Felt Board Fun: Colorful Ice Cream Board!

Anyone else remember the days of felt boards in Sunday School or at preschool? Little shapes, people, animals, buildings, ANYTHING cut out of felt, that the teacher moved around the board (usually a big piece of cardboard covered in heavier felt) to "act out" the story being told, or help with counting, colors, alphabet... The possibilities were endless.
Felt boards are fun and definitely bring feelings of nostalgia, but I thought they were becoming a forgotten thing. Well, it turns out that felt boards are alive and well - in preschools still, according to my mom (preschool teacher extraordinaire) and also according to the mass of "DIY felt board" Pinterest search results I got when I did a search. I love it!

Why are you talking about felt, you ask? Well last weekend, our favorite two year old had her birthday party. Hubs and I have been on a serious budget the past few months (is spending practically NOTHING even called a budget?), but I didn't want that to keep us from bringing a gift with meaning and thought put into it. I decided I wanted to make something, because it would not only save money but allow more creativity and fun than purchasing a gift.
Then an instance of perfect timing - serendipity, even, - took place. Lindsay over at The Little Red Horse posted about an ice cream-color matching felt board that she made. She had been inspired by an original ice cream-color matching felt game over at Mama Papa Bubba.

I took one look at these adorable games and said, "I can do that, and it will be a perfect gift!" So off to JoAnn Fabric I went.

• I picked out a bunch of the basic 34 cent felt rectangles in varying bright colors and a tan that looked like the color of ice cream cones, and used the "Coupon Commotion" ad to get 50% off almost every piece of felt.
• Then I went over to the bulk fabric and picked out the bolt of cream-colored 72" felt for the board part. I cut a piece to fit a 16" by 24" poster frame.
• I also had to buy a new bottle of Tacky Glue. Another 50% off coupon there ;)
• I used a coupon at Michael's craft store to get a 16" x 24" poster frame, with acrylic instead of glass (kid safe!), and an elegant brushed nickel colored frame edge.
• I traced the shapes (ice cream, cones, and dots) according to the template over at Early Learning Activities, with a fine tip Sharpie black pen. Then cut them out with basic scissors - didn't want to risk dulling my sewing scissors with felt.
• I glued the dots onto the cones with Tacky Glue, and let them dry for over 24 hours.
• I used pre-made/pre-cut pink felt letters with sticky backs to spell her name. I found the felt stickers on clearance at Michael's. I stuck them to little squares cut out of the ice cream cone-colored felt.
• I took the acrylic window piece out of the frame, wrapped the (already cut) cream-colored felt piece around it, and taped in the back with clear packing tape. It fit so nicely back into the frame, and was smooth on the front because the bolt felt did not have fold lines (bonus!).
• It cost less than $20 for everything, and about three hours time investment, including shopping and "work." It wasn't work though, it was so much fun to be making something and being crafty again! I've missed that.

Here it is!
(Terrible photo quality, I know)

It was 2 in the morning, so I wasn't so concerned with good lighting ;)

With this, Miss Phillipa can learn not just colors, but also the letters in her name...

Making and giving this gift was so much fun. It was a hit with the birthday girl, her parents, and the other guests at the party. It feels great to make something that will be used and loved, and at the same time inspires other people to be creative and crafty, and learn with their children.

I can't wait to make some more cute felt creations to go along with Victory's favorite books - The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Ten Little Ladybugs have great felt-board potential :)

Summer Update

So, I've been neglecting the blog lately, because summer in the Pacific Northwest is the most glorious time and place on earth! We have been extra blessed this summer to have sunny weather and temperatures in the 80's more days now than I can count. We had a real heat wave last week and it nearly hit 100! Can I just say, God bless the brilliant individual that invented Air Conditioning? ;)

This will be an update brought to you by a bunch of photos; a little sneak peek into some of our summer activities and accomplishments.

1) To start off, I don't have a photo for this, but by far the biggest accomplishment around our home is that we now have a TODDLER! And she is just eight days away from turning one years old! Time flies far too fast as a mom, but how incredibly wonderful the time has been! :)

2) Bargain treasure hunting...

I have totally scored this summer when it comes to secondhand and clearance rack bargains! I've been frequenting the thrift stores when us gals need to get out of the house for a bit, and we've found some great things. A few of them that I can remember right now:

• A huge bag of Mega Bloks for a buck - I soaked them in warm water and bleach in the sink, ran them through the dishwasher, and they are good as new!
• A bunch of items - some thrifted, some clearance at JoAnn Fabrics and Michael's stores - for Victory's garden birthday party. I am SO excited to decorate with all the goodies I've been stashing away. More photos of those to come, after the party.
• My best find, I think, was a "garden arch" - really a simple arbor - which is something I've been wanting all summer. I found one in a box on the bottom shelf at Goodwill over the weekend - for eight bucks!!! Hubs and I put it together and it is in our yard awaiting the party. I am always reminded of how God cares even for our little wish lists, because it's so evident when I find treasures like that!
• Perhaps my most unique find was this totally awesome retro clock. It was 3.99, and I had a $3 off $10 purchase coupon for making a donation to the store, so since I spent $10 on more "necessary" items, I consider this a freebie! ;)

Another great score was ten organic herb plants from Home Depot, on clearance for 75 cents a pot! One of the lavender plants fit perfectly into this hand painted clay pot - also from the thrift store, for $1!
(From the way I describe it, you'd think I go shopping every day. Actually, I've only been to the store about ten times this whole summer!)

3) Gardening

It is official. I have caught the gardening bug!


Hubs and I have said for four years that we wanted to garden, but we were always so busy throughout the past four years in our home remodeling moldy walls and fixing rotten floors... well this year we finally followed through! Hubs was given free wood at work, as well as our neighbor gave us a bunch of wood. My amazing handy man built six raised beds for me, and I went to town! (I have definitely caught the 'gardening bug!')

This is my cart after discovering the clearance and end-of-season mark down racks at Home Depot...

Some early goodies from my winter squash vines, and a zucchini we let go too long!

We are growing many different things. Lettuce - red leaf and butter; Brussels sprouts; broccoli; zucchini; tomatoes (three types - Roma, Early Girl and Big Beef); three types of peppers - Jalapeno, Green bell, and orange bell... oh I can't even remember everything. All that matters is that everything is thriving and we have or are going to have tons of produce to enjoy and give away!

I found some great pots on clearance at Rite Aid last month, and filled them with flowers. This is my hardy Gerbera daisy from last spring - remember when I bought it? I never covered it with mulch for the winter, and I thought the late ice storm we had surely killed it. But it returned!

Tip from a Home Depot nursery employee: plant marigolds in the corners of your raised beds, and the slugs will go munch on those and leave your veggies alone.

Here is our first red tomato - a "big beef ." And there are about thirty green ones, plus all the tomatoes on the Roma and Early Girl plants. Yikes, I wish I could have nightshades! Fresh salsa from your own tomatoes must taste amazing!
Our neighbors will be benefiting from our surplus :)

Can you see the teeny tiny sprouts in the base of each leaf? The cabbage moths have been loving the leaves but I'm hoping we still get a good crop in the fall. We LOVE our Brussels sprouts around here!

I just love this plant, called "Mossflower." I don't know of any other flower plants that have multiple colored blooms on the same plant! It's amazing! I bought four or five of them, because they were so pretty and I could tell they had potential. Well they did, they have grown twice their size in just a few weeks, and hang over their baskets beautifully!

Pink and green zinnias, cream colored Marigolds...

More Zinnias and Marigolds 

Butter lettuce! We've been snipping off leaves for two months to eat, and it just keeps coming back. Awesome!

I couldn't resist this Dahlia plant when it was on sale for $5 - and now it is HUGE!  Dahlia  flowers are just beautiful

4) Crafty stuff!

I made this for the Fourth of July. It was fun, I sat down with fabric scissors, three quilting fat quarters (red, white, and blue patterns) and a wicker wreath from the dollar store. One movie later, I had a wreath. It felt a bit sparse to me, and I had a lot of leftover fabric strips, so I got another, smaller wreath and tied fabric to that one and connected the two wreaths together with twine. Super easy and cheap to make, and you can do these in any color for any occasion!
Original inspiration from Woman's Day magazine

I've also been using my crafty skills to do a lot of things for Victory's upcoming birthday party...

 6) Birthday party planning!

Hubs and I talked for a few months about our sweet girl's first birthday party. We finally decided on having it at home and making it a "garden party," because this has been our year to finally start investing time and resources into our yard. So why not host a celebration there and really enjoy it! I also like that the money we've spent on potted plants, flowers and garden beds and windchimes and more, is not 'birthday themed,' but they will be party decorations and then just staples in our yard each summer. Double purpose but only a one-time purchase - it's a win-win!

This is a bean bag toss target that a friend and I painted. It is two pieces of foam core board from the dollar store, staple-gun stapled to a wooden frame that used to be part of a shelf in our bathroom.
At the bottom of the photo are bean bags I sewed from leftover nursery fabric. Easy tutorial found here

Pinwheels! I was inspired earlier this summer by a Martha Stewart craft tutorial, and then this garden party blog post, so I have been making them in my free evening time. I've got some little ones, and some huge ones!

8) Home improvements, in particular:

Finishing the bathroom remodel we started in May 2011!

Just a snapshot of the prettiest part of our new bathroom - mosiac glass tile. It cost just $14 total!
Right under that is a wall-mount sink from IKEA. Cost? Just 30 bucks!

Hubs has done an amazing job. It has taken much longer than we'd have liked, but we are so close to being done (just cosmetic stuff left - drywall sanding, painting, staining trim). Can I just say, my husband is amazing! He is working so hard and has so much on his plate, and never complains! Thank you for your great attitude and leadership, Babe!

Hubs has also been very busy building a deck around our house, so our little champ can play outside even when the lawn is sopping wet this winter! It is taking shape and I am so excited to get out there and start decorating it with thrifted, made-over outdoor furniture and accessories!



...Well, that's a little bit of what we've been up to. The highlights! What special things have you done this summer??

Family Values

I wanted to share something I made last week. First, the back story: We got this big frame (approximately 24x36) from our neighbor. It is missing the glass, but it has this great matting. I was going through photos trying to narrow my stack down to just fifteen, when I realized I could use the frame to make something I've had on my craft to-do list. I've seen this idea around the blog scene lately: a compilation of core family values put to word art. They are usually stenciled with paint onto a hanging board or sometimes painted right onto the drywall in a home. With this big frame, I made my own version. It took about three hours to cut the 4x4 and 4x6 cardstock pieces and use my CriCut to make the words and glue them.

Voila! It feels great to accomplish a project, doesn't it?

For those who haven't seen those other art pieces, it reads like this:
In this home, we do LOVE
In this home, we do COMMITMENT
In this home, we do GRACE
In this home, we do SECOND CHANCES
In this home, we do GRATITUDE
In this home, we do REAL
In this home, we do HONOR
In this home, we do I'M SORRY
In this home, we do TEAMWORK
In this home, we do BIG DREAMS
In this home, we do FUN
In this home, we do BOLD PRAYERS
In this home, we do JESUS
In this home, we do HUGS

I challenge you to consider what values you want to uphold and teach in your home, and once you decide, go ahead and display them. As with any big goal, keeping the vision in mind every day determines your success!

Fabric Flowers

I finally found an easy tutorial for fabric flowers that makes sense to me! I can't wait to make some of these beautiful flowers for BG's headbands, outfits, and maybe even some Momma headbands for me :)

Pom Pom Fabric Flowers from LittleMissMomma.com:

And a great tutorial on Rolled Fabric Flowers at prudentbaby.com. These are a little more complicated (for me, anyway) but I'm hoping to figure it out eventually. They are darling!

Framed Fabric - Nursery Artwork

Today I changed my mind on the artwork for BG's room. I took out the Peter Rabbit illustrations, and put in pieces of the various fabrics I picked out for her room. I think when she's a little older, I'll put the Peter Rabbit pictures back in, but while she's so young and still developing her eyesight and taking in the world around her, I wanted to keep it simple, and went with the warm, familiar colors and patterns of the same fabrics she'll see when she's in her crib.

And, I finally got the frames hung on the wall! I like the arrangement of three by three. They aren't perfect, but that's okay. After all, I said I wanted a whimsical nursery :)

Mobile of Garden Friends

Here is a simple little project that took me all of thirty minutes start to finish. I ran across these adorable painted, wooden garden critters -a pretty butterfly, a smiling bumblebee, a happy frog, a colorful dragonfly, and an adorable snail (Hubs' pick)- at Jo Ann a few weeks back, and decided they would work perfectly as the focus of a little mobile idea I had brewing. I bought an embroidery hoop and some sheer ivory ribbon, and once I finally got out my glue gun last week, I went to town. First I cut five ribbons, two about twelve inches and three about fifteen inches long, and glued each critter to the end of a ribbon. Then I tied them (evenly spaced) around the plain wooden hoop, tied five more ribbons in the spaces, tied one big knot at the top, and voila - a mobile! It cost less than ten dollars for supplies and it's just what I wanted to hang above the changing table. Perfect for a little gal's garden room :)

Craft Projects for Baby's Room: A Memory Board and Shelves

I have been busy this weekend! Not feeling well, still - UGH! - so sticking close to home and puttering away on these baby room projects as I find the energy.

I made a memory board out of an acoustic panel!


Here's how I did it:
I removed the fabric we had on there (and in the process got a bunch of fiberglass slivers in my fingers - ouch!), then recovered it with one of BG's bedding fabrics, using a staple gun to secure it. Then I started attaching the ribbon. I worked from the middle outward in one direction, spacing the ribbons four inches apart and carrying about an inch and a half onto the back on each end, using a glue gun. Next, I did the same thing with the ribbons going in the other direction, weaving them in and out of the first layer of ribbon and gluing them the same way. Once I finished attaching the ribbons, I glued down each intersection. Then I glued a button on top of each intersection. I used a variety of buttons - shimmery simple round ones, flower-shaped ones, and fun ladybug ones. Here's a close-up of the buttons:



The other project I've wrapped up is a pair of flower shelves. I think they look pretty cute, and I like how they're a little more artistic and in keeping with the flowers in the fabric. Here they are:



I think it's finally about time to start hanging up these things in BG's room. It is so much fun creating a room from scratch! :)

Simple & Affordable Nursery Art!

I just have to say, if you think you can't decorate a nursery or child's room (or your own room, for that matter) on a very strict budget, you are mistaken! I am having so much fun coming up with ideas and utilizing all my bargainista know-how to make BG's room a special place. It is turning out so much cuter than some room-in-a-bag you find at the baby store, and so much cheaper! And there's so much more thought and love behind it.

Ok, moving on to the reason for this post. Yesterday and today, I made some adorable art for BG's room - eleven pieces to hang up, in all - and only spent $11.65!

The first piece is a framed picture that Hubs and I found online and printed out on photo paper in a 5x7. I believe it's from an old Christmas card. I found a pretty black wooden frame at the dollar store, and voila! It's going to hang right next to the 12x12 framed name art I made (see last post).


The idea for this piece of art came about last week, when we finalized our choice of BG's middle name. We chose Liviya, which means "brave lioness," and then realized that, when paired with our last name which means "lamb," it alludes to the scripture describing the peace Christ will bring to the earth ('when lion and lamb will dwell together,' 'Lion of Judah/Lamb of God,' etc.). Hubs and I had an "ah-ha!" moment and decided we needed to find and frame a picture of a lion and lamb for BG's room, as a representation of two of her names.

The other ten pieces of art are from one of my all time favorite children's books: Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. This idea is a spin-off of my original nursery concept to frame prints from Arnold Lobel's Frog & Toad books. I decided that with the garden theme that BG's room is taking on, Peter Rabbit would fit better. I scooped up a copy of the book at Goodwill the other day for 65 cents (score!) and, while this was totally against my book-loving nature, and it pained me, I cut out the pages of beautiful, classic artwork and trimmed them into 3.5x5 inch pieces to frame. (I justified this major book faux pas by reminding myself that I already own three copies of Peter Rabbit in various forms, and there were a handful of other copies on the shelf at Goodwill as well.) Then I headed to the dollar store for frames. They have some really nice new ones in stock, and I got ten distressed gold frames that are going to look darling on her wall. I cut carefully, dusted the glass delicately, framed precisely, and I'm done! Here are two photos of what I did - they are terrible quality, but my camera is terrible (we are begging for a new one on our baby registry):




I haven't decided if I'm going to hang them in two rows of five, or take one away and do three rows of three. I can't wait to hang them up, they turned out even better than I hoped! And the gold color looks awesome with the cream and green walls in BG's room.
Another project down, many more to go...