From shirt to skirt

I've decided I really want to get into repurposing clothes. I did my first project the other day. My friend gave me a some clothes and there was a shirt that was too big for Anna and by the time it would fit her, it probably wouldn't be in style anymore, so I decided to alter it a little.

Here is the before. A cute little shirt.

I cut the top off, right above the dark pink line.

It's actually kind of stretchy around the middle, so it made the perfect waist for a skirt.

I pinned down the extra material that was above the dark pink stretchy part and sewed it down.

And now Anna has a cute little skirt!

The nice part, is that the hem is already made on the bottom, so all I had to do was the waist.

Anna wasn't being the most cooperative model (being three and all), so these are the best shots I got.

It's a little long on her, and the waist is a little loose, so hopefully it will fit her next spring/summer.

I have a lot of clothes that I've gotten at garage sales and some that have been given me that have a stain or whatever, that I want to make into other clothes.

I found a really cute blog that has some cute tutorials with repurposed clothing.

This dress is made from white cotton material, a yellow shirt cut into strips and ribbon!

This dress is made from an old t-shirt.

I'd really like to make stuff like this from the clothing I have. Some day... :)

Sibling Love

I've found that I really enjoy going back and reading old blog posts. It's so easy to forget the little things that Anna did or said, or things that happened. I love how a blog can be a journal as well.

So with that said, I want to share a bit about Anna and Alex.

It's funny how their relationship has transformed. When he was first born, it was a little hard on Anna. I think she felt a little ignored. As he got older, she would get mad if he looked at her toy. Then it changed to him touching a toy and she would get mad. He used to pull her hair and she would get really mad. Then for a while, she wanted him to pull her hair and thought it was funny. Now, that he's more solid and mobile, he's become her little doll, almost. She kind of push him down, to make him lay down. Or try and roll him over. I've caught her holding his hand or wrist, trying to make him push a button on a toy.

Lately, he's become more of a playmate for her, which is really cute to watch. She'll put her blanket over him and try and play with him. She'll want me to put him in the hall and make him crawl with her. This can be problematic, when he doesn't feel like crawling. Anna gets really mad. She'll try and do other things with him. We'll get out the toy tunnel we have and they'll crawl in it together.

Of course, she'll still grab toys out of his hands, try and push him out of the way, get mad when he has one of her toys, not want him to come in her room because he chews on her books, etc. But overall, their relationship has really grown.

The last few weeks have been kind of odd. Anna has changed into this little please/thank you princess. It's really kind of weird, but I love it. She's started to saying thank you for EVERYTHING. She'll tell me, "thank you for saying yes, that I could eat this bread." or "Thank you for getting me some milk." It's really cute, but I have no idea where she got it from. Maybe nursery? Or maybe she's just realizing that when she's nice and polite, she'll get her way more??? She's starting to say thank you for all the little things I do for her.

She's also starting to ask me if it's okay to do certain things. The weirdest one was, when I got her a glass of milk with a straw. After a minute, she asked me, "can I just drink it out of the cup?" Like she really needs my permission to do that! It was really funny.

I've been letting Anna watch a TV show when Alex naps. I try not to have the TV on when he's awake. As soon as I come out from putting Alex down, she wants to watch Pingu. It's this penguin claymation show, that's actually pretty cute. They don't use words, just kind of gibberish, but you're still able to understand what's going on. She's started to sing along with the songs and the little sounds the penguin makes. She has also started learning how to use the Wii-mote and turn the show on herslef. I still help her and every time she says, "thank you for helping me." She'll even hum along with the sounds the Wii makes as it's loading Netflix.

Alex is developing so much lately. He understands so much. The other night, I undressed him, and he started crawling away from me, which he usually does. I told him, come here so I can change your diaper. He looks at me for a second, then crawls out the door into the hallway. I started crawling after him and started laughing, which must have been loud, because he made a loud squeal and starts taking off really fast down the hallway! It was like he knew it was a game and I was chasing him. It was so cute. This repeated about two more times that night.

Today in church, he learned how to wave! It was amazing. A little girl, two rows back started waving to him, and he started moving his hand in a waving motion back at her. He did this a few more times at church with different people. Then did it with my mom and dan's parents on Skype. He's so smart! Did I mention that he just turned 9 months? :)

We've started him on finger foods and he loves it. He could probably eat all day. He gets so anxious and antsy when he knows he's about to get food or if I'm holding food while holding him. He'll try and get it from me.

He's such a squirmy little guy. When it comes to changing his diaper, it's gotten so bad, that I usually have to put his diaper on him when he's on all fours, or standing up. I can't get him to stay on his back. I've had to wipe his little poopy bum while he's on all fours.

Here he is, after he had escaped from me, during a diaper and clothing change.

Love that little bum!

Anna decided one day to get ALL her books out of her bookshelf.

Alex trying to play the piano.

Anna and Alex now bath together and he LOVES it. He can't get enough of the water.

What's not to love about this little cutie?

A new dress for Anna

Well, I decided to make Anna a dress. I've never made any kind of clothing before, other than scrunchies and I don't think that counts. So I was a little nervous, but then again, it's for a little girl, not me, so if it didn't turn out perfectly, it would still be okay.

I found a really cute little dress tutorial online at www.made-by-rae.com. The original is for an infant, but a reader did one for a 3T size. It was just a pattern you print out, then tape together and trace onto the material. This pattern has the top lined, which I really like, because it makes it seem more put together.

The pattern pieces cut out.

Ta-da!

Anna's new dress!

The top has long flaps that you tie together in knots, to hold it in place.

Here is the bottom of the dress. I had to sew the seam as close as I could to the edge. It wasn't too hard, because it lined up with the needle foot, so I could tell where I needed to be at all times.

This was the most frustrating part of the dress. The brown piece in between the top and bottom. The pattern calls for piping. Well, I didn't have any and thought I could get away with kind of making my own, but I couldn't. Plus, the instructions were not very clear with this step. I ended up calling my mom and skyping with her to try and figure it out. I ended up just sewing this brown piece of bias tape on the top and then sewing the skirt on after.

My mom told me to sew as close to the edge as possible. I thought I was close enough, but obviously wasn't. I sewed this before I did the hem on the bottom and should have done it like that. Oh well.

Sadly this is the best picture I could get of her in it.

The other ones were much worse.

It's actually a little big on her. It looks like it fits in the picture, but the top is just too big. I took it in a little, from the original pattern. But she would barely let me try it on her, without causing a big fuss, so I had to kind of guess. Soooo, hopefully it will fit her next summer. You can tell the ties are too loopy and big on her shoulders.

But overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out, especially for my first project. It wasn't really difficult, just took some time, especially since I could really only work on it in the evening, after the kids went to bed. I have a question for you all though, does it scream homemade??? You know how some clothes, you can tell a mile away, it was homemade? I've been staring at it too long to be able to really tell. Go ahead, be honest, be brutally honest! Okay, well maybe not brutally, but I am interested in what you think. I won't be offended if you think it does, or a little or a lot. :)

I am looking forward to trying some other sewing projects. I found an easy tutorial for some skirts, that I want to try.

My Birthday!

My birthday was last week. I can't believe I'm 29! Where did the time go? Lol. I better enjoy this last year of my twenties. It's funny how it seemed like my 20's would never end. A lot happened in that almost decade of my life-mission, marriage, graduated college, motherhood, home ownership, etc. It's probably the most action packed decade of my life.

My birthday was pretty fun. The morning was a little rough. Alex ended up breaking a lamp, that had a glass bowl like shade. It really freaked me out. Dan and I were both in the kitchen, getting breakfast ready, when all of a sudden, we hear the crashing of glass. We run into the family room and see the lamp fallen down, with a TON of glass everywhere. LUCKILY, the kids were fine. We put them in Anna's room while we cleaned up. I was starving as I was vacuuming up the glass.

There was glass everywhere! Tiny little pieces that were hard to see.

So after that event, we hung out while Alex napped. He took a late nap, so it kind of threw off our schedule. I got free tickets to a water park in Palmdale. We went there and invited my friend Kim and her kids, since we had an extra ticket and her kids got in for free. Her husband came too. We didn't get there till later, like 2 pm, so we were only there for about 2 hours. They had what's called a lazy river that you can walk in or get an inner tube. It was fun and the kids loved it. I held Alex and he kept splashing. We got an inner tube for Anna and put her on it and she loved it as well. The only downside, is we just kept walking around and later that day,

I was exhausted! I told Dan that the lazy river wasn't so lazy, it wiped me out.

We came home, got cleaned up, then my friend Kristin came over with Logan and they watched the kids while we went to Red Robin. I usually go there on my birthday because I get a free meal. We then came back home and had cake! I usually have a cherry chocolate cake, a recipe I got from my mother-in-law.

A little too excited to blow out the candles. :)

My little family!

The kids were so tired at this point. They needed to go to bed.

Overall, it was a fun birthday. My birthday present from Dan didn't get here till Monday, but it's such a fun gift! Dan got me three books-two cupcake ones and a cake one. They really are a perfect gift and I'm so glad he thought of them. He always teases me about cupcakes and beadboard. He says that's all I talk about. In reality, there was a short period of time that I talked about cupcakes because I went to a cupcake store in town, ONE time and got some good cupcakes. The bead board thing is more constant, but I just throw it out there as decorating ideas.

Here are the books.

My favorite one is the Hello, Cupcake! Everyone should really check it out. It has the CUTEST cupcake ideas. And the best part is all the decorations are made from candy, so it's easy to create. And she tells you how to do each part. I'm really excited to try some of the ideas. Here are some of them.

Love the bunny feet one!

I am so going to make these at xmas time!

Anna has been loving this one penguin show lately, so I think it would be cute to make these for her.

Movie night anyone?

I just looked on Amazon and this book is only $9. There is also another one called, What's New, Cupcake? It has a lot of cute ideas as well. I'll have to get that one too.

The other cupcake book has some really good recipes that I'm excited to try out.

The cake book is good too. It shows you how to make some cakes and how to make flowers and other fondant stuff. There is a castle cake in there, that is actually really simple to make. I may try and make Anna one next year.

Bedroom wall sconces!

We went to Bed Bath and Beyond last week and I got a great deal-these awesome wall sconces, for only $6!!! They were on clearance for $7.50 and I had a 20% off coupon. I really lucked out because I saw them up on the display wall, but there weren't any boxes left. I asked an employee, and they were all gone, so I asked if I could take the display ones and he said yes.

They are just what I'm looking for. The funny thing is, I've been wanting to put something on the wall, above the lamps for a while, but haven't been sure what exactly. I was thinking of some shelves, or picture frames or something like that. The other day, I thought some flowy, metal of some type would look cool. Then, the next day I went to BB&B and lo and behold, there they were! I know it sounds silly and trite, but I consider this one of those nice, tender mercies of the Lord. He knew this would make me happy and helped me find it. I originally wasn't going to look in that area of the store and only did so, as an after thought.

I love how it pulls the room together.

Let's do a little before photo.

This was taken a little over 2 years ago, shortly after we got the bed.

After...

Love the change!

The left wall is kind of bugging me now, so I need to decide what to do there. And I'm in the middle of changing some other pictures on the right, that you currently can't see.

We went to some garage sales yesterday and got some good deals. We got Anna 18 books for only $9! They're in really good condition too. It's also amazing how cheap you can get clothes at garage sales. I got a really cute skirt for $1.

Here are some clothes that I'm going to repurpose and make some clothes for Anna. One blog I follow, www.makeit-loveit.com, is always repurposing clothes and I think it's time I try.

I got the skirt for 50 cents and the dress for a $1. I already took the stitching out of the skirt portion of the dress. I'm planning on making a dress for Anna out of it. Hopefully, I'll get that done soon and Anna can wear a "new" dress. We'll see what I can make with the other skirt.

Speaking of dresses, I love this dress on Anna. It looks so cute with the leggings. I got this at the local consignment store for a few dollars. The camera battery died before I could get one of her looking at me.

Anna loves to paint! She's our budding little artist. :)

Italian Kitchen Progress

Over the past few months, I've been slowly working on updating things in my kitchen. I have an Italian themed kitchen, that I LOVE, but it's still, after 2 years, a work in progress (as is much of my house). The biggest update, is painting another wall red!

Here is a before.

And the After!

I actually painted the larger wall on the side red last summer, I just never blogged about it. I originally wanted the wall with the window red and mentioned it to Dan when we were first painting our kitchen. He didn't like that idea, so I didn't do it. Then a few months ago, I mentioned it to him again, and he said, "yeah, that's a good idea, I think that will look nice." Men...anyway, I had red curtains at the time and didn't think I would change the wall color. The fabric store that I love so much, went out of business and I found some olive green material for like 1.50 a yard. So this update was cheap because I already had the paint from before and just spent a few dollars on making curtains.

Here is the larger wall I painted last summer.

It's hard to get a good view of it, but now that the smaller wall is red, it really pulls together the larger wall and makes it all more cohesive.

The sign above the curtain says, Good Food Good Friends. I love how it contrasts so well against the red. It's been in a few different places in the kitchen, but it was always behind a beige wall, and never looked that good.

The next update is the curtains by the sink. I don't have a good picture of them, but you can kind of see them in the left in this picture. I originally made them from one large curtain panel, but they were always a little too short and just never looked good. Frankly, they always bothered me.

I found this material at that fabric store, a few months ago, for cheap. I don't remember exactly how much I paid. I think it was like $5-6.

I made little curtain tie things, that wrap around them. I sewed some snaps on them, so they're easy to put on and take off when I open and close the curtains.

I made this sign, I think a year or so ago. It was just paper put in a frame, with the wood signs held up with putty stuff. AFter a while the paper was getting dirty, had a few water stains on it and just wasn't looking so great. It was in need of a little redo.

The after.

I found some olive green spray paint and used leftover bead board from Anna's bookcase.

The lighting is dim here, so the color is a little off.

This is probably one of my favorite projects.

I bought this at Goodwill a long time ago for a dollar or two.

It sat around for a long time because I didn't really have anywhere to put it and I had a lot of glass items already. I was looking online at some stuff and I saw a project where a lady spray painted some bottles. That's where I decided to the same with this bottle and another one.

Don't they look cool?

You would never know they are just spray painted glass.

I'm thinking of cutting out some vinyl words, like oil and wine, or something like that, to put on them.

I got this fruit stand at a garage sale a couple of years ago. It was originally yellow, I painted it red. I'm kind of getting tired of red, so I decided to paint it.

Now it's green!

Much better.

I made this sign over a year ago and still love it. I think it will stay here and I have plans to make a sign that says, Buon Appetito and put it above the window by the sink.

Slowly, yet surely, my kitchen is getting to where I want it to be. There are still a few more small projects I have in mind that I hope to get around to.

A is for Alex!

So once again things have been a little crazy. Life just doesn't slow down sometimes. I'm still playing catch up on the blog here.

I do want to update on Alex a bit. He just turned 8 months! Time is really flying by with him. He's just such a little cutie, I love him so much.

He is now, for the most part, a very happy and sweet baby. When he was first born, he was so fussy, would get cranky easily, etc. Now, he has a smile that will melt your heart and a much sweeter and milder temperament.

He started crawling a month ago and it was slow and deliberate. Now, it's like turbo speed. It's the cutest thing if I start going away from him and he starts following me, I turn around and he's just crawling towards me with a smile on his face.

He's really starting to understand more. I'll point to a toy and tell him to go get it, and he will. He's starting to really understand what we're saying. He's learning the layout of the house. He was in our bedroom, by our bathroom and he heard Anna crying in the other bathroom. He started crawling out of our bedroom, down the hall and went into the hallway bathroom to see Anna.

I bought some food puffs for him and he LOVES them. I'll put some on his tray and leave the container on the table. He'll finish his puffs, then start whimpering and leaning forward, trying to get the container of puffs. Which leads me to talk about his pincer grasp. It's getting really good. He can pick up his puffs. He'll drop some in his high chair, and then look down in between his legs and try and pick them up. He loves to pick stuff off the carpet and tile. I don't even need to vacuum anymore! Lol. Actually, I have to sweep more and be careful of what's on the floor, because he will put it in his mouth.

His body coordination is getting better and he's less clumsy. There have been a lot of time sin the past few weeks that he has balanced all by himself for a few seconds. He has also started taking steps, when holding on to the couch or ottoman. I really wouldn't be surprised if he starts walking in the next month or so.

I really am just so thankful for this little guy. He's so sweet and cute and smart. I can't believe in just 4 months he'll be a year old!

So, now for the bad news. I feel so horrible about this:

Dan's best friend got married a few weeks ago in Newport Beach. While we were in the temple, some girls watched the kids. I'm assuming they just walked around the grounds and that Alex was out in the sun the whole time. Then, we were out in the sun for pictures for an hour. I tried to keep Alex in the shade, but there wasn't a lot and it was kind of hard. So after a few hours, I realized he was sun burnt. It wasn't until the next day that I realized just how long he had been out in the sun for. The next day, he got a huge blister on his nose. Then, as the day progressed, he got more and more blisters on his arms and head. I seriously felt SO bad, that I had been a negligent parent and not kept better care of my baby. I know it was an accident and these things happen, but still. Luckily, he healed quickly and was actually still a pretty good baby for how bad his burn was. Now, I've learned my lesson and will be much better about putting sun block on him and being aware of the sun.

However, due to him being sunburnt, he wanted me more, and there were times when I was busy getting stuff ready for Anna's birthday party and couldn't be with him. So he started saying, mama! It was really cute and cool to see how fast he learned that. Usually babies learn dada first, but not this little guy. He actually first said it in Utah. He hasn't said it much since then, but at least I know he can say it!

Boxes are always a good source of fun.

Peas anyone?

Me and my little baby.

I'm such a lucky mom!