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!!

A crafty summer

I'm sorry it's been so long! I have had such a busy end of summer both work & personally, I have barely been in my kitchen, let alone had time to share with you what I've been up to! I think it's best to just show you :)

We took a family road trip to Louisiana for 4th of July weekend to visit my grandparents. My niece Jolie rode with us, so of course she needed a special outfit for all the pictures we planned to take!

This is the view from the back.

I think it turned out really cute! And she looked adorable in it!

Later in July, a friend from work asked me to make these tshirts for her daughter & friends to wear to church camp. Love the colors they chose!

I'm thinking I might make one for myself when I slow down!

I have an obsession with ruffles at the moment, so I made myself a lamp! I intended to make two & put them in my living room on either side of my couch. But, as I tried it out in my bedroom, I decided that was where it was destined to go!

I love the soft, satin ruffles! It totally girlies-up my side of our chocolate & blue bedroom! I will probably be making more of these...

Gifts for baby Emmy. Some of my very favorite things I've made!

I absolutely love the front of this onesie. How cute will she be with that flower e?

 This is the back of the e onesie.

Like I said, obsessed with ruffles! Doesn't this make you want a ruffle butt? Okay, it does me!

This is the first bib I've embellished. Very quick & easy but super cute!

A custom diaper wipes case to match! 

A close up of Emmy, which is short for Emaline.

I also made this bow holder for Emmy. They used it as at the shower.

Here's a purple and black bow holder that I made for my sister-in-law.

Meet my nephew Cade! I made this cute little watermelon shirt for him for a very important cause. We participated in the Watermelon Run for the Fallen, a 5K walk/run for fallen soldiers. They didn't have shirts for babies, so of course Aunt Kelly had to make sure he had something to wear!

Here are both of my favorite little people!

I've also been making some little tie onesies for my friend Amanda's little boy Archie but I was in a hurry & didn't take pictures! Here's one I stole off her blog The Parr Family Adventures

Isn't he the cutest?!!

Okay, I think that gets me pretty caught up on crafts for the summer!! I did have one flower cupcake order & a back to school apple adventure for Drew that I will be posting ASAP! Stick with me, I'm back in town & back in the kitchen!

Waiting on Nate

My cousin Bobbi & her husband Roy are expecting a baby boy at the end of June. They won't reveal his full name yet, but the part of the name we do know is Nate J Rodriguez. It is their first baby & we are all super excited for them! The shower I helped host was two weekends ago. I got baby Nate's present completed early, thanks to Aunt Sharon & her sewing machine she let me borrow! I was looking forward to the shower especially since we had decided to do "Create your own onesies" instead of the typical baby shower games. (For future reference, I am so not into those kind of games!) I'm sure lots of people have heard of this, or done this before, but I actually saw the idea first on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. :) My idea means it was my job to gather all the materials to make it happen. I bought lots of different fabric paint pens/markers & about 20 onesies in assorted sizes and colors. The idea was that at the shower, everyone who's interested, grabs a onesie & paint & makes a special creation for baby Nate to wear. Anything goes! But, about 2 weeks before the shower, I found out that I would be going to Paris for work on the shower weekend. I was bummed that I would miss the shower & my great idea in action, but I mean, Paris. Sorry Bobbi!!

For my presnet, I appliqued 3 onesies for baby Nate & spiced up an ordinary wipes case! The first one is a black onesie with his name stitched on it :).

I got the idea for this tie onesie from all over blogland, I can't find the specific post! Drew had me looking for argyle fabric, specifically for daddy Roy. He wears it alot! Drew hand drew the tie for me & I just copied & cut it out! Super easy & way cute!

This "N" onesie is cute too, but the back is the best part!

Bobbi & Roy LOVE their dogs. So hopefully, Nate will too!

I LOVE this wipes case! As you can see, I used the same fabrics throughout the onesies & wipes case so that everything would match for Nate! I got the idea for the Wipes Case from my friend Jennifer at Paisley Pink Polka Dots.

Drew was my guinea pig onesie decorator. Anyone who knows us, knows that Drew is really the more creative & artistic one of us! Also not surprising, he decided to do a Dallas Cowboys onesie for baby Nate. The awesome part of this is that my Grandmother Kelly, who will be Nate's Great Kelly, is also a HUGE Dallas Cowboy fan. So this onesie by Drew came with instructions, "to be worn when you visit Great Kelly".

Here's the artist with his work. Like the way he's trying to be all serious? Yea right!! I think he did a great job for his first time with fabric paint!

Word from the shower is that Drew's onesie was in the running for best design!

Also, my mother keeps promising she is going to send me the pictures from the shower showcasing some of the amazing custom onesies, but I am tired of waiting on them. I'll post them when I get them!