Circus Elephants Quilt

I finally have another quilt to share with you!  This one has been in the works for FOREVER, and it sat unbound by my table for a long time.  Well, the other day Kirsten invited me over to do a little sewing, so I brought this along and finally was able to finish it.  It is way more fun to sew with friends, btw. 

For some reason, I’ve been gravitating a lot toward pinks and greens lately (uh, the nursery??), probably because the Elephants have been sitting, staring at me from my fabric pile for so long.  It is a favorite of mine, Urban Circus by Laurie Wisbrun, and I got a yard of it from my sponsor Raspberry Creek Fabrics.  I had so much fun pulling other pinks and greens from my stash to make the hourglass blocks.

If it looks a little familiar, it is because Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew made a boy version two years ago, and I absolutely fell in love with it.  I asked her if I could copy her, and she probably thought I was some creep-o stalker, but still gave me the OK. She’s awesome.  I opted not to do circles on it though, because I don’t have a good applique stitch on my machine.  Win some, lose some.

I backed it in green (that was a perfect pattern, too!) and bound it in a hot pink.  The quilting is very loose, just straight line quilting around each block, so it is very soft and cuddly. 

Finished quilt measures 54 1/2” x 42 1/2”, perfect for a crib (older babies) and graduates to a toddler bed too.  Most of the quilts we have lying around our house are about this size, and my girls use them all the time.  I put them on my side of the bed at night too (Mike sleeps with NO covers, crazy man… but we do live in Arizona…) to give it extra weight.  Do you like your covers weighted?

Mike says it is his favorite I’ve made since my Tufted Tweets quilt (also Laurie Wisbrun!).  It is certainly a favorite for me too.

In the Shop.

Pink and Green Nursery

Well, the nursery is as good as it is going to get for a while, so I thought I’d share!  Mike got in a car accident on Monday, so we pulled the plug on all projects that required purchases for a while.  You know how it goes.  He’s ok, but the car was totaled.  Fun.  Anyway, no more Debby Downer, lets go on to the room!

First, the awning area.  The awning hangs perfectly above this little fabric gallery.  The little fabric-filled embroidery hoops all came from my stash and are really REALLY simple to make.  Once you put your fabric in the embroidery hoop (look at your thrift store for cheap hoops!), I just hot-glued the fabric to the hoop in the back and cut off excess fabric.

The framed fabric started looking like this:

and ended up like this:

I first took out the mirror, then spray-painted the frame (first I had it pink, and while it was pretty, there was so much pink going on that I switched it to green).  The mirror was backed with a cardboard piece, so I used the cardboard to cover with batting and then fabric.  I added some little mini tufting to add a little more oomph to the project.

Still, my favorite is that awning.  Love it.

The crib skirt is where the colors of the room came from; my mom made the crib skirt when I had my first baby, and it has been perfect since.  No need to fix something that isn’t broken!

The lampshade is awesome!  It has been great having a little lamp in the room for the evenings when we are getting little A ready for bed and we want it dark-ish to calm her down.

We found this glider off Craigslist after our baby #2 was born, and I didn’t realize what I was missing with baby #1.  Seriously.  It isn’t even that comfortable, but it is better than nothing!  After Mike’s car accident, I just spruced up the chair by making a pillow out of some fabric I had on hand (Dwell, found at JoAnn’s in their Home Dec fabrics).  Pillows are so fast and easy- and the pillow ended up being a favorite addition too.  Now I don’t know why I didn’t have a pillow on that chair from the beginning!

The dresser is a life saver, with all those little baby clothes.  Actually, right now she has hardly any for some reason, 6-9 months is a small stash at our place!  Anyway, with “color-coded” drawers, even Mike can remember where the pj’s are and where church dresses go.  ;)

When I walk into the room now, it is so much more pleasant.  I am kind of bummed I didn’t get more things on the walls, but I’m sure more fabric hoops and free printables will make their way up there (although, I don’t have a color printer, so… never mind on the free printable!).

The other side of the room is still a workspace, but while Mike uses it heavily during the day, there is no need to be there at night because of the new desk.  Perfect for my little baby getting her beauty sleep!

Before (I looked for a before, and this is what I found, ha ha!):

After:

I tell ya, it feels less like a rental already! 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Toilet Training: Potty Patrol to the Rescue!

Raise your hand if you’ve ever potty-trained a child. *raises hand*

You know how hard it can be; locked in the bathroom all day long, or chasing a naked kid around with a towel just in case, or pulling soggy underpants off of a wet and very confused child.  It takes a lot of effort, this I know.

This is why I am excited to tell you about a brand-new product!  Potty Patrol was recently launched by two friends, Tim and Tait.  After a combined total of 9 potty training experiences, they knew there had to be a better way!

The Potty Patrol diapering system uses technology to help us parents in the training process.  Often our kids aren’t aware of every time they need to use the bathroom, so the alarm on the front of the diaper helps alert parents and children when that time has arrived!  When the sensor strips in the diaper sense moisture, an short alarm is sounded followed by “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which lets both child and parent know that it is time to head to the bathroom! 

Potty Patrol’s website has some helpful hints to go along with toilet training, and you might have seen it on TV recently!  They have chosen Utah as a test market, and the diapering systems can be found in Macey’s (in Utah) or online.

This product is personal to our family because my father-in-law is behind the real-time technology in the alarm, and my husband, after one intense game of basketball, approached his teammate Tim (yep, one of those founders) about a product his dad was working on.  Sometimes it just takes the right people to get your dreams where they need to be, and those people for us were Tim and Tait.  Without them, this product would still be sitting in my father-in-law’s garage! We are so proud of them and excited for this new product!

Go check it out!

Desk Rehab: Before and After!

Remember this blue beast I showed you awhile ago?  She’s done.

And she’s beautiful!

Last Saturday we hauled the beast to my mom’s house to get all the sanding done (use of power tools on our patios is against HOA rules… lame!).  I had bought a finish sander at Home Depot earlier, so I was excited to use it.  Well, wouldn’t you know, this is what my little sander got done in 45 minutes:

And Mike, feeling sorry for me, went into the house and came back a few minutes later with a Skilz Belt sander.  30 seconds later, this is what he accomplished:

In the meantime, I just worked on the edges…

After about an hour, we had it down to bare wood.  It was awesome!!  Solid wood everywhere.  I was so excited, so I really put my sander to work to get it nice and smooth.

We sanded the drawers too, but Mike kept muscling it a little too much and took off some of the contours with the belt sander, so I stepped in.

After we were all done sanding and then with clean up, we headed back home.  It started sprinkling a bit as we pulled up, so Mike hauled the desk above his head and ran to our patio at full speed.  5 minutes later (and after two more sprints to the condo holding small children) it started to POUR.  The project had to be put on hold until after the storm let up.

What we didn’t realize was that a few little drops got on the dresser and didn’t dry as soon as the rest, so the moment we applied the first wipe of stain, VOILA!  Little water spots all over.  ALL OVER.  Every surface had been speckled somehow with rain.  We foolishly assumed that the heat had dried the drops, since we couldn’t see them anymore!  Well, the only way to get around it now was to take it back to my mom's and sand it again, which we were not about to do.  We chalked it up to “character” and we just started staining the whole dang thing.

But now that it is all finished, those little speckle spots really DO add charm to it.  Plus, it reminds us of that awesome storm where Mike and I threw caution to the wind and ran around our building like little kids while our actual children watched us from inside the house, one of them bawling because she got a drop on her.  We’re good parents like that.

The plan all along was to have the white drawer fronts for a modern take on a traditionally stained piece.  Super classy, I think.  My inspiration piece had a different stain color (more pecan) that looked awesome with gold pulls, but Mike and I both wanted silver handles so we went with dark walnut stain.  I love the look of the silver, dark brown, and white together.  Oh, and my best friend for the drawers was Floetrol, a paint conditioner.  I always use more than the bottle says, and just do multiple coats.  Beautiful finish!  The final poly coats on everything made all the difference, too.  The whole desk has a pretty satin finish now.

We took the Christmas wrapping paper out of the drawers (as much fun as it was…) and I’m looking for the perfect liner.  In the meantime, the girls have already stocked the drawers with what they think is important.

So, from beast to feast, this dresser is a knock-out.  I’m a super fan.  The only thing I need now is to put some cord organizers back there and pull up a cute chair. 

And we’re all happy we can work on the computer at night after the baby goes to bed!  No more sneaking in to her room and accidentally waking her up with mouse clicks!  Yay!

Materials Cost of Makeover:

Desk:  $15

Stain: $5 (although later I found the same stain in my craft closet- doh!)

Poly coat: $10

White Paint: $3

Knobs: $8

Total: $41- not too shabby for a great new desk!

Crib Awning

I’m not done with the room yet, but I was so excited about the completion of another project for the baby’s room that I wanted to share! 

This awning is 59” wide, or just barely bigger than the width of the crib.  Yes, I took photos along the way and will share exactly how I did it!

This project was most definitely a collaborative effort.  Mike did a ton of work with it, and put up with me changing my mind on a few points here and there as well.  I had fun doing it with him; I can’t say he loved doing it with me ;)

I know it looks out of place hanging up so high now, but when I have everything else done, it will be perfect!  Plus, everything will be a little higher because I don’t want any little baby hands to reach up from a crib and pull anything down.  THAT would be bad.

Final room reveal soon!!

5 Ways to Let Their Confidence Shine!

My oldest daughter is starting school in just a few weeks, and while I'm SUPER excited for her, I'm also a little nervous! With her out of my protective "mombrella" for several hours of every weekday, there are a lot of different experiences she will have that might raise some questions in her mind. We've been working on giving her a good foundation since the day she was born, so I have confidence in her.
While I have confidence in her, what is most important is that she has confidence in herself, since that is the greatest armor against what might come. I remember one occasion when I was in elementary school where some kids were teasing me on the bus. My mom was like me, and liked making clothes for us. Apparently the jumper I was wearing was not up to par for those kids, and I became an easy target. While what they said hurt a bit, I also remember telling them proudly that my mother made it because she loves me, and I simply went to the front of the bus to be under the protective influence of the bus driver. I was not afraid to tell someone about the mean kids, and I knew that even though they were teasing me, I was still a pretty cool kid to my mom.
I have a good time with my girls! Here are some activities I do with them to help them feel important and gain confidence as they prepare to enter school:

1. Let them participate in dinner preparation. Usually they'll eat better if they took part in making the meal! They love telling their daddy what they helped out with, even if it is just holding the measuring cups or licking the spoons.

2. Let them work on their own craft projects. My favorite projects are the ones that they help with. They are usually messier, less "professional" looking, and are definitely the home-made as opposed to hand-made quality, but every time we pull out those particular projects, we like to talk about how fun it was and how good they did.  They are our best mommy-daughter memories!



3. Let them make some important decisions. We give the girls a few parent-approved choices, and they are able to make the final decision. It can be as simple as what movie to watch or as complex as where we should go for a family outing and what we do there.

4. Have set responsibilities. They know they are in charge of brushing their teeth (with help from mom), putting on their own clothes, earning their own toy money, and clearing off their dishes. It makes life easier for me, and that then makes things easier for all of us. They don't get an allowance for doing their basic responsibilities around here, so they have the opportunity to earn a quarter here and there so they appreciate it more.

5. Tell them we love them and show them with quality time. Every day, lots of times, even when they are in trouble. No matter what, we love them!



Hopefully when my oldest heads off in a few weeks, she will feel comfortable in her school assignments, learning a new routine, and making new friends.  I have high hopes!

How do you help your children gain self-confidence?

As a member of Clever Girls Collective, I was selected to participate in the Healthy Habits program sponsored by Kimberly-Clark and Colgate-Palmolive. The content and opinions expressed here are all my own. #healthyhabits #cgc

Love, Olive

When I got back to my house after our long trip, I had a few packages waiting for me.  One happened to be this little treat!

It is Laurie Wisbrun’s coming-soon line, Olive the Ostrich. 

You know I love me some Laurie.  She’s so good at what she does!  I can’t wait to make something awesome from this feathery girly-ness… and perhaps have some Olive Love to share with you!  :)

Vacation: All I Ever Wanted.

Sunday night our family got back from a week-long family vacation in Idaho to pay tribute to Grandma and Grandpa Collette.  Let me tell you, it is a long drive from Mesa to Idaho Falls.  Yeah.  But it was well worth the trip!

Much good food (and junk food) was consumed, many games were played, and lots of nails got painted by lots of girl cousins and in-laws.  Too much fun.

but because of some terrible camera luck, not many photos were taken. It was like my camera was against me all week.

We survived, and I have been recovering from the vacation since!  You know how it goes. 

I have only been able to work on stuff here and there for the past few days, so I don’t have any finishes for you, but I do have a question!  My oldest girl has thick brown hair that grows really fast… except for her whispies in the front.  And they are thick, chunky whispies.  I am thinking about cutting her some bangs (or, rather having someone else cut them because the last time I did it, it looked awful).  Do any of your 5-year-olds have bangs?

I can do her hair, but 10 minutes later those darn hairs are all over in her face and she’s spending every half second pushing them out of her eyes.  Even French braids don’t keep them contained!

I think I’m just worried she’ll go to school, play outside, and have slick stuck-to-the-forehead bangs for the rest of the afternoon or something and feel yucky.  Is her face made for bangs?  I’m no stylist (see above photos for proof) so I am clueless!

In the meantime, I’ll be busy with this blue beast: