basement reveal

Poor, neglected blog!

Would you like to see what I've been working on while I haven't been blogging (or even making) cute sewing projects?

Last time I showed you the basement bedroom, hallway, and closets we've been working on, we had primed and painted the ceiling, doors, and trim white.

It looked a little something like this:

The wall paint made a huge difference, and then we added carpet, and I'm pretty excited to move our older 2 troublemakers downstairs and rearrange the bedrooms upstairs.

Here are some reveal photos:

Bedroom before:

After paint:

After carpet:

The other side of the bedroom before:

after paint:

after carpet:

Hallway before:

hallway after paint:

hallway after carpet:

This room has been "finished" for about  a year, but we decided to wait to carpet until we had the bedroom and hallway done.  During the interim, we have been using a large carpet remnant in the center of the room.

Family room (angle 1) before:

Family room (angle 1) after:

Family room (angle 2) before:

Family room (angle 2) after:

Whew!  It was a lot of work just to make a room into something that we can now personalize with furniture, curtains, photos, etc!!  Now the fun part begins.

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crib sheets

My husband's cousin had a baby shower this past weekend, and I found myself wanting to make something different than what I normally make (ie: burp cloths, blankets) since I knew my mother- and sister-in-law, as well as several aunts are quite adept at making those cute crochet-edged blankets and burp cloths.

So, I got to thinking about why it's nice to have all those blankets and burp cloths.  Naturally, it's because babies, while sweet and adorable, are also sometimes little packages of poop and puke just waiting to leak or, heaven forbid, explode.

The worst possible times for this to happen are in the middle of the night.  Imagine entering your child's room in the middle of the night to realize he has spit up or blown out sometime in the 3 hours since you saw each other last.  You find yourself staggering around in the dark, eyes half open, brain completely off from the countless nights without sleep, trying to clean up after your infant and his lack of control over bodily functions, only to reach into the drawer where his sheets are kept to realize that he did this exact same thing earlier in the day, and you haven't gotten to that mountain of laundry, yet.

*sigh*

So, what do you do?

Strip down the bed and lay down a blanket big enough to tuck in on the sides so as not to be a smothering hazard and vow to buy more sheets in the morning.

The next morning, when at least half of your brain is firing again, you wash a load of laundry containing both sheets, and then suddenly the need for more crib sheets is pushed right out the back of your brain until the next time you need more than one sheet in a day.

Having experienced this predicament more times than I care to admit, I wanted to provide the new mommy with a head start.  I made her 3 crib sheets out of varying fabrics so she can decide what she likes.  Hopefully these, coupled with the sheet that comes with her crib set will give her enough sheets to keep ahead of the disastrous projectiles coming out of her sweet little angel.

I winged the pattern all on my own, but if you're interested in making your own crib sheets, I recommend using Dana's crib sheets tutorial.  It's detailed, fun, and like all her tutorials, full of great, easy-to-follow pictures.

The only things I changed were that the sides to my crib sheets were 6 inches, rather than 8.  Also, instead of creating a casing around the bottom edge, I simply serged around and then attached the elastic directly to the serge using a triple step zig-zag stitch, stretching the elastic as I went.

I used flannel:

cotton:

and super-soft Minky fabric:  (this is what I would want to sleep on, if I were a baby)

So, the next time you're making something for a baby shower, don't forget to include a crib sheet or two!

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jeans to skirt

This project has been a long time coming.

I bought these jeans at a thrift shop because if you find jeans with a 30" waist and a 36" inseam, you just don't pass them up.

Unfortunately, even after paying only $6 for the jeans, I never wore them because the seam from waist to crotch was too long.  I felt like I was wearing men's pants; they sagged and bunched under my crotch and I just didn't feel sexy in them!

So, I decided to make them into a knee-length jean skirt--something which I've never been able to find for myself because my legs are so long.  I used the bottom of the jeans that I cut off to fill the triangle-shaped gaps created by cutting the legs apart.  I'm so happy with the results!

Before:

After:

what do you love about summer?

Summer-time crafting is much more difficult.  With my two older kids at home, it becomes harder to occupy all my troublemakers at the same time so that I can sew something.  Plus, it's finally getting warm enough to swim, hike, etc, so we've been away from home a lot more.

I have finished painting the new bedroom in the unfinished portion of our house that we've been working on, and carpeting should be next, after which I'll post some "after" photos.

For now, I'm going to show to some of the things I love about summer and having the kids home:

French toast for breakfast:

I realize french toast can be made during the school year, but with me as their mother, my kids don't stand a chance.  I don't make my kids a hot breakfast as often as I should, and when I do, it's not served before 9 am.  So, now that school is out, hot breakfast happens more often.


The oldest and the youngest troublemakers sharing story time in the morning:

He even helps Graham with the "touching" part of the touch-and-feel books! (gushing)


Pedicures with friends:

This was actually my very first pedicure in all of my 29 years.  After we all got our pedicures, we wanted to take a picture of our cute toes, so we went to a store with cute shoes and "tried on" a pair for the picture.  Notice how all of our feet are tied together with the security tags?  It was quite a feat to get all of us that close together while our ankles were tied up!!


Summer-time fruit:

I love that fresh fruit is all over the place during the summer, and snack time becomes infinitely easier!  (Notice the hand in his pocket?  This is a new discovery for Zoram, and I think it's just adorable!!)

Catching bugs:

The world is so exciting in the summer time with all the extra life outside.

Bare baby feet:

Need I say more?

Taking turns on the swings:

Less than two years apart, troublemakers 3 & 4 don't always get along.  It's very sweet to see them taking turns and pushing each other on the swing set.

Otter-Pops:

At less than a nickel each, how much better does it get than a cold snack on the back porch?

What are some of your favorite things about summer?

free father's day gift

Last year, I wanted to play around in Window's Movie Maker to make my husband a cute little video as an "extra" Father's Day gift.  The video turned out to be his favorite Father's Day gift, ever.

Because he loved it so much, I've made him another one this year, which turned out equally as sweet.  I thought I would share with you how I did it, if you would like to make one of your own.  (I'm not going to get very technical, but Movie Maker is fairly easy to use, and I would be more than happy to answer any questions e-mailed to me--if I know the answer, that is.) 

At the end of the post, I've included last year's video as an example.  {Please excuse the horrible video quality!}

The first thing I did was to come up with a list of questions to ask our kids.  Include things like, "What is Daddy's name?  Age?  Where does he work?  His favorite color?  Occupation?"  Older children could be asked to share a favorite story, or quality about dad.

I asked all the kids the same questions, including the kiddos that can't talk yet and recorded their answers responses.  Smiles, cooing, or even a sleeping baby are still sweet to watch, even if they can't answer vocally.

**Tip:  When recording the interviews, try to leave a few seconds buffer before and after their responses so that it is easier to edit down to just them talking.**

After recording all your interviews, use Movie Maker to "split" your videos into clips with just their responses to each question.  I then organized mine so that a question was posed, and then each child's response plays, and then the next question, and so on.

Because no one likes to hear themselves talk, I used title pages to ask the questions in the final product. 

At the end of the interviews, compile a series of photos of Dad just being him.  Both videos I've done, I've used pictures only from the past year, but you could use pictures from the first baby's pregnancy and forward, if you want a more comprehensive video.

While the photos are playing, it's nice to have something to listen to, so pick a song that means something to Dad and add that to the video.  Last year I chose 1,2,3,4 by Plain White T's.  Once the song is in the video, spend some time lengthening or shortening the amount of time each photo is displayed so that the song and the pictures end at the same time.

After the interviews and the photos, I like to put a final message using title page(s) and the end credits.

Finally, feel free to play around with the transitions and slide effects.  You can make your photos ripple, pan across them, etc.  When you have the video the way you want it, save it in a file that Dad won't look at until Father's Day, and wait to surprise him!

**One final tip:  Save, and save often!  These videos can be a lot of work, so you don't want to lose any of that time**

Here is the video I made last year.  I'm going truly embarrass my husband and report that he cried real tears while watching this.  Then, I posted it on our family blog, and my mom cried real tears too.  My kids sure do love their "Papi," and the seven years he has been such have been very rewarding.  It's nice to be able to look back at all the times we've had together.

For a free gift, it doesn't get any better!

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make-your-own-costume kid craft

Today is trouble-maker #2's birthday.  He's 6, and he decided he wanted to have a costume party.

So we sent out the invites:

When each kid got there, besides the traditional party games, present opening, and cake & ice cream, we had a craft set up (the brain work behind which was mostly my husband's.)

We told each of the kids they could use whatever they wanted from the table to make themselves a *new* costume, and at the end of the time limit, Xavier, the birthday boy, picked the winner.  (He, of course, went the political route and declared them all the winners.)  :)

The items on the craft table included a 10" x 90" strip of fabric for each child, paper plates, regular printer paper, card stock paper, neon pipe cleaners, foam star stickers, yarn, ribbon, penne pasta, crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue, tape, hole punch, stapler, and scissors.







Here is what they came up with:  (sorry about the stars over some of their faces, but not all these little sweeties are mine, so you understand.)

A starry-eyed cowboy.

This little guy made a myriad of accessories, including a gun and a map.

A shield and a whip.

This is an owl with wings.

A necklace with "princess wings."

Even my husband got in on the fun with his goofy ears and funky nose.

the birthday boy!!

In my unbiased opinion, I think Xavier's was the best of them all!  Happy Birthday, buddy!

end of school

I'm sure those of you with school-ages children are feeling the same way I am about this time of year.  Nostalgic, proud, and excited for the lazy days of summer.

We have a first grader and a kindergartner, and over the last few days, we attended each of their end-of-year productions.  Samuel's first grade music program was Thursday night, and Xavier's kindergarten graduation yesterday morning.  In looking at the pictures, I saw things about my kids that frustrate me at times, but today it made me laugh!

First is Samuel.  Samuel was blessed with my mother-in-law's smile.  He has a wide, pretty-lipped smile that makes me jealous much of the time.  Unfortunately, he is 7 years old, and smiles like this when I hold up the camera:

He tucks his lips in and it becomes a very forced excuse for a smile.  Hopefully he'll grow out of it, but someday I'm going to look back and be glad I have this picture to remind me of his "quirk."

Then there is Xavier.  When I sent him to get dressed this morning, I reminded him that this was his last day of school (and his graduation program,) and to try to look nice.  Let's look at what he picked, shall we?

Shorts and a t-shirt.  Not even a button-up or polo shirt, but a t-shirt.  And look where he is:

On the front row.

See the kids around him?

Yeah.

Mine was that kid that people look at and either decided we were dirt poor, or that we didn't care enough about our kid to make him look nice.  Xavier thought he looked nice, though, so that's all that matters.

Anyone else have a humorous experience at "graduation?"  I'd love to hear about it!  And yes, I'm shamelessly fishing for comments.

ruffle skirt

I wanted to make a cute skirt for myself, but didn't want to spend a lot of time.  So, I cut out a simple skirt from MADE, but before sewing it together, I did a little embellishing with some ruffles.

4 rows of them to be exact.

For anyone interested in ruffles, mine are 1 inch wide.  I cut them twice as wide as the skirt, and then gathered to the same width as the skirt using a long stitch running down the center of each strip.

I think it's cute, and I might make another one out of something a little lighter weight!

memorial day "crafting"

We have been finishing a bedroom, hallway, and two closets in our basement.  It's been a long slow process since we're doing the work ourselves.

Things are really coming together.  We've finished priming, and painting the ceilings and trim white.  Soon we'll roll the wall color, but yesterday we finished up the white by painting the doors.  There are 4 of them, and it took up a lot of the day, but I got them done!

It's not much fun to look at pictures of white doors, but I'm proud of them and wanted to show them off (and I'm hoping that by showing the progress I made over the weekend, it'll push me toward finishing other things up in a timely manner.)

And so, without further ado . . . my white doors!

Since I'm such a go-getter, while I was waiting for paint to dry between coats, I started taping off the ceiling.

And there you go--the sum of my "craftiness" during the Memorial Day holiday.  What did you do with your "extra" time . . . as if there really were such a thing?!