Gifts for bambino

A cousin of mine recently had a gorgeous baby boy, and since I have been full of crafting motivation I decided to make her a couple special little things; a diaper clutch, one of my favorite items since it allows you to still carry a cute purse- no bulky diaper bag necessary, a customized onesie with a scrap of fabric cut into a tie shape, and a matching soother clip.

Folded Clutch

The Clutch unfolds into a change pad with storage for diapers and wipes.

Tie Onesie

The Nursery

I tend to take on projects, but pregnancy has encouraged a new lofty level of project drive. First, I found an amazing mobile on Spool sewing  and fell in love- After building it I had some fabric left over and thought... maybe I should take up quilting. I have a cousin who is a quilting ninja and she makes it look easy, so I figured- what the heck. Well... following Martha Stewart's patchwork instructions I went to work.

Rooms to Reno

It has been soooo long since my last post! With our second son due to arrive in June we have been busy trying to renovate as much as possible before he arrives. We have already ripped the carpet out of our hallway and the two boys rooms, replacing it with hardwood. We repainted too... The boys rooms both are now a gorgeous shade of pale green- Camouflage by Benjamin Moore and the hallway a rich shade of green/brown- Elk Horn also Benjamin Moore. I have taken on several smaller projects for both the boys rooms. Draperies to sew, artwork to create, and shelving to paint in the three year olds room and draperies to sew, a crib to paint, artwork to create and bedding to sew in the babies room. We have made some great progress in the three year olds room- take a look...

Before

Before

After- Well minus the baseboards...

Book Shelves- These were Ikea spice racks I painted out for a splash of color.

A little artwork- I picked these notecards up at Anthropologie and framed them with Ikea frames.

Birthday #3

My son's fascination with dragons this year made them an obvious choice for the theme for his third birthday party. I found a forest backdrop (a cork board cover that teachers use in classrooms), green and silver colored plates, tablecloths, balloons and streamers for decor. My husband and I then created a little knight and dragon foam-core cut outs for cute photo ops. For party bags I found little plastic containers and added some dragon shaped parts to them to create little dragon bags. He and his little friends had a great time.

Autumn Decor

Now that the evening frosts have turned all of the flowers in our yard black, I had to come up with a solution to cheer up our increasingly more drab yard. So... I picked up some gorgeous burnt orange leaves and rich fall toned dried gourds to create little gourd topiaries to flank the door.

Pearly Girly

In search of inspiration for the perfect wedding guest outfit recently, I headed to the trend report on the Neiman Marcus website... What I found was that the runways this fall were filled with gorgeous pearls. I picked up some inexpensive pearl pieces and a black dress from H&M for my version. The dragon was an unexpected accessory- My son insisted we bring it along. Dragon = The new Chihuahua?

Inspiration

My Version

kommen Sie bitte in

We decided to stay home to get a few things done at home instead of heading to the lake for the long weekend. One thing I really wanted to tackle was the front step. The front entry is important, and I felt that ours was seriously lacking. After a quick trip to Benjamin Moore I went to work. Here is the progress so far...                                                              

Before

After