Katie.  She is having a little boy and his name will be Nash. Carla and I once again got together to make her an adorable diaper cake. Instead of trying to find fabric that would match her crib bedding that she registered for at Target, I just bought the flannel receiving blankets from the set. From that fabric, I made a burp cloth (looks like this), bib, two different toys (a crinkly square toy and a wooden ring with fabric and ribbon toy), and a onesie with a cute owl sewn on it (that I designed myself - go me!)

Here is a pic of all the goodies inside the cake:

Here is the cake the night Carla and I made it. Carla is so wonderful at making the cakes. She used this tutorial to learn how. She also uses two different sized quilt rings to keep the diapers together as she wraps the string around them. She covers up the string with ribbon and makes sure to hot glue to the ribbon to itself and not to the diapers, as to not ruin them. She likes using Seventh Generation diapers because they are bleach and chlorine free and also because the light brown color looks like whipped mocha frosting! :) After the cake was built we put these things on it: the Jittery Pals owl on top, blue Avent binkies, and washcloths folded up to look like roses stuck inside the bottom layer of diapers. We even put a Gerber thermal receiving blanket inside the bottom layer. The rubber duck ended up getting cut from the cake after this. He was just a little too awkward hanging out on the bottom by himself.

I then started adding some stuff to fill it up, since it was a little bare. I added silk flowers and leaves, little clip on bumble bees to the ribbons, and 6 Ring-a-Links, 3 on each side. My son Nathan has two sets of alphabet blocks, so I snatched the letters to spell Nash from the set he never plays with. The cake was cute, but now it was a little too busy.

On the day of the baby shower, I covered the lower piece of cardboard with tissue paper and then Carla picked it up to decorate. She paired it down a bit, so the finished product was perfect. It still had all the goodies and was pleasing to the eye. What do you think of our masterpiece? I think it's pretty cute! And the most important thing is that Katie loved it!

Diaper cake - by Carla!

Another part of this blog is to showcase my friends' crafts as well. Carla made this adorable diaper cake for my baby shower. It turned out so cute and I can use every single thing it's made from!
She started with Seventh Generation chlorine and bleach free diapers. Size 1 for the top tier and size 2 for the bottom. She decorated it with fake flowers (I'm saving those for another project), pacifiers (the only kind Audrey will use!), ladybug and butterfly patches (and she gave me plain bibs to iron them onto later!), ribbon (who can't use extra ribbon!), a couple small toys (that hang out in Audrey's crib) and a stuffed elephant piggy bank on top! You can order a pre-made diaper cake from Babies R Us and the retail price ranges from $49-$109!! I think that Carla will have to make more in the future, because now all our friends want one when they have babies!