every party has a pooper

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Katie

Especially when its honoree is still in diapers… We celebrated J’s second birthday last weekend, and I’m still a little in shock that he’s already two. My baby, excuse me, my big boy is growing up so fast. He will no longer accept being ‘Mama’s baby’. O sad day. Little does he know that he’ll be 75 and he’ll still be my baby :)

Much like his first birthday celebration, it was a small family affair. Other than Michael and I, it was just our parents and my brother and his son. And I played it super-simple. We ordered pizza for lunch since it is one of J’s favorites. And that made it super easy for me. Double bonus.

J was more excited about his ‘truck party’ than knowing he was having a birthday party. Which was pretty adorable. My truck party. My truck party.

I ordered the cupcakes (vanilla with chocolate icing) from Whole Foods, and then just added the little trucks once we picked them up. I used my new blue Ball mason jars with some red and orangey-yellow tulips. And other than that, we just stuck truck stickers on everything that didn’t already have a truck on it :)

Here’s the run-down of where I found everything:
Table runner – fabric from JoAnn
Cake stand – from Pick Your Plum a few months back, I painted it red
Truck candles/cupcake toppers – from Amazon (in packs of 4)
Favor sacks – from Target on clearance
Truck stickers – from Target
Happy Birthday banner – from Target

Have you thrown any truck parties lately? At this point, if I was betting, I’d bet we have another one this time next year :) What should we add when it becomes a 3-year-old truck party?

something bout a truck

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Katie

Are you totally singing that Kip Moore song in your head now? Me, too! It’s one of the few songs I’ve downloaded to my iPhone, so I sing it a lot. I digress…

The Easter Bunny (EB) was trying to figure out what to bring our little guy for Easter, and well, the obvious answer was trucks. He loves anything with wheels, even two-dimensional ones that don’t spin, but he especially loves trucks. And to say “truck”. It was one of his first 10 words. Seriously. He’s been ogling our neighbor’s red Hemi truck since the first time he saw it. Who knows where that came from. Michael isn’t even a car guy.

So, anyway, EB (Easter Bunny) didn’t want to give J a ton more little trucks to play with since the toy cabinet is pretty full of them already (and he has a birthday just around the corner). And, EB just happened to know he was even enamored with the magnets on the fridge with trucks on them for various local plumbers or HVAC guys.

So, while EB was shopping at the craft store, an idea hopped (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) into her (you already picked up on me bring the Easter Bunny, right?) head. Truck magnets. Using the already painted little trucks they sell at Jo-Ann, Hobby Lobby, and Michael’s for less than a dollar each and a sheet of magnets.

I’m not sure I can even call this a craft since I didn’t even paint the little trucks. But it was the easiest not-quite-craft I ever did. Er, I mean EB ever did. (To up the craft effort, you could buy the little unfinished shapes they sell at those same stores and paint them yourself.) EB just cut pieces of magnet from one of the self-adhesive magnet sheets and stuck them on the back of each vehicle. And that was it. Well, then EB stuck them on our fridge for a quick pic and then tucked them into J’s Easter basket and went to sleep.

(They stick to our stainless fridge because we don’t have a real stainless fridge. It is called GE Clean Steal - it was cheaper (when we bought it 10 years ago), resists smudges/fingerprints, and is magnetic – win all around.)

Anyway, I thought he’d like these little trucks (technically, 2 trucks, a digger, a car, and a bus), but I didn’t realize they would go over so well. Seriously. He has tried to carry them to bed each night. And, after we explain again each night that they have to sleep on the fridge, he kisses them goodnight and tells them he’ll see them in the morning. No joke. Not sure what it is. I guess there is really something about a truck…

Does your kid like something you’ve “made” for them way more than expected? What was it? Or do you have a kid (or husband or boyfriend) who is head over heels for anything with wheels?

P.S. If you read about my little switch plate switcheroo April Fools’ Day prank on Monday, check back in over there for an update. Spoiler alert: he’s already noticed.

kiss me, i’m irish(ish)

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Katie

Top of the morning to you. Ok, so I may not exactly be Irish. But, my husband’s family came to the US from Ireland (albeit a right long time ago), and my family is originally from one of those other British Isles… And, I have the reddish-brown hair and freckles to blend in around there. O, and I have been to Ireland, so that should be worth some Irish points, right??

Anyway, we didn’t get the family room painted yet as I’d hoped (boo hiss), so I don’t have an update for you on that front just yet. Though, I did get out a little spray paint yesterday (before the winds revved up to a million miles an hour!), so hopefully I’ll have some little updates to show you on Friday.

So, back to me and my Irish ~~roots~~ almost-roots. Not sure if it’s the awesome accents, being the birthplace of U2 (I’m a big fan of their early tunes), or that their big celebration urges us to drink green beer, but I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Ireland. Seriously. It was the one place I knew I wanted to go when I visited Europe. And, it was just as amazing as I’d imagined. Must get back there someday.

Sorry, I started daydreaming about my trip from Galway to the Cliffs of Moher… Back to my little pre-St. Paddy’s Day decor. I was inspired by this adorable Valentine’s argyle wreath on Pinterest (though I can’t find the original source of it — if you know, add a comment so I can give them some credit – this thing is all over Pinterest tied to a million broken links). (I love love love argyle and had been dying to finally make some yarn wreaths so this was a double-win!) So inspired, in fact, that I started making a couple of them for our double front doors back in February…

But, I didn’t get them done in time for Valentine’s Day since other Valentine’s projects trumped them. As for what I did accomplish, well, I just made your basic yarn wreaths: straw wreaths (still in plastic wrap) wrapped many, many times with yarn.

Now (a month later), I took those two plain gray yarn wreaths and decided to turn them into St. Patrick’s Day wreaths instead. I found a simple image of a four-leaf clover with the assistance of my friend (google), printed it on cardstock, cut it out, and used it as a template to trace and cut out what felt (ha!) like a million green felt shamrocks (but was really only 27).

I debated between lighter green or white for the yarn and whether or not I wanted 10 or 12 shamrocks per wreath… (In hindsight, I should have considered matching gray yarn so that it wouldn’t show on the back. Oops.)

Then, I tried to tie the shamrocks onto the wreath without glueing them down… Essentially, I’m trying to force these versatile little gray yarn wreath bases to be useable for more than one season by making their bling removable, but it’s not making this little project any easier…

I decided I would attach them by cutting individual pieces of yarn, forming an X across each shamrock with 2 pieces of yarn, hot-glueing the yarn at four points (two per string) to secure them to the shamrocks, and then just looping the strings around the wreaths and tying them on the back of the wreath.

The hardest part was keeping the shamrocks from bunching because of the angle of my strings.

And, here’s my attempt at recreating the inspiration shot from the original Valentine’s wreath. (It loses a little something with the reflection in the windows, huh?) Wreaths St Pattys 10

How are you getting geared up for St. Patrick’s Day? Is it just me or do you read things about Ireland in an Irish accent? :)

I have linked this post up to Craft-O-Maniac and Monday Funday.

valentines-a-palooza

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Katie

Last night, we had two last-minute (is there a more productive time?) Valentine’s projects at our house: 1) we needed to roll out enough kiddo-made Valentine’s for a certain toddler class (plus grandparents, aunts, and uncles) and 2) I needed to create some art to replace the Christmas printable that I’m ashamed to admit was still framed on our entry board and batten ledge. (I love being able to change out the art and pictures so easily with that ledge, but sometimes I just stop noticing what’s there until it’s just like “is that seriously still up there?”. Oops.)

Let’s just say I didn’t exactly prepare, per se, for either of these projects, but I always know I have my ~~hoarded~~ collected stash of crafting materials to fall back on. So, I scanned my craft reserves and formulated the plan – punch out lots of hearts and stick them on things… In the interest of efficiency (and making less of a mess), I decided the two projects should share their main supplies: leftover scraps of colored paper, some textured scrapbook paper, a heart-shaped craft paper punch (That’s Amore by Fiskars), and the sticker maker ~~machine~~ contraption (Xyron Create-a-Sticker).

I should go ahead and warn you that I am not a pink person. At all. So, we didn’t include much pink in our Valentine’s projects. And because I don’t love pink (and don’t always like to follow the rules), we used lots of other fun colors. We used red, pink (only for the cards), green, aqua, blue (only for the cards), and orange from my scrap pile. We only used the textured scrapbook paper for the art since it seemed thicker than I wanted for the cards. The scrapbook papers were by Coredinations and were a red overlayed with a darker red (called Ruby) and a pink overlayed with red (called Kisses).

Let’s start with the art, shall we?

I used a 9×12 canvas panel (yes, I realize it may be weird that I have these lying around in many sizes — what can I say, I like to make my own art), matte Mod Podge, and a brush to apply it with. I started by punching out a ton of little hearts from the leftover paper and the two sheets of scrapbook paper. Then, I laid some of the hearts out on the canvas panel to figure out the color pattern and general spacing and took a quick picture to help keep me from messing it up (5 across, 7 down).

Next, I ran the hearts through the sticker maker and attempted to put them back on the panel in the correct formation — luckily, I used the repositionable sticker cartridge because it took a few attempts to get the spacing right again. (In hindsight, I would make smaller batches of stickers next time so that some were still in position as a guide. I didn’t use a ruler or anything, so they are a little wonky since I just eyeballed it. But, I kinda like it that way since you can tell it was handmade.) Once they were all set, I spread a thin layer of matte Mod Podge all over them and left it to dry. Once it was dry, that project was complete and ready for the ledge. Woohoo. One down.

(No, I didn’t make that awesome Welcome print — I bought it from Anna Tovar on Etsy. So cute, right?)

Bring on the cards. O wait, don’t bring the toddler just yet.

For the Valentine’s cards, I went ahead and punched out all of the hearts and ran them through the sticker maker before the kiddo got involved. (I used the permanent adhesive on the hearts for this run to try to prevent him – or his classmates – from being able to easily remove the hearts and eat them. Yeah, the things I never thought I’d have to worry about…)

Once the hearts were all stickered up, I let him sit at the table and go to town peeling them off the backing paper and sticking them on the white cards (we used pre-cut flat 4 bar cards) I’d laid out for him. He was amazingly opinionated about exactly where each sticker would go – especially for someone who normally just wants to throw cars and trucks on the floor. He didn’t want any part of me trying to help and even tried to apply a few to our kitchen table. (Rethinking the permanent adhesive about now…) Eventually, we ran out of stickers and called it a night. For him, anyway. I then went back and just wrote Happy Valentine’s Day 2013 and signed his name on the bottom of each. Valentines complete. Woohoo.

Gotta say the stickers were a bigger hit with him than I expected. Especially since they don’t have wheels. And he was very specific about how he wanted to create each card which was just, well, entertaining. Think I may need to load up on some more sticker maker cartridges so we can make his upcoming birthday invitations in a similar way. Now, I just need a car/truck/boat paper punch…

Well, Happy Valentine’s Day — thanks for stopping by!

Is it weird that I can hardly bear to part with the cards he made? I may have taken an individual picture of each and every one… He has some ~~hoarding~~ collecting tendencies of his own. Hopefully, he’ll be able to give them to his little friends and not keep them all for himself. Wonder if he’d understand if I told him it was ok to give them away since I pictures of each of them for him… Ha.