Barbie House

My awesome dad made this for my daughter. It was the final gift for Christmas...She was SO excited!! One of the first things she said was "Let's paint it!" Then I got lots of hugs and "thanks" and she said she was going to give Grandpa lots of hugs....she was so happy, then ran off saying, "I've got to get my Barbies" and then spent a while playing with her new barbie house. Thanks Dad!! Isn't it awsome...take a closer look....

Dining Room:

Kitchen: Complete with a microwave and dishwasher.

Office: complete with a computer...she loved that!

TV Room: Yep, it has a large flat screen and a DVD player-actually it's probably a blu-ray.

Bedroom:

Christmas Countdown Modified

So I used white vinyl the first time, but I just put red on and it looks much better!

Don't you think?

Adding some Christmas Trim

I put this together for a gift exchange I had last weekend....We shared some of our homemade syrups and threw in some pancake mix. But to give the gift a little more Christmas cheer, I used some modge-podge to add some Christmas paper to the lids of the jars. I was careful to keep the modge-podge on the lid and not on the jar. It added a lot to the look of the gift and was really quite easy and quick...I just had to wait for it to dry.

Don't you just love what a little modge-podge and paper can do?!?

Fleece Hat and Scarf

I had some leftover scraps of fleece from...years ago. I found this pattern on Make It and Love It for this cute hat and with Kyla's winter coat being purple, I put one together for her. It was really fast and easy. (yeah, that's Nathan modeling her hat for me...I thought I'd make it a Christmas present)

Her head measured 21 inches so I cut two 11 1/2 in. by 8 1/2 inch squares of purple and two 11 1/2 in. by 3 in. for the trim. The pom-pom top I stayed close to the same measurements on her blog.

And then I decided to make her a matching scarf since I had enough left over:

This isn't anything new, but I finally made one. Super easy....two long strips, sew them together down the center and cut 1 inch apart into the scarf coming to 1/4 inch of the seam.

Car "Cozies"

I instantly fell in love with this idea at My Little Gems! She has an awesome tutorial that makes it a breeze to make these!

I made one for each of my boys for Christmas....I plan to keep them in the diaper bag...they love cars, so this will be great for me and I won't have to look for the cars in the bottom of the bag, which is also a huge bonus!!

Christmas Garland (and planned activities)

So...when my last issue of BHG came, they had a christmas countdown that was santa hats for treats to count down to christmas....and I thought how cute!!! But I wanted a countdown that gave us activities to celebrate as a family this wonderful time of year. So John and I sat down last Sunday and made a list...it's written down, numbered, and now on slips of paper in this garland for the kids to be excited about and hold up to our commitment to spend more time celebrating together as a family....it took a little longer than I thought it would to whip this together, but I love it and the kids are super excited about it. So here's some pictures:

Hung above our fireplace (and high enough the kids can't get into it)

Here it is a little closer:

I used 3 different red fabrics...Hand stitched all the buttons on and then decided hot glue would work great for the pom-poms. I bought mini clothes pins, clipped them onto a box and spray painted them white.

Ah...and I'm only one day late getting it up and posted :)

Kids Kreate

My kids love creating things, too and get excited to see pictures on my blog....so I got to thinking and created a blog to showcase their work. So check it out if you have little kids...it may be something for them to create, too! http://kidskreate.blogspot.com/