Personalized Wooden Heart Wall Hanging (Just Like Candy Hearts!)

I am starting to get in the Valentine's Day spirit and found a little time this week to make a wall hanging like one I found on Pinterest (here is the link to the original project).  And here is my version of the project, personalized for my family:

The entire project was under $10.  I hit a good sale at Hobby Lobby and bought the 7" wooden hearts for $1 a piece (50% off!), and I found the perfect red and white heart ribbon (the picture below shows a close up of the ribbon, as you can see in the close up below).  I painted each heart a different pastel color to emulate the look of candy hearts.  Then I added the names of each person in our family in red vinyl.  You could use scrapbook stickers to do this, but I used my Cricut and the Cricit Alphabet font cartridge to cut the letters out of vinyl so each name would fit perfectly onto the 5" wide heart.  Finally, I used hot glue to attach the ribbon to the wood hearts, and tied a bow on top.

I didn't want to give away the name we have picked out for the little baby boy we are expecting (which is due in only 2 months nows!) so I used the word baby as a place holder.  I did cut out the letters for the baby's real name and and tucked them away for next year.  The good thing about this vinyl is that it effortlessly peals off without marring the paint, so I can update that name easily when I get the decoration out for next year.

And here is a close up of the adorable heart patterned ribbon:

Well that is all for now!  Thanks for reading my post, and until next time be sure to have a Sew Scrappy Day!

Landon's First Baby Room -- Scrapbook Layout

Now that we are two months away from the new baby's arrival, I've been unpacking baby boxes and organizing the baby room, which has lead me to reminisce about Landon's baby room in our old house -- which lead to the perfect opportunity for a scrapbook layout.  So here it is:

The background paper is from My Mind's Eye, I used the New Arrivals and Tear Drop Cricut cartridges, and 3-D scrapbook stickers by Jolee's Boutique.

Here's a close up of his bedroom.  I made the polka-dot ceiling border and the "Landon" sign using my Cricut.

For the title, I used the Tear Drop cartridge.  The rocking chair is a sticker from Jolee's Boutique.  The train is actually the inside of the vinyl stickers that I cut out with the Cricut (using the New Arrival Cartridge) and used on the border in the actual bedroom.

And here are more of the vinyl stickers from the inside of the polka dot border in his bedroom.

This was the nightlight that I made for Landon.  I spray painted an acrylic block with a frosted glass finish, put white Christmas lights inside, applied the vinyl stickers from Upper Case Living, and added a bow.

And this was Landon sleeping in his crib when he was just a few weeks old, all cuddled up in the blanket hand-knit by his Gramma.  Can you believe the full head of dark read hair he was born with?  It is hard to believe that this is the same blond haired boy he is today!

That's all for today!  Until next time, have a Sew Scrappy Day!

One Year Old Scrapbook Layout

Now that the holidays are over, all the relatives have gone home, and I have had some time to get the house back in order, I finally had time to sit down a finish a scrapbook layout that I started several months ago -- a 1 page layout for Landon's one year photo shoot.

While at Hobby Lobby I found Kid's Blocks scrapbook paper, by Paper Studio, and thought it was a perfect for the blocks that spelled out Landon's name in his studio pictures.  So I got each individual block out and then stacked them up to mimmic the way a toddler would stack blocks.

I stamped the title "one year" using the Varsity Letters stamp set, by Stampin' Up, and then cut the letters out.

And now that I have Landon's first year near completed, I have a few months to get caught up on his second two years before the next baby arrives.  Which means I have a lot of scrapbooking to get done!

Decorative Shelf Made From Up-Cycled Pallets

Here's a project inspired by some things I found on Pinterest.  I worked on this with my neighbors this summer but now that the living room is painted and the Christmas tree is taken down I finally got to put it up -- a shelf made out of an up-cycled pallet (well at least it was intended to be made out of an up-cycled pallet).  We couldn't find a good pallet that was the size we wanted, so we just bought some wood from Home Depot and decided to make our own.  And the best part was we made it for under $15!

We opted for a 3ft x 3 ft pallet.  My neighbors Matt and Alyssa actually made the pallet for me, so I need to give them a big thanks!

I stained the pallet with layers of dark black stain to bring out the grain of the wood and followed with a few coats of a light chestnut red stain to add a hint of color.  Then I mounted it to the wall and added a few nicknacks.  

I liked it so much I also had my neighbors make one for the craft room -- which I will post later in the week.

I hope you enjoyed today's post.  Until next time, have a Sew Scrappy Day!

Mickey Mouse & Pluto Wall Plaque

I have just been dying to post this project, but since it was a Christmas present for my mom I had to wait until after the gifts were unwrapped.  She has a Mickey themed bedroom and has been looking for some cute wall decorations to finish off the room.  And of course, I saw this as an opportunity to use my Cricut and do some crafting.

I started with a 14" x 14" wood plaque, which I painted blue and then trimmed in black.  Then, using the Mickey and Friends Cricut Cartridge, I cut out the all the layers.  And slowly, layer by layer, used Mod Podge to adhere each layer onto the plaque. (Just a word of advice -- when you are deco-podging paper on paper, making sure you allow plenty of dry time between each layer and coat of Mod Podge, and be sure to use a rubber roller to get all the air bubbles out of the paper.)  I finished with a few extra coats of Mod Podge and then an acrylic sealer.

Now I can't wait for my next trip home so I can see the plaque in the Mickey themed room!

Construction Room Makeover for Landon

Since baby Michels #2 is due in a few months, we decided it was time to start thinking about upgrading Landon to a big boy room so we can move the crib and matching furniture into the baby room.  While Christmas shopping, we stumbled across a Circo Build It construction themed bed-in-a-bag on clearance for $15, and since Landon is really into heavy machinery -- dump trucks, excavators, and bull dozers especially -- we thought this would be the perfect set for his new big boy room.

So we said good-bye to his train themed toddler room, disassembled the crib, picked out paints, and went to work on creating a construction themed room fit for a big boy.

Before:

To make this room extra kid-friendly, we opted for bright bold colors.  We picked "Emergency Zone" orange for an accent wall and painted the other walls "Yucatan" blue.  Both colors are Behr Ultra paint from Home Depot.  Landon even pitched in and did a little painting himself.

After:

Here is what the finished product looked like.

Landon was very excited for his big boy bed, except it made him look so small in the big full size bed.

We still have a little work to do before the project is complete.  The rest of the furniture doesn't arrive until next week.  And adding decorations to the wall will provide plenty of crafting opportunities over the next couple of months.  So be sure to check back over the next few months and see the continued progress on the construction zone room.

A special thanks goes out to my dad for helping me paint, and my mom for occupying Landon and keeping Landon out of our hair while we painted.

Jingle All The Way Shadow Box

Here is a really easy hand made Christmas present that takes only a few minutes to put together and can easily done for under $10 -- a jingle bells shadow box.

Here are the supplies I used:

• 5" x 7" shadow box -- I bought these at Michaels on sale for $4.99.  If they are not on sale, you can always use the 40% off coupon.
• 1 package of jingle bells.  I got mine for under $2 at Joanne's.
• Vinyl stickers that say "Jingle All the Way"
• Scrapbook paper or wrapping paper for the background in the shadow box
• Ribbon for the outside of the shadow box.

On the shadow boxes that I made for last year's teacher gifts, I just used fancy scrapbook lettering to spell out the words "Jingle all the way", but for this year's teacher gifts I decided to be a little more creative and used my Cricut cutter, so I played around in the Cricut Craft Room design software to see what I could come up with.  Here's the cartridges that I used:

• Cutting Up cartirdge for the words "jingle" and "way".
• Plantin School book cartridge for the words "all the"
• Christmas Joy cartridge for the bell
• Christmas Cheer cartridge for the bow.  

Here's a peak at what I came up with in Cricut Craft Room.  If you would like to download the actual Cricut Craft Room file, click here.  

And here is one of the shadow boxes that I made last year using scrapbook stickers for the letters and a little bigger sized jingle bells.  I definitely liked the smaller, shiner jingle bells better from the picture above.