feather her nest. {baby shower}

One of my favorite things to do is host. I love being in my element and having others over to relax and eat. When we were house hunting at this time last year, that was high on our priority, a place to be able to have a lot of people over.

A few weekends ago, I was able to host a baby shower for a good friend. It was for her third baby, but her first boy. And I say, baby shower's aren't just for the first baby, it's to celebrate life, a life joining a family, and to make the mama feel special!

My theme was inspired by a Pinterest idea--to make quill pens with gold tips. I knew I wanted a feather theme. The hubs helped design the invitations, he's so talented and handy.

I went with gold and teal colors, which made it easy, since teal is a color I regularly decorate with.

I bought the paper straws from Target, along with the square plates.

I bought quill feathers from Michael's Craft Store, washi tape from Target, and ink refills from Staples. All I did was cut off the extra part of the ink refills, stuck it in the feather, then wrapped washi tape around it and glued the end of the tape on to make sure it stayed in place. Washi tape isn't very sticky, but it's super cute. I brushed the tips with gold paint. These became useful for the game we played and they were the favors to take home!

We played two games. One was the typical "you can't say baby" game or your pin gets taken away. But to make it a wee bit more challenging I also said you couldn't say the mama's name. I bought clothespins at the Dollar Tree for this game and used an ink pad to add teal and then a circle stamp to add gold paint. Oh, I also used these clothespins to hang "James" up, which the letters were made from pipe cleaners, but I forgot to snap a picture of it.

The other game I found on Pinterest and it was a free printout! The placemats with the feathers on it came from Target clearance right after Christmas.

Trying to be frugal, I reused aluminum cans by painting them and using them for decor. These was so easy, and cute! Not to mention, I can use these over and over for other parties or every day.

My favorite thing was probably the cake. Mainly because the icing, oh my goodness, so delish! I was inspired by a cake on Pinterest that was teal with gold edible sparkles. You read that right, I found some edible gold and teal dust from Michael's Craft Store. The icing recipe can be found here. 

And here is the lady of the hour, herself, April: 

I had close lady friends of April bring some food to help. It was all so good. A great Saturday morning, celebrating the beautiful pregnant mama! 

diy birthday gift for the kiddos.

I have a love-hate relationship with Pinterest. There are some pretty things are there that inspire me by words, or in decorating my home, or what to cook. It's been handy to find a craft for the kiddos to do. But sometimes I get rather overwhelmed and the "am I doing enough?" feeling comes into play. That's when I close it up and stay off Pinterest for a couple of days.

Recently, though, I have opened it back up to find some yummy recipes and great activities for the girls. One of the easiest and fun things to do is make homemade play-dough using this recipe. The girls enjoy the mixing then of course the playing right afterwards. Yesterday we made a double batch so we could give some as a gift for my nephew who turned four.

To store the play dough in, I bought some small mason jars and took to another Pinterest idea. [Although I never actually pinned the idea.] I had everything else I needed---super glue, little plastic animals, and spray paint. I super glued the animals onto the lids, let it dry overnight and the next day put a couple of coats of spray paint on the lids.

And ta-dah!

The little gift turned out like this:

Pretty cute, huh? I'm thinking this might become the year of play-dough and cute containers for gift-giving. 

painting a canvas for baby brother.

For about two months now, I have been wanting to do a little art project with the girls that involved them creating something for Lincoln's room. [He doesn't actually have a room yet. Ha!] I found a project on Pinterest and it caught my eye. Finally, today I got up some motivation and did the project with the girls. It's really easy, fun, and turned out great.

You need a blank canvas, painter's tape, paint, paint brushes (I used sponge brushes) and some type of letter cut-outs. I found my letters at Hobby Lobby, they feel like post-it notes. I glued the letters on lightly with some of the kids stick glue.

First, I glued the letters onto the canvas. I was nervous about glueing them on, but I needed them to stick through the painting. I did it pretty lightly, but enough for them to stick. Then I used the painter's tape to create the "chevron" design.

Then I let the girls go at it with painting. The colors were orange, grey, and turquoise-blue.  (They were only in smocks and underpants. Easy clean up. Also, it was a windy day, so we put rocks on the plates to keep them from blowing away.)

When the girls were finished, I immediately took off the letters and tape. I didn't want the letters to dry too much on there since I glued them down. They came off fairly easily. Then I let it dry. 

And ta-da! It's far from perfect. I didn't measure and do exact taping or anything. I but I love the handmade look to it. The girls were awfully proud of the painting too. 

Lincoln has some creative sisters, ready to welcome him into our family!

diy dining room table.

A couple of months ago I randomly decided I didn't like our dining room table anymore and I sold it on Craigslist that night. [I even made a little bit off of it-score.]

This is what our dining area used to look like. [Picture taken in fall 2010.]

I didn't have a real plan for the next table, I just knew I wanted something more modern. For about five weeks we didn't have a table to eat from. Our meals consisted of picnics on the floor and sitting at the two barstools we own. I didn't want to just settle on a table because we needed one. But I also didn't want to spend a lot because we don't plan on living here but for maybe another year.

Then I saw this table and was inspired. A DIY table. Sure!

source

Mother's Day weekend we made a trip to Ikea and bought the chairs I wanted. And that same weekend I just happened to find a frame on Craigslist (that was originally from Ikea)  for a table that was a perfect match in my eyes. [It actually came with a top, but it was lame-o, so we tossed it.] The handy-dandy husband bought some Birch wood from Lowe's for the top. He measured, cut, sanded, rounded the corners, stained with a really really light white-wash, and then polyurethaned a couple of times. [Happy Mother's Day to me.]

And now this is my new dining room table and chairs that I looooooove. [Along with new wall color, new windows, patched holes, and trim since the before picture above.]

One of my favorite parts about the table is the industrial-looking bolts. I should just throw a wrench on the top and call it a day.

Wanna see what our kitchen looked like before we got a hold of it? Check it out here, it was a doozy!

P.S. I love sharing home stuff and hopefully I will be doing that more often. I think it's fun to sneak a peek in other homes and get inspired, or be like oh good, they have a messy house like me. shew. And just for the record, I totally cleaned the dining room table off for you, it very rarely looks like that. Keeping it real.

diy chalkboard frame.

I have been wanting to jump on the bandwagon for a while now by making a chalkboard frame to hang by our dining room table. I wanted a place to write happy notes, scripture verses, menu planning, and just some sweet love notes.

After I realized I already had a frame I could use, I bought a can of yellow spray paint and went at it. I may have went a little spray paint happy by also painting our knife block and utensil holder. [I'm sort of obsessed with yellow right now.] Then the hubster cut a board to fit inside of it out of the scraps from our dining room table he just made [that will be another post!], and I used chalkboard paint I already had on hand. [Note: chalkboard paint can be pricey, but it lasts for many projects or see if a friend wants to split the cost with you and share.]

After everything was dry, the hubster used some heavy-duty caulking glue (obviously I don't know the proper term for it-ha) to connect the board and frame.Then put hooks on the back to hang it. And walaaah, you have a cute and practical chalkboard frame.

Cost of Project and Supplies:
frame: from a garage sale last summer, 50 cents
spray paint: Menards, about $3.50
board: left over scraps, used a saw to cut it
caulking glue: already had on hand
chalkboard paint: already had on hand
hooks: already had on hand
chalk: stole borrowed from Audrey's stash

We have been doing a lot of projects on our house the last couple of weeks, that I really do plan on sharing. There has also been some unplanned (and unwanted) projects that have happened too. Like oh, having to call a Wildlife company to trap what we thought was a groundhog trying to get in our foundation. When we checked the trap Saturday morning there was a baby skunk in it! We were very, very fortunate it never sprayed. Whew. Also, our dishwasher flooded our kitchen last week and we had to rip up the floor and take care of the damage. But fortunately, Andrew's brother owns a water damage company, so we had all the equipment we needed-thank goodness!

Have you been working on any house projects wanted or unwanted?