Handmade Nursery: Wall Art Continued

I got on a roll yesterday and painted 2 more pieces for the future nursery. Here is the "g" that I was painting the other day. I used a canvas board for that one so I just need a frame to put it in. I have been in love with the state art for awhile now so I made one for the baby using a wrapped canvas. I painted around the sides so I'm just going to hang that one up on the wall as is. I have one more wrapped canvas I purchased so I might make an Indiana one too as most of our family is either in Indiana or Kansas. One of these days I'll get around to making a whole outline of the United States and put hearts all over it where all of our family lives to hang in the main part of the house.

I used another canvas board, so this one will need a frame too. The fabrics to the left are the three I made crib sheets out of so I pulled the star shape from the orange and green sheets. There's a little peak of the adorable fox on the polka dot fabric. I have more things planned for him!

Welcome to the new followers that just joined me the past couple days! I love having you here!

My entry into Strut Your Stuff sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines

7 Questions #4

Doing something a little different today. I'm answering and linking up with Gentri Lee's 7 questions!

1. What is your favorite color TO WEAR? Definitely green. I'm always drawn towards green clothes in the store.

2. You are given the choice between visiting every country and landing on the moon. Which would you choose? Visiting every country. There are so many places on this earth that I've never seen and I probably will never be able to see in my lifetime.
3. What's your favorite animal and why? Dogs, but not just any dogs, I love mutts! I love how each and every one of them is different in looks and personality. 
4. You are forced to do one of the following, which would you choose? Sky dive, scuba dive, or this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B36Lr0Unp4 Oh my gosh that's the craziest swing I've ever seen, extremely scary but it would have to be that! At least you're attached to something. I couldn't handle sky diving and I can't swim!
5. You are given the chance to go back in time. Which era would you visit? I would go back to a time when everyone dressed classy even if you didn't have money. When blue jeans weren't the staple thing to wear and no one wore flannel Pjs pants out in public. I see so many pictures of my grandparents in suits and dresses and both were poor families but they looked classy.
6. If you had the power to remove one thing (ie: flies, mosquitos, junk food) from the earth for good- what would it be? Chiggers!!! If it wasn't for those darn chiggers I could see myself living in Kansas again where I grew up. (I forget not everyone even knows what chiggers are so in case you don't just imagine your itchiest mosquito bite and multiply it by ten!! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002309/)
7. What is one thing you've learned from Pinterest that made you think "GENIUS"! Putting your sheets in sets inside the matching pillow case was a big "GENIUS" moment for me. No more searching for the matching set! http://pinterest.com/pin/103231016428126479/ (Honest to goodness and completely ironic that I wrote this post last night and it's the same thing Gentri thought was genius!)

And here is my required "funny" photo of myself. I was going to post the 7 questions last week but couldn't find a funny photo of myself. Even though my husband is the photographer, I'm always the one that has the camera taking family snapshots so I'm not in a lot of pictures. I finally found this one and it's funny to me because Nick caught me laughing and having fun at the park with our daughter. And I wouldn't ever admit I went down the curly slide.

Handmade Nursery: Wall Art

I made up my mind over the weekend that I wasn't going to wait until baby has a nursery to start on art for the walls. I have a vision in my head of a collage wall of different pieces. Some will be painted on canvas, some will be printed artwork and there has to be at least one big painted wooden letter in there too. Since we finalized our baby name choices over the weekend and they both start with G, this was the piece I started with. It is completely ironic that we ended up with names starting with the same letter again. When we were trying to come up with names for L, the boy name also ended up starting with L. We have had the boy's named picked out for some time but were still struggling with the girl's name this time around. I heard the name over the weekend and knew that was it and so did Nick. And it was again completely unintentional that it also starts with a G! I am so excited and relieved to have baby names picked out now that I'm 31 1/2 weeks along.

Handmade Nursery: Giant Ric Rac Baby Blanket

I've gotten a little relief from the spring allergies thanks to some cooler, more appropriate March weather. I pulled out another baby project that has been cut waiting for me to sew and finished it up. I used THIS tutorial with some Snoopy flannel that I've leftover from when L was a baby and paired it with a solid yellow flannel from JoAnn's and some super cute giant ric rac that I found at Hobby Lobby.

Spring Allergies

I wish I was posting to tell you about all of the neat projects I've made the past few days but instead I've been spending my time with a box (or two) of Kleenex. This early spring is making my allergies miserable! Our tree pollen counts have been through the roof and that is one of my big allergies. And since I'm pregnant (31 weeks! Yay!!) I can't take my usual medicines of choice that help me through the season. Hope everyone had a good week and you are not being made miserable by allergies!

Canning Jar Pin Cushion

So, I have no idea where my pin cushion went. Really, I have searched high and low and it might just be my scattered pregnant mind but I can't find it anywhere! And a good portion of my pins were laying out next to my sewing machine and serger. I have looked at so many different pin cushion tutorials thinking, oh I'll definitely make one of those. But have I? Nope, not a single one. When I saw the tutorial for a pin cushion jar on Make It and Love It, I knew this was one I could finally tackle. Nick had just finished one of my jars of homemade strawberry jam and it was still sitting in the kitchen waiting for someone to remember to take it back to the basement. I filled this one with all of my spare buttons but I think I'm going to make another one of them and put my seam ripper and tape measure in it so I hopefully stop misplacing them as well!

Puppy Chow: Nut Allergy Version

A friend of mine recently introduced me to Sunbutter, a nut allergy friend alternative to peanut butter. This was a welcome addition to our pantry since my husband is not only allergic to peanuts but also tree nuts. I know he won't ever make a Sunbutter and jelly sandwich like I do with peanut butter but it will be great to have around for baking and cooking.

When I first heard about Sunbutter, the first thing that came to my mind was Puppy Chow, Muddy Buddies, etc. Whatever name you know this crunchy chocolate and powder sugar covered snack by, you know that it contains peanut butter. So finally in his 30s, Nick had Puppy Chow for the first time in his life and he loves it. 

Here is the nut-free version of Puppy Chow:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
9 cups rice cereal squares - I used Chex
1/2 cup Sunbutter
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
gallon size ziplock bag


Pour powdered sugar into gallon size ziplock bag. In a saucepan (large enough to hold all your cereal) over low heat, melt the chocolate chips. Stir in Sunbutter until smooth. Remove from heat, add cereal and stir until the cereal is coated. Pour cereal into ziplock and shake until well coated. Store in an airtight container.


(Link parties I'm posting this to are found HERE)

Homemade Cherry Limeade

While growing up we always had a Sonic nearby and an old fashioned soda fountain that made the best cherry limeades. After we moved north, the closest place to find a cherry limeade was in the middle of Iowa on the way to visit family. In the past couple years we've since gained a Sonic but it's still about 30 miles away. For L's birthday party I went searching around the internet through the millions of recipes for cherry limeades. Okay, maybe not millions but there are tons of them out there. This is the recipe that I finally started with and went from there with a little modification.

This is now my go-to homemade cherry limeade recipe:

1 - 2 liter of Sierra Mist

1 can of limeade concentrate - thawed

1 cup maraschino syrup

2 limes

8 maraschino cherries (optional)

Add first 3 ingredients to a large pitcher. Cut both limes into quarters, squeeze a little juice out of each of them into the pitcher before dropping into pitcher. Add maraschino cherries to the pitcher, stir and enjoy over ice.

Calendar and Menu Planning: Complete!

Ta-Da! My completed calendar and meal planning board!

Look at yesterday's post if you missed my before shot of the side of the fridge. Since our wall space is so limited the side of the fridge was perfect. I applied the 20"x24" piece of chalkboard vinyl right to the side of the fridge so I can also put magnets on top of the chalkboard. The white rectangles on the menu are made from a sheet of printable magnet that has been sitting in the file cabinet for who knows how long. I just printed some of our favorite meals on it and cut them out. The meal magnets are definitely a work in progress because I know I'll be constantly adding to them. I found chalk markers at Hobby Lobby today and I am in LOVE! They are so much nicer and not as messy as real chalk. Plus who doesn't love the vibrant colors they make. I'm not completely sure about the grey I made the calendar from but it will do for now, I might end up changing it to something brighter.

Calendar and Menu Organization

Since I still can't put baby things out being in limbo between waiting for the house to sell and not having a new place to go to yet I needed to do some sort of organization or decorating of something since I'm going crazy not doing baby decorating. I have been looking at all these great ideas for different calendars and menu planning boards but since we don't have much extra space in our little 866 sq ft, I figured whatever I made needed to serve a dual purpose. This is the "before" of the side of the fridge.

And this is what it looked like this afternoon when the warm sunshine was still streaming into the house. Can't wait to show you the "After" photo tomorrow!

Chocolate Chip Heaven

We are in chocolate chip heaven! And I know both Nick and I gave ourselves stomach aches last night for eating too many of them!!

I started separating my recipe boards on Pinterest so I have different boards for recipes I'd like to try (aka the "Looks Yummy" board) and recipes that I have tried and would make again (aka the "Yummy" board) so I can weed out the ones I tried that were duds. These chocolate chip cookies have been moved over to the Yummy board and will definitely be made over and over again. One thing I did differently was to squish the scoop of dough a little bit on the cookie sheet because the first batch I made the cookies stayed in the shape of the scoop I used and the top of the cookie wasn't done all the way.