Presents for West

 The shower post for West got so long, I decided to do a separate entry for the presents I made him. I really got busy crafting for this little man! Up first, I made month onesies for West. I got the idea from this Pin. I cut the fabric out with my cricut then ironed it on. I chose three different fabrics that I rotated over the twelve months. Tomorrow is his four month birthday & Andie has taken his picture in the onesies each month! I would share them with you, but her internet connection is out in the boonies & doesn't work real well, so she hasn't sent them to me yet!

I used heat transfer vinyl to do the numbering & wording. I think they ended up SOO cute! I couldn't go to her shower in Ozona, so this is the gift I sent for her. Apparently it was a hit at the shower :)

If you have Pinterest, you'll probably know where this quote came from. I've seen this Pin pinned by almost everyone I am friends with, including my cousin Andie. Good reason, it's pretty awesome! I couldn't afford it, so I made my own. I glued 3 1x4s together, painted them blue & then white washed it. I loved the look but then remembered the walls in West's room were the same blue. I wanted it to stand out on the wall, so I used the chocolate around the edges to create a border & age it, all at the same time. I cut all the words out of vinyl with my cricut. It was time consuming, but so worth it! 

She was so surprised to see it sitting on the table for her :)

I made this sign for West's room out of a cabinet door. I first painted it blue, then chocolate, and then distressed. I cut out his name with my cricut and used it as a stencil. Love it!

All in all, everything for West's shower was really great!! I'm glad Andie enjoyed it!

a very PINTERESTING October!

The month of October was packed full of crafts! In fact, I don't think I baked a single cupcake all month! Most of my projects, especially for Halloween, came from my favorite website ever, Pinterest. Here's what was so pinteresting (as Drew likes to say)about October!

At left, is my first ever wreath attempt. I really like it! Here's my inspiration.

I made these shirts for our niece Kambryn's birthday. I think they are super cute! I love the big flower on this one!

My friend Amanda called me in need of gifts for a baby shower. She asked me to make her a wipes case, bib & onesie with the new baby's initial. W, for Willow.

These turned out cute, but it's all pretty standard for me at this point

I LOVE this! Of course, I saw the idea on Pinterest! I am a bath-a-holic, so I thought this would be pretty perfect. It was also a very fun surprise for my husband when he went in to turn on my bath water :)

This brilliant idea came from House of Smiths. I'm trying to organize our laundry room & the ironing board seems to always be in the way, no matter where I stick it. This was the answer! My only problem is the wall hangers I used on the back. They weren't flush with the board, I had used D-ring hangers. Because of the weight of the ironing board, it pulls the sign & the D-ring hangers away from the wall, leaving a gap between the top of the sign & the wall. Thinking it was only a cosmetic problem, I rolled my eyes & moved on, I didn't have anything else to use that night. Well, as of 4 months later, the weight is pulling the screws out of the wall (no Drew, I didn't use a stud. This time you may be right!) Looks like I will have to be addressing this issue in the near future!

But doesn't it look good?! The front hooks that hold the board are from Hobby Lobby.

 Next up was finishing the many October birthday presents I wanted to do. I swear everyone in my family is born in October! Including me! The first project I had was helping my sister-in-law Teria with the decorations for my nephew Cade's first birthday. She decided on a little red wagon theme. Here is his party shirt. On the back, we used the same gingham & spelled our his name across the shoulders. Super cute!

With my cricut & the help of my friend's new cameo, we made this banner, flags for the cupcakes & labels for all the food & drinks. It was the first party that I had done after catching the Pinterest bug. It was a very fun party & I am sorry that I don't have any more pictures than this! I will have to get more from Teria!

I LOVE this DIY canvas print of my nephew Cade that we used as a decoration. I got the idea from Pinterest, originally this post at Girl Inspired. I had a 11x14 print made, modge podged it on a canvas, then distressed the it to give it the antiqued look. Isn't he cute?!

 And here he is again, this time in a shirt I made him for his birthday. I saw this Pin & knew it would be a perfect shirt for Cade!

My next project was a wreath for my mom's birthday! I love this burlap Christmas wreath that I found on Pinterest & knew it would be perfect for mom. I used the tutorial from Craftaholicsanonymous to do both the wreath & the burlap roses. It was very simple & easy to follow! My only problem was that I didn't like any of the colors of burlap that I could find at Walmart & Hobby Lobby. I was making the wreath for my mom to hang up in her classroom as a year round decoration, so of course I wanted it to be her favorite color, purple! Apparently I was feeling very ambitious, because I decided to dye my burlap to get the color that I wanted. My husband thought I was slightly crazy since I had never dyed anything in my entire life. But, after being colored in an ice chest & washed out in the washing machine (twice), I love the color purple I ended up with! BTW-She loved it to!

 I got into a little bit of a tutu phase towards the end of the month. After spotting this Pin with a very easy to follow tutorial, I knew it would be perfect for the baby present that I needed to do. Baby Tenley was born in January & I can't wait to see her in the onesie & tutu I made for her! She is such a beauty!!

My next tutu was for my best friend's daughter's first birthday. Her name is Kallie, or Princess Kallie, or Kallie Kat :) Since her mother & I met at A&M, I thought a maroon & white tutu for game days would be perfect! I wasn't completely sold on the two colored tutu but I ended up really liking it. Here is a link to my best friend's blogpost about the party. She went all out with a Disney Princess theme (of course!) & her cameo got a work out! She made banners, printables, all the desserts and a tutu for the party princess. Really, if someone was throwing me a party, it could have used most of the exact same elements. And yes, I was caught wearing several pieces of the princess costume jewelry :)

Kallie was awesome!! Especially how she dove into the cake! We are NOT shy around here about our love for cake!

And now for all of our Halloween decorations! Every single one was a Pinterest inspired or straight up copied idea! 

First up, the wreath for my front door. I loved this Pin, but instead of taking me to a tutorial, it was an etsy shop. Sorry, I'm not buying it, I want to make it! As you can see, I have a red door so I didn't think the orange wreath would be a good match. I decided to go with black. I cut up my burlap strips, got my wreath form, put in Twilight & went to tying. And tying. And New Moon. And tying. I had NO idea it was going to take that long! O well, I really liked the way it turned out!

 Next I made a wreath for my french doors. Here, I decided to use the same folded burlap technique that I used for my mom's purple one, but in orange! I didn't want to do the roses, just a simple bow.

This is quite possibly my favorite things I made for Halloween. I think they are soo cute!! I saw the idea here & thought it would be a perfect, relatively easy craft that would look great in the house. All it is, is 4-5 2x4s glued together and distressed with a bow on top. The original idea used ribbon to tie them up, but I have a TON of green tulle lying around from my wedding in 2009 so I thought it would be a perfect way to get rid of some of it!

This was with sanding, but without the black distressing from the ink pad. Drew took this one to school & gave it to his partner teacher who enjoys decorating. I seriously love these!

After seeing a very easy ruffle table cloth that Girl Inspired made for her daughter's birthday party, I decided I needed a Halloween table cloth! I got a full size orange sheet from Walmart, cut it down to the correct dimensions for my table, added a ruffle & it was done! I love anything with ruffles!

I had seen several posts on Pinterest using Apothecary jars filled with various things to add pops of color around the house. Luckily, I have several of these jars lying around, I just needed some candy corn & oreos! Which turns out wasn't the best idea. I didn't realize I even liked candy corn until I had a huge jar of them in my living room!

And last, but certainly not least, is the Halloween decoration that my husband helped with! We copied this Pin.

Take 5 2x4s cut to various lengths, screw them together & paint! The painting is where Drew came in. He is definitely the artist in the family, he free handed all the faces. The ghost is a little scary for me, but he was doing it voluntarily, so I let him go with it! Super cute!

So that was my very pinteresting October! Makes me tired just thinking about it all over again. And also, now you know why i haven't blogged about it until February, way too busy!!

Busy week...

To start my very busy week of Easter, I had a sign order from one of  the teachers Drew works with in Navasota. Ms. McGinty's has a friend that is getting married soon & she wanted to give her one of the signs she'd seen on my blog. She's also interested in some cake pops for her own wedding this fall, but that will have to be another post....

One of these days I plan on finishing the sign for my own house. It has been sanded & painted and all it needs is for me to stop being lazy & stencil on SELF est 2009. One of these days!

Getting crafty!



This is for a friend at work, & no, it's not mispelled!

  So after stalking my friend JP's blog, Paisley Pink Polka Dots, a lot of practice & some extra time, I decided I would be making lots of my Christmas presents this year. I was very excited to be able to try lots of new stuff & hopefully save us some money! Drew was excited until he realized how much time I would be devoting to my new plan. Also, our house kind of turned into a disaster. A big disaster. It started in my craft room & then kind of oozed into the kitchen, garage, & living room, but things didn't get heated until I accidental got a tiny amount of hot pink spray paint on his BBQ pit. I mean really, is it that big of a deal? Apparently it was & I had to clean up my house full of crafts which Drew started referring to as our Vacation Bible School mess! (yes, we're Baptist) So anyway, we made it & I finished everything that I started for our family & friends! I have a couple of presents I still haven't finished, ok, (haven't even started), but it's only February, I'll get to them before next Christmas! I'm trying to give my husband a break! And for some reason, I'm assuming because Christmas at my mom's with my 3 year old niece is a little hectic, I didn't get a single picture of my mom with anything I made her. What makes that even more crazy is that I made her the most stuff out of anyone!! The last time I was down, I did take a picture of her Lankford sign,

It is going to look awesome when it is finally hung on her maroon living room wall. So, what do you think?

 A cute picture frame for my sister-in-law Teria's desk at school. The picture is of her, my adorable niece Jolie & nephew Cade.
(Mom got one of these as well, with a picture of just the grand kids)

 This sign was commissioned for my brother Cody by my dad. They do A LOT of hog hunting. And I had a lot of fun making this sign rustic by glazing it & beating it up with a hammer, crow bar & even a screw driver!

 This is one of my favorites! A sign to hang outside my brother & sister-in-law's house. He had it hung up the day I gave it to him!

Here's my dad with the picture frame I made for his desk. We love you daddy!! I got the idea from this post on the blog How Does She.

 This is my absolute favorite thing I made this Christmas! Luckily for me, my brother's family went & had pictures taken right before Christmas. I made this frame for their living room. I got the idea from the blog House of Smith's. Here's is even bigger because she used canvas pictures inside the frame.

  This is our niece Kynlee posing with the chalkboard I made her out of an old cabinet door. This is where I got my inspiration.

This is Kynlee's mommy with the sign I made for their house.

This is Drew's sister Lauren. She is getting married to a friend of mine in May, so I made them a sign with their new last name & wedding date. Lauren & Stanley's was the first sign I had ever made! (My parents got a sign with this color combination, Lankford Est. 1979)

These are Drew's parents, my parents-in-law. I really like how their short last name looks on the sign!

This is Drew's aunt & uncle, Doug & Sheri (Tui) Bolland. I drew Tui's name for Christmas, so of course she got a sign! I did hers a little more rustic & absolutely love the way it turned out!

As you can see, I was VERY busy!! So I'm glad everyone liked their presents & a big thank you to Drew to putting up with me while I was doing soo much crafting!!

Something Different

The month of October is ridiculous for my family when it comes to birthdays. We have 7 (1 on the way) birthdays, with 5 of them being in a span of 7 days! And of those 5 are my mom, my sister-in-law Teria & myself. My mom is very easy for me to buy for since we like the majority of the same things, and I can shop for her pretty well. Teria, on the other hand is harder for me. She usually wants gift cards for clothes. But, since she is 8+ months pregnant this year, clothes were not on her mind. Once again, after visiting my friend Jennifer's blog, I had an idea. I was going to try something new, to make a hand painted sign (by myself) to hang in the baby's room. I was very nervous but after some coaching from JP, I think it came out pretty awesome!!

"our little trooper" because my brother, Cody is actually a Texas State Trooper. Get it, our little trooper? I know, I am SuPeR impressed with myself!

And good news, Teria loved it!! Cody had it hung up in the baby's room the next night! Pictures of baby Cade as soon as he arrives! O, and, I might be developing a new sign making obsession!!

Present!

I have a friend named Jennifer, who is very crafty. She has a great blog, Paisley Pink Polka Dots, that I check regularly to see what all she's been up to. Well, I am a sign person. I LOVE to have signs with all sorts of sayings all over my house. (My husband is not as big of a fan of my obsession, but that's another story!) One day on her blog, I see this great sign that she made, Imagine. As I was decorating my kitchen at the time, inspiration struck! So, I called her & begged her to make me a sign for above a set of my kitchen cabinets. She didn't have to ask, of course it would be pink! She had it made almost the next day & it is perfect!! Don't you think?

It makes me happy every time I see it!! Thanks JP!!