Grandkids Scoreboard

I made this for my mom for Mother's Day . . . I used an old kitchen drawer front (recycled from a kitchen my husband demo'd at work - he owns a cabinet company and designs/installs people's new kitchens/bathrooms and occasionally tears out their old kitchen and brings me home the drawer fronts in good shape to use on projects like this)

And then I drilled holes for the dowels to sit in and hung the number tiles on there. There are additional tiles hanging behind the current numbers so she can change them when more grandkids are added to the family.

UPDATE:
for the number tiles: I bought a long, thin piece of wood at Jo-Ann's and cut it with a saw, then drilled the holes to hang on the dowels. Followed by paint and vinyl.

Denim Baby Book

During Dana & Rae's "Celebrate the Boy" month in February, I found this idea. I adapted it for my little girl though. My favorite pages are the front cover and the back. I used cookie cutters and text/images I made for all the pages.

I also rounded the corners and added piping along the outside edges. This was time consuming to make, but I really enjoyed making it last weekend. I also made a boy one for a baby shower I'm going to tomorrow. I used cookie cutters and images I drew for that one as well. I'll post that later this week with the rest of the items I made.

Here is the front: Here are the inside pages: Here is the back:

Spring Plate

I found this plate in the Easter/Spring area at Target at the end of March . . . . . . just cut out some vinly flowers and letters on my Cricut and viola, a plate for the mantle.

Spring Wreath

I saw this idea sometime around Valentine's Day, but never wrote down the link . . . which meant I had to try and remember how they did it. Not sure if this was how, but here's what I did:I bought a yard of pink felt, cut it into tons of circles - definately over a hundred, but I just kept cutting rows as I needed more, so I never got a final count.

Fold the circle in half, then in half again, so it looks like a triangle. Then using a sewing pin (the kind with the ball on the end, attach the felt to the styrofoam wreath form. I alternated angles so they weren't all lined up the same way.

Hang it up with ribbon and enjoy!

Peep Bunny Bunting

Dana had another great project idea . . . A Peep Bunting. I didn't have any felt on hand and it was nap time, so I wasn't able to leave the house to go get some. And the impulsiveness of my personality didn't want to wait. So I dug through my fabric drawers and found this gorgeous purple satin fabric. It seemed like a "peep purple."I sewed the back bunny to the ribbon and then I tried sewing around the edge to connect it to the back layer, but it looked crappy and too homemade. So I unstitched it and opted for the spray adhesive. It's kinda fragile, but as long as the kids don't get a hold of it, it should last years.

Easter Vase

I saw this vase idea on someone's blog . . . I got a glass candlestick from the dollar store, painted it blue and then put one of my drinking glasses on top of it.

To make the easter grass, I cut strips of green cardstock and folded them up in that zig-zag pattern. Then I filled it with decorative eggs.

This is by far my favorite holiday thing I've made lately.

Also, the vinyl blocks were made through a kit I purchased from Creative Signs by Jenna a couple years ago - she still sells them on her Etsy shop.

Gathered/Ruffled Scarf

I found this idea and made a scarf for my mother-in-law. I didn't have enough of the plaid fabric to get one long piece, so I made 2 rows of the gathered ruffle rows on each end. The tutorial calls for flannel, but I think the plaid was a bottom weight (or something that's kinda heavy but stretchy). And the pink was a woven cotton. I don't know what kind of fabric they were - I had them on hand from other projects.

Here's a closer image of the ruffles. It's hard to get them to show up since the fabric is so bright.

Refinished Cubby

When we bought our house, this coat cubby was left behind in the garage. I was so excited to transform it into something cute! It's hard to tell from the picture, but the wood was in bad shape (water damage on the base and someone had spray painted scary skulls on the back.) Oh, and we're in the middle of tearing down the deck, so that's why the background looks all messy and disheveled. So after sanding, a couple coats of paint, and some fabric mod podged to the back peg board, it looks brand new.

And I cut the names out of fabric with my cricut as well and mod podged them to the fabric.

Multi-Washer Necklaces

**I've had a few requests for the directions I wrote up to take to our YW activity . . . you can download it here.**

I found this idea while blog hopping . . . and used it to teach the Young Women (ages 12-18 from church) at our last activity. It took me several tries and over an hour to figure it out the first time. I ended up writing my own instructions for the activity that seemed easier to follow.


You only need 18 washers and 60" of ribbon. I think each necklace came out to around 2-3 dollars each. We used black satin ribbon, but I had also made one out of the pink grosgrain ribbon as well. The satin ribbon is easier to keep the weave tighter, but it gets twisted a lot and you need to straighten it out all the time. The grosgrain is harder to keep the weaving tight, but it's stiffer, so it's easier to work with when threading it through the washers.

Dana's 90 Minute Shirt - I tried . . .

I tried Dana's 90 Minute Shirt - which meant making my own pattern. But it was free - I used an old t-shirt that used to be my brother-in-law's (which I intercepted on it's way to goodwill) and the red ribbing was from an old tank top of mine. It lookes better in the picture than in person. When he moves, it bunches up around the neck line and at the shoulders. So it looks like a bunched up turtleneck :( So while he was watching Cars, I took my "mark-b-gone" pen and drew on the shirt where I need to cut and re-sew the neck line. He kept looking at me funny since I was drawing on the shirt while he was wearing it.

So that means that tonight I have a date with a seam ripper and the couch. And this took me from about 10am till 5pm today (with many, many stops to feed the baby or help Ethan with whatever he was doing. The longest part was trying to create a pattern. The sewing went really easy and fast. So I can see how once you have a pattern set, it would be a quick shirt to make. But then you have the problem of your children growing, thus your pattern will always need tweaking.