Top 10 FAVOURITE projects/activities of 2013!

I can't believe another year has come and gone. It is scary how fast everything goes! You really have to sit back and take a look at everything around you! This year has been special for me because Adalyn started sitting up, crawling, walking and talking. It has been amazing watching her grow into her own little person. I love her more then anything else on this planet! This year hasn't been all positive though. There was some family challenges that we had to deal with. I am hoping 2014 will be a better year in that aspect!

It was really hard to pick only ten of my favourite projects/activities this year! It is funny how they are all related in some way to babies!! It is funny how things change!! Anyway, here they are...

10. I did love the hoop update, even though I have already changed them! Lol

9. Love how the winter snowflakes turned out!!

8. The felt Pumpkin I made for the playroom was a big hit

 7. Loved the painted gold onesie!

  6. Our first sensory activity: SAND!

 

  5. The foam Christmas tree I made for the bath

 4. The Valentine's Day Onesies my friend and I painted for the babes!

 3. The bow tie onesie we made for Zachary!

2. Adalyn's first birthday decor: pink and gold cupcake theme!!

And my most favourite project of 2013?

1. Her new white nursery!! I love how it turned out!! I love the cheap triangle wall most of all!!

I can't wait to see what 2014 has in store for us over here. I have a feeling it will be another really special year for us!

Ashley

Our New Advent Calendar

I have thought about having an advent calendar for a while now. We have never had one and I thought it would be fun to make one up now. I knew I wanted it to be an activity advent calendar and not a treat advent calendar, but that is all I knew. I thought about many things but couldn't make my mind up. Before I knew it, it was December 1st. I literally made this December 1st! Is it what I wanted? Not exactly...but it will do. Here it is:

I used paper bags to make folded rectangles to hang on the twine. I used my circle punch to make circles (out of red and green paper), attached them to the paper bag with double sided tape and I drew the numbers on with a sharpie. I then draped the folded paper over the twine and used a mini clothes pin to attach them.

I wrote different activities/tasks on each paper. That was kind of hard. Mostly because I work and we are all very tired when we come home and don't want to do too much. The weekend activities were easy. It was the activities during the week that were tricky!

Some of my activities included: take a picture with Santa, decorate your room for Christmas, do a Christmas craft, make a gingerbread house, get a hot chocolate and go see the lights in town, go sledding etc.

I now have a year to think about what I want to do next year..when Adalyn will be a little bit older and understand it a little more...this works for now though!!

Ashley

Bows, bows, bows!

You know when you have an idea in your head and you decide to make it...and it doesn't quite turn out the way you thought?! That happened to me with something I made for Adalyn's bows and flowers!

I wanted someway to display them, to get them out of the jar I had them in! I also wanted to make it look like art! 

I had this frame hanging in our room and thought I could use it to hold her bows! This was just an empty frame..I cheated and painted a piece of bristol board with chalkboard  paint and stapled it on. 

I ripped out the Bristol board and attached ribbon to the frame with staples.

Some of the staples came through so I gave it a new coat of paint, which it needed anyway!

Then I attached the bows and flowers....here it is...

It just isn't what I had in mind...

I think the frame is too big, or there aren't enough flowers. I'm not too sure. Also I think it needs a back so the ribbon doesn't hang...it needs to be tight against the back! 

I have a big canvas sitting here so I might try that...wrapping the ribbon around the back and stapling it..so it would be flat against the back, and also smaller! What do you think?

I should try and put it in her room as well...that might make a difference. I might fall in love with it...who knows!

Until next time..

Ashley

Babies can do crafts too!!

So I think everyone knows by now I love to craft!! I loved when Adalyn got to help me for the Father's Day craft found HERE! I went to PINTEREST to see if I could find any other craft ideas babies can do. I came up with one and found another one I could do for the baby! When Chrissy and Zachary came up I thought we could do both! We started with the baby craft first.

It was so easy. I just added food colouring to water in an ice cube tray and made some pretty ice! I put a piece of card stock in a large freezer bag and added the ice. The babies moved the ice around and as the ice melted it made a pretty piece of art!

Here are the cute babes making some art:

 And here are their masterpieces....The top is Adalyn's, the bottom is Zachary's

 And here is Adalyn's art hanging in her new playroom gallery wall. Along with her other art at the top.

 I can't wait until she is old enough to colour and make pictures!!!

I am soooo very close to getting everything finished in the playroom! I will hopefully be showing you very soon! We love the room, finished or not and spend most of our day in there. I can't wait to show you!

The other craft involved baby onesies and Sharpies!! The tutorial I first saw, I found HERE...but after searching there are lots around! We added the dots with the markers, used the dropper to add the rubbing alcohol and watched the magic happen! :)   

Here we are hard at work!

 And here are the finished onesies!

(Zachary's on the top and Adalyn's on the bottom)

She hasn't worn hers yet but I'm sure she will look cute in it when she does! :)

It was a nice craft day...cheap and easy...my two favourite things!

Ashley

Father's Day!

How was everyone's Father's Day a few weeks ago? We had a great one over here!

On Sunday Adalyn and I made a big breakfast for Daddy! Pancakes, and bacon were on the menu! We then gave him his gift...it was all beer related of course..except for the mug that I made a few weeks ago at our pottery painting class with our baby group. He loved it all!

I found crackers made with beer, beer flavoured chips and a cool  antler bottle opener. I  also framed this cute picture I took of our little monkey:

It is hard to get some good pictures now...she is moving constantly but I thought these turned out cute!

I also made some Father's Day art with my friend Amanda and our babies! Can you see the white frame in the back? Adalyn made that!! With a little help from me of course!

We took our cardstock and some stickers..and spelled out "DADDY" with the stickers. Then we put them in large freezer bags with some globs of paint..and let the babies push the paint around!

 They used their feet too! :)

 Comon...how cute is he!?!?

 Our finished master pieces!!! I have one hanging in the playroom too!! When the paint dried we took the stickers off and traced around the letters with black marker!

 Of course we had some time to play too!!! They are getting so big!

 We love our craft days with Amanda and Benjamin!!!

We also love Daddy!  Hope you had a great first Father's Day babe!

Ashley (and Adalyn)

Some new onesies...

You know me and how I love to paint and embellish baby onesies...I made some more! Here are my latest creations..

For the first one I just used fabric paint and a stencil I had...

 

 For the second one I just used some fabric paint and tape..and painted stripes!

And here is how they turned out...

Pretty cute right!? Addy looks ADORABLE in both of them. I might be a little biased though...... :)

Ashley

Playroom Update

We have been busy over here working on this play room. I am pretty excited about how far we have come already! I did say I wanted it to be done quickly!!!!

I don't have a picture of the room before (when we used it as our "bedroom") but I did manage to find some older pictures!

Here is one from soon after we moved in...we called it the "junk room" for a reason! (How embarrassing!)

And here it is as my craft room (before we moved it to the other side!) So everything was the same as in this photo (paint, curtains, carpet) there was a just a bed against the wall next to the window, a dresser and play pen! Try to imagine it....

And here it is after the wallpaper and paint!!!!

Doesn't it look like a different room? I have to thank my amazing parents AGAIN for putting up wallpaper for me! They worked very hard and I really appreciate everything they did! We were planning on just wallpapering the one wall but we had enough paper to do the entire room. (There was still a little left over from Adalyn's room)  

Of course after I painted I had to move all her toys in there...so here it is now with the toys in there:

We have already played in there so much!! She loves it!

I can't wait to decorate and hang some shelves and art!!!

Here was the to-do list I posted last week

• wallpaper walls
•  paint ceiling, trim and walls
• build cube shelves
• build ABC foam mat
• buy, paint and hang shelves
• make chalkboard
• buy and hang window film 
  
• decorate

and here is our current list:

Our current to-do list:

• wallpaper walls
•  paint ceiling, trim and walls
• build cube shelves
• build ABC foam mat
• buy, paint and hang shelves
• make chalkboard
• buy and hang window film  (we aren't doing this anymore. I just picked up some blinds and cut the cord very short!!!)
  
• decorate 
• decide how to decorate/paint the curtain that separates the two rooms ( I added this because I forgot to before. I have a big paint cloth hanging between each room as a barrier. I want to either paint on it or decorate it somehow to make it look a little nicer!

Not too bad right!?! I thought I should post our cost every week too! So the current amount we have spent so far is

$138.90
and this is how we have spent it...

• 27.99 for the 9 cube storage x 2
• 17.98 for the roll of wallpaper x3
• 19.99 for the ABC 7x4 play mat
• 8.99 for the white blinds

I didn't need to spend any money on paint because I made my own colour from  left over paint and I have to say it is a very pretty colour!!!! I am absolutely loving how this is all turning out! I am sure we will decide on shelves and decor soon! I will keep you posted!! 

Ashley

Adalyn's Easter Onesie!

Making holiday onesies is becoming a tradition over here with Amanda and I! We love crafting and setting up little photoshoots! Here is what we made for the babes for Easter!!!

Here is B's:

Here is Addy's:

And here they are together....how cute!?

 (The eggs were from Walmart!)

I am kind of sad there are not any holidays for a while....Is the next big one Thanksgiving!? We might have to do something for Canada Day so we don't have to wait so long! :)

Ashley

Baby Zachary!

After checking my poll, most of you want to keep seeing the baby stuff here, so I will keep it all here!! Thank you for taking the time to vote and let me know what you would like better!


This week I got to meet my cousin-in-law's new baby boy Zachary! He was 20 days old when Adalyn and I went to visit! I got him a little gift and wanted to make a card. I found this super cute card (with a template) at Rook No. 17 and thought I would go to town!

Here are all the pieces...I also used old book pages! (and some glitter paper for the balloon)

Here is how it turned out! 

I think it turned out pretty good!! Welcome to the world baby Zachary! xoxoxox

Ashley

Some Baby DIY's I want to make!

There is always a long list of ideas in my head of things I want to make! It is funny how they started off being things for the house, then things for me, and now things for my babe! This is a list of some things I would like to make for Adalyn:

I want to paint some leggings! I lovelovelove the gold paint! I love the arrows but you could make any design! Imagine two cute hearts on the knees, or a big heart on the bum?! Awww

She also painted some cute onesies! I might have to go find some neon fabric paint immediately!!

both found at Diesel in Bloom

I want to make some softies for Adalyn but am not sure how they would turn out! I have a lot of cute vintage floral fabric I could make something out of! I am thinking something like this giraffe found at

Make it and Love it

 Or this elephant found at Retro Mama! How cute is this!?

I would like to make some sort to teething toy for Adalyn! I think she would love it!

And also some babylegs!

 

 I have already bought the socks and have cut them! I just need to get the sewing machine out! I can't wait!

Both of these were found at Baby Rocks

I love this baby hat but am not sure if I am a good enough seamstress! It looks super cute though!

 I also love this baby name wall art! Adalyn's walls are pretty much full but I would definitely make room for this!

Both found at How Joyful

well, that is my list! What do you think?! I am basically going to go out tomorrow and see if I can find some gold paint in this town of mine...wish me luck!

Ashley

p.s - Does anyone want to come over to make some baby crafts!?  :)