Tinkerbell

Here is one of my latest paintings.  I painted this for a birthday present since this little girl loves Tinkerbell.  I was going to add her name somewhere in there, but I liked it just the way it was.  

Toddler Bed

Well, my little boy is no longer a baby and has officially proved that he can not be contained in a crib.  Here is proof that my child is a little monkey and can climb his way out or in anything.

See how easy that was, now watch me get back in the crib.

Once we witnessed this we got to work on making a toddler bed.  My husband did most of the work on the toddler bed and we made it to look like the Nume bed that I posted about before.  It turned out fantastic and Oakley loves it!  He climbs through at the opening on the end and curls up in it.

His sister thought she should try it out too.  Look mom, we both fit. 

We sized the bed to fit his crib mattress which worked out perfectly.  I think it is going to work great for him. Okay, now I think he's telling us he wants us to leave so he can go to sleep. Good night!

Candy Pencil

My daughter started Kindergarten this past week.  It was a little rough for her after a few days.  By Thursday she was exhausted and upset.  I never realized my child was such a perfectionist.  I'm hoping after a few weeks we will settle into a routine and it will get a little easier for her.  Here she is the first day of school.  She was happy that day.

Now onto the craft project.  The teacher had a wishlist for the school year so we went out and bought a gift card at one of the places.  I wanted to attach something cute to it and found instructions to make this cute little candy pencil.  I could not even tell you who I need to give credit to for this idea because I found it in multiple places all over blogland.  Anyway, you take a package of Rolos and a Hershey Kiss and tape them together.  Then you wrap it with yellow cardstock.  I went ahead and folded the cardstock so it would have the ridges like a pencil has and pinked the edge where the Hershey Kiss meets up with the Rolos. Then you put a little pink circle on top for the eraser.  I thought it turned out so cute!

Puzzle Chair

I found a pretty cool Italian furniture website.  The company is Adrenalina and the chair is called Puzzle.  To see some of their other furniture click here.

Black Out Material

My son's room has some nice curtains from the previous owners of the house and they worked with his crib  bedding so we kept them.  The only problem that I ran into this summer was that it doesn't make the room dark enough.  With it staying lighter later it was impossible to get him to settle down to go to sleep and naptime wasn't any better.  That is when I decided I would just line the drapes with blackout material.  They were fairly simple drapes and it didn't take too much time to rip out the seams and add the lining.  I wanted them to look like they were lined in the first place and not as an afterthought.  It worked perfectly and now it is so dark in there it makes putting him down for naps and bedtime a breeze. Here's a closeup image of the material.

Here is how big of a difference it makes to have the curtains lined with the blackout material. The first picture is with both drapes pulled back.

The next picture is with one drape pulled to the center.

This picture is with both the drapes pulled, but the hallway light is still on.

Hallway light off. Nice and dark! 

It's a bird, it's a plane...

It's Super Kid!  I've been wanting to make a superhero cape and there was a birthday coming up, so I made one for a little boy celebrating his 2nd birthday.  I found a fantastic superhero tutorial over at The Long Thread that I used. Definitely head over there and check it out if you want to make a cape.  I think I'm going to have to make another one for my little guy. It's just too cute!

My daughter decided maybe she should give the superhero cape a try.

Klick Desk

Back to school time again.  I found a really neat desk from P'Kolino called the Klick Desk.  It is designed for ages 3-6.  I just love how it fits together and saves space when it's not in use.  To see more products from P'Kolino click here. They have other really neat children's products. 

Shell Prints

The kids and I have been doing a few crafts around the house this summer.  I hear, "Can we do a craft?" multiple times a day from my daughter.  Today we pulled out our shell collection.  I warned you that more posts would come involving shells.  This is a very easy project for the kids to do and although it can be a bit messy, they love it.
First lay out your newspaper on the table so the paint doesn't get everywhere and put an old t-shirt over the kids clothes if you don't want them messed up.  I used white cardstock for my daughter to decorate with shell prints.  She painted the shell and then pressed it onto the page.  It's good to have a mixture of sizes so you can get a really nice variation on the paper.

Here is a picture of the finished shell prints.  I think I might use mine as a scrapbook page.

New Dress

My daughter has been on a dress kick lately and has worn a dress for the past 3 weeks.  So, I decided to go ahead and make a dress for her.  We had the fabric and pattern already and it took no time at all to sew up.  I even put in a zipper on my own. Gasp!  I have a fear of zippers and have maybe put in a total of 3 zippers ever.  I seem to look for patterns without them.  I think I might have finally overcome my fear of zippers.
Here are the kids off to the park even though it has been a hundred degrees outside.

Steam Bent Furniture

I came across some really wonderful furniture and lighting designed by Tom Raffield. All of the products that he designs and creates are done by steam bending.  To see more of his work you can find it here.

I just love his light fixtures. This one is called the Ribbon Lamp.

Cage Light

Here is an example of the furniture he creates. The chair is called the Loop Chair.

New Bows for School

This year my little girl will be off to kindergarten. Where did the time go? In preparation for school I made some bows and headbands to match her uniform.  She's not wearing it in the picture, but that is why all the bows are navy and white with a bit of red.  I found a fantastic tutorial on how to make woven headbands.  You can go to hair-hardware to see the tutorial. You can't tell mine is woven since I didn't use two high contrasting ribbons.  One was navy and the other was navy with white polka dots. I plan on making the next one just white and blue.

What I found really great about the woven headband is that you can clip bows to it if you want to dress it up further.

And you know I can't resist designing my own ribbons with paint.  So, I added flowers to a navy ribbon and a plaid pattern to another ribbon.