christmas and a few crafts

santa was good to us this year! i didn't get any pics of christmas morning (too wrapped up in the moment) but here is how it looked for aiyden's 2nd christmas...

along with christmas came more toys to store so i hung some floating shelves and fashioned pocket storage out of leftover felt to hold markers, puppets, etc...

the new bike trailer from oma and opa is a huge hit! i think we biked 20 miles over christmas weekend! and elmo goes everywhere with us!

aiyden experienced his first tummy slide with the help of a big kid who gave him a little shove!

some felted items from the holidays...

Felt Playhouse

i've been wanting to make a felt playhouse slipcover for our kitchen table ever since I saw it on homemade by jill, one of my favorite blogs. so, today i was determined to get it done in time for christmas morning. it was actually much easier than i thought it would be. it's not as elaborate as some others that i've seen but it will do the job and how perfect for a two year old who loves to play under the table already!

it's all wool felt, which doesn't fray so no sewing required! (except to attach the panels). everything was adhered with wonder under, hot glue, and velcro!

the front door opens and has pipe cleaners inserted around the edge to keep it's shape

the apples are velco'd on so they can be picked.

and the flowers can be plucked from the window box. pipe cleaners help keep them standing.

i really think aiyden is going to love hiding out in his playhouse!

christmas stuff...

i've been doing a lot of christmas crafting lately. last weekend we watched our neighbors 9 year old daughter so we made some salt dough ornaments, a really fun project for a 9 year old... and a 30 year old as well! i've had a lot of success with felting some knitted bowls but i can't post those pics yet because many are going to be christmas gifts.

needle felted mittens and aiyden's silhouette. the silhouette was really easy, a wooden disc, craft paper and print out of his profile, topped off with some modge podge...

salt dough cristmas tree...

salt dough snowman...

aiyden in front of the tree with his rudolph shirt that i made for him...

posing with mikey doll! aiyden picked out our tree. it's a 3.5 foot charlie brown tree which worked out perfect because the place didn't net it or have twine so we had to fit it in the back seat. i set it on top of a milk crate for some height and covered it with some extra material rather than buying a tree skirt.

we got a pub table for the kitchen which has been perfect for his high chair, now he can can play with his aqua doodle while i make dinner...

apartment is finally coming together! i love our new curtains from ikea. was going to make some but these are lined and buy the time i bought material, i figured it would cost just as much!

needle felting

so, i discovered needle felting last night and tried it out today. i really thought it would be instant crafting gratification but of course, it proved to be more difficult than i thought. so i started with some felt mitten ornaments that i saw on another blog recently. white wool, and my felting needle and sponge

my first row ended up being way to thick ...

stab the crap out of it...

and that's how it's done. apparently i didn't take a pic of the finished product. they turned out alright for being the first project.

i've seen needle felted bowls that are awesome so i really wanted to try it. much harder than i thought! this bowl is tiny, i can't imagine making a bigger one. i think it would be much easier to knit a bowl and then felt it ad add embellishment with the needle. so i made sort of a circle for the base and started a long row for the sides of the bowl...

i used to different greens and wanted a swirlier effect but again...harder than it looks.

putting the base on was easier than i thought. the sides were the most difficult. i think i need a much larger sponge.

More family pictures...

oma, opa, and aiyden at the playground...

latest knitting on the round loom. i think it's cute, riv said it looks like a blossom hat. if anything, it would be really cute if it were smaller for a little girl. maybe a new item in the etsy store.

great grandma berte reading a book to aiyden, and he was really liking it!

about to go down the slide like a big boy!

the next set is aiyden's first time playing in a pile of leaves. i never thought about before we got here but we don't really get piles of leaves where we live so they were a lot of fun for him!

Thanksgiving!

we had an awesome thanksgiving meal and tried many new recipes this year! martha stewart came thru with the spatchcocked turkey in the november issue. This is by far the best way to cook a turkey, i will never to it the old ay again! we cooked a 12 lb. turkey in 70 minutes and it was the juiciest turkey i've ever had!

following with martha's suggestions, i decided to make an apple pie and cut maple leaves out of the dough for the top crust. mom and i searched everywhere for a leaf cookie cutter but we couldn' find one so all the leaves were hand cut. it looked beautiful and was very delicious. i also made my first homemade cheesecake but i didn't get any pictures, it went fast!

luke-dog, just chillin...

great- grandma berte and aiyden playing patty cake...

family photo, it's been a while since everyone was together. we took like 10 pictures trying to get the perfect one but it was so cold and windy on the porch. this was to best one... perfectly imperfect.

sporting the sunglasses...

aiyden really likes his jackie o's...

Fabric Mat Framing

I got these prints from August Eve on Etsy. I love the earth tone colors paired with the imaginative, dreamlike images! Anyhow, I've been waiting to get frames for the prints and realized that i had two frames in the closet with no mats. I have a ton of scrap material so I covered the back board that comes with the frame with a navy/green plaid, laid the print on top, and no need to buy new frames! I like the muted fabric with these prints but I think a bolder fabric would be a great contrast with some black and white photos.

on a side note: the toddler bed lasted for two nights and the crib rail went back on. Not ready for that one yet!

PJ's and a Big Boy Bed...

oma got these cool pj's for aiyden. he loves cars and walks around rubbing his belly saying "car car car"

we're going to try out the toddler bed! he sleeps much better in a real bed and wants a pillow so we'll see how it goes...

he got really excited when he saw it and climbed right in

next project, homemade wall decals. i think it's going to be a shel silverstein theme. any other ideas???

Milk Crate Toy Storage

So, toys have become the bane of our existence! I think we've done good about not letting them take over but still, toy storage has become a much googled topic. It is insane how much you can pay for toy chests and bins and cubes... even ikea didn't come thru for me! So, we resorted to the ever popular (and free) milk crate. Spray painted them blue and brown and anchored them to the wall. Total cost: $5.07 for spray paint. And I think my client is happy with the results!

Pics from halloween

I just realized that i didn't post pics from trick or treating yet, sorry! So, overall, I don't think aiyden was too traumatized by halloween. We were at oma and opa's house so we went around the cul de sac. it was rainy so i didn't get too many pics. The first house was decked out and had talking zombie thing that scared the crap out of aiyden! It took a couple more houses to recover from that one. He then realized that people were giving him candy so they would offer something for his bag and in return he would pull some candy out to give them! So cute!