Ice Cream Party

We hosted an ice cream party over the weekend. Friends of ours are moving to Israel. This was a farewell for their family.

I'm working on a tutorial for the pennant banner / bunting that I used for the table decoration. In the meantime, I thought you'd get a kick out of the kiddos.

This is my favorite photo from the festivities - a TOPPING CONE.  There's not a bit of ice cream in it.  It's whipped cream, chocolate chips, peanuts, and rainbow sprinkles, topped with - what else? - a cherry.

The kids kept reaching into the topping bowls to grab pinches of sugary goodness.  I finally gave two girls their own napkins loaded up with toppings so these sweethearts could pinch sugar and lick their fingers to their hearts' content without contaminating the rest of us.

Lest you think my children behaved any differently, this was Lincoln's bowl.  I think there's ice cream in there somewhere...maybe.

Here's the aftermath of the topping bar, complete with a grown adult reaching in to steal a cherry. I guess we're still kids at heart.

Charlotte's Nursery

This is my happy place.  It's clean and uncluttered.  It's feminine.  It's calm.  My husband and I put hours upon hours of love, sweat, and probably a few tears into preparing this haven for our daughter.  Now with the arrival of our sweet Charlotte Rose, the nursery is complete.

Allow me to show you around...

As I mentioned here, Charlotte's room is a knock-off of the Scallop Pique Nursery from Pottery Barn Kids.  You can read the DIY info for the wall stencil HERE.  The photo above shows the view from the doorway looking right.  The photo below pans around.  I think you'll see how the photos connect to show the layout of the room.

Framing the window is a pair of lavender Audrey Chenille Dot Panels from Pottery Barn Kids.  The bookshelf and lamp are from Target.  I've since added scalloped basket liners to the white wicker baskets, another feminine touch to continue the scallop theme in the room.

The ever-necessary diapering area and rocking chair.  Seriously, how many times am I here each day?  A dozen?  Seems like it, at least.

The baskets on the dresser are both from Pottery Barn Kids, though I couldn't find either on the PBK website.  I bought them in the store.

Isn't that doll adorable?  My boys like to hold it by the feet and swing it at each other, caveman club style.

I had new white cushions made for my rocking chair.  The old cushions were ivory, so not a match for Miss Charlotte's lavender and white nursery.  Before you gasp about white upholstery in a child's room, be assured that the covers are removable and I chose washable fabric (that I bought on sale for $10 per yard - score!).

Going back to the opposite wall, here is a closer look at the wall art.  Click HERE for more details about how I made each piece.

Click HERE for more details about how I made the crib bedding.

Still love the scalloped eyelet trim on the crib skirt.

For the finishing touch, we hung a crystal mini-chandelier.  As my six-year-old neighbor said, it looks like it was made for a princess.  My thought exactly.

Baby Girl's Nursery: Crib Bedding

There's something calming about white.  Combine white with feminine details like scalloped eyelet trim and this crib set becomes a restful haven for my little girl.

I made all three pieces of the crib set: bumper, skirt, and sheet.  The crib sheet was so easy!  I can't believe I never knew about this.  I actually made two sheets - the one pictured is made with quilter's cotton.  I made a lavender flannel sheet as well.  Here's getting the word out, moms - if you're having a baby, pick your fabric and I'll gladly make a set of crib sheets as your baby gift.  Not only can you pick the most snugly soft fabric - or go with whatever style floats your boat - these sheets fit much better than the store bought sheets you have to muscle over the mattress corners.  If you're the DIY sewing type, I took the best from these two sets of instructions: HERE and HERE.  I used the measurements and French seam instructions from the Michael Miller tutorial, plus the all-around elastic idea from Dana's Made tutorial.

The crib skirt is made from white cotton eyelet.  Not only does the sweet scalloped edge mimic the scalloped pattern stenciled on the nursery walls, a prefinished edge means no trimming or hemming.  Beautiful AND easy.

The eyelet fabric was 45" wide (on the bolt).  One edge is scalloped.  The rest of the fabric is embroidered with tiny polka dots.  Since I only needed about 18" from the scalloped edge for the skirt, I had enough of the polka dot fabric left over to cover the outside of the bumper.

I made the ties using packaged quilt binding.  (It's essentially EXTRA, extra wide double fold bias tape.)  I cut the length I wanted (about 22"), turned under the short ends, stitched along all four sides, then sewed the finished tie to the bumper.

I made the bumper using these foam inserts from JoAnn.  I've read good reviews about them all over blogland.  So far so good from me, too.

The photo above shows not only the ties, but the piping I made and attached along the top of the bumper pads.  To make the piping, I covered cotton piping cord with prepackaged extra wide double fold bias tape, using the same brand and color that I used for the ties.

There you have it.  Crisp and clean with just the right pop of color to coordinate with the lavender walls.  Hopefully my little girl will love sleeping in it as much as I love looking at it.  :)

Baby Girl's Nursery: Wall Art

Last night Ben and I finished hanging the wall art in Baby Girl's nursery.  This was the last big thing I wanted to accomplish before her arrival.

I promise I'll post pics of the crib set and rest of the room soon.  :)  Consider this a sneak peek.

Also notice the stenciled scallops on the wall.  Yes, my husband is amazing.  He stenciled 250 scallops, give or take a few.  Once he hit his stride he could paint 10 per hour.  Yes, 10 per hour was the fast version.  So yes, he spent forever paining.  And yes, I love it!

The most meaningful piece of art is this trio of necklaces.  From left to right, you'll see my first string of pearls.  It was a gift from a dear family friend.  He is Chinese by birth, but developed a close friendship with my maternal grandparents, who sponsored him and his family to help them immigrate to the United States. We now consider Daniel and his family part of our own extended family.

Hanging on the middle necklace is a diamond pendant from my paternal grandmother.  I don't remember a time when Nan wasn't battling one of life's demons.  Her last years were spent fighting breast cancer, then lung cancer.  As a child from a poor family, she never thought she'd own anything as valuable as a diamond.  I'm especially flattered that she gave such a treasured heirloom to me.

The silver locket on the right belonged to my maternal grandmother.  She passed away last summer after 91 years of life.  There's so much to say. For the sake of posting this sometime this decade, I'm going to move along.

Next is this shadowbox.  I painted the frame silver, then covered a piece of white scrapbook paper with Prima flowers.  The flowers came dusted with iridescent glitter, which adds such beautiful dimension and subtle sparkle.

Buttons, pearls, and knockoff diamonds - what's a girl not to love?  All three pictures in this post show the background paper as a much brighter green than it really is.  Hmmm...maybe it's just not a good lighting day?  Very few are here in the rainy Pacific NW.  Anyway, I arranged dozens of white buttons, pearl brads, and tiny white flowers with rhinestone centers into a heart shape.  Attaching everything took less than an hour.  Not bad and totally worth it, eh?  The frame was a clearance find that I spray painted silver.

Finally, we have this pair of sparkly, beaded butterflies.  You'll have to click on the picture for a close up.  The butterflies are ready-made scrapbook embellishments - gotta love easy!  Yet it still adds just the right touch.

Stay tuned for the crib set!

Take care,  Rachel

Silhouette Wall

I just finished decorating the wall above my piano with things near and dear to my heart: my family, the house of worship where Ben and I were married, meaningful words of inspiration, and the children's hymns my children and I have grown to love.

I used my super easy silhouette making tutorial to make silhouettes of my family. The exception being the mother and child on the lower right corner. That's an image I found online that I'm using as a placeholder until Baby Girl joins the world and I can make a proper silhouette of her sweet chubby cheeks.

I still haven't taken the camera class to learn how to use my DSLR, so please pardon the photography.

Behold hottie hubs. Using bookprint for artwork is fairly popular now. When I told Ben I wanted to pick up on that trend, though instead of using generic bookprint, mount the silhouettes over a background of text from our faith, Ben chose this document: The Living Christ.

I printed three copies of the document onto aged-looking paper, then collaged pieces together to form the background.

I chose The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

Since my posture looks terrible here, this silhouette is also a placeholder. Whenever I sat up straight, Ben (playing photographer) said I looked like I had a double chin. Maybe after I lose some baby weight off my face I can try again with better posture. I also think I'll replace this frame with an oval-shape frame whenever I find one the right size so there aren't so many straight edges on the wall.

Here's Brighton (with impeccable posture, by the way). All three of the children's silhouettes are mounted onto sheet music. For each child's picture, I chose one of our favorite children's hymns, scaled down the sheet music a bit, printed three copies of the song onto aged-looking paper, then collaged the print-outs just as I did for the silhouettes of Ben and me.

Brighton's silhouette is mounted onto the sheet music for I Love to See the Temple.

Behind Lincoln's silhouette is the music to Families Can Be Together Forever.

And behind Baby Girl's placeholder is I Am a Child of God.

Central to the wall is the Atlanta LDS temple, where Ben and I were married. I ordered the photo from Altus Photo Design. The Atlanta temple is short and wide and is typically photographed with a landscape orientation. I needed portrait to fit my wall, and the owner of Altus Photo Design worked with me to find an attractive portrait orientation that worked for my frame.

The Atlanta temple has recently been renovated and is open for public tours April 9 - 23, 2011, except for Sundays and Monday evenings. My mom and stepdad are volunteering as tour guides. If you tell my mom I sent you, she'll probably invite you over for dinner. She's just like that. :) Anyway, tours are free, though reservations are suggested and can be made by calling 1-866-537-8457. Feel free to read more about my faith here, or why Mormons build temples here.

Wish Upon a Star

Ahhh...back to paper crafts. At least for today. I'll have more Halloween costumes to post soon enough. Thanks for hanging in there with me in the meantime. :)

Supplies
Paper: (Alphabet Soup Boy "Ziggy") My Mind's Eye.
Chipboard Letters: (Rouge Lullaby Glitter Letter Thickers) American Crafts, (Cotton Weathered Wood) Pink Paislee.
Ribbon: (Real Red, Rope Cord) Stampin' Up!.
Other: sewing machine, ivory thread, wood star, red paint.

Lincoln's Room

Ben gets the credit for Lincoln's room. See those stripes on the walls? Hottie Hubs taped and painted all 124 of them (more about that towards the bottom of the post).

Since I couldn't stand back far enough to get a full room shot, I tried to overlap portions of the photos to walk you around the room, starting with the top picture.



We painted Lincoln's initials and found a cool model prop plane to hang near the crib.



You can see that Lincoln has quite a few airplanes in his room. Does that make them the theme? I'd say his room is decorated more around a color scheme. Anyway, I like it. :)

Notice the lack of changing pad and basket-o'-diapers on that dresser? Ahh, makes me happy every day!



Here's the fun wall...



Magnetic chalk boards for drawing and sticking stuff to it, cork boards and peg boards to display all his other favorite finds.

To make the wall look balanced, we had to hang the chalkboards at a certain height. So I bought these short bookshelves for the boys to stand on so they can reach the top halves of the chalkboards.



This is one of Lincoln's favorite things in the room - his dinosaur bank. He loves to put coins in the dinosaur's mouth and watch them slide down into the stomach. I think there are a few Lite Brite pegs, buttons, and Battleship pieces in there, too. :)



It took Ben a LONG time to paint all of the stripes. (They were a lot of work!) He started losing steam mid-project, so I decided to give him a pep talk to cheer him on. :) When you look at the side of the chalkboards, you can see that Ben (1) painted the walls light blue, (2) added the white stripes, then (3) added all the thin dark blue stripes. The dark blue stripes you see are the paint tape he used to outline where he wanted the dark stripes.

I'm not sure that you get the effect in the photos, but there really is enough white in the room to balance all of the color - the closet, the door to the hallway, the ceiling, etc. It's just that a pair of bi-fold doors don't make for a very interesting photograph. :)

I'm glad the room is done ... I know Ben is! Here's to hoping Lincoln will love his room for a long time, too!

Brighton's Room

Ta-da! Okay so really we finished Brighton's room earlier this summer and I'm just now getting around to posting pictures.



Here are some of my favorite things in the room:

• The felt crocodile that's longer than Brighton is tall.
• The wall bookshelf keeping Brighton's favorite bedtime reads within easy reach.
• The orange monkey jumping over the top bunk.

• The wicker basket in the shape of an elephant. If you look really closely, you see the little trunk and tail in that picture.

• That little orange camping lantern. It's a regular light bulb-style lamp, just designed perfectly for a safari-style room.
• The TENT! Only the corner peeks out in this photo. Scroll on up to the top of the post for a better view. Sometimes Brighton keeps his kid table in the tent and uses it for his art space. Other times we move the table into the hall and Brighton piles pillows on the floor so he can read in his tent, or sometimes even sleep there.
• Corkboard space for Brighton to display all of his cute art projects.
• I made those animal prints using prepainted wooden cutouts from JoAnn's. I just mounted them onto scrapbook paper and framed them - easy peasy.
• The baskets under the dresser are labeled for Brighton's art supplies.

Last but not least, here's a closer look at the awning. I found these grass placemats at Pier 1 Imports for $2 each. I tied them together with twine and my hottie hubs built a frame to hold them. I love the pop of color and texture. The total cost of supplies and hardware was less than $25 - can't beat that!

We found the bedding, wall decals, tent, lamp, and crocodile at Pottery Barn Kids. I like how everything works together, but isn't completely matchy-matchy. Hopefully Brighton will like it for a long time, too. :)