E Baby's Growth Chart

From the moment we found out Elliot was a girl, I knew I wanted as much of her nursery to be custom as possible.  I knew the general idea of how I wanted her growth chart to look, but the details just wouldn't form in my head. Finally, about the time we found out we were moving to Louisiana is when I really knew how it would look, but because of lack of space and desire to do anything, I kept putting it off.  Now that we are back in Texas and things have calmed down a bit, I've finally had a chance to work on and finish this little project!

First, I ordered 4"x1/2" MDF numbers from SJA Wood Design.  If I had to do it over again, I would get the nicer wood, but the quality of what I got is perfectly fine and you can't beat about $1.00/each!  I ordered the numbers at 10:00 on Tuesday morning and by 2:00 that afternoon I got an email saying that my order had shipped.  Seriously, it was THAT quick! On Thursday, I got this box...

How cute is that?!  I painted the numbers the bottom color of Elliot's room and let them dry over night.

Next, I painted a 6'x7" board the same color as her dresser and chest.  It's Polar Bear white...or something like that (Martha Stewart).

When I was putting the numbers on the board to figure out where they went, it just didn't look right...it was too bare.  I decided I wanted a damask background and used my cricut and the Damask Decor cartridge to cut out vinyl to use as a stencil.

Once I figured out where on the board I wanted the damask (I put one behind each number), I applied the vinyl on and painted in the stencil with the top color of Elliot's room (Spring Melt - Martha Stewart).

How sweet is this damask?  I'm not really sure why I chose the birds, but I love them.  The more I was doing the stencils, the more they reminded me of my sweet Grandmom...she was an excellent gardener and LOOOOOOVED birds!  Next, I glued the numbers to be centered on the stencil..

...and I decided it was still in need of a little something. Soo...I took just the little birds from the damask, painted them between each number at the 6" mark, and ended up with this!

I really love how it turned out and hope Elliot appreciates it when she's older.  I plan to write her a little note on the back of the board to go with how tall she is, that way she'll have a little something that shows our thoughts and feelings of her growing throughout the years!

I went ahead and marked when she was born... 

...and when she turned one...

And here is the finished product...

(You can't tell because of the flash, but I did the birds between all the numbers (even the 4 and 5)!

This took me a guhzillion hours to do and I fully understand that E Baby will HATE it by the time she's twelve, but hopefully when she's a bit older, she'll learn to love it. :)

What do you do to measure your little one? Do you have a growth chart or do you use the door frame? I love the idea of using the door frame, but thought it would be impolite to leave the next owners of our house with an empty door jam when we move! 

I've got a couple more projects to share with you within the week that I'm pretty excited about!

Until then...

Jill

Dreams, Nightmares, and Keys

Do you every long dream of a project you're just dying to do? You know exactly how it will look finished.  Then you start working on it, and before you know it, this dream has become a total nightmare!

Enter said project:

You probably can't tell, but that's an old wooden screen door.  It's also $100 of rotten wood with 450978 coats of paint.  Bummer.  At least I was able to use the chicken wire for Elliot's birthday party. I'm hoping to turn those metal embelishments into a shelf for her room, but my dreams of turning this beauty into a headboard for our room might be a thing of the past.

As a little pick-me-up, I did this project that was SO easy and only took about five minutes!  A while back, I found this project by a girl and a glue gun and I fell in love.  I paired my slight obsession with keys with another of my favorites...maps, and came up with the idea of pairing a key from each place Jarrod and I have lived with an ariel view of it.  I kinda dig how it turned out, and hope to keep this tradition up wherever we move!

Things you'll need:

frame: I used a 4x6 with a 3x5 mat

key

map: I used Google Maps, but you can use any that you like.

scissors

itty bitty tape dispenser: I think I got this in the scrapbook section at Hobby Lobby a few years ago when I thought it would be a good idea to make all my wedding invites.

You totally don't have to do this, but on Google Maps, I typed in our address, so it would drop that little pin thingy exactly where it was.  I was going to draw a red circle around it, but I didn't like how it looked with the colors, and I didn't like the picture in black and white. Does this make me weird?  I hope not.

Anywho, on the bottom of the map, I typed in our address and the dates that we lived there.  I found an empty space on the map and with my itty bitty tape dispenser, I taped the key to it.

Then I framed it. I know I'm over the top sentimental, but I really like how we can keep a gazillion memories in one simple frame with one little key. :)

This project was so easy, I was able to make TWO of them while TWO certain girls were fast asleep for their afternoon nap!

What are some ways that you keep memories of previous places you've lived?  Does that kind of stuff even matter?!

NOTE: I feel like I should add that we no longer live at either one of these addresses.  Please don't stalk the people that currently do.  I think there are laws against that!

Oh, annnddd the numbers for E Baby's growth chart have FINALLY arrived! Hopefully I'll have an update for you soon!

Until later...

Love,

Jill (Jarrod and E Baby say "Hi" too!)

Profile Pictures

Jarrod and I have a pretty large living room that we are able to double as E Baby's play room (for now).  The other day, I decided to make little decor for the super boring and painful to look at empty wall that we consider her "play wall".

Anyone want to come clean my house?!

Super cute right? Thanks to Hobby Lobby's 66% off sale, I was able to do this project for less than $20!

Anywho, while I love how it turned out, the wall was still lacking a little something.  I sent a picture of it to my awesome sisters-in-law, and one of them had the idea to do Elliot's silhouette. As you can see here, our sweet girl is growing and changing quickly, and I wanted to capture her sweet profile at this age.

A while back, I had seen this tutorial by one of my favorite bloggers and put it away in my mental filing cabinet for later use.  When Lauren showed me the same tutorial, I knew it was time to do it!

The instructions said to download this program, but I couldn't get it to work, so I turned to my trusty, long time friend, Paint. It took me WAY longer than it should have, but I know Paint, and it worked. :)

After a couple hours of editing, $20 at Hobby Lobby, and a failed attempt to print the picture at FedEx (I showed up with the wrong card), I finally ended up with this sweet little silhouette.

Isn't this the cutest profile ever?! After resizing the picture, I printed it out and started to put it all together. I layered an 11x14" black/white mat inside a 16x20" black/white mat for a little extra depth, and I LOVE how it turned out with the black frame and black silhouette!

No, my curtains don't poke out like that.
A certain girl may or may not have been playing in them!

It's still lacking something on the left.  Hopefully E will cooperate and let me take her 1 yr foot and hand prints. If not, I'm sure I can find something else to go there!

Airplane Quilt

I have a secret project I've been working on lately! It's been months in the making, and I pretty much love how it turned out!  My sis-in-law and I talked about making a quilt for their second baby boy. She was using airplanes and found this adorable bedding set to go on the twin bed in the nursery.  She had an extra Euro Sham, so she sent it to me along with free reign to do what I liked!

 Here is the Euro Sham (front and back)

Isn't it just darling for a little boy?!

First things first, I had to cut the sham. I cut out each different piece of fabric, leaving the quilting in the pieces. I also made sure to keep the solid navy border completely intact, taking extra precautions not to cut or tear it.

Next, I took the matching crib sheet and cut it to size so I could lay everything out and see where there were gaps and needed extra fabric. There were five airplanes that were repeated on the crib sheet, so from a different one, I cut one of each and placed them where I thought they should go. I still had a few holes, so I used solid red fabric to fill in the rest.

 Next, with the help of my awesome Mama Phyllis, I serged (and serged, and serged) each piece, then section together until the whole front was one piece!

 Now for the quilting! I laid the backing (crib quilt), stuffing, and front down in that order, and from the center and working myself out, I pinned and sewed each section of the quilt. When I was finished with that, I cut the edges to make sure the quilt was straight all along the edges.

The edges were still loose, and I wasn't quite comfortable putting the binding on like that, so u serged around the entire outside (see the white stitches?).

 After I ironed and created some nice creases in the binding material (the blue border from the sham), I realized I had NO idea how to bind a quilt. Here's how my panicked phone conversation went with my mom:

Me: Mom, hi, what are you doing? I have no idea how to bind this quilt. HELP!
Mom: (Starts rattling off instructions, using words I've never heard before. It sounds something like this) blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
Me: uhhhh
Mom: Oh, just look it up on YouTube or something!

The conversation didn't REALLY go like that, but the outcome was still the same!

 So, to YouTube I went, and I found this video by Missour Star Quilt Company, and was able to figure out how to do it.  After a few mesups, changed minds, and a half day of tearing out stitches, I finally finished the quilt just minutes before our littlest nephew was born!

Here is the finished product, and I sure hope baby CC loves it! 

Next time I hope to be able to show you our new headboard and Elliot's growth chart!

Until then...

-Jill

Chocolate Chip Lava Cookies

I have a sweet tooth, and by sweet tooth I mean all of my teeth are literally made of sugar.  Not Splenda.  Not Truvia.  SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR!

When I ran across this blog on Pinterest, I knew I had to make these!

These are the easiest things to make in the world, and only require 2 ingredients!

1. A tub of Nestle' Toll House cookie dough
2. Hot fudge sundae topping

See?!  TWO ingredients!

First, I lined a cupcake tin with fluted papers*, and took my handy dough scooper thingy to make sure I had the same amount for each one.  I flattened the cookie dough and put it in the bottom of the cupcake liner, making sure the dough went up the sides.

Once you have them all lined with cookie dough, put about a table spoon of the fudge topping, take your handy dough scooper thingy to measure out the cookie dough, flatten it, and lay it on top of the fudge.

Seriously.  THAT EASY!

Bake on 325 for 10-15 minutes, depending on how ooey gooey you want them!

*The blog says to just spray the cupcake tin with Pam (I suggest Baking Pam because it smells SO GOOD), but I found it a bit hard to get the cookies out.

Kate Spade Knockoff

I LOVE Kate Spade.  Her line is timeless, classy, chic...perfect, so when I found this tutorial on how to turn a striped long sleeved shirt into a Kate Spade tank top, I was in HEAVEN! I've had this one black and white striped long sleeved t-shirt sitting in my closet for ages.  It's too big, stretched out a bit too much, and it looks like a prison uniform.  I NEEDED this tutorial!

Here is my "prison chic" t-shirt:

And here is my lovely Kate Spade Knockoff!

So much better, don't you agree?!