$6 Wreath

I don't know about you, but I feel like I need a vacation to recover from my Thanksgiving weekend... 

We had a sudden change in plans and the three of us went to my parents house for Thanksgiving. My parents are flight attendants and were getting home on Thursday afternoon. We decided we'd let ourselves into their house and surprise them with Thanksgiving dinner. Anyway, since we got back it's been 4 loads of laundry, catching up on emails, recovering sleep (Andrew doesn't sleep well in new places), and folding said 4 loads of laundry, among other random to-do's.

I finished this project today, just in time for December and it was super easy. All my supplies were $1 or less.

Supplies:
Wreath
Garland
Ribbon
Christmas ornaments
other things to jazz it up ('Merry Christmas' from Walmart, other sayings from Goodwill, and the berry(?) things)

Start by wrapping the garland around the wreath. If you worry about the the wreath showing through, give the wreath a quick coat of spray paint. Mine wasn't bad and with all the other stuff that gets added you don't see any of the wreath.

Next glue the ornaments on to the wreath however you would like them.

Finish by jazzing it up however you would like. I wrapped the ribbon around, hung the Merry Christmas in the middle, glued on some berries and glued on the words.

Super easy and inexpensive wreath is just what our door needed for this time of year!

 

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A bit over due...

At the beginning of the month, our family participated in a 5K walk to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He and another coworker were in charge of organizing a team from his office. His coworker felt they needed a shirt for everyone to wear so they went to work creating a design. I told my husband to bring me a copy as soon as they finished so I could make one for Andrew. It took them a while but I finally got a copy a couple days before the walk. I was going to make a shirt from the 90 minute shirt tutorial over at MADE, but I didn't have the time. Luckily I went to Goodwill and there was the perfect size and perfect shade of gray shirt.

I used the same freezer paper method I've used in the past.

The back was a bit of a challenge because the cut outs were so small. I decided to not write out the whole thing and instead free-handed an abbreviated version. I was happy I finished it, but it wasn't the best quality on the back. We had a fun time and Andrew was really good the whole time. I just can't believe I forgot my camera so these are the only photos I've got of the shirt.

Hole in the Pj's Repaired

Lately, it has gotten colder here in Vegas.  I pulled out the cold weather pj's to see what I've got to work with and I found these...

He wore a hole in these back when he first began crawling. I tried them on him and they fit in the body, but the legs are too short. So I figured it would be pretty easy to fix that.

 I started by cutting off the foot of the pj's.

Then I used some ribbed knit to create a cuff around the leg. 

I did that by cutting strips that were as long as the circumference of the leg, exactly. The knit will stretch so you don't need seam allowance. I got the instructions from no big dill. (click here for instructions)

One thing I messed up on is I cut the knit the wrong way. You want the knit lines to be running up and down so it stretches side to side, make sense? I hope so. I'm sure it's common sense, but I really don't know where my brain was at, it was late. I was able to make it work though and they turned out perfect.

He would not stand still or relinquish the diaper changing supplies for a picture. Silly boy.

A Christmas Craft

Yes, I know it's a little early for Christmas stuff, but I just finished a project we did for our craft club this month. I'm not sure who to give credit to for this idea. I know one of the ladies had one that we used as the example, but I don't know if she made it or bought it. 

Anyway, we made a stocking 'board' for lack of a better word. Most of us here in sunny Las Vegas don't have fireplaces in our homes and in the two years I've been married we've spent them either moving (yep, we moved on Christmas Eve) or travelling, I haven't hung stockings, in fact, I don't think we even have stockings...maybe I should work on that next. For me this was quite perfect.

We had a woman in our ward cut the vinyl for us that made the lettering really easy. The specific dimensions are 9"X30", which we had cut from a sheet of nice quality plywood. Then next step was a little sanding, painting, and weeding out the vinyl lettering. Once the paint dried and the vinyl was on, we drilled holes for the hooks and put sawtooth picture hangers on the back. 

It was super easy and I love how it turned out. One of the other women was painting hers red and white because she decorates with a peppermint theme, I can't wait to see how hers turned out!

So much for my weekend plans...

Did you know that October 31st is also Nevada day? Yup, Nevada was admitted into the union on October 31st, 1864. Good little tidbit should you ever be on Jeopardy or something. Anyway when the 31st falls on a weekend most state businesses close on the Friday before for a nice holiday. This meant my husband got Friday off! I was super excited to have him around to help with the feisty little cub.

For the past, let's say 2 weeks-ish, the little guy has been waking up in the middle of the night (multiple times a night) crying. Something he hasn't really done since he was 10 weeks old! Yeah, I have been exhausted - hence my general lack of blogging. Lately his nap times have meant my nap times. So when I remembered my husband was going to be home on Friday I was super excited that he could keep him entertained while I got some projects done...HA! didn't happen.

I did get one thing done though. I saw this cute tutorial for a fun floor cushion on Living with Punks. It was easy and it'll make for a fun story time chair or just a fun bean bag type thing for the little guy.

I have one other project in the works and I'll hopefully be able to finish it by tonight. we'll see.

Oh and the cub went as a monkey this year. Probably the cutest monkey I've ever seen, but I might be a little biased.