DIY Baby Sandals

I have been pretty busy lately with a newborn, a 3 year old and 5 year old, starting grad school classes and just keeping up with housework and family commitments. Despite all of that, I have been antsy to do some crafting.
My sister-in-law found some baby sandals for her little one and said that she thought they were something that I could probably make. After hearing this I went out and bought a pair of Toe Blooms to take a closer look. I figured that I could make some and began searching online for a tutorial. I came across this one from Laura at The Creative Muster and immediately went looking for supplies.
I was unlucky in finding any cotton jersey in the girly colors that I was looking for- all of the stores I visited had darker fall colors out. So I began to think about what I had on hand that I could use. I had a few cotton t-shirts in my fabric stash that I thought could work. I cut one apart and used the pattern from the Creative Muster as well as the Toe Blooms that I bought to create my own pair of baby sandals. The first pair was too big for my newborn, so I altered my pattern and made another pair. This pair fit perfectly, stretching just enough to fit and stay on my little girls feet.

I paired the sandals with a beautiful gray and pink dress for a wedding that we attended recently. My mother-in-law gifted us the kids matching clothes when our youngest was born. Aren't they just adorable!

Though time consuming- cutting out all of the pieces for the flowers and handsewing all of the tiny pieces together- the sandals were totally worth it! It was a perfect project to pick up and work on anytime I had a few free moments. The best part is that you can do it all by hand and do not have to be a great seamstress.
Though summer is almost over and the weather will be cooling off, I think that the sandals would also be cute with tights. I have made a pair in black and plan to make another pair in white. I would also like to play around with the pattern and see if there would be a way to make a pair that looks more masculine for boys. Things like this make me so angry that I did not come up with something like this myself!

Wood, glass and vinly pumpkins, Oh my!

I may be going a little overboard with the pumpkins for fall, but I can't help it! I recently updated my pumpkin topiary with a little bit of greenery from the Dollar Store and I absolutely love it!

Then I found this little wood napkin holder at Goodwill for only $2.38.

I had my ceramic pumpkin and a fall table runner on the table before I found this little guy and it was a pain to take them on and off the table every time we ate.
The napkin holder is perfect because it allows me some decoration on the table, but it is practical because I do not have to take a ton of stuff off of the table every time we use it!
Next up are my glass pumpkins, which I made last year and never showed off. I originally saw these in Family Fun magazine and followed the tutorial to make my own. When researching to find the original article, I happened upon this blog that gives a good tutorial using crepe paper instead of tissue paper.

Basically, you cut tissue paper into strips and then modge podge it to the outside of a glass jar. I had some random Ball jars, orange tissue paper and black construction paper on hand and whipped these up in about an hour. I love the glow they give off with a tea light!

The magazine article also pictured a Frankenstein using green tissue paper, but you could do so many different things, like candy corn, a witch, or even a ghost. So fun and cute! This would be a great project to get the kids involved in as well.
Finally, while cleaning out my mom's garage this past weekend, I happened to find some white dryer duct. My mom told me to toss it, but I walked past the trash can to my car. My family thought that I was nuts to want to keep it, but they knew that I would have something up my sleeve! I saw these adorable pumpkins that Allison at House of Hepworths made out of aluminum dryer duct and spray painted orange. The dryer duct that I had was white vinyl. I love the look of white pumpkins, so I decided to make one first and spray paint it later if I did not like the white. I decided to use materials that I had on hand, so I cut a toilet paper roll in half and rolled it up to make the stem. Then I tied some green gift ribbon around the stem and curled it using my scissors. Finally, I hot glued a leaf (leftover from my topiary project) to the top.


I had enough dryer duct to make 4 pumpkins, though one was kind of short and I burned my fingers trying to pull the two ends together. It was totally worth it! I love the look of the white pumpkins, but I especially love that this whole project cost me absolutely nothing!
I am linking this post to Allison's Hooking up with HOH party.
What fall decorations have you made lately? I would love to hear about them!

Fall Topiary- A Revision

Last year I made a fall topiary using 3 different sized faux pumpkins and a clay pot. I cut out the stems on the larger bottom pumpkins, hot glued them on top of each other and set the topiary in a pot. It was just the kind of project that I love, quick and with immediate gratification. I loved it! The only problem was that my topiary did not fair well in the home I intended for it. From the time that I first saw the topiaries on another blog, I imagined 2 topiaries, 1 on either side of our front door. Unfortunately, our front door is not very well protected from the elements and the topiary that I made was constantly being blown over and I had to retrieve the pumpkins from rolling all around the front yard!
When I pulled the pumpkins out of the basement to use this year, I immediately glued them together using some liquid nails adhesive. Though the bond felt much stronger, I did not like how you could see the ring of glue around each layer.


I thought about tying some ribbon around each layer to disguise the glue and then I saw a topiary with large leaves layered between each of the pumpkins and a lightbulb went off. I ran to the Dollar Store and bought two different colored strands of leaves. Then I cut the leaves off at the stems and arranged them by color. Finally, I hot glued large leaves around the pumpkins and filled in with smaller leaves on top.


As much as I loved the simplicity of the first topiary, I love this one even more! I have found a home for it in our entryway where all of our guests can see and enjoy it when they come to visit.
I'm so glad that fall is finally here! I have most of my fall decor out, but have a few things that I am hoping to add this year. Stay tuned for a few different diy pumpkins.

DIY Curtains

I have been searching for a decent priced curtain to match my daughters room and have had difficulty finding anything that darkened the room enough and was still pretty. On a recent trip through the clearance aisle at WalMart, I came upon a khaki colored curtain panel for $5. Though the panel by itself did help darken the room, it definitely was not very pretty!


I decided to add some ribbons in the colors of her room and also double the curtain up to make it even darker (we are serious about having dark rooms to nap in!) I pinned the ribbons to the front of the panel and then pinned the bottom of the curtain to the top, right sides (fronts)together. I sewed along an exisiting seam so that it would not be visible. I considered leaving the ribbons floating freely at the bottom, but even if I cut them to the same length it would not have looked finished.


So I turned the curtain inside out again, pinned the ribbons along the bottom and then pinned the front and back together to keep it from slipping while I sewed. I sewed a seam as close to the bottom to keep the length. Then I removed all the pins and turned it right side out. I think that it looks a lot more finished with the ribbons sewed to the top and bottom.


Now I have a curtain that not only looks pretty, but keeps her room nice and dark! The first night she slept until 8am and she has been getting up at 6!

DIY Dresser Mirror

I wasn't going to post anything about our current house until after I went through all of the houses I have lived in, but I was so excited to show off the results of my recent project that I couldn't wait!

When we bought our bedroom set a few years ago, I had no desire to buy the matching mirror to the dresser because we didn't need it, and it was around $300. Just recently we have done some remodeling and I moved some things around and decided that a mirror would be nice above the dresser.

It all started when we remodeled our master bathroom. There was a large mirror above a double vanity that only contained one sink. When we removed the vanity to put in a single vanity and toilet, the large mirror looked out of place. We took the mirror down and bought a small one to go above the vanity. I then took the mirror to the attic in case we needed it in the future. This is what the finished bathroom remodel looks like.


After finishing the remodel of most of our main floor, the old wall mounted radio in our master bedroom looked out of place. I decided to tear out the old radio and move the picture of my children from above the dresser to cover the hole until we could repair the wall. Here is the best picture I could find, you can barely see the radio by the door.


Once I moved the framed picture above the dresser, the wall looked really bare :( I then had the bright idea to put the large mirror from the bathroom there and frame it out with molding. I hung the mirror just below the dresser with the plastic wall brackets you see with most mirrors of this size. I then took out some synthetic crown moulding that was in our basement from a project the previous owners had completed. I cut the moulding to size using a mitre box. The moulding had a curve to it since it was for crown moulding, so I had to turn it over and finish cutting through from the other side. I then painted the moulding with a couple of coats of black spray paint we had leftover.


Finally, I used some nails to attach the moulding around the outside of the mirror. Here is the before and after:
Before

After

I am so happy with the result, I have gone in to the bedroom several times just to admire my handywork! It looks almost like it came with the dresser and it was completely free! Here are a few more close ups.